Automatically Turn Visitors into Customers Using Effective Website Design

The major aim of any website design is to take a visitor and turn them into a customer. The effective use of colors, layout and images will create a visual masterpiece designed to automatically attract and convert new customers. In fact a professionally produced website should not only generate more customers but make the process of closing those customers simple and easy.


The problem is that many website owners forget they don't have the convenience of face-to-face communication with their customers. A physical shop that looks bad can be combated with a great sales and customer service team. Unfortunately with Website Design, if your website is not visually appealing then you will not attract customers.

Avoid the Single Biggest Website Design Mistake 

The single biggest mistake a business owner makes when going online is to allow a website design to go live without thoroughly assessing its potential for sales. A Affordable website design company has a very stringent system that extracts from you the exact information we need to ensure the design meets your market. For example did you know that each color elicits different emotions from your visitor? IF you want to create trust you must use blue, to stop scrolling you need to use yellow.

A low cost web design company understands the emotional relationship between colors and buyers and effectively combines them to create a high converting website design for you. Don't make the mistake that many businesses owner have before and ensure you invest time and money into a website design that converts.

Good Web Design Companies uses the Effective Approach for Generating More Sales: 

Here is out 3 Steps Approach: 

Step 1: Define Your Market 

Web design company complete an initial consultation with you, their website design client and in this consultation design team identifies the market for your products and services. Web design team defines their habits, characteristics and personality so we can cater a website that appeals directly to them.

Step 2: Initial Website Design 

Web design company produce an initial website design for your review and feedback, design team strongly suggest you show this design to potential customers, employees and key stakeholders so you can gauge the effect it has. Web design company comments are then compiled into a feedback document that their designers use to complete the final step.

Step 3: Final Website Design 

Using the feedback gained in step 2, professional web design company modifies the design to be even more appealing to your market. Once this is complete it then, goes to their development team to implement on your website.
These 3 step approaches of any website design company ensure that your website design is conversion friendly and also visually appealing.

Don't Sacrifice Usability for Beauty in your Website Design

The widely accepted rule of 'form follows function' has a minor adjustment when it comes to web design where 'function' is the usability of a website design - that is, the ease of use and comfortable navigation applied to a site in order to achieve the user's goals. Don't forget who the user is: your audience, the visitors to the site, not you.

The problem with so many website designs these days is the fact that they ignore ease-of-use for looks. Sure, it's a tough balance, but it's still not impossible and it's definitely a goal to strive toward. What doesn't work are these web design problems:

• Loading issues - which prompt this response from your site visitors: "Is this site ever going to load, why am I waiting for this?"
• Visual clutter - which prompts this response from your site visitors: "Where do I look, what am I supposed to click, how do I get out of here?"
• Navigation issues - which prompt this response from your site visitors: "What am I looking at, where do I click, what are all these floating images?"

Navigation issues are common with highly artistic and beautiful website designs, and that's fine if you are trying to play a game with your users, but if they can never guess what to click to access other objects on your site - the content, information, contact info, etc. - they'll tire quickly and wander away.

It's crucial that design teams of web design company understand bounce rates are rising as rapidly as time-on-sites decrease around the globe. The human brain is amazingly adaptable and as our bandwidth gets faster, our attention spans get shorter. It's increasingly important to grab people's attention - immediately if you are to keep them even a few seconds. Skip intro buttons are a must with websites using fancy flash introductions because the worst thing you can do is 'force' an introduction on your audience. Any long intro missing a skip button is likely to be abandoned before users even get into the site.

Forcing your users to look at blurred photographs as a 'hint' of what's to come is beyond annoying. A better idea is to use loading bars on the image to indicate it's loading. If they're on a broadband connection, they may wait a bit, but if not they'll just leave the site and find something that's faster.

With the rise in tools and the ability for everyone to create highly attractive images, it's hard to resist the temptation to show the world everything you've got. Resist. When your site is cluttered with all kinds of visuals - no matter how beautiful - your visitor gets lost. When your site's navigation is hidden in the chaotic visual clutter on the page - making it hard for users to know what to click - that's a problem. Forcing your user to guess through erratic, incomplete, or confusing navigation when they do find it is even worse.

Many highly artistic designers in best web design company are very successful at creating beautiful web designs and website development that lack function. It's a tricky balance, but one that can and must be done if you are to reduce the bounce rate and increase the time visitors spend with your website.

Keys to Quality Website Design

When it's time for a new web design, you'll want a design team that really knows their stuff. After all, most consumers these days turn to the Internet first for information, initial research, and product reviews. You'll want a web design team that is cognizant of the current best practices, has a great portfolio, and can tell you directly what's wrong with your current design and what they intend to do differently to start attracting customers and driving new traffic to your site.

• Ease of navigation. This is a crucial aspect of any website designs.Do you use radial charts or other organizational methods to layout the navigation and understand the user's path through the website? Ask your potential vendors how they intend to go about designing the navigational aspects of your website design.
• Consistency of design. Having a consistent design throughout all the pages makes sure the user knows where they are in the site and where they can go to find what they need at all times. This means that the 'feel' of the site must remain consistent throughout the web design. This creates a sense of comfort for the user and ensures they stay on your site longer. A consistent design means the overall mission and message of the site is carried through consistently.
• Visual appeal. This is where you get to look at the new team's portfolio of site to see if the work they've done before is visually appealing. Ask them why they used the colors they chose. Does the design carry through to subpages or is it entirely focused on the home page and lost thereafter? Can the user dig deeper into the website design and still know where they are in the Internet?
• Speedy download times. In an era of high-speed access, this might not seem like an important factor, but not every user is accessing your website via the highest speeds. Some are working with clunky access, older browsers, and working in remote areas with spotty access. In addition, whose site do you want users to access when bandwidth is compromised? Hint: it's yours, not the competitions.
• Compliant code. This is necessary because you simply do not want to have a high maintenance, unreliable problem on your hands later - long after your web design team has moved on to other projects. Ensuring that your website design team is using W3C standards can be tough, but if you ask them to show you examples of it upfront, they are far more likely to pay attention to that detail throughout the project.

Industry analysts who watch trends in website design are clear that the above factors are still vital to high-quality and highly likeable web designs. It's important when you are interviewing a web design team that you communicate the fact that these factors are highly important to you and to your company's ability to grow revenues and earn profits.
Web design teams of with good success records will understand what you are looking for, and they'll present portfolio options that help you determine whether they are the right websites design and website development team for your needs. Remember, there are many companies out there providing the same thing, but you aren't interested in the same old thing, you want the right thing - what will make your business grow.

Web Design Principles That Convert Visitors into Customers

Traditionally after conducting a Custom website design review we are able to identify a long list web design principles that are missing from the site. Designing a website is completely different to designing a business card, there are key areas and factors that each website must contain in order to convert visitors into customers.

Ultimately the only reason business owners build a website is to attract more customers and hopefully automate some lead generation but unfortunately in most cases this does not happen. While this is a "normal" problem it is one that can be instantly fixed using some basic website design principles.
To discover whether your website is "conversion friendly" you can simply review your website design for the following:

The 8 Second Rule
Generally you have 8 seconds to convince a new visitor to stay on a page before they bounce off to the next site. This means that the content and web design needs to be most convincing in the top half of your site. One technique that has been proven to work well in web design is to include 3 Major Reasons why someone should stay on your site at the very top of your site. This can be represented by words or graphics and is generally incorporated into the header website design.

Proof, Proof and More Proof 

Potential customers want to know that you are good at what you do and you have a growing list of satisfied clients. If you are able to provide proof of satisfied clients in the form of testimonials, feedback ratings or examples of your work you are more likely to get results. A good web design will incorporate these proof elements into the design in a graphical way.
Strong Message 

Make sure that each page on your site is pushing across a strong message about your business or product. Many designs and websites try to convey too many messages and end up not getting any message across clearly. Choose a single message per page and convey that in the strongest way possible.
It is important to understand that while a web design may appear to you to be visually appealing this can be different for your potential customers. Remember that you are building a website to attract customers not to make you happy!

How to Specify Web Design Quote Request for Your Website

You wouldn't phone up a plumber and say "Please can you give me a quote on a small plumbing job", and then expect him/her to get back to you with an exact figure and how long it's going to take him/her. Web design company, however face this obstacle from a good 80% of their clients. A potential client will email/phone up a web designer and say "what will you charge to design me a small website? And when can you have it done by?" If you want a concise quote, you will need to give them a concise brief, and here's how...

What Type of Website is it?

First specify what type of website you're after...HTML, Flash, database enabled or e-commerce. HTML would be your average standard website. Flash would be 'flashy' with animation, database enabled is for either very large catalogue type websites or websites that the owner would like to be able to update themselves, and for forums, portals, blogs etc. E-commerce web design is for online shopping capability.

Do you Have/Need a Domain or Web Host?

If you do not already have a domain name or web host, chances are your website design company either offers this service or will have contacts in this field and will be able to organize this for you at a decent rate. But first you need to ask yourself if you really need it. If the website is an intranet (internal company website...not viewable on the World Wide Web), you will not need a domain or a webhost. All you will need here is to confirm with your IT department whether they are able to host the site on the company server. If, however, the website does need to be viewable by the World Wide Web, you will need firstly a domain, which would be the website address, usually yourcompanyname.com and a webhost, which is the permanently on-line server that the physical files of your website will be located on. A domain name has a yearly fee and the price depends on the extension (.com .net .org .co. in etc) and what marks up you are charged by whoever registers it for you. A webhost will also charge you on a monthly basis, and prices vary drastically.

How Many Pages?

Determining this is not as easy as it sounds...many clients make the mistake by counting the number of sections they want on the site and imagining this will be the number of pages. A page is defined by every time you click on a link and see different information in the browser. So, if you have a product page, with three products on, that when the user clicks on the product they see more information, then you already have four pages. Usually web design company will charge you less for a sub page than a main section page, so a good, concise way to ask for a brief is to state how many main sections the website will have and how many pages per section.

Does it need to be Marketed?

Do you require it to be optimized for search engines and have it submitted to engines and directories? A good web design company will keep search engines in mind when they are designing and optimize it for this purpose, but actually submitting it to engines and directories is quite time consuming and usually requires an extra cost. Also submission is not a once off task, and in order for good rankings to be obtained, you will need to contract the web design company to do submissions on a regular basis. Every 2 or 3 months is a good option, but anything more regular than that can result in penalization from engines.

Content:

In terms text, will you supply the content? If not, perhaps the web design company offers copywriting or has contacts in the copywriting industry...either way, it will more than likely cost you extra. Pictures especially can be a pricey ordeal, if you yourself are not supplying them but want specific pictures included. Unless the web designer offers photographic services, he/she will have to purchase the pictures from a stock art company.

Resolution:

Would you like your website designed for a specific resolution? The industry standard is 1024x768 but is slowly shifting to 1360x768. If you have an entirely flash website, it can be scaled up or down to fit any resolution, but the drawback is that many search engines can't read flash so your ranking will suffer. Another way to achieve this scaling is if your websites design company uses relatively sized tables in the design, but this is not always possible and it almost always looks bad in the very high resolutions of 1600x1200. The best option is to ask your web designer to design for either 1024x768 or 1360x768 but to centre the website in the browser with attractive scalable borders. This way your site will look great in all resolutions, and it avoids the problem of that stretched look.

Checklist Summary:

Here's a brief checklist to go through before asking for a quote or supplying a brief...

1. Is it going to be plain HTML, Flash, Database enabled or e-commerce?
   
   
2. Are you in need of a domain and/or web host?
3. Exactly how many sections, subsections and pages are there going to be?
4. Do you need your site submitted to engines & directories?
5. Are you going to supply all the content?
6. What resolution would you like the site to be designed for?

How to Identify a Quality Website Design Company

The website design industry is highly competitive with many different businesses all-competing for your clientele. This provides a great buyers market for web design services and you should utilize this buyer's advantage to secure the right company for you. When choosing the right website design company you should consider the following:

1. How Many Questions Do They Ask: A website design company that asks many questions about your business, customers, products and goals is more likely to produce a web design you are happy with. When they don't ask you many questions it is highly probably they will be using templates to design your website from.


2. View Their Complete Portfolio: Ensure that you request to view their complete portfolio and in conducting the review note the use of colors and styles in their design. It the website design company appears to use only one style or limited colors then gauge whether these colors and styles suit your business.


3. Do They Have A Plan: A quality web design company will have a planning document which walks you through the process of building your website. The more comprehensive the plan the more likely you are to be working with a professional web design company.


4. Ask Them About SEO: While the actual web designer does not need to know search engine optimization it's important that someone within the company can clearly articulate the benefits of SEO. All website designs now need basic SEO integration to ensure traffic generation and success


5. Call Their Recent Clients: Choose 2 recent clients of the web design company to call and ask them about their experience. Specifically find out how smooth the process was and any potential sticking points you should know about.


6. Who Owns the Copyright: This can be a major problem with some web design companies as they wish to maintain copyright on all their work. Unfortunately this is not what you desire, you want to own full copyright to the materials produced for you.


7. Set The Deadline: Prior to engaging the website design company makes sure you tell them of your set deadline of delivery. Ask them if they can confidently deliver on time and meet your targets. If they are unable to then you need to find a company that will.


8. Source File Access: A quality website design company will give you full unrestricted access to the source files which run your site. By having this access you can always have another designer edit your files rather than engaging the same company.

When you find a website design company that fits these major criteria you are most probably working with a quality company. It's important to remember that you need to like the company you are working with so ensure their personality style meets yours!

Guide to Choosing the Right Web Design Company

Choosing a web design company can be a little tricky, and many times it's a gamble, but if you know what to look for, you can save yourself a lot of stress and frustration. If you don't, however, you could be stuck with poor service and empty promises as well as being faced with ridiculous bills. Take time to empower yourself with the following knowledge, and learn to spot a bad choice in web design companies from a mile...

Looks:

This is one of those times that judging a book by it's cover is in your best interests. A web design company's website is its book cover, so naturally if their website is not stimulating...chances are that they will create an unstimulating design for your website...which in turn is YOUR book cover. If your book cover is amateurish, your potential client may very well pass you by, imagining that your service or product to be as exciting as the site they've just seen...not very!

Looks vs Prices:

A common question from most business owners is "how much does a website cost?"...

Well, that's actually a pretty difficult question to answer because it depends on so many factors. websites can range from practically free to tens or even hundreds of thousands, depending on the company you work with and the technology you require. The best option for any business wanting to get results from the internet is to choose an established website design company with a team that understands what works online for businesses and has sophisticated business software.

Examples:

If the web design company does not supply examples of their work or some form of portfolio, it can mean one of two things. Either the company is just starting out and has no work to showcase yet, or they are not confident to display their work because it is not very good. The other problem I've come across here is when a web design company has a long list of clients that they have allegedly done work for, but no links to the work itself. In cases like these, you can rest assured that at least half of their clientele are made up and the other half of their clientele are upset by their shoddy workmanship. Bottom line is: If the company is any good, they will proudly display examples of their work. If the company just doesn't have any work to display, you're taking a gamble. It's your call.

Service:

There are three kinds of service you will come across in the web design industry. The first kinds are lazy and unreliable, the second kinds are very enthusiastic and will promise you the world, but won't deliver and the last kind (which is the kind you are looking for) will get back to you promptly, and meet or even exceed your expectations. The latter is very difficult to come by. Here's how you can spot the different kinds...Should you ask for a quote from a web design company or get in touch with them via email and they do not get back to you within twelve hours, then you can expect this kind of service for the entirety of the job. They are lazy and do not feel that you are important enough for them to reply promptly. The second kind is more difficult to spot. This kind are skilled in promotional talking but lack the technical skill/knowledge to deliver, so asking a few technical questions should do the trick. Instead of listening to the words they use to reply, watch their body language to see if they look uncomfortable with the question.

Location:

A good internet connection for both parties, in most cases, rules out the significance of where the designers’ offices are located. In fact, if you have a tight deadline, it is probably better to have an online relationship because when you send an email with instructions, the web designer is already at his/her computer to make the changes, as opposed to having to drive back to their premises and prepare themselves for work mode again. Even material for the job can be emailed because unlike their graphic designer counterparts, the files are low resolution, therefore small in size. One thing to keep in mind though, is that if their offices are in a very exclusive area/office park, you can probably expect to pay "exclusive" prices.

Search Engine Optimization:

A good web design company will design your website with W3C web standards, cross browser compliance & search engine optimization in mind. It is no good to have a beautiful website that no one is ever going to see because search engines can't read the format in which it was designed. Ask your designer about their website marketing options. A lot of companies say they offer this but really don't know much about it. If a designer can't tell you exactly how they have optimized your site for search engines, then they probably have not.

Deadlines:

The last factor to take into consideration is the web designers’ ability to work within given deadlines. In a deadline situation it is almost always better to deal directly with the person/s who are going to be doing the work. In many large corporations, they will send a client liaison to receive instruction from the client, but in many cases the client liaison is only trained to appease the client, by saying "yes we can do that", "sure, you will have it tomorrow", but does not have an inkling of what the work entails, and then will go back to the designer only to be told that there are problems with what was promised. This back-and-forth liaising lends itself to miscommunication and is ultimately a waste of valuable time. The best way to see if a web design company can meet your deadline is to give them a smaller job first, with its own deadline.