When most business owners think about engaging the services of a web design service, they often believe that their responsibility begins and ends there. There is a misconception that, once the web development services contract is signed, the ball is now with the web design team.
That is not quite the full story. If you, as the website owner, don’t proactively take steps to help your web designer do his/her job, chances are that she/he might not be able to help you either. Read on to learn more about how you can take 5 simple steps to help your developers create a better and more attractive website.
The “Partnership” Approach
Think of web site design as a cooperative effort, where you (as the business owner) and your design team work together to create a powerful partnership. And even though you are not tech-savvy, there’s a lot you can bring to the table:
1) Your Passion
The team that designs and builds your website are extensions of yourself. However, while they execute the plan, it is your passion that drives them to create that thing of beauty. So, you need to help your website design team feel that passion before they commence visualising it in terms of a web site for you.
2) Your Vision
Most websites are similar in functionality. You have web pages, menus, navigation widgets, scrolling features and links to other sites. However, each website can be unique in the way that functionality is put together by the web design agency you work with.
Most website owners simply abdicate their responsibility when it comes to defining a vision. To help your designers understand exactly what to design, it is important for you to walk them through your vision of the site.
3) Explain Your Business
The only person that really understands what you do – is you. Even though you might be working with a design team who has worked with other businesses in your niche, there will always be peculiarities that are unique to what you do. So, before they begin on the new web design, take some time to explain to them what you do and how you differentiate yourself from the competition. This last piece of information is vital for them to develop a website that’s uniquely yours.
4) Identify Your Target Audience
It is extremely important that your web design agency understands exactly who it is you want to target. By helping them understand that, you’ll make it easier for them to include target audience-specific features in the overall design. For instance, if you are selling products or services for the under 30 demographics, it is important to include good looking, responsive web design elements that are more modern – so your website will look cool and can be viewed on all mobile devices. On the other hand, if you are targeting retired seniors, you may want
your designers to focus more on desktop design features and have less funky design elements as that would alienate the target market.
5) Walk Them Through The Competition
It is very easy for an experienced web design service to create a website based on a particular niche or industry. However, in doing so, they could be ignoring the one or two websites that your company specifically competes against. Without your help however, there is no way for them to know which sites you are up against.
By walking your web designer through each of your competing websites, you’ll give them a clear idea of the types of design elements they should build into your website. For instance, if the competition has lots of “How To” type articles – perhaps your web site design team can produce “How To” video content. Doing so will definitely steal some traffic from the competition.
Keeping It Simple
If you work with your website design agency to implement these few simple rules, there’s no doubt that you’ll have a highly effective website up and running in no time. However, while these rules are “simple”, they have powerful impact on your website. Consequently, some website owners tend to go overboard.
Take, for instance, simple things like themes and transactions. A professional web designer might be able to create stunning web pages using simple transactions and themes. However, you’ll often come across web design services that tend to use a number of themes across a single website.
Sure, it’s great to see diversity in your website - but consider this: if your website designer has used more than 2 or 3 themes in your website, chances are that he/she isn’t following the KIS (Keep It Simple) principle. And that could not only end up costing you visitors, but too many themes can also slow-down your site, make it more expensive for you to update your website and cost you SEO rankings.
If you have any questions on the above give us a call on +353-(0)1-6216866 or email info@myit.ie .
