There’s a lot to be said about being on the cutting edge of technology. And that’s what many a website designer has been enamoured with over the past half a decade or so. However, most website owners hate “tech” simply for the sake of using it.
They are craving for more than tech. If given a choice, they’d rather choose a “low tech” website that gets them more business, looks after their customers and fosters communication.
To build effective websites, web designing services should focus more on talk and less on tech. The idea is simple: Get back to the basics of communicating. We’ll tell you how you can do just that.
The makings of an effective website designer
What exactly is it that you are trying to do when you are selling something online, keeping an audience of website visitors informed or promoting your product or service? The central focus here is on communication. Be it with existing or future customers, casual visitors, business partners or other stakeholders, what you are attempting to do is communicate.
A truly effective web designer can help you do exactly that through meaningful engagement. And they do so by Connecting, Convincing and Converting with your target audience.
Designing a successful website means the web designer must be highly effective at performing all three aspects of the job. And that, in essence, is what makes for effective communication. Getting your message across (communicating) is what an effective web designer does well.
The website is just a medium for them to do the job successfully. If, however, the medium is used ineffectively, the message will also be lost.
Less “tech” … more “talk”
The secret, to designing websites that make communication more effective, is to briefly forget about "tech" and re-focus on "talk". With so many tech tools available at their disposal, and more being introduced every day, it’s easy to see how a web design agency can get carried away on a wave of tech. And that’s where websites lose their ability to “talk”.
Let’s think about it for a second: Why do a billion viewers, with 1.5 million of them being daily viewers, gravitate to TedTalks? It’s because the site is able to communicate through short, succinct, clear talk. Plain talk accomplishes much more than long speeches and complex thoughts. The same principles must be incorporated into website design, including:
Lighter websites: One of the golden rules of communication, that “Less is more”, was coined for a reason. When a web designer creates too many web pages, stuffs too much content in each page, introduces multiple links to multiple pages (or external sites), it doesn’t help with your mission of communication. In fact, content overload might even serve to distort communication and disengage visitors. You need your website to talk less, but say more.
Fewer bells and whistles: Too many icons, excessive amounts of widgets, heavy use of images, and flashing messages can distract visitors instead of fostering focused communication with them. A web design based on minimal bells and whistles will help you talk more and enable your visitors to “hear” clearly by reducing website “noise”
Well laid out content: Think of a crowded marketplace with cramped elbow room, little walking space and no discernible signage. That’s how visitors feel when they come to an overly busy website. Work with your web designing agency to produce content with lots of spacing, legible print, plenty of section headers, short sentences and paragraphs, and simple words (instead of overly technical terms). This approach to web site designing will aid online communication and help deliver your message more effectively
Accessible and available: Make accessibility and mobility a cornerstone of your website design strategy. Both these elements will aid better and more effective communication by ensuring your website message reach broader audiences
While these simple web design best practices might seem straightforward and obvious, it may surprise you to learn how many businesses have online presences that don’t take these principles to heart. This brings lower return on investment (ROI) and a complete lack of communication between businesses and their stakeholders. The result: Fewer website visitors and an even lower conversion rate.
Cutting to the chase
Highly effective website designing is never about clamouring for as many bells and whistles as a website designing agency can provide you with. And neither is it a good idea to have a large website footprint by creating hundreds of pages to support your product or service. In fact, the golden rule is: Small is beautiful and effective.
At the end of the day, good web designing is all about working with a professional designer who is highly effective in communication. Let’s forget about dazzling audiences with tech for a moment, and refocus our energies on talking with them instead.
If you would like to talk about your website and how MYIT can help you make it perform better for your business, call us on 01-6216866 or email info@myit.ie .
