Whether you are looking for website design ideas for a new site, or whether you are on the look-out for inspiration to upgrade and revamp an existing site, knowing where to start can always be a challenge. In this post, we’ll look at a few web site design tips and strategies that are guaranteed to make your life easier.
Vibrant Web Designing Strategies
If you haven’t reviewed or revised your online presence in a while, then it’s time that you did. If you are creating your very first website, it's good advice to give your approach some thought, before building your very first page. When done right, website designing can be fun and inspirational, and lucrative, but it can also be challenging too if you don’t know where to begin.
So, here are some web design tips to help you get started:
1) Speak With A Pro
If this is your very first time launching a website, you’d better speak with a professional web designer first. Why? Because:
- You don’t want to do it wrong and have to start everything again
- You want to capitalise on their (pro’s) knowledge and expertise
- You don’t want to give your existing clients (and prospective new ones) a bad impression about your company by displaying an amateur looking website
Even if you feel you already know enough about web design, it won’t hurt to have a second opinion. In most cases, professionals offer a few hours of initial consultations FREE - so what do you have to lose?
So what type of professional should you speak with? Well, if you are Small to Medium Enterprise (SME), the most responsive pros are usually NOT the large corporate design firms. Choose a web design agency that’s relatively small yet experienced - preferably one that has over 50% SMEs as it's clients. You’ll be in good company there - they'll know all about your requirements even before you walk in the door.
2) Map Your Thoughts First
Before you get your web designer to do any work on your website, make sure you work with them to create a complete map of what the site will look like. Consulting with your web designer, about your vision for the site, will help them build highly responsible website architectures – both from a (human) visitor’s point of view, as well as from a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) perspective e.g. Google, BING.
And if you’ve chosen your web design agency carefully, you’ll end up with a design that lends itself well to guiding visitors through your sales funnel, strategically leading them from a landing page to a products/services page, and finally motivating them to a “buy now” call-to-action or to filling in a form stating that are interested in your company and want to know more.
3) Make It Personal
Working through a professional development team, you should inject a bit of your own personality into the website. Statistics (and study after study!) have shown that website visitors respond positively when they perceive a “personal touch” with a website they visit. So, how could your website designing agency add that personal touch?
- Add a picture of yourself and/your staff to the website
- Post customer testimonials and success stories about how you helped them and what their initial requirements were
- Produce video pod-casts, where you speak to your visitors and clients, explaining to them what you have to offer and how you are better and different than 'the rest'.
By helping visitors empathise with you and your website, you are more likely to convert them into paying customers. It’s as simple as that.
4) Keep Tabs On The “Other Guy”
Having an online presence is all about positioning yourself versus your competition. Work closely with your web design agency to ensure that you know exactly what your competitors are up to on their sites. The biggest mistake that you, as a website owner, can make is to assume that your design team is the only one with brilliant ideas. Visit your competitors' websites frequently - look at their new pages and new products/services - do you offer something similar or better?
By periodically visiting your competitor’s sites – whether they are websites, social media pages or blogs – you’ll be able to get web designing inspiration for your own online presences. You don’t have to mimic a competitor verbatim. However, you could take what they are doing, and adapt it in a completely new form for your business.
Website Design Partnerships
The four web designing strategies discussed above can only work if you and your design team work as partners. That’s why it is vital to your success that you choose a web design agency that appreciates your own business philosophy. Working with an agency that doesn’t appreciate your values and business goals, will not only create an untenable working relationship, but it will also lead to website design decisions that don’t work or don't make sense.
If you have any questions on the above or would like to discuss your website with a keen web team, give us a call on 01-6216866 or email info@myit.ie .
