Website Graphics Design...
It shouldn't take a bunch of stats to demonstrate the importance of having a web presence for most businesses, but here goes;
- By the end of 2007, 67% of the population of the UK were online.
- It is predicted that this figure will rise to almost 70% by 2012.
- As can probably be expected, the 35-44 age group are currently the largest online grouping however this will change to those aged 55 and over.
As can be seen, the online market is huge and continues to grow, but it is also changing. Markets that have not historically held such a focus are becoming increasingly lucrative as more and more people become web savvy.
Your new business website is your shop window and today and hence the importance of the website graphics design, it is probably the most important investment that you will make for your business. But this doesn't mean it is necessarily a huge investment, of course, you business may require a very simple site, the cost of which may be comparable to the price of a small newspaper ad. On the other hand, your requirements may be much more complex perhaps due to a large product range for example or the need for ecommerce integration.
What Makes a Successful Website?
Well, certainly, this first thing a visitor will notice is the basic design and a decision will be quickly made as to whether this is an attractive and appealling site or one which motivates them to move on to the next site as quickly as possible. Secondly, if the searcher has arrived at your site by searching through search engines or paid channels, a judgement will quickly be made on whether the site lives up to the claims that were made in the search engine results page titles and descriptions, and / or the sponsored ad text. i.e the description promised that the website sold Dunlop tennis racquets but on entering the site, they are no where to be seen!
Therefore, perhaps a common sense rule, but don't tell anyone you have, or do something, when you don't! and ensure that the descriptions on your web pages are consistent with your offering.
Ease of use / ease of navigation is the next important factor in web design i.e. how easy can the average user get from the home page to any page within the site and find exactly what they are looking for, even with complex sites with hundreds or thousands of products, it should be a simple, logical, limited, step by step, 'drill down' process and equally simple to get back to the home page, or indeed, find anything for that matter. There are countless examples of sites with poor navigations where it is very difficult to find what you need. Once you find what you need, how well displayed is it?
Content is extremely important and one that can not be overstated. Search engines read HTML text (this is HTML text), but they cannot see images or animated graphics. Therefore, inherently, 'sexy' looking sites with static or animated images that take up a large percentage of the page generally do not perform as well in search engine rankings due to their lack of content, so this is an important factor and a fine balance is needed.
Stagnant content - if you want people to come back to your site time and time again and perhaps buy something else / new from you, then you need to ensure that you always have fresh content and something of interest. There are many many sites that were created literally 10 years ago and have never been updated or changed in anyway whasoever and they get very few visitors. Often, these are the sites that have date references in them i.e "order before July 1995 for a free gift". So ensure your site NEVER has out of date content as users will never come back to your site again.
Read more on our main site and find out more...or contact us for a no obligation quote.
Low cost, budget, quick turnaround website graphics design also available
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