Planning the Design of Your Company Website
Before you ever get your site up and running, you must plan your site design, navigation, and content.
It is critical to the success of your Internet campaign to plan for a website that not only looks good, but works as well. You must plan for your USP and MWR - Unique selling proposition and Most wanted response in each section.
Most business owners don’t have the time to design their own site, so we won’t dive too deep into resources, but there are many great Free design tools out there. Many of which make the process simple.
Experts say that you have about 10 seconds to keep that visitor from clicking away. It is imperative that you tell them what to expect right away.
What most designs offer are just the opposite. They send people away with overwhelming graphics, links here and there confusing the visitor, throw up flash and banners that are annoying, provide poor content, or do nothing but talk about themselves. Visitors want to know one thing - what’s in it for me and how is this company/website going to provide a solution to my problems, wants, and needs?
Other aspects you must envision as you begin to think about building a site include, keyword selection, graphics, images, metatags which are simply descriptions, title tags, and so forth. Also, content is what wins overall! I’ve seen horribly ugly sites provide great, overdelivering content with simple navigation win and make more money for the business owner than all the fanciness one could think of.
These sites are crisp, clean, provide the visitor want they’re looking for, and the website owners gets their most wanted response which could be signing up for their newsletter, contacting the company for an appointment, selling a product, getting a bid request, or other.
One big thing we recommend is to not use free services that lack the appeal and look very unprofessional. There are plenty of free resources, but skimping on a webhost or your site design can be detrimental. On the other hand it shouldn’t cost thousands upon thousands to build your site unless you require very in depth needs, tons of pages, or customized solutions.
On top of the above, your site should include a frequently asked questions page, a privacy statement, policies and terms, an about us page if done right can be very powerful, contact us page, an opt-in offer, and testimonials (not enough businesses use these which is a shame).
Next, you want to consider how to lead your visitors. How will your pages be set up? Are you providing a store? Will your pages lead to sales letter pages? How do you get a most wanted response on your content/article pages? How many level two and three pages will you have? Do you need customized work or a directory solution? Will you create landing pages for your advertising?
Most companies put up what we call a “brochure site” and that is their first flaw. There is so much more they could do with their site in order to generate business.
Once you get these items taken care of, you’ll want to consider your home page. This is the page that you typically build most of your links to and the first page people will see.
Your look and feel is critical. Your headline can make or break your entire page. Don’t forget to have them opt-in to your newsletter or email list. Make sure your navigation is simple and consistent, plus easy to follow.
Here are some things you don’t want to do: Don’t drive visitors away with banners and links. Don’t use too many colors or goofy fonts. Be tasteful with your graphics and images. Using audio, video, or flash can help your site, but incorrect use can hurt it horribly (your words will sell). Slow loading websites hurt your chances. Don’t pull any blackhat techniques - these will be things you’ll want to ask your design team.
Bottom line: There’s a lot to do when planning your company site design. The reason most company’s websites don’t perform is they don’t plan properly.
This is why our company and others offer this service. It’s important to either do it yourself correctly or find a quality team to assist you.
Contact the Collinsworth Group to discuss how we can help with your web design needs.
To your success,
Joe Collinsworth
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