Web Design to Boost your Business

The first thing you must do before building a website is to identify your market and their needs. Once done its time to develop an online presence on the internet.

For Example a computer store, you know that if you want to drive a high number of visitors to your site you must “sell computers” and also provide “computer services”.

It is highly recommended that if you don’t already provide these services you start looking into incorporating them into your business or at least dedicate a section of your website that provides reviews about other businesses that do provide them. This information can still appeal to the people visiting your site.

Now you know what information people are looking for… but that doesn’t mean that that is the only information you should put on your site.

You want to provide as much information about your business as possible. By doing so, you will make your visitors feel comfortable when making business with you. Establishing credibility is one of the biggest hurdles in online marketing.

When someone comes across your website it is important for them to feel that they are dealing with a professional and not a complete stranger.

Here’s a list of things that will help you build trust with your visitors:

• Including testimonials on your site is the best way to gain credibility online. Make sure you include a Photo and Name of your Testimonial to enhance the credibility of your Business.
• Include a Physical Address and not only a PO Box. People may think that you are trying to hide something by not showing an address.
• Include a phone number where people can contact you at. Even though 99.9% of your visitors will not contact you over the phone, you will give comfort to your prospects when knowing that they can contact a “real person” in case they have any questions.
• Finally, but not least important, you must have a Professional looking website. It is during the first milliseconds of being in your site that visitors decide whether its worth browsing or not.

Once credibility has been established it’s time to convince your prospects to make a decision… but in order to achieve this you must provide the following information on your website:

• What your Business has to Offer
• Benefits of your Products/Services
• Why choose your Business over the Competition
• Any Guarantees you offer
• History about the company (background)
• Location

Now it’s time to learn how to communicate this information over the internet:

THE HEADLINE

The most important words on your website are the headlines, I repeat!!! The most important words on your website are the headlines.

Do not make the mistake of using “Welcome to Company Name” as your headline. Nobody cares about who you are. People are visiting your site to see what you have to offer so try to use your headlines to explain the benefits and qualities of your products/services.

Also keep in mind that the headlines contain the most important words on the page and will be a key factor in determining whether your visitors will stay on your site and keep reading.

THE BODY

Just because the headline contains the most important words in your page it doesn’t mean that the body isn’t important.

When writing the content of your body keep in mind that people are visiting your site to see what’s “in it for them”, so make sure the body is written in terms that will benefit the reader.

(Even though people do not care about who you are, it is very important to include the company’s history, its members and its accolades)

An Effective Website should be written for the reader. It should talk about their situation and explain how they can benefit from acquiring your product/service.

CALL TO ACTION

Your website must be setup to achieve at least one, if not multiple, goals. Depending on your business you may want visitors to sign up to your newsletter campaign, contact you via your website or even purchase your products online.

You must make clear what action you want visitors to take on every single page of your website.

Make sure visitors:

1. See your Offer
2. Understand it
3. Take action on you offer

The easier you make these steps for your visitors, the higher response you will get to your offer.

DESIGN ELEMENTS

There are certain rules everyone should follow when designing a website for the first time. These rules have been thoroughly tested over the years and have proven to be a key factor in determining your websites success.

• Background: Always use a white background. Never use a dark coloured background with white text
• Font: Use a simple to read font for your text. Make sure the font size is big enough for people to read easily.
• Headlines: Use red Headlines. It has been proven that people have better response to red headlines. Black headlines are much easier to skip over
• Flash (Animations): Only use flash to enhance the functionality of your site and never to improve the impact of your site. Don’t Forget that it’s words that sell
• Hyperlinks: Keep the colour of your links to the standard blue and always underlined. This avoids users from getting lost in your website.
• Web Page Dimensions: Keep your sites dimensions to a maximum of 700px in width so it remains the same regardless of the screen resolution used by the user.
• Images : Images have positive impact on the profitability of your site but you must make sure that the images used are of the highest quality possible and should compliment the sales copy on the site.