Middle-aged men often remark that they are “built for comfort, not for speed.” (Of course, when they were twenty-something, they were flashing abs and flexing biceps, but we digress.) The successful website must be built both for comfort and speed. Today’s Internet users want clarity and functionality. They want to know where to go and how to get there. If they cannot comfortably find their way around your site, they will surely find their way out of it.

You aren’t satisfied just to have a Web address. You want a Web presence. You want your site to matter more to those who matter most to your success, your target audience. Let’s talk about one of the paramount factors of a successful website; namely, it’s design.

Your website’s design is important for several reasons.

• First impressions matter.

We know this instinctively, don’t we? That initial job interview, the first date, when you met your newly-transferred boss for the first time: we remember moments like these. Just as you wanted that second date or follow-up interview, you want your website visitor to return.

The first thing a visitor sees when he types in that Web address is your design. In a nanosecond, he will begin to form an opinion about your company. Keep that image sharp. Keep it crisp. Put your best foot forward.

• Your website is a virtual brochure for your business.

Again, we are talking about impressions; not just first impressions, but lasting impressions. Whatever level of professionalism you insist upon for traditional means of advertisement also applies to your website. In fact, if anything, it is even more important for your Web presence to be crisp and professional. Unlike a brochure, which may be soon discarded, your website visitors will see your virtual brochure every time they return. Since you want this virtual brochure to be passed from customer to customer, make sure it accurately represents you.

• Your page layout is important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Make sure your pages are laid out and organized properly. Search engine bots read your Web pages much the way you read the morning paper: from left to right, top to bottom, headlines to sub-headlines to story content. Just as newspaper editors make sure they get the most important headlines and stories “above the fold,” you want to make sure your primary keywords and objectives are clearly outlined at or near the top of the page.

Clarity and consistency are vital to both the human and the “humanoid” visitor. Be clear about yourself, why you are here, what you have to offer, and why your product or service should matter to the site visitor. Equally important, keep your design consistent. Too much design change from page to page can cause confusion to the humans navigating your site, as well as to the search engine spiders crawling it.

• Make sure your website is user-friendly and easy to navigate.

You want your visitors to spend more time exploring your content and less time trying to figure out how to explore it. Here again, clarity and consistency are big players. They are the all-stars on your website team. Treat them right and they will pay big dividends to your bottom line.

Beware of problems like broken links and dead ends. Make sure it is clear how to navigate more deeply into your site…and make it just as easy to get back to where they started. People are more impatient on the Internet than anywhere else. You may spend a half-hour looking for the chicken soup in the local grocery store, but that is because you are “stuck” there. To navigate away from that store, you have to leave your basket of items, walk back out to your car, and drive to the nearest alternative.

Those hurdles don’t exist here. Other options are just a mouse click away. So, make sure your customer can find that chicken soup in your store! Build your online store for comfort and for speed. Keep it crisp and clean. Make it clear and consistent.

Keep them coming…and coming back for more.

For information on how GILL Media can help your website, CONTACT US HERE!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 9:02 am and is filed under Affordable Web Design, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.