Alright, you’ve made it this far. You’ve defined your target market, wrote your user profiles, defined how you’re going to be driving traffic to your site, finished your site map and content outlines and now its time to bring it all together with a beautiful design.

The look and feel of your website

Design is about clear communication and sending a specific message to a specific audience. That message needs to be communicated within seconds of viewing the design. Whether for a website, a sign or a brochure the design should be driven by the purpose and objectives the company has for that marketing tool.

Your objective

If your objective is to sell automotive parts online to do it yourself hobbyists, then the web design needs to communicate that message within the first 3 to 5 seconds. It shouldn’t just use words to get the message across, a user should be able to relate to the design visually and understand that this is the place they need to be. If done successfully the design will sift out the un-qualified visitors from the qualified visitors. If all that’s left is qualified visitors then the conversion rate goes up.

Conversion of traffic on your website

A conversion is either a visitor signing up for a membership, filling out a contact form, calling a phone number, downloading a document or maybe signing up for a newsletter. Conversion depends on the purpose of the website and what the company wants to achieve. Many factors effect the conversion rate and one of those is a successful design.

Design tips for you website

• Above all the navigation should be clear and not crowded with clutter. Don’t surround the navigation with other stuff or else it will get lost.
• Think of how you want your company to be perceived by your visitors. If you have a branded company image already then this wont be too hard, but this might be you’re first time developing a look for your business. This needs to be carefully considered, and you might want to research a few websites, that might not be in your industry, that you like the look of. That have the perception you want to convey.
• Make sure the size of you website works on small and larger screen sizes. Don’t build something too wide and then a visitor with a 15” monitor has to scroll side to side.
• Don’t use too many graphics. Find the balance between text and graphics. Visitors are searching for information so don’t just show them a bunch of graphics.
• Try to relax. Don’t pack too much information into one space. Spread out the information giving the site a more relaxed feeling. Tightly packed information can create strain on the eyes, which leads to stress and a loss of visitors.
• Use professional, crisp images on your site. Make sure they’re not all pixilated and blurry. If you can’t afford a professional photographer use stock photography. A good site for stock is iStockPhoto
• Be careful of animation used on your site. Any movement will distract the eye and can draw attention away from important information.
• Use appropriate font sizes for your target audience. Nothing below 10pt.
• Create a good contrast in shape, color, size and weight.

Stylized headlines for web pages

Try not to use image files for stylized font headlines, or subheadings. If you want to use a specific font possibly for branding then look into developing the headlines using sIRF. It stands for Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and it uses a small flash file to create the headline, and search engines can index it, unlike an image file.

If you’re not programming your website then you can send this link to your programmer to read more about sIFR and how to implement it. http://wiki.novemberborn.net/sifr/What+is+sIFR

Developing your design into a working website

If you’re not a web programmer then you’re going to need one for this next step. You need to work with something that can take your completed web design and turn it into a working website.

Depending on the programmer you work with they will take the final website files and build out the pages using php, asp, aspx, .net or some other platform. PHP is the most common platform being used today so you might be able to find a php programmer for a decent price. If not just come talk to us.

Make sure you get a CMS (Content Management System)

All of our websites come with a CMS, and it's the one tool you don't want to leave out. A good CMS will save you time and money.

A CMS allows you to login to the backend of your website and manage the settings and content for your entire website. You will be able to add or delete pages, change page settings, add text and images move things around and much more.

A website without a CMS is a little harder to manage, but with some basic HTML then you can manage your own website.

Stay tuned for part 6: Formatting your web content for optimum results