Internet Marketing Blog » user friendly websites

The One Rule Of Web Design You Can’t Miss

Richard — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:33:18 +0000

When most businesses concentrate on their web design, it’s their own needs that are naturally in mind. The scope of the site, its purpose and its hopeful future incomes are all there to benefit the business. No matter how true this is, it’s a really bad starting point. Most sites would achieve a whole lot more if they just kept the fundamental rule of web design in mind.

The rule is: keep your site users’ interests in mind.

This is the absolute, primary rule that you should keep in mind during your web development. It isn’t something that will be alien to many businesses. If you deal with people at all – and every business does – you have to find ways to get them to do what you want them to do. In general this is done by pleasing them. Business just doesn’t work any other way.

Unfortunately, many businesses only come to apply this to their websites after the initial design is complete. Concentrating on their own needs at first, they only come to think about usability and other customer-oriented issues well after the site has been launched. In fact, they only come to think of it once it’s already a problem.

Putting customers first during web design is a smart move. It allows you to plot your conversion paths far more efficiently than setting them in retrospect. Talk to your designer about your customers’ needs. You can talk to us at internet marketing agency Click Consult about web development planning for your site.

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Sometimes A New Web Design Is The Answer

Click Consult — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:12:32 +0000

For some websites, the original web design may have been considered long ago, and the needs of the company and its customers have long since changed. In other cases, the initial web development was poorly thought out and was not as successful as it should have been in meeting the needs of visitors. Problems like these can go unnoticed for quite a long time before being discovered, and some may never come to light. This can have a negative effect on business, so it is worth assessing a website and thinking about making possible changes, or even commissioning a different design, if this will help to fulfil its potential.

Although professional usability testing experts are expensive, it could be worth hiring them in order to test a website, before deciding whether a website redesign is necessary. If money is not available for this, there is always the option of testing the site oneself, and this is not as complicated as it might seem. The US usability guru, Steve Krug, maintains that even testing a site with just one person is better than not testing at all. Ideally, sites should be tested very early on in the development process, but if this has never happened, it is better done later than never. If the design is found to be problematic for visitors then a new version that is more user-friendly might show a substantial increase in traffic and sales.

At internet marketing agency Click Consult, we can redesign your website so that it meets visitors’ needs and increases the success of your business.

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Conventions In Web Design

James — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:00:01 +0000

Web design conventions comprise the common and popular ways in which sites are laid out and structured. They are extremely important in helping visitors to use websites, because they allow previous experiences to be brought into play. This minimises any learning that would otherwise be required to use a site, and helps to give a ‘user-friendly’ feel.

Web development experts know that visitors have certain expectations on arriving at a site. Often, traditional elements of design are useful in a practical sense. For example, once a link has been clicked it may change its appearance in some way, perhaps turning from blue to purple. Those words which are underlined are expected to be links. A list of headings on the left of the page is assumed to be a navigation menu, while familiar phrases such as ‘contact us’ lead to pages where the visitor can be fairly sure in advance what information they will find there. The loading time of certain pages or files is generally expected to be conveniently quick, with some kind of progress monitor being displayed on screen.

Going against these conventions might be tempting for artistic reasons but unless any new arrangements are highlighted clearly enough for users to recognise them, the result is likely to be baffling. It might be better to start with the traditional elements of a site and tweak them creatively rather than throw them out altogether. At Click Consult we build our websites on firm foundations that recognise the importance of web marketing and design conventions.

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The Importance Of A Search Facility In Web Design

Richard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:05:17 +0000

Many users go straight to the search box on entering a site instead of using the navigation menu. The number of people who do this is commonly underestimated, yet the information typed in can be very valuable when determining customer needs and can easily be collected using web analytics. A search utility should be seriously considered during every web development project.

The specific words entered in a search box provide many clues about visitors’ intentions. They may indicate information that people are looking for but which the website does not sufficiently cover, or reveal confusion about using part of the site. Analysing the search results can allow such problems to be rectified.

Observing which page a particular search was made from and where a visitor went next is useful in determining how an individual page answers users’ needs. Possibly the search itself needs to be improved. This may be suspected if visitors leave the site immediately after obtaining their search results. Perhaps too many results are offered and they are not relevant enough, so the customer despairs and moves elsewhere.

There is also the question of ‘conversion’ during an internet marketing campaign, the term referring to any positive outcome such as a sale, or a blog subscription. If the search facility helps visitors find what they are looking for, then the conversion rate should be substantially higher for those who use it. The web development team at Click Consult know that including or improving a search utility is a key feature of the web design process.

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Some Important Things To Consider For An eCommerce Website

Gareth — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:04:12 +0000

When you’re designing an eCommerce website that needs to sell products to customers there are some very important considerations. While you want your website to stand out and be different, you don’t want your website to be ‘too’ different that it becomes difficult for your customers to use and buy products from. You want your customers to find your website easy to use, therefore you need to adhere to certain conventions of eCommerce design.

For example, you should always work on the theory that your users will read from left to right. This means that you should feature your product images on the left, and the description and price information on the right. Visitors to your website will see the image and then read across to the description and the price.

You also need to make sure that your visitors can browse your website comfortably before they purchase their products. To do this, you should always feature dark text on a light background. Research shows that users can read dark text on a light background far easier and for longer than they can read light text on a dark background.

This is why most retail sites feature black text and a white background.

Another important consideration is the location of your website’s logo. You will notice from looking at successful retail websites such as Amazon that the website logo is on the top left of the page and it links back to the homepage. This is because the user expects to find it here, so placing it anywhere else would just confuse your customers.

At Click Consult we know what makes a successful eCommerce website and are experienced at developing efficient and user friendly websites for our clients.

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Design with SEO in mind

Nick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:03:16 +0000

Google are expanding their services and adding great features and updates all the time, making it ever more important to look at alternative ways of improving your website rather than relying on the traditional online marketing methods.

Basic search engine optimisation is a must but there are other elements to be considered such as design and usability. Here are some points to think about:

Review the look and feel of your website. The overall theme of the site should match the brand image you are trying to create and work in synergy with the services and products you are selling.

Check your product placement. The products of highest value to your business should be most visible to the visitor. Bear in mind that the first thing a visitor sees when they load a website is generally at eye level on the left.

Does the structure and layout still work? Take time to ensure you can navigate the site easily but don’t be tempted to put navigation menus in non-standard places as this will confuse your visitors.

Think about colours carefully as these affect visitors emotionally. The right colour scheme can also enhance your products. If you want a professional feel opt for white, grey or red for example. Bright colours such as orange, yellow, green and blue can give a sunny, attractive feel but be careful not to be too garish.

A combination of the above elements will lower bounce rates and encourage visitors to stay locked to the site and hopefully increase sales. This is essential when you have worked so hard to attract traffic in the first place.

For more advice on increasing sales through SEO and internet marketing, contact Click Consult.

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Poor web design damages your business

Richard — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:11:53 +0000

Your business reputation is your biggest asset when it comes to attracting new business. In order to keep your current customers happy and attract new ones you need to makes sure that the reputation of your business and your website stays pristine. If not you could face heavy profit losses and severe damages to your image. Marketing on the internet is a fickle thing and your web design plays a huge part in getting people to notice your business and what you can offer them.

Web design woes

Poor web design can scare your current customer away and keep them from revisiting your web site. More damagingly poor web design can put potential customers off from exploring your website and maybe making use of your services or generating sales for your business. The damage does not stop there because your website has effects on potential customers that reach far beyond the internet.

The word of mouth still holds a great deal of sway in this age that lives for gossip and scandals so your web design bloopers may be more far reaching then you realise. The best option is to get a professional web design consultancy to handle your web design.

They have trained professionals on their books, experience and intimate knowledge of what internet users want from a website. With professional help in your corner you will save money on costly damage control and not only keep existing customers coming back for more, but you will be able to pull in new ones on a daily basis.

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Web Design Issues

Richard — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:44:26 +0000

Anything which requires collaboration usually incurs conflict between differing methods or goals during design. A website design is a good example of this.

The first issue is lack of clear communication between parties. In the early stages of website creation, there wasn’t the same collaboration between web designs and larger advertising campaigns, social networks, or intranets as there is today. Web pages were static brochures and were usually pretty disconnected from the larger project, many web pages are still this way if the vision of the project isn't communicated properly to your web designer.

In order to connect to the larger project, special design considerations are necessary, but they are often overlooked. The reasons for this include lack of leadership, too much leadership, lack of understanding and technical knowledge as well as knowing how to integrate the funtionality you need into a stylish website. What resulted was unhealthy competition or compromise between departments and under utilised web pages.

Another issue is liquid vs. fixed layouts. A web designer has no control over the website when it is on the web. The factors causing this are the size of the browser window, the actual web browser being used, the input devices such as the mouse or touch screen, and the size of the website, its design as well as the fonts which have been installed on their own computers.

Some designers like to control the appearance of the on screen elements and they do this by using specific width designations, using HTML and through the use of table based designs with CSS. When the text or image and the layout of the design do not vary amongst browsers, this is called fixed width design and advocates of this argue the need for a designers need for precise control.

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