Marketing Masters:
Be a Website Design Convert
To build a website that really sings your company's praises, avoid the seven deadly site design sins.
Deciding that your decorating business would benefit from having its own website was the easy part, right? The tough part is avoiding the nasty pitfalls that make too many websites money-losers instead of money-makers.
Web design has evolved into a sophisticated combination of art and science, so today's best sites are powerful marketing and communication tools. Unfortunately, plenty of the old clunkers are still around – and even worse, more are going up every day.
Here's how you can make sure that your site – whether it's in the planning stage or is already a reality – isn't marred by one or more of the seven most damaging errors of website design.
Sin 1: Failing to formulate a clear purpose for your site. This may sound obvious, but failing to define and execute a clear purpose – what you want people to be able to learn or do on your site – is one of the more common website design errors, and one of the most costly.
Do you want a website solely to establish an Internet presence, with a single page providing basic information (such as your contact information) and a general description of your decoration services? Or do you want a complete e-commerce site with multiple pages, photos of your work, a description of your specialized expertise and other data? Or, something in between? If you can't state your site's purpose clearly in a sentence or two, you're probably not ready to dip a toe into the Internet waters.
Sin 2: Failing to communicate your purpose clearly to your site designer. If you hire a professional to create your site (and you probably should), you'll pay additional charges if you keep exercising your right to change your mind. Changes in basic design after the project is underway can result in wasted creative hours. Unless your designer has agreed to a flat rate, you'll be stuck with a larger bill than you expected.
You can avoid this common error by taking time to sit down in advance with your designer to discuss your ideas. Sketching out layouts and text on paper can save hours of costly design time. Don't allow yourself to become an obstacle to completion of the work by over-managing, but also don't sit back and assume you shouldn't be involved at all in the creative process. Either approach would be a mistake.
Sin 3: Failing to realize content is king. Web surfers are looking for information about your business and the products and services you offer. Such details as site design elements and colors should always be transparent to the viewer. Too much "design" in a website can be compared with wearing too much makeup.
A site cluttered with annoying gimmicks such as animations and graphics that do nothing to enhance your message will be a sure turnoff for most viewers. Perhaps you've seen sites alive with dancing bears, cartoons, pulsating banners and other irrelevant devices. If you're like most Web surfers, you have little patience with that if it interferes in your page viewing.
"Always remember that your customers and prospective customers are interested in benefits, as in, ‘How is this good for me?'" says Ray Redlich, art manager at Carell Corp. "Try to turn your features into benefit statements."
Be sure to include an "About Us" link inviting visitors to learn more about the personal side of your enterprise. "Include a photo of yourself and your partners, if any, to give a personal touch to your company," Redlich says.
Sin 4: Failing to provide a simple navigation system. "Your customers and prospects want their Web experience to be familiar and comfortable," Redlich says. "They want to be able to find what they want quickly. All of your navigation should be simple and intuitive."
Web surfers are notoriously impatient. Viewers who log on to your site want to see at a glance what services and products you offer, and what they must do to find other key information. If your home page and your navigation system don't provide quick answers, many viewers will quickly move on.
Every page on your site must provide an easy and intuitive way to reach any other page. Internet viewers simply won't invest the time and effort needed to plow their way through a confusing maze of menus. The most popular navigation systems consist of bars laid out vertically on the left side or horizontally across the top of each page. Whatever system you choose, it must be consistent. At an absolute minimum, every page on your site should contain a "return to home page" link.
You've probably visited sites that seem to be made up of nothing but menus. You keep clicking and clicking without ever arriving at the information you want. Remember: If you allow your viewer to get confused, you've probably lost a potential customer. Your navigation system must provide your visitors with enough information to make easy and effective choices – no more, no less.
Sin 5: Failing to provide an easy way for interested viewers to contact you. If your site is a full e-commerce site, this requirement may seem too obvious to mention. However, if it contains only basic information, such as company contact information and a description of your services, it'll be easy to overlook the need to provide a feedback link.
Prospective customers may have questions that you haven't anticipated, or there may be problems with the site such as broken links. In either case, a quick-and-easy e-mail link will allow the viewer to reach you with the click of a mouse.
Caution: Once you set up a feedback link, you must check your e-mail every day and respond promptly to every message. Many people regard unanswered e-mail messages as a personal affront. That's not a good way to build your business image.
Sin 6: Failing to test loading time on an average computer. Most people these days have short tech attention spans, so they'll move on quickly if your site takes more than a few seconds to load on their screens.
Excessive use of large graphics, animations and other devices that increase the file size of the pages on your site will increase the time it takes for the page to appear on the viewer's screen. Many sites are elaborate creations with the potential to win design prizes from fellow professionals, but they accomplish little or nothing for the people who are paying the bills.
If you own a high-powered computer with a lightning-speed processor and a ton of memory, or if you have high-speed Internet access, don't use your own system to test your site's loading time. Find a friend with an average setup. Then, if your site takes more than six or eight seconds to load, you and your designer need to sit down and decide what has to go.
Sin 7: Failing to make it easy for search engines to find your site. Internet search engines allow Web surfers to type in key words such as "custom T-shirts," "embroidery," a company name or any other subject. Then, in the blink of an eye, the search engine scans the millions of sites on the Web and lists those that have meta-tags identical to the typed-in search term.
Meta-tags are simply words and phrases that describe the contents of your website and the nature of your business, making it easier for the search engines and interested viewers to find your site. These tags aren't a magic key to site effectiveness; however, they can increase the chances that your site will be included in the list that pops up when a Web surfer types in one of those words or phrases.
Using meta-tags is a technical subject too complex to cover in full here. For our purposes, it's sufficient to say that you should discuss the matter with your Web designer to make certain that a full measure of appropriate tags is included in your home page.
"If you'd like to learn more, log on to a search engine – there are many, but the most popular is Google – and type in ‘meta-tags,' " Redlich says. You'll learn how search engines work, and you'll get a long list of websites that can provide all you ever wanted to know about the subject. Then, once you've checked out meta-tags, type in a general description of your business – and you'll get an idea of how meta-tags work."
WILLIAM J. LYNOTT is a contributing writer for Stitches.