Internet Gods and Goddesses

Posts Tagged ‘communication’

A Good Website design is an important step to register strong online presence. Although there are many factors contributing towards a classy website design, here are some common myths of web design we must take care of:

Role and choice of colors:

A nice and pleasant website design is imperative to attract web traffic. Most web designers believe that using lot of colors will add value to the website, where as in reality plenty of colors may destroy the appearance of a website. The website visitors may get irritated with too many colors and hence may never return. Website designers should focus using colors and affects that go well with the theme and purpose of the website. As a principal, maximum of 2 or 3 colors should be enough during a web design making sure that use of these colors doesn’t obstruct the visibility of the website.

Use of Graphics:

It is an absolute fact that graphics make things look nicer and communication easier, but it’s over dose may make these difficult. Few website Designers believe using too many graphics will add pleasant affects and credibility to their website. Yes Graphics can be utilized to lend it to a webpage but excess of it may prove intrusive and hinder usability of website. The web page carrying heavy graphics will take a lot of time to load thus affects accessibility. Web design which is a result of simple elegant graphics and loads easily is always appreciated by the web visitors.

Flash Affects: Are those attractive?

Flash is extensively used to create advertisement banners and liveliness in a website design. Flash banners, although deliver your marketing message with powerful eye-catching visual graphics, can serve their desired purpose only if they are used proficiently and carefully. Flash banners may add energy to a particular website design, but they can have many drawbacks as well. As Web designers use too many frames to illustrate an animation, flash banners are not downloaded easily in a web page unless you are connected to high speed internet.

Main drawback of Flash website designs is the fact that content of the web page is not yet indexed by any search engine. So the websites developed fully on Flash technology makes them a risky business option for companies seeking to enhance their online presence through search engine optimization.

All Flash websites need a plugin to view flash components in a web browser. Just think if just 15% of your prospective web customers don’t bother to download the plugin and install it to view your website; you have a good opportunity to lose a significant share of web business. And believe it that many wont simply bother. If used reprehensively, Flash website designs have an amazing capacity to be a serious frustration to your website users. Hence Web designers should offer the choice of non flash versions along with the flash versions, which permits the visitors to browse through the information with ease.

Your Website looks same in all browsers?

After building some successful websites many web developers love to pretend that the website will look all the same in different browsers as it appears on their machine. In reality there is a good probability that the website may not look same in all web browsers. Even worse is the fact that sometimes Website can look perfect in every Web browser on one machine, but other machine will render it other way in those same browsers.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a body that sets standards for how all Web browsers, like Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google’s chrome, should render HTML. However all these standards are merely guidelines and problem is that the programmers who develop Web browsers interpret these guidelines as they assume it is best to display HTML on your machine.

Therefore Web designers should test the website in all browsers and make sure that website is optimized with web standards adopted by different browsers. Also the resolution varies from pc to pc. Some users prefer to view the websites in 1024 X 768 resolution while others may view the website in 800 X 600 resolution. The web designer should ensure that the website looks good and same in all resolutions. The table width should be set in percentage instead of pixels while assigning properties to the table because it will help the viewer to view the website properly in any resolution.

One of the basic principles of marketing is market segmentation. Matching the right product and services to the right market is critical. This certainly applies to the web design business and industry. There are obviously several market segments in the web design business, let alone the IT business in general. There is on the one hand the lower hand of the market i.e. the discount web design market. This web design market consists primarily of small businesses and one man bands who have either just started their business. We are here talking of companies or individuals who have a limited budget to spend on their web design, so price is definitely an issue. On the other end of the market there are the corporate companies who have the budget but have very different needs in terms of web design. Trying to sell to each one of these web design markets requires a different approach. How do we then sell to corporate companies?

A large and medium business looking for a web design company will probably use similar keywords if they are using search engines. Web design and web site design are the most popular keywords, so go for these in your adwords campaign and search engine optimisation. Corporate web design customers will however expect to find a potential web design supplier whose web site design projects a corporate and professional look.

The supplier’s web design look and feel is therefore a key factor. After all and like it or not, first impressions count. What is this corporate web design look and feel? If you are not sure, look at some of the corporate web sites. Look at Nokia’s web site for instance. Professionalism is obvious. Well groomed design, a bit of flash animation, not many colours. Certainly no spelling or design mistakes. The corporate web design requires particular attention to details.

Obviously the products or services on offer through the web design will to a large extent determine this look and feel. Corporate identity and the company’s ‘voice’ needs to come across loud and clear through the web design. Use of colours, logos, trademarks, corporate figures on the web design will usually achieve this corporate look.

Whilst budget and discount web design companies would show their prices on the web site, corporate web sites need not show your web design prices. Remember we are not necessarily selling to a price sensitive audience here. Showing your price on the web site might actually put potential corporate customers off your web design services. Price it too low and your potential corporate customers might think that your web design services are not good enough. You would be surprised by what some companies are wiling to pay or have been charged for web design work. Although your potential customers will want to have an idea of cost from the outset, I would not actually show my price list on my corporate web site.

Once the customer goes past your web site and decides to enquire about your web design services they would expect to be greeted by a professional team. Make sure your sales team, even if it’s just you, come across as being professional. Corporate customers expect to treat with corporate web design companies. These might not necessarily be large companies but professionalism and track record is a must. Telephone manners, the quality, value and timelines of your quotes are crucial. You have no room for error when you are dealing with people who expect to pay for an excellent web design product and service.

The corporate web design market is certainly a lucrative one. If you are used to servicing the discount web design market, you need to think twice and prepare for a different web design package offer. You will need to invest into designing your own web site for a more corporate look and feel. You will also have to look into training your sales staff and your internal communication processes so that you come across as a corporate web design company yourself.