Planning Your Website Design

The popularity of the world wide web has spawned many new businesses and entrepreneurs who provide different services associated with the internet. Website designing is one of these industries and the number of companies and individuals offering to create a captivating and perfectly laid out website is rising by the day. In spite of tall claims, many of these website design professionals may not really be able to effectively represent your business online. Here are a few aspects you should keep in mind when you go about planning the design of your website.

Goal of the site

The goal of the site or its focus is a very critical aspect in website design. This is one area where you, the business owner, will have to put in a lot of effort and time in determining the aim of your website. Should your website drum up sales, increase your visibility, allow online marketing or simply help prospective customers find you? Whatever be your goal, convey it clearly to the designer. Every element of your site, the color scheme, the layout, features etc, must work towards making it possible to attain this goal. This is the basic foundation on which the designer must then start building the site.

Different companies, different needs

A graphic design firm can afford to have a flashy website with great visuals. This is an effective way in which they can advertise their service/ product. A company that sells baby products need not have a flash intro page but does need enough photographs or other visuals of its products and their applications. A company that specializes in investment advice appears to lack seriousness when its website is loaded with animation or splash pages and has little by way of content.

Functionality is critical

Another aspect that is ignored very often is whether the site has all the components that help drive sales or fulfill the site’s main goal. Imagine a website for financial advice that doesn’t have a clearly visible index of topics or search option. How is a visitor to find what he needs? It is quite likely that any chance visitor looking for financial advice will quickly move on to a site that has a clearer layout and a simple search mechanism even if it has poorer or less content. A shopping website that does not let you search by price range is just as non functional.

Giving a website design professional a free hand in designing your website can prove very costly as his perspective may be limited. Flash animations, intro pages, music, and other visually appealing components do make your site look ‘cool’, but they can sometimes annoy visitors. Enough thought must be devoted to understand the kind of visitors you would want your site to attract - those who are looking for a ‘cool’ website or those who are looking for a product you sell? While making your website, never forget what you are selling and who your customer is.

Wolf21.com is an seo company specializing in internet marketing and website design.