Introductions & Web Design – Part 3

Making a good first impression with your Web Site visitors is an important factor when it comes to developing a strong reputation for your business online. In the first two parts of this 3 part series I gave you some quick and easy tips to help you increase the effectiveness of your Homepage image, findability, and content. In this last part of the series I’d like to conclude with some simple steps you can take that go beyond your Homepage and into your site subpages.

A subpage is basically the more detailed elements of content that your site contains which has hopefully been properly summarized within your Homepage. I think a good way of looking at is that your Homepage is basically what gets your customers interested, it gives them a taste of whats to come. The subpage then is essentially what seals the deal. It should offer all the important information you want to express to a potential buyer/visitor and do it in a clean and professional way that leads to some sort of call to action with as little mouse clicks as possible. The subpage should include all of the tips I previously pointed out for your homepage but the focus needs to be on details and what exactly you think your visitor is going to want to see within that particular area. The design is still important and should try to be somewhat different in layout compared to the homepage so that the viewer doesn’t get easily bored but all emphasis should be on maintaining rich and compelling content that gives the viewer the info quickly and easily.

Making your subpages identical to your homepage is a big no no. I think anyone would agree that if they came across a business site that had the same layout structure 100% of the time their opinions of such a business would be effected in a negative way. The main reason for this I think is that its just plain cheap and lazy. Your site needs to captivate your viewer and then guide them to the areas they want to be at without losing their attention at any point in that process. This requires a strong commitment of time and money to ensure effective execution. If its done properly not only will your visitors be impressed when they first visit your site, they will be interested in what you have to offer and will make contact with you because of how easy you made it for them to do so.

In my last post I gave some simple tips on how you can improve the initial perception of your homepage. In this post I would like to dig a bit deeper into the content and how you can optimize it for findability and its overall effectiveness.

Make Your Homepage Easy to Find!

Your Homepage is useless if people can’t find it and once they have they need to be able to find the content, product, or service they are looking for just as easily. Unfortunately a lot of small and large businesses get this wrong when it comes to their Homepage. They simply don’t invest enough time and money into making sure that their site has been developed to encourage Human Beings to find their site. Part of this problem lies with the people Developing it. The fact is a large majority of Web Design companies around today still don’t understand the full concept of findability or they are too lazy to bother with it. They develop the site for search engines and then think their job is done. But SEO is only a part of the whole picture. Your site needs to be designed for people first and search engines last. It needs to embrace coding and design techniques that are customer oriented and specifically geared towards your target audience. If your site doesn’t get that right than all the SEO in the world is useless. You’ll get traffic, but it won’t convert.

So how exactly do you optimize your site for findability? You need to put yourself in the shoes of your customers looking for your product and ask yourself “Is this the kind of content they want to see”? This kind of thinking is critical in order to have a successful web site.

It’s All About Content Baby!

Your Homepage needs to have Rich Compelling Content that is worth someones effort to find. Brochure style web sites aren’t going to work anymore if they ever really did. Notice the change in thinking here. It’s not about helping people find your site with key words…It’s about giving people a darn good reason to find your site to begin with. The kind of impact this approach can have is a thousand times more efficient than just paying a few hundred bucks to optimize your site for some key words. I really can’t stress this enough. There are millions of Web Sites online today that are complete failures because they never realized how important it is to give their potential customers something valuable and something they could tell their friends and family about which ultimately sets off a chain reaction of word of mouth marketing that you didn’t have to lift a finger to accomplish.

This of course goes well beyond your Homepage. Your Sub pages and overall site functionality need this concept applied to them as well. Stay tuned for part 3 where I list some simple and easy steps you can take to go beyond your Homepage and make the second most important element of your site an effective and useful tool to get you results.

Introductions & Web Design – Part 1

Human beings are naturally very judgmental. People, even at a very young age, are constantly developing opinions and perceptions, testing them and then taking action. In fact I don’t think there is any major aspect of the human life style where we are not making judgments in some shape or form. It is a critical part of how we function. From choosing an evening meal to deciding the next vehicle we are going to buy, we explore the possibilities and then come to some sort of a conclusion. This is especially true when it comes to browsing the internet for a service or product. Within seconds of viewing a Web Page we instantly have fairly strong opinions and perceptions of what we are viewing. Within a few more seconds we use these initial judgments as a foundation for other opinions related to the  subject. The more research we do, the more informed we think we are and the more solid or fragile our initial judgments become.

Understanding this process is very important. Not only for myself as a Web Designer, but for basically anyone trying to use the Internet as a means of self promotion and marketing. For this reason I have decided to do a series of posts that briefly explain some useful tips and guidance when it comes to developing your Web Site to make sure those quick and unforgiving judgments are positive ones in relation to your online presence.

The first thing I want to touch on is the Homepage. Although it may not necessarily be the first point of contact for your business online, your Homepage is usually one of the first key instruments a potential customer will use to develop an opinion of you and the products you offer. Here’s a quick list of some Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to your Homepage.

#1 – Less is More!

Nothing is worse than browsing to a homepage that is overly cluttered and graphically overwhelming. Too much text and graphics is a great way to stop people from viewing your Web Site for more than a few seconds. The key to success here is balance. Everything from the number of main navigation links to the size and format of text needs to be balanced in an appealing manner that encourages your visitors to explore deeper into your web site. You need to provide enough information to wet their appetite without going overboard.

#2 – Stick to a Theme

With literally millions of Web Sites out there these days it has become increasingly hard to differentiate your business from everyone else. A great way to set your homepage apart from your competitors is to have your design focused around a strong and well planned theme that stems from the Homepage and into all your other Sub Pages. Ideally this theme will draw some sort of connection to the industry you serve and will act as a key factor in developing your online identity. Adding technologies like Flash is also a great way to stand out and get noticed.

#3 – Update

Grabbing your visitors attention is great when they first visit your homepage but this is often times not enough. You need to give them a reason to come back! If your homepage doesn’t contain some sort of rich content that changes over time than you will most likely be missing out on hundreds of potential return visits to your site which will eventually convert into paying customers. This is a huge aspect of Home Page design that often gets overlooked. Think about what your visitors might enjoy coming back to read, play, or view on a weekly or monthly basis.

#4 – Summarize

In my opinion the most useful and popular homepages online today all share one major element. They all summarize the major site content in an effective and compelling way for human beings to easily read and navigate through. Think of your homepage as a portal to all your other content pages. Your homepage should act like a navigator pointing your visitors to the content you want them to see. But remember the first tip I mentioned in this list…Keep It Balanced!

If your homepage follows these steps than your site is well on it’s way to developing positive opinions of your business in the minds of your customers and eventually within your entire community.