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We Make the Internet Your Domain

Web Design: What to Look For and What to Do

Your website is a global storefront for your company. Every day, visitors are scanning your pages, viewing your products, comparing prices, looking for your contact information, and ultimately making a judgment of your e-commerce business. There are many mistakes, most of them simple, that a flawed website design will show. We want your business to appear credible and trustworthy, as do you. Here are some things that are telltale signs of less than par web design.

Content: This is a very wide topic but there are some basic things that you should watch out for and try to avoid. Your content should be written so that visitors can see what they want and gather the information they need in a very efficient manner. Flow ChartThis can only be done when one writes clear, concise copy. For example, if your e-commerce website has a home page with the copy, “Welcome to our home page, we are glad that you have visited. Take a look around our site, view our products, and see some customer reviews. Check out our Contact page if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.” While this is very nice and all, it is not necessary by any means. People know how the Internet works and how e-commerce business happens and they know that they need to navigate your pages to find out about your product. Your content needs to be succinct and to the point while your web design takes care of the visitors’ needs, which leads to the next point.

Navigation: The actual design of your website is as important if not more important than the content of your website. This holds especially true for an e-commerce website. Depending on how your pages are laid out and where the different links are located, you could be giving your visitors a pleasant or not so pleasant experience. The key here is to keep visitors from being frustrated and provide easy access to the parts of the website you want them to navigate to. Broken links and dead ends are a serious turn off to potential customers and just generally inconvenient. It is common sense but sometimes it just takes a quick revision to take care of any links that lead to outdated or deleted pages or to find parts of your website that don’t have a home button. Also, make sure that you aren’t opening a new window or tab every time a visitor clicks a link. Most modern browsers are outfitted with extremely convenient tabs but that doesn’t mean that everyone want to use five of them for one website. Clean up the frustration of dead ends, broken links, and excessive tabs or windows and make the important links stand out.

Visual Appeal: Last, but not least, your website has to have a certain level of visual appeal. Most people don’t require this consciously but almost everyone makes a subconscious judgment based on appearance. The things you want to avoid are all things in excess. Lots of colors, lots of fonts, and lots of graphics are a very common pitfall for websites today. You should use a maximum of three or four colors in a color scheme and usually two to three fonts. We don’t want visual overload for you viewer. We want to make sure that the important parts of your website are what stand out, not the scrolling marquee of clipart at the top of your page.

If you feel like your website is riddled with all sorts of these flaws, don’t fret, a makeover is very achievable. Just keep in mind that the Internet is only going to get more popular and more important to your business so cleaning up your website design is always a good investment.

bob@createdbydesign.net
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8026 Vermilion Dr.  Charlotte, NC  20215   704-491-1263