How to Choose the Right Web Design Firm
Once you recognize the need for a good web design firm, how do you choose from among all the available companies?
Know Yourself
Before you begin looking for a firm to design your website, think about the image you want to portray for your business.
What is the first impression you want customers or visitors to have about your company, and what do you want your site to say about you?
Do you want clients to think your company is modern and on the cutting edge? Creative? Dependable? Traditional? You’re website portrays that image in a few micro seconds.
The First Impression is the Best Impression
A visitor’s first impression of a website sets the tone for the visitor’s future interactions with the site and with the company.
According to a group of researchers in Canada, you’ve got as little as one twentieth of a second (50 milliseconds) to make a great first impression with your website.
People form their opinions quickly about sites they see, although young people see much more detail in the first brief exposure. Informational content isn’t as important, but those initial impressions last.
According to scientists, people want to be “right” about their initial impressions, so a phenomenon called the halo effect comes into play. Once they get that gut reaction, they look for things that confirm that impression. So when they return to the site, they’ll find things that validate their first feelings.
The Importance of Web Design
Simply having a website is not enough in today’s competitive business world. Especially as resources become more limited, it’s important to invest in great web design to attract and keep customers.
Your online presentation is an important aspect of your business, and you want the appearance and functionality of your site to reflect your philosophy and your products in a way that is accessible and easy to use.
Web Analytics
Web Analytics, as the name suggests is the process of colleting, analyzing and interpreting the data about the activities of online users accessing your website. This has become an integral factor in almost all online businesses as it optimizes your business by providing meaningful data about how your site is being utilized.
Websites as Web Services
As we step forward into the next generation of computing, the internet is experiencing a major revolution in its domain. The web is slowly morphing from a Web 2.0 to a whole new Web 3.0. However, web 3.0 has still, a long way to go before it can be implemented for real.
“So what is the big deal?”
Web 2.0 had revolutionized the way in which websites present their content to users. Structured layouts, the use of layers in presenting information, the buzzwords that replaced flashy banners, sleazy elements, pop up(s) and so on. The message was loud and clear: if you wanted to increase your website traffic and do business, your design had to be “user friendly”.
Today, Web2.0 has achieved whatever it had set out to achieve. The user now see terabytes of information, laid out on a palate in a precise, structured and presentable manner. Well today, more or less this is what your perspective of the internet is. However, what does this information convey to its machine counterparts?
Building a Profitable Web 2.0 Web Site
Competition for building a profitable Web site is quite fierce. Yet many of us have dreams of a unique concept that will attract viewers, followed soon thereafter by advertisers. I'm not sure what percentage of aspirants succeed in this quest, but I would venture to guess that it's a very low percentage.
With the evolution of the Web to the Web 2.0, the task becomes even a bit more challenging. For those who aren't familiar with the term Web 2.0, Wikipedia can help out: "Web 2.0 is a living term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and Web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the Web ..." The complete definition also mentions video sharing sites.
How Persuasive is Your Marketing?
We know that SEO can deliver traffic, but we know from experience that traffic alone is not enough.
Skeptical consumers require more from your websites’ proposition to relinquish their reservations. This requires persuasion and persuasion marketing.
SEO, relevant and persuasive copy as well as usability all need to work harmoniously in order to shatter prior expectations about what users need from a website in order to take action. One aspect presented without the proper balance of the other can leave the visitor on the fence when it comes to making a decision to purchase.
Transforming a prospect into a customer involves multiple emotional and intellectual layers to facilitate trust. Often, the resolve of the prospect is weathered by a natural layer of mental and emotional buffers to offset the sales process. Just consider it natural reaction to being bombarded from disruptions from advertisements attempting to breach their awareness from every angle.
If you realize it or not, your pages are waging an argument of relevance, persuasion and validity. If you win, conversion occurs, if you lose, then your just another stepping stone for your competition who has structured a better offer, argument or call to action.
