A Website Design for You

Your website needs to stand out. It needs to grab the attention of the audience, and most importantly, it needs to have a call to action. Maybe you want your viewers to buy a product, maybe you want them to sign up for a newsletter, or maybe you want them to click through on your links. Whatever the call to action is, the website needs to be structured in such a way to accomplish your goals. Below are the top 5 design considerations that we talk with our clients about when we begin a website design:

1. In one sentence, tell us what you want to accomplish through your website. One sentence. If you are not clear on what you want, then it will be impossible to achieve success, and even harder to measure any success. Website design comes in many different forms and therefore, the more clarity and direction that you can provide, the more your site will fit your needs. Sometimes clients just don’t know what their options are and don’t speak the “webdesign lingo.” That’s ok!! But what you do know is your own business, organization or cause. That’s all you need to know. If a web designer uses jargon and technical terms that you don’t understand, ask them to explain. And if you still don’t understand, ask them to explain again. The bottom line is that building a great website means staying focused on your bottom line goals, and not being distracted by complicated terms that you don’t understand.

2. Decide what design framework and content management system you want to use for your website. In general, web designers do not code webdesigns from scratch. Very rarely is a person sitting down to blank screen and typing out lines of computer code to form a professional looking website. There are a wide variety of content management systems that are used to give websites functionality, stability and efficient management. WordPress is probably the most common. Many WordPress themes are free, many are available for a price. A good designer can also customize WordPress themes to meet the specific needs of the client. There are thousands of themes available at WordPress, and thousands more available on other websites. If you see a theme that you like, you can either ask a web designer to use or customize that theme, or you can them to develop a theme similar to that one.

3. How important is SEO for your website? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a term used for the extent to which your website will pop up in online searches. So for example, if your company sells furniture in Miami, when a person types into google “Miami furniture stores,” will your website pop up? The more SEO, the greater the chance that your website will both appear as one of the results, and will appear at the top of the list. SEO is an important factor in website design because some design are not SEO friendly. A website, for example, with a lot of Flash Content and JavaScript issues will not do well with SEO. So if SEO is important to you, then you should look for designs that are optimized for this.

4. A website design that is manageable. Websites need to be updated, especially if SEO is an important factor in your online presence. Therefore, choose a website design that you will be able to update and add content. Some people like managing their own website, and some people like hiring a website designer to do the updates. Either way, make sure that when you develop a website, it is one that can easily be modified and updated. This again is the benefit of WordPress site for example, as they tend to be pretty easy to update.

5. A website design that is responsive. A majority of the people who visit your website will be browsing from their cellphone or tablet. Therefore, your website needs to load properly, and fast, on those devices. Websites that load differently based on the devise that they are viewed on are called Responsive. In 2020, if your website is not Responsive then you are doing something wrong, and your website will suffer as a result. So when you look for a website design that you like, make sure to view it on both a PC as well as a cellphone to make sure that it will appear properly.