With the Olympics now behind us, reports are starting to come out of
London that a higher than expected number of local businesses – from
boutiques, to restaurants, and hotels – saw a decrease in revenue this
year as compared to the same time last year because of the games. This
is shocking news to many because you would think with the added tourists
these types of businesses would experience a positive financial win
fall just for being in the right place at the right time.Many
businesses and organizations make the same assumption with their
websites believing that if they get their site in front of enough
traffic, they will convert visits into viable income. However, there’s
an art and a science to creating effective websites.Whether
someone visiting your site reads information, views a video, or
downloads a white paper, they’re a potential prospect. The key is to get
them to come back to your site frequently and convert them into a
customer. If your website is struggling to convert, take an honest look
at it. See how you would answer these six questions to determine if you
have a winning website.1. What purpose do your customers want the site to serve?Customers
visit sites for a variety of reasons. Are they coming to yours to learn
more about your business? Do they want to be able to access certain
industry information? Do they want to make a purchase? You don’t always
need a one-site-does-all solution. You may have your branding site as
the primary source of information about your business while linking to
landing pages or micro sites to handle other specific functions for
satisfying your customers’ needs. Knowing why people are visiting your
site will alter the choices you make for the written content, visual
design elements and composition.2. What proof do you provide about your claims?If
Michael Phelps were to boast that he’s the best swimmer of all time, he
has a chest full of 22 gold and silver Olympic medals to prove it. If
you declare that you’re the best at servicing a particular niche or that
your product is far superior to the competition, you need credibility
on your site to back up your claims. Have you won awards? Do you have
testimonials and/or case studies? Do you have results from independent
organizations when testing your products alongside the competitions’?3. Do you have more than one type of ideal customer and does your site effectively speak to each group?There
were 36 sports represented at the Summer Olympics. The marketing for
getting tourists and locals to attend say gymnastics was different than
beach volleyball. The same holds true for your business. It isn’t
uncommon for you to have multiple target audiences. For example, if you
manage a nonprofit for children with autism, you likely have different
types of visitors that you want attract to your site and engage, from
the parents of children on the autism spectrum, to donors, and possibly
even medical professionals. If this is the case, does your website
design include imagery, copy, and calls to action for each of these
specific groups? Each segment has specific interests and desires. You
can’t create one effective marketing message that will speak to each of
these.4. Is your site easy to navigate and understand?The
average website has less time than it takes Usain Bolt to run the 100
meter dash to capture the attention of new visitors. Effective websites
have copy that speak predominately in “you” and “your” terms instead of
“we”, “I” or “us” and they drop as much of the industry lingo as
possible (unless that’s what attracts your ideal customers). People
don’t buy what they don’t understand. Second, sites that are hard to
navigate because of look, layout, and functionality increase their
“bounce” rate. A “bounce” is when people show up and quickly “bounce”
back to wherever they came from prior to your site instead of clicking
through to other pages. Your website design should make it easy for
visitors to find the information or solution they’re looking for in just
a couple of clicks.5. How easy is it for your visitors to contact you?Does
your site have one method for people to connect with you on a plain
Contact Us page or do you include multiple methods, from phone, to
email, to fax, an easy to use form that are posted on several places on
your site and links to your social media profiles? If your site’s
visitors want to get a hold of you, make it easy for them. Accessibility
often improves the perception of credibility and increases your
likability, which is critical for converting visitors into customers.6. Do you know how to design your site for human visitors and search engine spiders?If
trying to win over customers wasn’t challenging enough, in today’s Web
2.0 world, your site needs to compete on multiple fronts. What gets your
site noticed and ranked by the search engines versus that which
attracts your ideal customers and gets them to take action isn’t always
the same thing. An effective website design requires a team effort
between a SEO specialist, professional copywriter, graphic designer, and
a web developer.For more information about what’s involved in
creating an effective website design worthy of an award, contact us
online or call us at (410) 366-9479 ext. 2#.

Article Tags:
Website Design

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dina Wasmer is President of Incite Creative, a
marketing and graphic design firm that provides offline and online
brand-building services and strategies for small-to-middle-market
businesses and non-profit organizations in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Additionally, Dina is an adjunct professor at the University of
Baltimore teaching typography and graphic design principles. For more
information, log onto www.incitecreativeinc.com or contact dina@incitecreativeinc.com