When visitors land on the home page there is around three seconds to capture the audience before they lose interest and click off to another site.
These days, there is no denying your website is your ‘shop window to the world’.
Any website will require updating and refreshing from time to time and web design should be looked at as an ongoing process rather than a one-off investment.
Before you talk to any web designers it is critical that you have a clear idea about the purpose and objectives of your new website and come up with a web spec. And this doesn't need to be complicated.
Customers are unlikely to enter a shop where the quality of goods can't be viewed through the window. Similarly, customers are more likely to move through a website site where the merchandise is on show at the start.
On the whole most small companies are online. If your company does not have a web presence you must ask; what impression does this give to potential customers?
by Tessa Denison, Creative Director, Denison Design Ltd
published in Midhurst and Petworth Observer, 19th October 2006
Local web designer, Tessa Denison, has been recognised with a special award at the prestigious Wessex Business Women of the year awards lunch ceremony, held at Oakley Hall, Basingstoke last Friday.
The overall winner of the event was Debbie Boyes, who owns and runs D J Boyes Professional Mortgage Advisors, and has previously been awarded mortgage advisor of the year in a national event. However, as the judging was so close, the event organisers Vitalise, decided to present Tessa Denison with a highly commended award for her outstanding achievements in business.
"I was delighted to receive this award," comments Tessa Denison, creative director and founder of Denison Design. "It makes all the hard work worthwhile, and is a reflection on not only my own effort over the years, but that of my dedicated team."
The Wessex Business women of the Year awards honour women from the West Sussex, Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire areas who have been particularly successful in business and as a result provide other women with positive role models, encouraging them to enter the business arena.
Denison Design designed its first website in 1995 for wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd, and this has been named International Wine Site of the Year for three years running. Since then, the company has gone on to design websites for blue-chip corporates, public sector bodies and smaller companies including Reuters, Wines of Germany, Perrys, the National Portage Association, and Oxford University Press.
"I have always been passionate about design," confirms Denison. "To be recognised in this way for something I am so committed to as part of my work is particularly motivating for both myself and the Denison team. I hope it will also serve to inspire other women to enter the business world."