press releases

designing your website

by Tessa Denison, Creative Director, Denison Design Ltd

published in Surrey Advertiser, 13th October 2006

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? In addition, all websites need to be updated and improved regularly, not only to keep them looking fresh and modern, but to keep customers returning and aid search engines. The challenge is that small companies may not have a significant online budget. However, the good news is that there are several simple methods of maximising the efficiency and effectiveness of a website, while keeping control of that budget.

Firstly, you need to catch and retain your web visitor. The fact is that from landing on the home page you have around three seconds to capture your audience before they lose interest and click off to another site. Therefore, it is critical that the website looks attractive and compels potential customers to stay. Unless your website does this it is not achieving its main objective.

Once you have attracted your potential customer, you then need to ensure that the most important information can be easily accessed, and this should always be with just one click from the home page and any other page on the site. Anything more and visitors may dismiss it as ‘too much hassle’, so navigation has to be clear and straightforward.

Websites should be constructed according to "web standards" guidelines, using valid HTML & Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS enables the web developer to separate the appearance or style of the web page from its structure and content. Producing websites in such a way makes them much easier and more cost effective to update, which is vital for an effective site. It looks incredibly unprofessional if any information on a website is out dated. It also significantly improves the download time and offers better accessibility to disabled users. Using "web standards" also improves search engine optimisation (SEO) of the website which is the key to customers finding the site.

SEO itself should be considered before beginning to design a site in order to keep the costs down – clearly a priority with a small company. Search engines are the main method of directing traffic to your website, making it important to get a website listed near the top of a search results list. Small companies are in no way disadvantaged with this, but do need to ensure that content is updated on the site regularly, and key words are carefully integrated into body copy to help achieve this.

Contact information on the website is crucial and it is important that all of the necessary information is clear and easy to find. This includes a contact name, phone number, address and e-mail. Without these, it is not easy for the potential customer to contact you. It is amazing how many websites have a ‘contact us form’ and no phone number. Let your customers choose how to contact you – you may find they prefer the telephone!

Lastly, branding on the website must be consistent, matching the existing look and feel and company house style. The website needs to reinforce and strengthen the brand rather than confuse the customer.

On the whole, designing a website is a complex task, and it is advisable to hire a professional to complete the job for you, as this will deliver the best results. The actual design of the website is the most important aspect and professional designers do not need to be expensive providing they are briefed properly. Often, they will be able to suggest ways to actually minimise the costs, as well as providing other useful information such as contacts like photographers for example.