In the modern era, since the advent of the internet as we know it, business has found a new enclave to colonize in the search for increased custom and exposure. Websites are now powerful sources of data, providers of new consumers, and communicators of a business’ central values, services and products. It’s no wonder, then, that smart and savvy web design has become something of a holy grail for businesses small and large looking to get the edge in a competitive marketplace: here are some reasons how excellent web design delivers results.
The Hook
At its base, the internet and the webpage are a new medium upon which to communicate visually with local, regional, national and international consumers or clients. Unlike the poster, the newspaper piece or even the television advertisement, websites are a quite unique, enhanced and interactive platform with which to hook in new customers. The best web designers are aware of this, sculpting cutting-edge and exciting corners of the internet that glue prospective internet users to certain sites.
Businesses’ first port of call on the internet is just that: to keep the average visitor on the site for longer than a matter of seconds. With attention spans declining and the near-infinite distractions out there on the world wide web, this is no easy task. It’s for this reason why efficient and clever web design, utilizing the most popular and exciting information presentation techniques, is exactly what web designers and web design companies like Globalgraphics offer businesses looking to set their websites apart from the pack.
Visual Communication
The next task of any well-designed website is to communicate with those browsing its contents, using theoretical rules of design engagement and psychological know-how to best get your information across without forcing the viewer to read lengthy paragraphs of text. Think symbols and logos, infographics and videos, anything that means effortless information consumption for the end-user, which means they’ll not only stay on your site but begin to explore in search of the service or product that brought them there in the first place.
The experience and knowledge of experts in this area help. They know the specific arrangement of the visual hierarchy, and how it will determine what the eye is drawn to and therefore how the viewer navigates the site, whether they need more information from the ‘about us’ section or they know exactly what’s on offer from the front page. It’s a specific skill set that’s well worth outsourcing to enhance your web-based offerings.
Marketing
The web has produced a whole new (and rapidly growing) form of advertising: digital marketing. The rules of the game have been reinvented in recent years, with Google’s powerful algorithms determining the order of search results and analytics informing businesses how they’re performing on these metrics. Web designers know the tricks that’ll propel your website up the listings so that it’s not languishing on the sixth page of results, instead of drawing in a lot more traffic and thus profits.
Above and beyond this form of marketing, there’s plenty more that web design gurus can build into your website to make your brand more visible on the internet. These include linking the site to other sites in partnerships or helping you construct content pages that keep your site relevant and active so that prospective clients or customers aren’t put off by what may seem a derelict website, no longer offering their services.
Navigation
Plenty of businesses do not simply provide one product or service: they deal in a multitude of things. Even if you’re a proud producer of a unique type of jam, and you’re setting up a website, it’s not just a case of setting up your online store and hoping people navigate through to it with ease. You’ll instead need to include a certain set of ‘standard’ pages such as the ‘about’ and ‘contact us’ pages, which are crucial for an efficient and well set-up website. Determining what pages you include and how exactly you want browsers to find their way through it can be a difficult, abstract job at the best of times.
Experienced web design companies, such as Parxavenue.ca, have both the technological know-how and the knowledge of the architecture of the internet that’ll help you display your business on a website that doesn’t frustrate users, end in dead-ends or a feeling of simply being lost. Getting these specialists on board for their navigational prowess is a savvy business maneuver when you consider all the traffic that you can lose if your website isn’t the slickest, easiest-to-use platform on the web.
Multi-Platform Use
There’s an added nuance with modern websites: they must be mobile and tablet-friendly. Web design whizzes are particularly good at constructing the code that converts everything you see on your laptop screen to the size of a phone or tablet screen without compromising on the quality of the message or the usability of the site. Beyond the free sites that do this for you, you’ll need specialists in coding to help produce the goods when it comes to catering for people who browse sites on their smaller devices, which is a growing proportion of web users.
Not only will the website have to shrink down to the size of a business card, but it’ll also have to have some form of scroll function, as well as buttons that are easy to locate without scrolling frantically horizontally and vertically in search of the next navigational cue. Again, this takes not only coding prowess but an understanding of how phone users expect to be able to find information. Without this understanding, users will, on the whole, simply give up. After all, why trust a website that can’t even lead you to the page you’re looking for on your mobile phone?
The many intricacies and nuances that contribute to a well-constructed, easily-navigable and attractive website are best found in companies that specialize in this area. Without their help, you’ll lose face and lose customers because your website will appear and feel tacky, second-rate and untrustworthy: all terrible impressions to give a potential client or customer.
