Web Design and Web Designers

While you are carrying out your website design you should put yourself in the position of a visitor to your site and look at it from their point of view. If you are able to do this you will give yourself a good idea of the weak and good points of your website, which will enable you to improve your site in a way that will generate more traffic to it.

Web design is a highly important aspect and has many functions such as giving your website more of a chance to appear in the top spots in the search engine results and as a means of drawing more visitors into your website; however getting people to click on your URL is just the first step, after this you have to get them to stay there long enough for them to use your business. Without good website design no one will stay on your site for longer than a few seconds. You need a website that is visually appealing and functional; you might have the most beautifully designed site ever but if you have poor navigation you are losing out on thousands of customers.

The navigation of your site is so important to its usability. Someone is much more likely to use a website that is easy to navigate but not that pleasing on the eye as oppose to a site that is graphically stunning but impossible to navigate. My point here is that web design comes down to a lot more than just being nice to look at. Your design covers the structure of your site. So when you are designing the navigation of your site remember that you need to ensure that links are consistent throughout your site and that your main navigation bar is present on all of your websites pages. This makes your website user friendly and will mean people are more likely to stick around long enough on your site to buy your products or services.

One thing that you should avoid when you are designing your website is clutter. This is essential when it comes to the layout of your web design. All of the text and pictures that you are using within your website should be placed carefully and any links that you have placed on a page of your website should be highlighted so that people know exactly where to click. If you have a global market, your web design should include buttons where translations for your web pages are available.

Going back to the idea of text and graphics on your site you need to ensure that the text that you have placed on your site is the right amount to get your message across; you need to sum up aspects of your business in a few words. Once you have done this you need to place your text on the site, which should be placed in a separate colour to the background of your site. The graphics on your website should be neatly placed and not overpowering. They should draw your eye into the text that is placed on your site.

Building a website can be a demanding job for beginners, which is why if you are going to create a website for your business that you should enlist the help of a web designer who will be able to design your website with experience, at a faster pace and in a way that will broaden your horizons with the best way of approaching web design. By enlisting the help of a professional you are giving your online business the best possible chance.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who can provide you with specialist Web Design for all of your needs.

How to approach Web Design

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don’t change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn’t fit the purpose of your site or that doesn’t reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

How to approach Web Design

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don’t change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn’t fit the purpose of your site or that doesn’t reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

How to approach Web Design

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don’t change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn’t fit the purpose of your site or that doesn’t reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

Are you looking for the perfect Web Design?

Every day worldwide millions of people log onto the Internet for business, entertainment and information. Anyone who has a website will cover one of these three aspects, which brings me to the point of web design. If you want your website to be found and used by the general public then you will have to have a site that is designed to appeal to your users.

There are many ways that you can entice someone to do business with you such as offering them a cheaper service than your competitors but on the Internet if you want someone to do business with you then your website needs to be user friendly and designed in a way that will make people stay on your site long enough to buy the products or services that are on offer to them.

The design of your website is more important than many people realise and often people design their sites with the wrong people in mind. A lot of people when they are first setting up their website will design their site in a way that appeals to them and in a way that they feel best reflects the business; this is the first mistake to make. When you are designing your website you need to do so with your target market in mind. You need to identify who you are aiming your website at, for example if you are aiming your site at a younger audience then your website should be quite funky and can include more flash as this will draw your audience in. If however the products or services that your business offers can apply to anyone of any age, such as mobile phones, you have to be careful when it comes to the design of your site as you need to design it in a way that will apply to all members of the public. The best way to go about doing this is by keeping your site simple and using neutral colours.

Your website needs to promote your business, you need to make people get involved in your business merely by the design that you have used. This may sound like a difficult thing to do but when you know how you can go about this with no problem at all.

When you are designing your website you should use limited colour and coordinate your website. As well as this you also need to remember that you need good unique content that is original. Your web content is the backbone of your website and it should be search engine friendly. You need to make sure that your site is easily readable and easily accessible for your visitors.

The design of your website can be the difference between your business being a success online and your business being a failure. You need to make sure that any phone numbers are placed in the top right hand corner under the sites logo and that your contact page should be clearly labelled. All of your pages should navigate to each other and the back to the main home page.

If you are struggling to get your site designed then you should enlist the help of a professional web design company to get the design done for you.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who offer professional Web Design and Web Hosting services as well as all of your Search Engine Optimisation needs.

Web design – re-design or new site

Web design describes the process of planning, modelling and the execution of elements such as text, images and forms, which are placed on your website using HTML/XML tags.

A web design typically consists of the layout of text and images on a page and the way in which web pages are linked together using a navigation menu composed of hyperlinks. Designing a web site can be defined as the arrangement and creation of these web pages.

As well as the basics such as the text and images that appear on a web site, web design can also be the placement of more complex media such as graphics, animation, videos and sound. In order to carry out these aspects of a web design you need to have access to plug-ins such as Flash, Quick-Time or Java; these need to be embedded within your web site.

Some of the basic aspects of web design include:

• The content - substance and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
• The usability - should be user-friendly with the interface and navigation being simple and reliable.
• The appearance - the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. It should be professional, appealing and relevant.
• The visibility - the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines and advertisement media.

Once the design of a website has been completed you must ‘publish’ or upload your website in order for it to be viewable to the public via the Internet. The main and best way of doing this is by using an FTP client. Once published, the web master may use a variety of techniques to increase the traffic, or hits, that the web site receives. This may include submitting the web site to a search engine such as Google or Yahoo, exchanging links with other web sites, creating affiliations with similar web sites, etc.

Depending on the background of a web design your website may be focused on how it looks rather than how it works. Web developers who have a background in graphic arts many pay more attention to how the site looks rather than considering issues such as how a visitor will find your site i.e. through the search engines. It is because of this that web designers and SEO assistants often don’t see eye to eye on how a website should be designed. SEO assistants will want the site to be text rich where as web designers will want to use more pretty graphics. As a web designer when you are thinking about this you should remember the purpose of the website and ensure that the design reflects this.

If you have recently purchased a website and are in need of some help with the design of it you should always enlist the help of a professional to help you achieve the look that you are after.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, experts and professionals in all areas of Web Design.

How to design a site that will attract traffic?

Are you planning on having a professional website built for your business and would like to know the best way to design a site that will attract traffic? There is little point building a website that looks great but is not search engine friendly as you will never get found. You don’t want to spend hundreds of pounds on a flashy website if no-one will ever find it. The best advice is to have a website built with SEO (search engine optimisation) in mind or spend as little as possible on a website but as much as you can on SEO or site promotion.

Here are a few points that need to be considered when having a website built:

Download speed – fast download or people with not stay
Search engine friendliness (SEO) – without, your site will be like needle in a haystack
Simple Navigation
Simple colour schemes (not multi coloured)
Ease of updating the site
Contact details on every page

The above points should be remembered and made clear to your web designer. When users visit your website they expect to find the information they are after quickly and easily. They will also expect your home page to be interesting and self explanatory of what your website is about. Visitors will not stay long if they believe that your site is not offering what they are looking for.

There are known hot spots in web sites and one of them is having your contact telephone number on every page at the top right each page. Also a form on every page is important, especially if you have more than 5 pages. Professional websites often have hundreds of pages to draw in traffic, each of these pages will be consistent with the rest of the design and the phone number and a contact form on each page.

Download time is another important issue. You need to make sure you website downloads to a browser in 15 seconds or less. Most people will click away if they have to wait longer than 15 seconds. Generally a website with just text will take only a couple of seconds to download. It’s when there are large images or flash files that take time to download. A website designed in Flash might look great but a search engine cannot read it, so will ignore it as they will ignore images. If you must have images and obviously some images are needed to give a page an interesting look, then ensure you describe the pictures with alt tags.

Navigation is an important factor in good web design. When a visitor comes to your site as well as being obvious what the site offers it should be really obvious and easy to navigate. An ideal website should be built so that the visitor is only ever 2 clicks away from what they are looking for. Generally most of us are used to sites having a logo at the top with page navigation either at the top of down the side. It is best to sick to this layout and ensures you have consistency throughout the website. When a visitor goes to one of your pages it helps if they know how to get back and if all pages are consistent with regards to the layout they will know where pages are without having too think much about it.

Text colours should be used as little as possible, obviously a colour scheme is important in making the overall look nice but the use of too many colours is very off putting. Stick to 2 or 3 colours only. Colours are useful for making points stand out which is useful. Text is very important as this is all the search engines can read. Search engines are just programs which analyse the text on the page. So you need to ensure you have plenty explanatory text. Use bullet points and hyperlinks within the text also as visitors will just of glaze over the most of the text but click on parts that are most interesting to them.

Search engines like websites that are constantly being updated and not just left stationary, so it’s important to have a site that you can easily update. If you have a shopping kart you might sell out of a product or have new products to add. Except for those proficient in HTML and other programming languages people will need a type of content management system (CMS) so they can edit a site. This can be costly but in the long run will save you. If you don’t have a CMS then you will have to use a web development company to do your updates for you, the cost will differ depending on the company but most will not work for less that £25 an hour. Over weeks and months this will build up so it is worth have the site built so that you can do all these changes yourself.

With regards to SEO it is worth finding a competent company to promote your site for you. But for those wanting to have a go themselves here are a few pointers:

If you want your site to be listed on the front page for a keyword like for example ‘computer repair’ then you need to have a page totally dedicated to those keywords, the title of the page needs to be computer repair, the body of the text need to have a high density of the keywords ‘computer repair’. As well as good keyword rich text you also need to have other websites linking to your page. This is like a popularity vote and Google will see your page as being popular and important with regards to the keywords of ‘computer repair’. Now before you go off getting links to your newly optimised keyword rich pages you must be realistic. Do a search for your chosen keywords. If there are over 20 million results, it will take a lot more than what I have just explained to get you there, even for 2 million results it could take some time. You need to find a keyword phrase that is less competitive. For instance, if your computer repair shop is in Kent then you can only really help those in your area so you should be targeting keyword phrases like ‘Computer repair in Maidstone’ or ‘Computer repair in Ashford’ and so on, covering each town in Kent. All of these phrases are very obtainable and would only take a few weeks to get there.

If you choose to find an SEO company be very careful, there are many sharks out there which offer the impossible. No SEO company can guarantee high rankings because a) search engines algorithms are always changing, b) they do not know what your competitors are doing c) some key phrases are just too competitive (sites have been optimised for those keywords for years and years - so there will be no knocking them off the top). If your competitors are paying over £1000 a month on promotion and your only have a budget of £100 a month, then your SEO company will find it hard to compete. I recommend finding attainable key phrases and working on as many different variations as you can afford. Also ensure your SEO Company can prove they can get result by asking for case studies. It can take between 6 and 9 months of promotion before you start seeing any real results.

Carolyn is the SEO Manager of Discount Domains Ltd, experts in Professional Web Design and Search Engine Marketing

www.richardjarvis.co.uk

Richard Jarvis is a very enthusiatic and talented web designer. He has been studing in the field of design for over 5 years and now works as a competent web designer. During his first years at university he was elected student representitive which involved attending regular meetings and communicationg concerns with to senior lecturers.

He enjoys sport and plays football often. He love music especially indie and rock and believes music plays an important role in today society.

His main interest in design is flash development and created many great sites with in flash.

For more information visit Richard Jarvis

Importance of Good Web Design

Importance of Good Web Design

Author: Sean McGill

The passion of World Wide Web keep growing and growing these days. Business realizes the benefits of being on the web in the present time. If we want to build and expand our business in world wide then its essential for us to make a good web site, so that people can easily visits our website and came to know about our business and our product and our services.

It is said that first impression is the last impression and your website is the first impression to your target potential customers. The impression created by your website in visitor mind so its important to make a good website for first impression on our visitor’s mind so that they revisit our site in the future.The following rules summarize the work of web design experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of web design. In designing the web pages for a website you should adhere to following rules:1. About Pages: Your website must contain following pages: Feedback is necessary to obtain the suggestions of your visitors.• Contact us is necessary to establish a relation between you and your visitors.

You should provide your E-MAIL so as visitors should feel that will be given full support.• About us page should be included in order to publish the information about your organization. This information could be year of setup, country from which you operate etc.• Home page should be included where links to all the other pages should be provided and the link to Home page should also be given from all the other pages.2. Neat which means that site should not be overcrowded with too many links.3. Attractive means that the color selection for WebPages should be as such that it should look nice.

The background color should be light and the design should be able to catch visitor attention at first look.4. Professional means that unwanted contents should be avoided and all like contents should be placed in proper headings in pages. At first site it should be able to show the visitor their interests for joining your website.5. Small size of WebPages means that too much flashy content in desire to make webpage look attractive would increase the size which will cause delay in opening at client site. And the visitors will simply avoid surfing these types of websites. So too much unnecessary flashy content should be avoided.6. Text: Choice of words does not matter what matters is appearance of words in WebPages. Dark texts in light background will be an impressive scheme while dark background unable the visitor to read the text.

Those fonts should be chosen which are easily available on every computer. Some of fonts are: Times New Roman, Arial, Courier and Garamond. In the case visitor do not have required font installed on their computer your message will not visible n their computer and which will lose their interest in surfing your website.7. Grammar: You should be careful in text you write that you should not commit any spelling mistakes that will show your inefficiency. You should check it twice before finalizing the content for your website. You should not make grammatical mistakes as well.A professional web design company has the design skills and online marketing experience and know-how to create a website that will be an optimum selling tool in the world’s biggest sales market.

Sean McGillThe author is Business Head for The Web Design Company www.webdesigningcompany.net, and is into web-design, development and Search Engine optimization.

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Web Design in Manchester

Web Design in Manchester

Author: Carolyn Clayton

Manchester is the capital of the county of Lancashire and is the largest city in the North West England. It is located 200 miles northwest of London and 30 miles from Liverpool. It has three premier league football teams, Manchester United and Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers. One of its major sports stadiums the Old Trafford is home to Manchester United which is the most famous football club in the world. The other major sports stadium is home to Lancashire County Cricket Club.

The 2002 Commonwealth Games, were hosted in Manchester which boosted tourism and visitorsGreater Manchester boasts over 50 museums and galleries and has the largest concentration of theatres in the UK outside London. It contains the UK’s largest university which has over 30,000 students. The attraction to Manchester for students began in the 80’s when many bands from Manchester were making headlines. Bands such as The Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Smiths and Oasis all made their mark on Manchester around this time and this gave Manchester University the highest population of Students in the UK.If you live in the Manchester area and have a business and are thinking having a website designed for your company then you need think about a few important factors. Do you have a domain name? Do you need hosting? What is your budget?

Do you need an ecommerce website with a shopping trolley to sell products? Will you need to update your site yourself in the future? Once you have answered these questions you can then go about finding a good company that offer all of these services. Finding a competent company that has a portfolio of work is very helpful. You can look through their portfolio and see some of the websites they have designed for previous customers. The eCommerce design is very important to the success of any web site. You want to be sure that your website is designed right. One of the first things you notice about a website is whether it is pleasant to the eye. Bright flashing coloured text is very off putting as is a flash intro. A very important key is to make sure your site loads quickly.

You will loose a great deal of customers if your pages take over 5 seconds to load. It is a lot easier if you can find a company that can do everything for you. A company that can sell you the domain name as well as the hosting. Some hosting companies also offer web design which would make the whole experience a lot easier. Dealing with the same people for your domain name, hosting, email, web design makes the who process a lot easier. For one you only need one contact telephone number. A company with good customer support is a must. Not all companies offer this and this and it can be very frustrating. You want to know that if you have any trouble you can just call for customer support or technical support.

Carolyn Clayton is the webmaster for Discount Domains ltd a leading UK Domain Name Registration, Web Hosting and Website Design Company. Contact Discount Domains for a free quote for Manchester web design

This article is free for republishingSource: http://www.articlealley.com

Telford Web Design

Telford Web design

Author: Carolyn Clayton

Telford is a great place for people to visit as well as live and work. The town is very modern and is in sharp contrast to the surrounding countryside Shropshire.

Telford was designated a new town in 1963 and was originally developed to alleviate the over population in Birmingham and the Black Country. Telford is now widely known as ‘the cradle of the industrial revolution’; Ironbridge is a World Heritage Site and is visited by thousands of people from all over the world every year. With 10 museums including Blist Hill Victorian Town, Enginuity, Coalbrookdale Musuem of Iron, Jackfield Tile Museum and Coalport China Museum. All of these museums will give you a great insight into the history of the industrial revolution. Telford’s central location makes it a perfect base for exploring the regions many attractions. The M54 motorway runs right through the town linking Telford with the M6 and the rest of the UK’s motorway network. It is a modern town with great shopping and business facilities.

There are many wonderful places to visit in and around Telford and the town is and is recognised as an important growth point in the West Midlands region. If you live in the Telford area and have a business and are thinking having a website designed for your company then you need think about a few important factors. Do you have a domain name? Do you need hosting? What is your budget? Do you need an ecommerce website with a shopping trolley to sell products? Will you need to update your site yourself in the future? Once you have answered these questions you can then go about finding a good company that offer all of these services.

Finding a competent company that has a portfolio of work is very helpful. You can look through their portfolio and see some of the websites they have designed for previous customers.The eCommerce design is very important to the success of any web site. You want to be sure that your website is designed right. One of the first things you notice about a website is whether it is pleasant to the eye. Bright flashing coloured text is very off putting as is a flash intro. A very important key is to make sure your site loads quickly. You will loose a great deal of customers if your pages take over 5 seconds to load. It is a lot easier if you can find a company that can do everything for you. A company that can sell you the domain name as well as the hosting.

Some hosting companies also offer web design which would make the whole experience a lot easier. Dealing with the same people for your domain name, hosting, email, web design makes the who process a lot easier. For one you only need one contact telephone number. A company with good customer support is a must. Not all companies offer this and this and it can be very frustrating. You want to know that if you have any trouble you can just call for customer support or technical support.

Carolyn Clayton is the webmaster for Discount Domains LTD, a leading UK Domain Name registration, web hosting and website design company. Contact Discount Domains for a free quote on great for Telford web design
This article is free for republishingSource: http://www.articlealley.com

Great Design Elevates Web Sites

Great Design Elevates Web Sites Above The Rest by: Ricardo Vidallon

If it doesn’t read quickly, It doesn’t work.

This rule applies to everyone -- from the lofty creative director to the junior designer to the boss who employs them. By "read" I mean a viewer’s ability to comprehend the advertisement or message in less than three seconds. That’s right! You have only three seconds to convey your message. If you have not successfully captured your reader or viewer by then, they will simply move on. Whether you're on TV or the Web, you are one simple click away from being ignored. In print, you're one turn away. Good design is essential whether you're creating a church newsletter or developing a multi-million dollar ad campaign for TV.

Reading broadcast and the Internet

Try this at home. Turn your TV to a news channel like CNN or MSNBC and mute the sound. Do the visuals communicate without sound? News channels rely heavily on graphics and visuals to tell their stories. The same is exceedingly true for the Web. The only exception is that the Web is user driven. That means your Web site visitor must click and navigate around your Web site to browse its information.

Does your navigation “read” well? Do your photos and graphics communicate quickly and clearly? If not, your site may be getting passed over by disinterested visitors.

Design is all around us. It permeates our lives from the subliminal to the intentional. The keyboard you’re typing on and the mouse you’re clicking were first developed and conceived by an industrial design team. The chair you’re sitting in was developed by an ergonomics design team. The box your chair was shipped in and its printing was developed by an advertising packaging team.

Design is critical to successfully selling your product to the public. Your Web site is literally your storefront or advertisement to the world. Make sure it’s designed to invite, inform and intrigue.
Do not covet thy neighbor’s concept

People tend to covet what they see. I know this because clients frequently bring me their ideas, hopes and dreams. And many times they’re of Web site concepts they’ve seen elsewhere. This is good creative fuel for inspiration, but it’s best to create a concept from the core of your own business branding.

Innovate, don’t regurgitate. Consult a design professional who will collaborate with you in building a Web site concept that conveys your message. A great concept leaves a memorable impression.

Here’s an example. Let’s say client “A” sells shoes. Simple enough. Post the logo, Web copy and pictures of some great looking shoes. Maybe even some bold, snazzy sales copy like, “Super Sale on Brown Shoes”. Client “B” decides to take a different approach. He gets a photo of a businessman in a nice suit with his legs crossed at a meeting, exposing the bottom of one of his shoes. The exposed shoe sole has a hole in it. That’s a concept!

Template Web site services

Companies that offer template Web services are fine for businesses on a shoestring budget, but be advised, what you see is not necessarily what you get. These are “closed template” systems that do not offer much scalability in terms of customization. That means your Web site will have a cookie-cutter appearance that does little to help you stand out among your competitors. These Web sites are a breeding ground for bad design, especially when it comes to typography. Use of type styles by itself is one of the purist forms of design.

Get to the goal
Get online and look at your competitors. Make a list of goals that you wish to achieve with your new Web site or your redesigned Web site. Prioritize your list and invite multiple Web design companies to bid for your project. Be sure to ask them about their design process. Ask questions such as: Does your price include multiple design concepts? If so, how many designs and revisions am I allowed? In the end, you want a Web site that you can talk about enthusiastically and take great pride in. After all, it’s you storefront 24/7 on the Internet.

About The Author

Ricardo Vidallon is owner and creative director for http://www.visionefx.net a Virginia based web design company.

Effective Business Web Design

Effective Business Web Design

Author: amit khemka

Since gaining momentum in the mid-nineties, the web design paradigm has come a long way. Over the years, the concept of web design has evolved several folds. Today, a website is more than a publicity stunt, it has become an extension of the brand, a window for prospective customers to peep in, a channel for seamless integration of business models with consumer demands and an irrefutable and effective source of targeted marketing.

The major role of a website is focused on creating global awareness for a company or individuals’ products and services. An effective business web design is one which conveys the true essence of an organizations’ products and services to a global audience as well as deliver value in terms of transmitting complete product information in various formats to prospective customers. As modern websites grow more and more complex, delivering value added services to website visitors and the need to create intelligent and robust web based applications is growing by the day.The days of creating huge graphical templates with little information seems to be over. Today’s internet audience demands quality information and content. Realizing this, many of the popular global brands have restructured their websites to offer quality content in the form of information, entertainment and freebies for download.A website which is not visible on the search engines is hardly of any use. Adding effective content solves the dual purpose of attracting traffic and gaining good positions on internet search engines.

The purpose for designing a website varies from company to company. Some do it for selling their products and services, some for brand promotion, some for offering effective customer support and some do it just for the sake of doing it. Before getting a website designed, it is imperative to clearly layout the mission and vision of the web presence and create content accordingly. Also, it is crucial to keep updating the website on a regular basis because stale content cannot invite repeat visits.For companies delivering their products and services online, it is imperative to have an effective ecommerce system on their website whereby prospective customers can review, choose, buy and procure products and services easily and without any physical intervention. Products and services that are backed by strong informative details, usage instructions and other relevant data often attract more attention and interest than those without information.

The trick is in the way information is presented. When people visit commercial websites, their tendency is to spend as little time as possible on the website. It is upto the website owners to create such compelling content which keeps visitors “stuck” to the website, enhancing the chances of making a sale or an enquiry.For companies seeking brand promotion through their website, it is important to place entertaining or informative content on the website. The idea is to bring visitors to the website and make them recollect the brand when they go for shopping in the physical world.

To do this, visitors must be retained on the website for longer times and make them keep coming back to the website. To meet this objective many companies offer free downloads, contests, games and other sticky materials on their websites.For those who want to have a website just because others have it, my suggestion is to rather spend the money on a sumptuous dinner in a hotshot eatery.This article is free for republishing Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com

Outsourcing SEO

Outsourcing SEO - Web Designers Take Note!

Author: Ben Kemp
Web design and search engine optimisation are two quite different disciplines, and usually people specialise in either one or the other, but rarely in both.However, there are synergies and consequent opportunities for strategic partnerships and alliances...A great many web sites are launched every year, and during site creation, SEO requires extra effort and consequent additional costs. For that reason, many site owners opt to not do SEO at the outset, but will find it necessary to address SEO later - when site traffic and sales revenues do not match initial expectations.

The SEO Outsourcing OptionWeb design companies lacking in-house SEO skills should seriously consider outsourcing professional SEO services to offer to their existing clients. Forming an alliance with a reputable SEO practitioner is a sound decision for multiple reasons;- Gain client respect by guiding your clients to a good service provider- Facilitate implementation of the required site amendments with least risk to site integrity- Gain some additional billable hours inserting changes- Generate additional commission income on SEO work done on the site Many SEO firms have already developed and offer an incremental range of competitively-priced SEO services, and actively market their SEO outsourcing service on a commission basis e.g.;- You quote the SEO companies price to your clients and you bill the client once work is completed- SEO company supplies the webmaster (usually you) with the SEO amendments to insert- On completion, the SEO company bills you the previously quoted amount, less the commission.Most professional SEO practitioners are willing and able to work cooperatively with any web designer or web site developer seeking to outsource SEO reseller services for their clients.Their general preference to offer SEO services on a fixed price basis. This presents clients with a known quantity for budgetary purposes.

The SEO Imperative…To any business enterprise hoping for significant Internet-based sales, it’s imperative that prospective clients can actually find the web site. Many business / client relationships commence through contact established via search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.The prospective client seeks a product by searching for a specific keyword or phrase. If the site doesn’t rank in the Top 30 results, it has minimal chance of achieving success as barely 10% of searchers will go to (or past) the 3rd page of results. If they don’t find what they want on the 1st or 2nd page, the majority will either refine their search term, or go to a different search engine.Search Engine Optimisation is all about marketing a web site more effectively, with the goal of improving the site's exposure to customers and clients on the Internet.

I’ve been practicing SEO since bG (before Google); back when Alta Vista, Excite, Hotbot and Northern Light ruled the search engine world. There have been many changes in that time – in fact, the only thing that is constant is change! SEO Return On Investment…In terms of the potential results for your clients, reflect a moment on the fact that there is a great deal of competition for rankings on the search engines. Not ensuring that a site is properly optimised dooms to mediocrity. The “return on investment” for SEO is usually very good indeed.No-Risk Test of SEO ServicesIf you are considering outsourcing SEO services, here’s a suggestion. Ask each of the companies you contact if they are prepared to put their money where their mouth is… by doing a Basic SEO project for one of your clients on a “no cure, no pay” basis.

Tell them you’d like a demonstration of their ability to deliver results, on one of your client’s sites. Pick a “normal” site whose owner thinks it needs a rankings boost, and provide the SEO company with the required details.Ask them to provide a Search Engine ranking report before commencing the job, and again after completion - if there is not a demonstrable improvement in Top 30 rankings in 6 weeks, the job would be free!I think that a reputable and professional SEO practitioner, confident in his or her ability, will cheerfully agree to this test of their services. The potential opportunities inherent in forging a long-term business alliance with you will outweigh any minor irritation at being required to prove their abilities. As an additional benefit to both you and the SEO company, you could document the entire project and include all the details in your next monthly newsletters!

This would not only give you additional credibility for actively seeking solutions to offer clients, but also solve the problem of what on earth you were going to write up in that next newsletter! This article is free for republishing Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com

Web Design UK

Web Design UK

Author: Adrian Lawrence

Web Design UKIn today’s market, it is essential for every business to have a presence on the web – and the web design of the site is a key factor to the site’s success in boosting the visibility and profitability of the business. The Internet is often the first place that potential customers look when searching for a business to meet their needs, and a well designed, clearly presented and informative website will assure them of the expert service or products available from the business the site promotes.

A web presence also means a global presence – the possibility of reaching customers from all corners of the world, and it also means that regular updates on new services or price specials can be posted to inform customers immediately and effectively. In this way, the web design of an inviting site can be one of business’ biggest assets for success.It is often the case that businesses fear that the cost of high quality web designs will be prohibitive. While more and more people are gaining a clearer understanding of web design and how it works, for many people it just seems too expensive and complicated an option. However, there are many simple and cost-effective web design solutions available that will create a quality site for as little as a few hundred dollars.

Once a site is well designed, maintaining and updating it is often very easy – and most importantly, worth it in terms of the return on a little effort. For a fairly simple site that will feature only basic information, such as the nature of the business, location and perhaps some specials or coupons, it may be a case of investing in some software that will provide templates for creating a simple site-by-numbers. However, for a more vibrant, active site that will fully represent the business online – and possibly allow for an e-commerce capability – it is worth looking to a professional web design company. Many offer competitive deals and the cost will be unquestionably offset by the greater traffic to the site that a professional site can generate.In addition to strong web design, a professional company will also be skilled in SEO – search engine optimization.

Studies have shown that potential customers will rarely explore beyond the first page or two of results generated by a search engine, so it is important to ensure that the site promoting your business will be among the top results. The key here is well-structured web pages and an effective use of the keywords that customers use to search. In general, text-rich pages have been shown to perform better in search engine results, and it is important to hit the right balance between cultivating the optimum search engine results and designing web pages that are easy to read and navigate.

A clear “call to action” button – such as a contact form or “for more information contact” – is important too. Online browsers tend to have very little patience for looking for hard-to-find contact information.For a website to be the most effective marketing and selling tool possible, both the web design and how it is marketed to have a high visibility online presence are important factors to consider. Submitting to search engines, ensuring the site is designed for SEO, and cross linking with relevant sites are all factors that will help to ensure a high web presence for the site, and therefore business. A professional web design company has the design skills and online marketing experience and know-how to create a website that will be an optimum selling tool in the world’s biggest sales market.
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Adrian Lawrence is the webmaster of Discount Domains a leading UK Web Design house. Professional and search engine friendly sites from £299
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This article is free for republishing

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com