In the current market environment, all businesses rely on website design, to a greater or lesser extent. Every type of business, from RV sales to automobile manufacturing, has to have a firm and clear place online if they hope to succeed. This isn’t only a sensible idea for making a profit. It’s just good marketing. It expands brand awareness and makes it clear what type of brand you’re representing. That sort of effort can be tough. It was difficult before the spread of digital media and it’s even harder now. Breaking through the sheer level of professional and social noise on the internet can be extremely difficult. But a good website design can help any business clarify all parts of its message, from natural parks sites that want to make their campsite layout design clear to florists who want to advertise just what kind of flowers they sell, even to travel and tourism websites. It’s all in the methodology of digital marketing. Here a few tips and tricks to getting the right message across.
- Link placement
This might sound trivial, especially when it comes to overall layout and design but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The location of the links on a professional website dictates nothing more or less than the entirety of the information that will be conveyed to the consumer. The first thing any person going to the website will see is the physical layout of the links on the screen. This will be their first indication of exactly what kind of business they are working with. And that first impression counts . They will make a decision about what kind of business it is and, more importantly, how it is run just from those few moments. A national parks website, for instance, is going to want their most important information presented first- campsite layout design, utilities available, recreational activities nearby. They need to prioritize what people need to see, hence campsite layout design, safety, etc. Likewise, an RV web design would want to want show what kind of RVs are offered and information pertaining to each type of RV in question. This is the age of the short attention span. There’s no judgement call there, that’s just the way it is. People want their information fast and easy and there’s no better way to drive away a potential clientele than the irresponsible placement of links and information. Put it easy to find and right out front. IT’s surprising how often businesses forget to do this.
Presentation
This is another oft-overlooked problem with professional website design. There’s no direct rule stating that a site needs to look new but consumers will be initially leery of any website that looks older than five to ten years. Just as a brick-and-mortar store is going to suffer if it looks like it hasn’t been maintained in a decade, online businesses are going to suffer or go under if they look like they were designed before the modern streamlining of the contemporary digital internet. This goes for all types of businesses, again from national parks trying to convey campsite layout design to an RV park just trying to show how much space it has. Staying contemporary is key. This can be difficult in such a fast-paced electronic landscape but there’s no understating how important it is. Every professional website should be updated once a year, if the resources are available. That’s just a careful standard.
Impressions
Really, these two factors together, link location and fashionable appearance, are both aspects of the same thing. They are both micro-problems that fall under the larger impression of general impression. Impression is going to make or break an website. This is true every single time without exception. First impressions are hard to shake, even in real life. Consumers get an idea within one to five seconds of what kind of business they are dealing with when looking at a website. Within that time, they’ll make the decision about to whether to transact with that business or not. Use that time wisely.