mammoth web solutions - An Overview
Whether you want a new website designed for your company or are looking to re-design your website, finding the right web design company for your needs is the crucial and first step that will ultimately decide its success or failure. Unless your are an established business with an in-house Web design team the chances are that you will need to either hire a professional web designer or build the website or contract a web design company to do this for you.
Most businesses small or large do not have in-house expertise to design websites themselves and have to contract the work out to an external web design company. The importance of professionally designed website is essential. A poorly designed or an outdated website can have a negative impact on your company's brand and drive customers away to your competitors. A company's website is a window to its services and products and often the first point of contact with customers. It is vital for your website to present the right image and brand for your business.
Should you work with a Web design company or a Freelance Web designer?
Whether your website is designed by an independent contractor or a web design company you will need to consider certain issues before you make the decision. Both working with an independent web designer or a web design company have their advantages. Working with an independent web designer can be cost effective and flexible. Working with web design companies on the other hand may cost more but offers significant advantages. They are represented by a team of web designers who often possess wider skills and experience. Each member of the team will often specialise in a distinct area of website design and development, and will often be able to solve complex business issues with ease. When required or when something goes wrong, working with a web design company will provide your business with easy access to support as and.
When selecting a Web Design Company to design your website, factors to consider
Experience and Skills - Analyse their experience and technical skills. Review the information on their website and marketing material. Better still speak to them personally as often a direct conversation about your project will give you a clear idea of their knowledge and expertise.
Portfolio and case studies - Review and analyse their portfolio or case studies. This is usually available via their website. Reviewing other software or websites designed by the web design company can provide useful information anon their suitability for your project.
A streamlined process with a fast turn around time - Understand the web design company's process to see how it fits with your requirements.
Ask for a detailed proposal outlining costs, timescales and proposed solution. A professional web design company will always submit a detailed proposal outlining theses issues.
One stop shop
Think forward. Determine what other products and services can the web design company offer. If your require web design now chance are you will need additional services in future such as web hosting, search engine marketing, content m management system and so on. It can be daunting and an administrative nightmare to deal with many different companies for different services.
Long term relationship
Focus on building a long term relationship with the web design company. It is better to go for a company that offers timely and excellent support as required. Communicating and analysing the company with them will give you an idea whether the company focus on long term relationship or just a one off sale. Supported service knowing that they will be around should something was to go wrong or if requirements change with time.
By taking time to communicate with the prospective web design company beforehand will enable you to select the right web design company to partner with who will meet your expectations. Finding the right web design company and forming a relationship can be a valuable asset for your business for many years to come.
Whether you want a new website designed for your company or are looking to re-design your website, finding the right web design company for your needs is the first and crucial step that will ultimately decide its success or failure. Unless your are an established business with an in-house Web design team the chances are that you will need to either hire a professional web designer or build the website or contract a web design company to do this for you.
Most businesses large or small do not have in-house expertise to design websites themselves and have to contract the work out to an external web design company. A poorly designed or an outdated website can have a negative impact on your company's brand and drive customers away to your competitors.
Should you work with a Web design company or a Freelance Web designer?
Whether your website is designed by an independent contractor or a web design company you will need to consider certain issues before you make the decision. Both working with an independent web designer or a web design company have their advantages. Working with an independent web designer can be cost effective and flexible. Working with web design companies on the other hand may cost more but offers significant advantages. They are represented by a team of web designers who often possess wider skills and experience. Each member of the team will often specialise in a distinct area of website design and development, and will often be able to solve complex business issues with ease. When required or when something goes wrong, working with a web design company will provide your business with easy access to support as and.
Factors to consider when selecting a Web Design Company to design your website
Experience and Skills - Analyse their experience and technical skills. Review the information on their website and marketing material. Better still speak to them personally as often a direct conversation about your project will give you a clear idea of their knowledge and expertise.
Portfolio and case studies - Review and analyse their portfolio or case studies. This is usually available via their website. Reviewing other software or websites designed by the web design company can provide useful information anon their suitability for your project.
A streamlined process with a fast turn around time - Understand the web design company's process to see how it fits with your requirements.
Ask for a detailed proposal outlining costs, timescales and proposed solution. A professional web design company will always submit a detailed proposal outlining theses issues.
One stop shop
Think forward. Determine what other products and services can the web design company offer. If your require web design now chance are you will need additional services in future such as web hosting, search engine marketing, content m management system and so on. It can be daunting and an administrative nightmare to deal with many different companies for different services.
Long term relationship
Focus on building a long term relationship with the web design company. Analysing the company and communicating with them will give you an idea whether the company focus on long term relationship or just a one off sale.
By taking time to communicate with the prospective web design company beforehand will enable you to select the right web design company to partner with who will meet your expectations. Finding the right web design company and forming a relationship can be a valuable asset for your business for many years to come.
Of course, if a website does not contain substance one can not expect a great response or loyal following, now can you?
According to research, a website that has relevant and informative content can help to position a company as professional in view of the interested and targeted consumer. If a website can clearly and efficiently show a potential customer that the company is knowledgeable and up to date in their field of expertise, the consumer becomes confident and trusting of the services offered. Take into account that a web site is multi-functional entity that serves as a communication tool, thus it plays a central role in improving the impact and image of a brand. Consider your website a personal interaction with both potential and current consumers. Because of this very notion, even the slightest 'balls-up' can jeopardize a company's reputation. Yet, however gripping a website's content may be design elements have a dramatic, if not crucial impact and contribution to make.
There are a few prominent aspects of a website that is greatly influenced by web design. Keep in mind that web design's influence on the success of a website runs deep. These are but a few significant and fundamental elements that are magnificently affected by web design.
Usability is key
Most users have a short attention span, when it comes to finding the information that they want and need. As far as making content easy to find, with good web page design, a user should not have to wonder what to do next. Navigation is there for a reason and, makes thing easier and get information to the user ASAP!
It's like being stuck in the queue at customs at the airport, waiting for your turn to be serviced. Frustrating isn't it?
It's been noted that too often web sites are focused on looking attractive without considering the user. Many have won prestigious design awards, yet perform extremely poorly and as a result lose customers by the thousands. According to research 50% plus of online sales are lost because visitors aren't able to navigate through a website and find what they are looking for.
As a rule of thumb, every single web page should load in at least 8 seconds or less, preferably on a 56k modem.
Flash has been named as a huge factor when it comes to the usability of a website. However, Flash has become a popular tool in internet marketing and is now widely used across the web. But, there can be drawbacks so it needs to be carefully determined whether or not a site will benefit from its use. One of the benefits of using Flash is the visual appeal of it. It can be used with navigation, by adding interesting visual graphics. Although, one disadvantage about using Flash is that not all internet browsers have a Flash player moreover, not all users may want to download it. Needless to say, Flash technology tends to discourage usability for very apparent reasons. Flash can cause bad design, break the Web's fundamental interaction style and it also consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value. Approximately 99 % of the time, the presence of Flash on a website hampers the usability and distracts the attention from the site's core value and purpose.
Perhaps, Web designers interested in enhancing usability and their site's overall business presence should use Flash sparingly?
By focusing on improving usability, web designers are able to keep users interested, for the long haul.
Colour adds interest and can determine whether a website is fresh and alive looking or it can also create a dull and dreary image, which is not what any client wants. In the world of web design, bad colour schemes can make a site look unfriendly, amateurish, and inaccessible. According to a 1997 survey by Cooper Marketing Group, Oak Park, IL, power is represented by the color scarlet red for 25% of respondents, black for 17% and bright violet blue for 13%.
Note that colors can be perceived by people as different moods and emotions. When designing a site one should consider the mood that needs to be portrayed. These moods can vary from person to person, depending on their life experiences. Web design which achieves successful marketing results is sensitive to the cultural, iconic and instinctual meanings of colour in relation to the product or service being promoted. More importantly, it also considers the cultural backgrounds and gender of the targeted clientele. Avoiding the extremes of sheer garishness and boredom, effective design displays symphonic colour arrangements of shades, tints, tones and complementarities to maintain and tantalise interest. Adding textures too can alter colours - a roughly textured surface makes a colour seem darker, while a smooth surface lightens the same color.
When making sites you have to use your common sense when picking colours. If you were making a business site you wouldn't use bright pink, because this would look childish and unprofessional. Another example, if you were making a laser eye clinic site, you wouldn't use red as this would imply danger and blood.
The new palette, based on 16bit systems, is the web smart palette which supports 4096 web smart colours. There are sites with grey text on slightly greyer background making it very hard to read, this is bad accessibility wise. In most instances, finer details are forgotten and falls by the wayside - consider color blind people on the web, ensure they have options to see a version they can actually read.
The Impact of Web Design on Conversion Rate
A simple description of conversion on the web reads as follows; Conversion refers to the form that an interested party fills out in order to buy a product from a company. A Web Site Visitor Conversion occurs when a user takes key action to do so. Inevitably, conversion determines website profitability.
Once again it is essential to make a web site to easy check here to use. If not the less chance there'll be of people buying.
Interestingly enough, making a site accessible is a legal obligation in many countries. Inaccessibility can affect sales, as visitors will find the site impossible to use and go elsewhere. Apparently a typical inaccessible site could be losing 5% of potential sales because of this. Many designers only pay attention to Internet Explorer. The justification for this is usually that 99% of the site's users use IE. It never seems to occur to the designers that perhaps the reason they have so few visitors with other browsers is that their site is fundamentally broken - it doesn't work in anything else.
Percentages of people not using IE varies from site to site.
Approximately 80-85% of web users are using IE on Windows, which means that an average site that does not work in anything else could stand to lose 15-20% of sales. Visibility is also an important factor. For instance, when a user decides to buy a product, they add it to a shopping basket. How do they add it? By clicking a button or link. But what happens when they can't see the button? They go elsewhere. There are plenty of sites out there with buttons that are too subtle, or don't say the right thing, or are hidden away at the bottom of the page. "Add" is considered an ineffective button text. "Buy" is fairly successful. "Add xxx To Your Basket" is great. "Add xxx to Your Basket" in big letters on a big, bright button, near the top of the page, is even better. Calls to action, like this, don't have to be bland but they must be obvious and clear.
Sites which are just call to action according to research could earn a 1% to 30% increase in sales as a result.
The impact the web design has on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
It is a known that having a Web site rank well in search engine results for searches on specific keywords
Both working with an independent web designer or a web design company have their advantages. If your require web design now chance are you will need additional services in future such as web hosting, search engine marketing, content m management system and so on. Unless your are an established business with an in-house Web design team the chances are that you will need to either hire a professional web designer or build the website or contract a web design company to do this for you.
Both working with an independent web designer or a web design company have their advantages. By taking time to communicate with the prospective web design company beforehand will enable you to select the right web design company to partner with who will meet your expectations.