There isn’t a more powerful online tool for promoting your business, your products & services–or just yourself–than a website. I provide full website design services as well as advice on how best to use other Web tools to achieve your goals.
The first steps is to decide what kind of website you want. The information below is an overview of different types of websites and how design plays a part in any website’s effectiveness.
A Website’s Design Follows Its Purpose
Planning a new website requires a clear understanding of your goals for the site. There are different types of websites for different purposes. Most business websites fall under one of these categories:
- Corporate Identity Sites
- Product and/or Service Information Sites
- Transaction Oriented Sites (E-commerce)
- Customer Relationship Sites
But there are many other types of, and purposes for, a website. Websites have become digital resumes for many people with the added advantage over traditional resumes of pictures, a professional email address, as well as free exposure through search engine discovery and social media sharing. Artists need a site to post a portfolio of their work. Writers need a forum for keeping in touch with their fans and for promoting the next book. Clubs and other organizations need a place to post news, instructions, and to collect information with online forms.
Site Design: Just a pretty picture?
Some would consider a visually pleasing website the same thing as a well-designed website. Isn’t that what design is all about? Put together some nice colors, fonts, and graphics—right? Hip illustrations for a hip website, serious photos for a serious website, and that sort of thing. All true, but when people talk about website design they’re also talking about a concept called “user experience”. Part of user experience is to do with how a visitor to your website interacts with the content on your website. For example, websites for charitable organizations are typically designed around enticing visitors to click a DONATE button. E-commerce sites obviously are designed to help visitors make quick buying decisions.
A well-designed website also helps characterize your (or a company’s) web presence. Think of your web presence as your online brand. To plan an effective web presence consider:
- Who is your target audience?
- What are your customers’ needs and interests?
- What will make you stand out from your competitors?
Depending on the answers to these questions, and many more, it’s useful to talk about what Web 2.0 tools might be used to attract customers to your site and how these tools should be incorporated into the site’s structure. Examples of Web 2.0 tools are YouTube videos, blogs, and podcasts.