Designing a website for your business can be pretty difficult and for professional use, it is definitely best left up to the experts as what your website looks like will say a lot about your business to potential customers.

The aim is to make your website stand out from others in your same area of business and to leave a lasting impression that leaves visitors of the page eager to find out more and ultimately invest in your product or services.

Careful consideration must be taken when planning things such as colour schemes as this can give subconscious messages to people upon first glance of the page and unconsidered schemes can leave people feeling that the page is unprofessional and not product appropriate.

Font tends to be the next thing that people notice as if the font is hard to read it can leave the reader confused about the product and unwilling to read on to find out more. Some fonts appear more aggressive than others and as such would not be suitable for some businesses offering, for example, complementary therapies.

It’s worth taking the time out to meet with your website designer to discuss your website in detail and what you want it to say about your business as well as the overall impression you want to give and discuss options of how you can make your website stand out from the crowd.

Having a website can increase your sales and enquiries rate massively. Many website owners track their placement on the search engines for their main keywords or phrases or employ a marketing company to do this for them. But it is not only rankings that we should be concerned with.

It is all well and good getting traffic to your site, but if your site is too busy, parts of it do not work or take too long to load or simply if it lacks in information you may very quickly lose the majority of visitors you have.

Invest some time into installing a high-quality tracking system to see where your customers are going and what they are clicking on within your site. This will highlight to you areas that need improving and areas that are not working as they should. It can also show you what is working well.

When building a website you need to consider what your competitors are offering. Many companies make the error of building a website and then checking their competitors to find out that they are offering a service or functionality that they could have added in.

The beauty of a website is that it can be added to and amended but this may cost you more than it would if you had included it in the original design.

When it comes to designing a website you need to keep thinking about what your customers want and not just what you want on the site as ultimately it is them that will be using it.

Some businesses decide to add log in areas to their site to allow their customers access to documents and personal information. This can be a great tool, but it must be secure as any breach of this could lead to a loss of customers.

When it comes to designing a website it is easy to get carried away with what you think looks nice or trying to make the site state of the art and it easy to lose sight of what your site really needs to do.

When designing a website it often helps to work backwards, work out what you want your website to achieve and work a path backwards as to how you are going to get your visitors to achieve that goal.

It may be that you want them to contact you via a form or a phone call but you need to convince them that your product or service is the right one for them before they will consider picking up the phone.

Knowing how much information to give away on a website can be hard. Some companies decide not to put prices on, knowing that they are slightly higher priced than their competition but hoping that they can win the sale by talking to the customer and discussing the higher quality or after service care they offer. The best way is to trial both and then compare the results to that of the sales/ inquiries you receive after each trial period.

Many people focus entirely on getting traffic to a website and do not stop to consider if the website is designed in such a way that it will convert visitors in to enquiries or sales.

If you have an ecommerce website then ideally you want your visitors to make a purchase on the site instantly, with other types of sites you may be wanting the visitor to call or email you enquiring about a product or service you offer. Whichever way it is all about conversions.

A site can function really well and get found on the search engines with easy, but if the information / prices / images on the site are not as they should be, you may lose potential sales. When looking at what should be on your website, have a look at a few competitor’s sites. See what they offer, how they detail the information and if possible what prices they charge. This will give you an idea of the level of competition that you are up against.

When it comes to designing websites, it can be hard to know exactly what your client is looking for. They may have a clear image in their head of how they want the website to look and function, but if they do not portray this to you correctly, you may end up with two totally different ideas.

You need to remember to advise the client of what elements you think are important and why and back this up with facts and results if possible.

Once you have completed a set of visuals there is often a number of amendments that will take place with the visuals been passed back and forth until the client is happy with the final designs.

Always get visuals signed off prior to commencing programming. It is vital to explain to the client that once the visuals are approved any further changes may have to be charged for additionally as once the site is programmed something which may appear to be a small change may actually take an additional number of hours.

If you are looking to have a website designed and programmed then you should first spend sometime researching a few different companies to find out a) what price they will quote for the work and b) what the quality of their work is like. You ideally what to try and contact a few of their current clients to have an informal chat as to how they are finding the company on the whole.

Most web design companies will be more than happy for you to do this.

Be wary of basing all of your expectations on reviews and testimonials on the web design companies website unless they can be backed up with proof, i.e. number one ranking for x keywords on Google etc., as these can often be selectively chosen.

Many web design companies will also offer online marketing ranging from Search Engine Optimisation to Google Adwords This is something that should be consider during the build process as often if SEO is required at a later date it may be more expensive than it would of if it had been included in the build.

An industry that has gained a lot of momentum over the last while, is 3D design. It has a variety of uses, from making esthetically pleasing design, to creating new and exciting solutions to old problems. One of the reasons for its popularity is just that – its versatility. This somewhat new industry has already become a staple for many companies across the globe – so this is how different industries can use 3D design in Bedfordshire.

Film-making and Online Videos
Do you remember those funky glasses you used to have to put on to watch 3D movies in the cinema back in the day? You can say that those were the first steps towards 3D design. Today, the film-making industry has stepped it up to use 3D design for all sorts of special effects. It is even part of the process when they create superheroes, have actors act out crazy fight scenes with sensors, and much more. (more…)

It can be tempting when you are getting a website designed to look at other people’s websites and think I’ll have this, that and the other, however sometimes you need to look at the features you like and ask yourself the question will it fit in with your website and is it relevant to the company?

Often people will see ideas that they just like the look of and won’t take into consideration the practicality of them, this is where a good website designer should be able to help guide you through the process.

A website designer will also be able to give you an idea of how much time and money each aspect of your website will cost, this should help you to be able to weigh up whether certain features are worth adding on or not.

If in doubt the best advice is to keep it fairly simple, the more things you have on the website the higher the cost and the more likely it is that things will go wrong or won’t be able to be viewed correctly on all devices.

Always choose a web designer that you trust and take their advice on what are the best options for your website.

With so many companies offering web site design it can be hard as a web site developer to get noticed and get the jobs that you want. As a customer it can be a baffling endeavour to find a company and a price that is fair.

Some customers struggle with the idea of paying large amounts for something that is not a physical product and they can have a shock when they realise the prices web design can cost them. It’s always best to be up front with your customer from the start and explain that with each thing they require on the web page there is a lot of work behind the scenes to make it happen and this is where the cost is incurred. Many customers won’t realise that a ‘simple change’ in their eyes can actually be quite difficult and time consuming as a web developer.

When having the initial consultation with a customer it’s always best to take along with you examples of your previous work along with price list and show them examples from 3 price brackets to show them the difference that spending the extra money can make.

Always give the customer as much information as you can and ensure you manage their expectations when it comes to time frames and costs.