Web Design with SEO in mind!
Go to a search engine and type in a search phrase that pertains to an industry. For example, we can search for a local florist, perhaps a plumber or air conditioning repair company. My best guess is if you choose to do business with one of those companies, the overall design of their website will be a factor in your decision.
What attracts you to a web design? I learned the answer to that question can simply be referenced in the old saying: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Colors, style, design, fonts, etc. can all boil down to personal taste, yet the majority will always be able to distinguish an overly done, gaudy web design that looks unprofessional, from one that is well laid out, easy to navigate with visual appeal.
A good analogy for this would be the mall. You have many stores, some of which compete selling the same products. When you walk past a store in the mall you look in the windows. Well done, professionally merchandised displays attract buyers into the store to look further and perhaps buy. Your web design is really no different. Searchers will shop (generally on the first page) to find a website that offers what their searching for at a fair price. Most of all, the searcher wants to feel as though their doing business with a professional, trustworthy source.
You have about 15 seconds at best to project this positive image with your store front on the world wide web. If your website does not communicate the this positive image, searchers will click away within seconds.
Can you clearly navigate the web design that you are looking at right now? It's very important to me. If you feel you can't, let me know. Ease of navigation is critical to keeping searchers on your website. If there looking for information, and its easy to find and navigate to, you'll keep visitors on your website for longer periods of time, and hopefully convert more of the hard earned visitors on your website to sales.
Using this web design as an example, I will walk through the basic web design strategy for navigation on this website. So I start with the question: "what do we sell?" Here is the answer:
So, understanding what our primary services are, we structure the website design to clearly define this, broken down into easy to navigate categories.
So, your website looks great, design is great, well laid out, easy to navigate, but you forgot something. WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENT TO DO? You see, if someone does a search for widgets, and you have tons of information on widgets, and articles on widgets and a description of every widget available. YOU BETTER BE SELLING WIDGETS! Or better yet, have a clear call to action, on the home page detailing a special offer? perhaps a buy one widget get one free with a coupon code? or, get a free widget t-shirt with the purchase of a 10 pack of widgets.
The bottom line is someone searching your website is going to be looking for that call to action, and next step in the process of getting what their shopping for. Whether it's a product or service.
The above information is really just a breakdown of some of the basics of web design. If you would like to speak with one of our trained professionals for a FREE initial web design consultation, feel free to contact us or call 813-862-0798 | (888) 836-4699
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