Visually, the design of your site needs
to present your business and showcase your branding. But one of your main concerns
needs to be how the site will be used. It needs to appeal to your potential
customers, and be easy for them to use and navigate.
This means that your site needs to load quickly,
render correctly on all major browsers, the text needs to be easy to read and
easily accessible by making sure you use a web safe font… it
also means that the key elements of the site are rendered in plain HTML text
that search engines can read and understand.
We often have clients come to us, whose
existing sites have been built entirely in graphics or Flash animation. Google
cannot understand and as a result it is unlikely that it will be ranked well. Images
and other functionality such as screen tabs, graphics and more can be used as a
great effect on a site if they are treated as embellishments or add-ons, rather than
being the main focus of the website design.
Before embarking on a website project with
us, do a little research on sites that you like the look of, and sites that you
found easy to use, Share these with your project manager in your welcome call,
and discuss what it was that you liked about those individual sites. You can
take a look at previous designs in our full portfolio or you can do a
Google search to see what your competitor’s websites look like, or even
websites that are not in your industry that you just
like the look of.
If you're working with a professional web designer,
like Toolkit Websites, be
prepared to express your likes and dislikes, but also be ready to accept the advice
and recommendations we put forward regarding usability and functionality. It is our duty of care
to make sure your website has all the components it needs, in order to function
well. Having a site that can be used well by your users is vital to your success
on the web, and at the end of the day, that is there job. To provide a website
that not only looks good, but that works well.
SEO is an integral part of a good
website. The design of your website must be built using SEO best practices
and Google's Webmaster guidelines. Every good web design
company will work within these guidelines and rules. A good website is a
site that can be used with equal ease by humans and search engines alike.