Guidelines for Website Design

Your Website Design — Things to Ponder

You’re thinking about website design. Congratulations! This could be a great move to propel your company to growth and success.

But before you start, did you know:

• Currently, over 8,000 websites go live per hour, and
• Of the estimated 600+ million websites worldwide, approximately ¾ of them are inactive.

So, before you run off and hire a high-priced designer and developer, there are a few critical questions you need to ask yourself and issues you should consider to ensure your that your website design helps you in your business goals, and ends up being more than a waste of money.

First-and-foremost, your website design will be a reflection of your business and brand, one that can be an essential and critical part of your business and its ability to succeed in a complex and highly-competitive world.  I recommend you approach building a website as you would in forming your business — first, think strategically and then, think about the nuts and bolts that bring the light of day to that strategy.  This article is designed to help you do just that, and to provide perspective regarding what you need to know or at the very least what you should consider before you create a website design.

A friend of mine once said, “When you have 10 seconds to live, spend nine of them thinking!”  This advice applies to many areas of life and business including the successful construction of your website.

Your Homework—Have a Plan

If you have a business plan already in place, you most likely did your basic homework:

You researched your target market, you evaluated your competition, and you defined your unique value proposition to determine the viability of your business.

Your website design should be a reflection of that business plan and in building your website you need to keep the answers to key questions in the forefront.

At the end of the day — website or not — it boils down to the simple questions:

• Why should someone do business with you vs. someone else?
• What value do you provide that others don’t?  and
• How do you offer value in a way that is different from your competition?

Your Website as a Tool to Reach Your Audience

The more information you have, the more you know about your target audience – who they are, how they behave, their hopes, their fears, their goals, and even what technologies they use. The more you know about your audience, and the more you know about your own business goals the smoother, less expensive, less time-consuming and less troublesome the process of building your website will be. As with any complex project, there will always be delays and changes, but the more you think about and know the answers to the larger strategic questions in advance, the more effective, efficient and successful you will be.

The Four “C’s”

There are four critical questions to address before you’re off and running to build your website design:

• Your Company
• Your Customer
• Your Competition, and
• Your Competitive advantage

None of these should be looked at in a vacuum.  Remember, they all interact, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Your Company

Before you start designing your website (much less actually building it), and before you begin talking to web designers and developers, consider the goals of your site, including the following possibilities:

• To sell your product or services
• To develop a community
• To provide a contact for future communication or selling
• To build your brand
• To provide information
• To build long-term relationships,
• All-or-some of the above

Even if you answered the very last response above, there are priorities and great differences regarding how your website design will help you achieve one or more of these goals.  Even among the top 5 etailers (Amazon, Staples, Apple, Wal-Mart, and Dell — who represent over $60 billion in E-commerce sales), there are profound differences in goals, relationships with customers, repeat business strategies, sales, etc.

In the final analysis, the main reason you are building your website is to have a positive impact your business, including its ability to generate revenues, profits, growth and competitive advantage.  Every decision you make regarding the design and construction of your website should be focused on improving these goals.  Examples of the types of questions you will need to answer with your website design and construction include:

• What is the brand image I want to convey across all channels?
• What is the tone of voice and positioning I want to convey and how will it resonate with my audience?
• How can I rapidly and clearly communicate my value proposition to my audience?
• How can I create a desire in my audience to buy and refer?

It goes without saying that the answers to these questions will be critical in your website design.  For example, if you are launching an accessories line that focuses on handcrafted, upscale Italian styled jewelry you probably want a clean, sleek design with very elegant perhaps more muted tones.  Having a design with bold colors and call outs that look like a discount brand will certainly not be beneficial for you and in fact will bring forth less than desirable results and probably bring more harm than good.

Your Customer

Ask yourself the following two questions about visitors to your site:

• Who do I want to visit my site?
• Who is most likely to visit my site?

These questions lie at the heart of your target market.  Ideally, the people most likely to visit your site are the same people as those you would most like to visit your site.

So, what can you do to maximize the probability that your site will be visited by a high frequency of target customers?  The answer to this question lies in the answers to the following questions:

• Who are my target customers and what do they want to know?
• What do I ultimately want visitors to my site to do?
  • Fill out a form?
  • Purchase an item?
  • Sign up for a newsletter?
  • Call for a quote?
  • Visit your brick and mortar location?
• What vehicles or technologies are my visitors using?
  • Are they coming to me through a computer, tablet, or smart phone?

Answering these questions will help when it comes to designing your site, mapping out your site’s information architecture and designing the overall user experience in terms of content and features.  Careful planning in these areas will insure that people will want to visit your site and do business with you.

Rule #1 about Your Customer–Make it easy and remember to keep it simple.  If people can’t find what they’re looking for or aren’t engaged in your content, they’ll leave. Try to have people get to where they need to go in four clicks (preferably three) or less.

Also, it is critical today that you determine what and how you want your site to appear on various browsers ( chrome, explorer) and technologies (iPad-, Smartphone, desktop ).  These issues should be addressed In the design of the site but carefully tested in the execution.  There will be some compromises but at least underrated what they are.

Your Competition

You may feel you know your competition, but have you taken a serious and objective look at their websites? Ask yourself:

• What is common among my competitor’s websites?
• Which of my competitors’ sites do I or don’t I like?
• Why?
• Are there major differences between my more successful competitors’ sites and others?

If you are selling products at retail, be sure to research Amazon and eBay.  They are probably your competitors and might also be considered as customers.  Research how they have designed their sites for maximum efficiency for their customers.

Keep these things in mind about your competition as you plan and develop your website.  Certain industries have common elements and themes in their sites, as well as certain required features which you should also include on your site.

Your Competitive Advantage

Before you invest too much time in creating a copy of your competitors’ sites, also keep in mind what makes you different and how you can stand out from the crowd. This is also an important component in your web-based competitive positioning.

Ask yourself:

• What makes my business unique and how can I best express this in my site?
• What do I have to offer that my competitors don’t and how can this be rapidly communicated on my site?
• How am I different than my competition?
• What do I actually do better than them?

This approach to analyzing your competition and your own business helps you think about what makes you different and how to express such differences in your website design, whether it be through content, features, or functionality.  Careful attention to these matters will give you a slight edge while still being in line with standard industry practices that are there for a reason.

The Nuts-and-Bolts of Your Website Design

Once you’ve tackled the larger questions behind the website, it is time to get into the nuts and bolts about your site design, its functionality, how information is organized, and the actual content that will be on the website.

Domain Name

A domain name is the address where your website will be found on the Web.  The best domain name is one that uses the company’s name in the URL.  But sometimes that can be hard to get, if you haven’t already registered it.  If you can’t get your company name, then consider something catchy or memorable that your customers can associate with.  Most sites use .com at the end but public organizations generally use.org and .net is generally as a secondary source of names.  In choosing a web name provider, try and stick with your web site developer.  In any case, use a recognized dealer, like Yahoo, Google or Go Daddy.

You’re Website Designer

Website designs have become easier to develop, less expensive, and have more built-in features than years ago.  Resources such as WordPress, Intuit, Volusion and Network Solutions all offer very good sites with lots of options at very good prices.

In considering who will design and build your site, there are some major decisions you need to consider.  Frequently, technical designers will give you great functioning sites, but they may lack the aesthetic qualities you desire.  On the other hand, creative designers can design beautiful sites but they many not navigate efficiently or facilitate SEO and ecommerce efficiently.  It is critical that you consider and balance these features, especially if you have a limited budget.

Your web design also involves a number of functions that need to be considered in your evaluation. These can also be divided up or handled by one or more staff. The decision on using a purchased site versus designing your own should be primarily based on cost, the complexity of your needs and the uniqueness needs of your look.

Your Website Designer should manage the project including:

• page layout
• graphics
• text location
• theme and colors
• navigation and
• Cross-linking of pages.

If your website requires coding, the website programmer will take the plan from your Designer and create the code to make the site run correctly.  In many cases, code is already embedded in the elements of the site and simply need to be “plugged in.”  Your Designer and (if needed) programmer are also responsible for all the technical details that happens behind-the-scenes to make sure the site works properly for your visitors.  You may also want to hire an Internet Marketing Consultant to help you determine how your website fits into your overall marketing strategy, and how to generate more traffic.

When you select a web designer make sure in advance that you will receive what you expect.  Obtain and check references, and look at other sites the designer has created.  Be sure the designer understands your business, its goals and resources.  Make sure the site has proper capacity for growth.  Your site might also require revisions for some of the following now or in the future:

• Provisions for integrating with other internet efforts especially social media sites.
• Check out and credit card provisions with organizations such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Pay Pal
• SEO links and key words
• Tracking especially with Google Analytics
• Connections to EBay , Amazon and affiliates

Also make sure you have a clear plan and understanding regarding:

• Who owns the site and the code?
• Who will maintain and provide the server for the site?
• What is the backup and emergency plan for the site?
• Who is in charge of promotion and price changing mechanisms?

Plan Your Website

Above all — don’t neglect the planning of your website.  Even if you’re going to hire a professional Web designer to build your site, you should have an idea of what you want on it and how it should appear to your audience.  And, don’t be afraid to build it on your own if it is a productive use of your time and resources.

Content, Content, Content

Now that you know your goals and understand your target visitor and what she or he is looking for, decide what content you will need on the site and how that content is to be structured.  Organize that content into “buckets” – this will essentially become the menu/navigational structure there to make it easy for people to “navigate through the site” and find what they’re looking for.  This navigation should be consistent throughout the site so that no matter where someone is on the site they may access the menus and navigate from one category or page to another.  In general, you want to think about your site as three or four levels deep – your home page, category pages, content pages, and action pages (e.g. place where someone fills out a form, buys a product, etc.)

Content considerations on your site include:

• On the homepage when someone gets to your site what does that home page look like?
• What are the most important things people should know or you want to convey?  You may want to guide them to other parts of the site and feature specific content or product.  Your home page is usually the first point of entry to your site
• Your category page provides a summary of what may be in a particular category and provide links or guide the user to featured or deeper content ahead.
• Your content is just that – perhaps the most granular of what you have on site.  It may be an article or product information – it tends to be that area where you ultimately influence and want your visitor to take action.
• Remember, the pages can have different functions and don’t try to do everything at once on the same page.  In particular, pages may be designed for goals like creating attention, building the image, promotions, and/or SEO.  If you are focusing on selling the promotion, SEO goals and branding may be have some conflicts.

E-Commerce Considerations

If you are considering an e-commerce site below is an outline of the basics you may want to consider as you plan your site.

• Informational architecture / navigation
  • Header
  • Utility Navigation
  • Primary Navigation (should be top level menus to product categories and other primary navigation, for example to key content areas such as a blog)
  • Secondary, Tertiary and Other Navigation
  • Footers (which may be delineated into further categorization including
    • Customer Service: Contact Us, FAQs, Returns and Shipping, etc.
    • Company Information : About, News, Legal (e.g. Privacy Policy)
    • Find Us On : Social Media pages
• Home Page (product and other promotions)
• Catalog Pages (category pages)
• Product Pages
  • Product description
  • Features and specifications
• Registration Sign In and Accounts
  • Create an account
  • Sign in
  • Account management
  • Sign out
  • Address book
  • Previous orders
  • Wish lists
• Shopping Cart
  • Add to cart
  • Shopping cart widget
  • Shopping cart page
  • Checkout Process
• Other Pages
  • Press pages
  • Blogs

Final Words

Designing and building your website is one of the most important tasks you will undertake in launching and growing your company.  In many respects, your website design will be what most of the world sees when it “meets” you.  Planning and executing with quality are the keys, and here are some final thoughts:

• Think about how people look for information and how they categorize things
• Put yourself in the visitor’s shoes
• Map out a few pages at first, and then add to your site using the framework you developed.
• Remember a website is a reflection of your business and your reputation relies on professionalism and a professional look.  Doing the upfront homework and knowing why you want to have a website and the goals you are aiming to accomplish (and how that takes place) will put you at an advantage when you are ready to begin building a website.  Information is potential power and knowing what you’re trying to accomplish is a great boon when and if you begin to speak to web designers.