Ain’t It Purty?

When businesses hire a web development and web design team, there are occasions where the business treats graphics and the overall look of the site almost as an afterthought. In these cases, the business goes for what’s “comfortable” or what they’ve seen on other sites, which results in overuse of bland “stock” images that looked okay 10 years ago but have been seen over and over again on multiple sites which ruins their creative credibility.

The development side of the equation is the working part of the site…its overall functionality and ease of navigation. The design side is the part that makes the website aesthetically appealing, causing visitors to want to click on menu buttons and go deeper into the site.

When you’re approaching web development and web design for your business, it’s important to scrutinize your graphic design and work for a look that really represents the feel and attitude of your business. A site with unimaginative graphics, in most cases, will evoke little or no positive reaction from visitors.

“It doesn’t matter how informative your site is or how easy it is to navigate,” says MIND Development and Design co-founder Chad McComsey, “If it doesn’t look good to the visitor and doesn’t elicit a positive reaction, it only takes them a millisecond to click over to your competitor’s site. Ultimately, it’s about trust, and do I trust that your site is the best fit for me.”

If you’re building a new site or thinking about a site redesign, take a moment to write down a list of your 5 top competitors. Before you say “but I don’t really have any competition”…yes you do. Do a Google search for your kind of business and you will see who your competition is online. (If you do the search and you see national businesses ranking ahead of you, you probably need fix your site’s local SEO.) The businesses that you see in the search results are your competition.

Look at their sites. Put all personal bias aside and note how you feel when their site comes up on the screen. Are you impressed? Do you feel neither good nor bad?

It’s the graphics, both images and color schemes, that elicit the response when you first visit a website. If you’re getting traffic to your site but you’re not getting the results you want, this is a great first step when assessing your site. Get honest input from people you trust…how do they feel when your site comes up on their screen?

This response is a great indicator of whether people will or will not be inclined to stay on your site and go deeper into it. Make it “purty”, and they will stay:)

Graphics and Colors and Text, OH MY! 4 Tips For Your Website

As eCommerce and Internet marketing continue to evolve with online businesses, the look and feel of your site is more important than ever.  When you visit a website, you most likely get a certain feeling about the site – whether positive or negative – before you even read one word.

Here are 4 tips for your website to help get the response you want from visitors:

1.  Choose your images carefully.

When choosing images for your website, whether doing it on your own or with a web development and web design team, it’s important to stick with images that are of significance to the site.  Images can slow down the time it takes for your site to load, and with today’s “point and click” mentality, traffic to your site doesn’t matter if it loads slowly and people are clicking away to your competitor’s site rather than waiting.  Keep in mind, too, that too many unnecessary pictures or graphics can leave you with a very amateur looking website.

2.  Stay Clean

Rock legend Lemmy of Motorhead once sang those words in a song by the same title, but he wasn’t singing about web development and design.  It does, however, make the point concisely.  In addition to being careful and choosy with regard to your graphics, using the same care with regard to your copy will give your website a clean look and feel and make it more appealing to visitors and easier to navigate.  Descriptive words are fine, but don’t overuse them.  Keep your verbage short, sweet and to the point.

3.  Think about your website theme.

It seems obvious on the surface, but it’s easy to lose focus when choosing pictures and graphics for your website if you have some really cool stuff to choose from.  Always choose images that work with the theme of your site.  For instance, our site here at MIND has a “retro” feel, so we choose mostly black and white retro-style pictures.

4. Choose colors carefully.

Colors are the ultimate non-verbal communication.  Think about the websites you’ve visited online.  Before you read even one word on a website, the colors used on that site have elicited an immediate response from you as soon as it loads on your screen.  For instance, blue tends to be a calming color.  Red is a color that, depending on the shade and intensity, can raise conflicting emotions both positive and negative.  About.com describes it perfectly, saying red is both “Cupid and the Devil.”   Gray is a cooling color.   Choose the color(s) in your web development and web design process to influence the way you want people to feel when they visit your site.