Visual Web Design - May 2007
Web design Sunshine Coast has established that the content of your website in relation to the service being offered or the prouct/s being sold is the focus. However we have to strike a balance with the visual web design - does your website look professional?
This has been one of the key areas in our web design formula. However even if you have great information you could have one of those websites that suck.
We’ve all been to websites that offer us products or services but have a bad visual design, and I’m not just talking the wrong choice of colours, or a misaligned image... I’m talking about the sites where it looks like a nine-year-old designed it in art class; fonts of all sizes and types, dark coloured backgrounds, poor images, random colours or background music.
Yes the type of web site where you don't bother to go past the web home page.
It automatically makes you think if they can’t get something simple like a web site right, what else are they unprofessional at?
A recent study found:
• 97% of people questioned responded that site design played a part in deciding whether they would buy from a site
• 40% said that they would not buy from a site with poor design if they could find the product elsewhere
• 57% said they wouldn’t 'touch' a dodgy looking site at all.
That’s a fairly staggering percentage . Those aren’t figures that drop margins, those are figures that destroy businesses.
The formula says that content is king, and web design is often sacrificed in favour of content. But this is only a general rule – and rules are made to be broken. Yes, the information or products on your site is what draws people to it, and keeps them coming back, but it’s the design that makes a site and it can have a major impact on visitor numbers and sales.
We’ve all been to web sites that suck. It automatically makes you think twice about what you’re doing, if your details will be safe, what the product will be like and just how much hassle it’ll be if you have to return it.
Poor visual web design immediately starts people wondering about your business. Is it surprising, really?
After all, our primary sense is sight.
We are a species obsessed with looks, not just in other people, but in every aspect of our lives from the cars we like to the food we eat, if it doesn’t look right, we tend to shy away from it. Our big, secure, safe high-street stores have professional looks and clean windows filled with desirable products and eye-catching boxes. Most products are now designed with an eye on desirability.
So in a design driven culture, bad design can have disastrous effects.
Although you can design a web site without knowledge in the areas of what is visually appealing, it's impossible to design a good site without knowing at least something about SEO - Search Engine Optimisation and copy writing.
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