Website Design has to support the website purpose. Majority of small business websites are aimed at promoting their services or products online. Many sell online. The whole idea beyond the design interface is converting visitors aka website traffic into customers. This is achieved by using following commercial website design principles.
Commercial Website Design Principals and their affect on website performance and e-commerce
Text should be easily readable – when designing a web page ensures that your selected font size is large enough to be easily readable. There is no reason to make people squint while reading your promotional materials. Use CSS to adjust text line heights leaving enough space between the lines. Use high contrast between background and text. Avoid contrasting patterns behind text and leave good margins on both sides. Make sure people don’t have to scroll from right to left to read your message. Choose fonts that are proven to display well in major web browsers.
Contact Information must be visible – It’s incredible how many websites still repeat this ridiculous error when you have to search on the web page for a phone number. This is a big turn off for online visitors. In many cases it’s easier to click on the back button and go to competitor’s website than scroll through six-foot-long page in hopes of finding a phone number.
Content Presentation and Design – Position most important content in highly visible places. For example, be wise when selling multiple products online. If someone finds your page under “red vacuum cleaner” keyword, don’t display white dishwasher on the top of the web page. Cater page content to the keywords that bring traffic to this web page.
Position most important headers the most visible part of the page. Many of the top headers are presented as teasers. Look at women’s magazine covers, “Discover secrets to better sex”, “How to make your hair look beautiful”, “What is hot this summer” etc. These are teasers designed to make female readers flip through the pages of sheer nonsense while pitching products on each and every page. It is a very effective technique designed for a ferocious female shopper and it hasn’t changed in the last 30 years or so. Therefore, my assumption is that it still works quite well. Use it.
Landing and Home pages need special attention – Sometimes when I am faced with the question, “What should I place on the home page?” I answer with a question, “What do you want your website to do?” If you want your website to generate appointments for people who need to tune up their Porsches, simply devise a welcome message, saying something like this, “Precision Porsche – Master Mechanic of Porsche Aficionados. Talk to Jack and learn the secrets of Porsche fine tuning, By appointment only, call (888)888-8888”. This should work well for starters, later on you may modify your message and switch pages or banners to see if something else would perform better. Yes, you have to test your index pages and landing pages. Otherwise you will never know how much money you could have made through online marketing.
Fast and Clear Message Delivery – If someone has landed on your website, they want information fast. Unfortunately some designers for the sake of visual appeal sacrifice this principal and start with lengthy flash intro and/or navigational menu tacked in somewhere in the most obscure place to allow visitors to appreciate the intricate artwork in its fullest. I love artwork, but hello! Your website is not the place to test visitor’s patience! Do you remember how you felt when you tried to open that darn DVD packaging?
Proper and Creative use of Images and Colors – Color intensity should be used to guide visitors’ eyeballs to “hot spots” of your webpage, exactly where you want them to be. Images can serve many purposes and if used wisely, can be very instrumental to your website success.
And now I will allow myself to rant on some commonly made web design blunders. How many smiling businessmen and business ladies have you seen online lately? A lot. Does it mean that this is the most effective use of imagery for your website? No. How do I know? Simple. Look at covers of business magazines. How many smiling models with no names attached to them do you see? None. It could be a celebrity, it could be a collage, it could be a strong statement, but you will not find an unknown face grinning at your with no apparent reason. Why? Because it is a waste of valuable advertising spot. And let’s not forget that these days there are not too many reasons for small business owners to smile about.
Use images to support your message and lead to reading it. It’s a good old trick used by the newspapers and magazines for over a hundred years and it still works.
Act conservatively when it comes to sprinkling graphic elements throughout the web page, too many and too bright will tire visitor instead of keeping him or her focused.
Use layout wisely. Measurements of columns, header and footer are very important to serve information effectively. The less scrolling, the better.
Ease of Navigation – don’t cramp too many links on the top of the page, you will confuse about a 3rd of your visitors. Government websites are good at that. Try to keep your visitors not more than 3 clicks away from your checkout page from any webpage of your site.
Keep a consistent look of your design throughout the entire website
When creating an identity element such as logo or a website theme, strive for instant recognition.
This is a short version of guidelines I and my talented associates adhere to while engaging in website design and development. Again, if you are a small business your website has to make you money, these commercial website design principals help your website to fulfill its role.
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