Why do some websites sell better than others? Do you need a marketing degree to create a website? Does design have much impact on sales?

You may not realize this but many of the successful internet marketing businesses realize that design, or layout of the website should be as much of a marketing decision as the ad copy.

Why is that?

Web designers can do some amazing things with graphics and colours. You will also have a much more professional looking site when an expert applies his handiwork. However, it is very important to understand some of the key elements that smart marketers will make certain to appear (or NOT appear) on their highly profitable sites. If you are aware of these you may be able to select a designer who is knowledgeable in marketing as well as design. Read the rest of this entry »

While you should design your website to aesthetically pleasing, beautiful graphics and clever little details are best substitute for a good navigation system. No matter how great your website looks, it will be useless if your visitor can’t find their way around your site. Traditionally the navigation menu is placed just below the header area or on the left hand side of the web page. Usability studies have shown that web site visitors instinctively look in these areas first.

Wherever you decide to place your navigation menu, remember that consistency is important. The most important thing is to place your navigation menu in the same spot on every one of your web pages. If you use an image to represent a navigational button, use the same image and the same color for that image on each page of your website. For example, if you use an image of a green house in the left hand corner of your web page as your “Home” navigational link, use the same green house image in the left hand corner of every one of your web pages to designate the “Home” link.

Your visitor should be able to find what they are looking for within 3 clicks of your home page. This is usually not a problem for small sites. However, if you have a large site with many pages, you will need to design a navigation menu that provides access to all areas of your website without getting your visitor lost or confused. Read the rest of this entry »

We live in a technologically-exciting world. Even brand new webmasters today can make use of easy to master web design tools that add functionality only a web programmer could have dreamed of just a couple of years ago.

And that is great, right? Wrong! Quite the opposite is true.

The accessibility of such web mastering tools has resulted in hundreds of “junk” websites that have so much going on at every page that the web surfer is completely overwhelmed.

Some of these web pages have as many as 7 or 8 distinct content areas contained on an 800 by 600 pixel screen… a flashing header graphic, several paragraphs of text, an opt in form, Google ads, Amazon ads, affiliate links, audio and/or video buttons to push, and sometimes even more. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter if your website is a personal site with a few pages or a huge corporation website, having a good design is one of the most important things. It matters a lot to visitors and can make the difference between leaving a site or bookmarking it. Here are a few tips to help improve your design:

1. Pages should load fast. Most people will leave your site if it’s not done loading in ten or 15 seconds. And even if you have a fast internet connection, not everyone does and 56k modems still exist.
2. Text should be easy to read. The text size should be big enough, and the background should not obscure your text. If you want to be safe, use black text on a white background. If you want more color, choose very carefully to make sure it’s still easy to read. Read the rest of this entry »