The images and content you use are the real ‘meat’ of your website. They are going to be what give it substance, make it unique and give your potential customers a real flavour of what your business is like. If you don’t have images and good content in the first place, this is going to make the web design process harder.

Often, a site will be designed around the content and image layout. This is due to the structure that the content has been given – if there are subsections, smaller paragraphs and bullet points, the design need to correspond to this. It is often a lot easier for a web designer if they have the copy first.

If you are designing a site for a client, try to get their images first. The site will feel instantly more personal and appealing once it uses their images. If you can do this from the off, they’re more likely to be sold.

Web design requires a pretty unique skill set that won’t be possessed by everybody. You need to think carefully if you want to go into web design and decide if it is going to be the right career option for you. Here are some of the things you should think about:

• Do you have the money to put yourself through education? You will need either a degree or a higher education certification of some description. A degree is probably the most prestigious qualification you can get and will probably help you to get work.
• Can you think analytically yet creatively? Web designers need to have an eye for design but at the same time, will need to understand coding and have the ability to think like a programmer.
• Are you willing to work hard? Web design is busy and demanding. If you take up this career path, you will certainly be kept busy.

It’s not enough to simply have a website – you need to have a website that is going to be able to compete in today’s busy and digitally-driven world. Gone are the days when you could build a website yourself or ask a friend to do it for you. This is one of the jobs where it will really benefit you to use a professional. It’s because user experience is so important and you need to make sure your website is optimised for the people using it. Here’s why:

• People need to trust you. Websites that work well and direct people to the information they expect to find will put people at ease. This makes them much more likely to be happy to part with their money as they feel like they know what they’re getting.
• Visitors have to be able to find what they want. Good user experience means that everything will be laid out neatly and logically. This allows people to find what they are looking for, helping push them through the sales funnel.
• There is a lot of competition. It’s unlikely that yours is the only website offering what you offer. Customers who aren’t happy will just go elsewhere.
• People have to be persuaded to part with their money. Don’t ever fall into the mindset of taking sales for granted. You need to make your products look appealing, so having a good website will help with this.
• You want to be memorable – for the right reasons. People who enjoy using your website will come back again and spread the word about you.

Never underestimate the power of user experience on your website. Make sure your customers enjoy shopping with you and make them into loyal followers of your brand.

As with anything, over time websites can become dated and stagnant. For SEO purposes you should ensure that there is always fresh content on your site but also the design may need to be refreshed from time to time.

If you are planning an overhaul, you should analysis your statistics to find out which features and links were used most. You don’t want to take something off the site that proved popular. You should also consider your other branding, for example if you are going to change your colour ways or logo then you will need to follow suit with all your other branded material and sign writing such as on vehicles, a building, letter head / business cards.

Most importantly, don’t forget to notify your customers that you are re-branding or changing the look of your website as it may cause some confusion if your customers land on your site and it looks totally different.

In the web design industry, there have been a number of changes over the past few decades that have changed the way we design and program our sites. At one stage, Flash was a great way to play a video type message on your site that was relatively easy to embed. There were a number of problems with this especially when Apply produced the Iphone which did not support Flash, meaning it simply wouldn’t play on these devices. Also Google could not read the content within the Flash file so trying to optimise a site was hard work. Also from a user’s point of view, often it would make the site loading time longer and also sometimes mean they have to upgrade their flash player before they could continue with the site.

Now, designers and programmers are tending to use quirky techniques that allow users to interact with the screen often in a number of ways whist not limiting the people who can access it or how long it takes to access it, often this information is written in such a way that it can be read by the search engines too.

There are so many elements to consider when designing a website it can be easy to forget some of the basics and this can cost you a large number of customers and therefore potential sales.

Below is a list of a few tips we have come up with to bear in mind when having a website designed and built.

• Compatibility – Making sure that your website works correctly across all platforms is vital. Not only should it work on the most commonly used browsers but also across mobile devices.
• Graphics vs text – getting the right balance of images to text is vital. Too much text and the site will look dull and boring and will put people off. Too many images can slow a site down and make it hard to SEO it efficiently.
• Visual appearance vs functionality – It is possible to make a website that is very functional but also appealing to the eye but this takes a lot of thought and sometimes trial and error to get it right. Testing is vital and it may be necessary to do some A – B testing to find out which version works best.

If you are looking to have a website created then you will want to find a good web designer who can create a visual for how your site should look. Web designers vary in price, some charge £30 per hour whilst an agency may charge upwards of £60 per hour.

You may wish to use an off shore designer who is likely to charge less, but you may then have the difficulty with working with someone that lives in a different time zone or may not speak very good English, making it harder to portray exactly what you want and get answers to your questions quickly.

If you are using an agency, you may want to go in and meet with the designer to discuss how you want your site to look. A good designer will also be able to make recommendations to you as to what they believe you should include and how it should be laid out as they will already have experience in this.

This may sound like a very strange statement, but web design sometimes you need to start at the finished product and work backwards. What this means is you need to consider what the end result needs to be. How should the website look and what functionality is required in order for it to function correctly for your users?

Once you have the answers to these questions you can then start to work backwards to work out how to integrate all of these in to the client’s website design. With web design it often takes a number or changes and tweaks to get it exactly how the client wants it. Once you have all the elements in place, you will need to jig them around until they fit in the correct place and look right on the screen.

Once you have a clear design signed off, you can start the task of developing the website in your chosen format, but be sure to test it all vigorously prior to setting it live.

Networking is a great way to promote your business and make new business contacts. Many businesses owners attend networking events, some of which are free and some which you either have to pay to attend or you have to be a registered member.

Some networking events are very formal and you will often meet in a hotel conference room or hall venue, whilst others often take place at someone’s house or even in the pub. All types of networking can be great and even if you do not get any direct responses from the networking group, you may find that someone else that has attended passes your details on and so you get an enquiry that way.

With web design you can easily promote your business by showing the other members examples of your work and talking them through the process in basic form, or creating a web page. You should also have a good knowledge of online marketing and explain how they require certain elements to get their website ranked.

Creating a clean and professional website is one of the greatest hurdles that online businesses face today. Due to the stiff online competition, you should never fail to make a powerful impression with your home page. On the other hand, be careful with whatever you include on your website since some of your actions may instead put your online business in jeopardy. Below are a few simple mistakes that UK website developers advise that you should never expose your website to as much as possible.

Creating a Jumbled Site

Trying to pick the right information from a jumbled website is overly strenuous. For this reason, you ought to make things easier for your clients by being very selective on what to display on your website more so on your home page. Additionally, you should further abridge everything for your clients by arranging your data coherently and in a presentable manner. Avoid jamming your homepage with too much information since this would only create a mess. Moreover, not every piece of information can be represented on your homepage.   (more…)