Website Design

The “17 Ways To Boost Web Traffic” article that we are giving away this month has some good advice for getting more visitors to your website. The question I have been pondering lately is whether or not good design can increase your traffic. The conclusion I have come to is yes and no.

No, Google doesn’t care what your site looks like. However, there are things that a good designer will do when building your site that can affect your traffic. Here are 3 things you may not be aware of that a good website designer will do that can directly affect your website traffic:

1. Write clean markup
The code (markup) that exists “under the hood” of your website is what Google sees when it looks at your website. There are countless ways to write code that will result in a page that looks identical from your browser. Not all methods of code writing are equal in the eyes of Google, however. In general a good designer will write code that is short, concise, and organized. This helps Google know what your page is about and makes the process of indexing your page easier on the Google robot. And pleasing Google is a good start towards attracting website visitors.

2. Use CSS
Without getting too technical, CSS (or stylesheets) have become the industry standard for assigning a design to a website. The important thing you need to know is that css separates the content of your site from the design of your site. This results in web pages that are primed for Google.

3. Take Usability Seriously
When you are creating a website worthy of traffic you need to treat your visitors well. That’s called usability. A good designer will make it easy to use your site. Unnecessary clicks will be reduced. Navigation will be clear and friendly. Content will be organized and straightforward. When your site is easy to use people will be encouraged to return.

These are just three things that a designer considers when designing a website. While designers should be aware of how their design decisions will affect your web traffic, sadly this isn’t always the case. Some designers are more concerned with padding their portfolio than creating effective websites. Use the three items above as a way to evaluate your current designer. If he/she tries to downplay the importance of these things it may be a clue that they don’t take your project as seriously as they should. And as always give us a call if you want some more ideas about how to drive traffic to your site.

Last week I wrote about how investing in design can be an important part of your website marketing plan. This week I want to focus on one of the measurable ways that design can increase the revenue generated from your website. Today I am talking specifically about conversion rates.

First, let me define what I mean by “conversion.” Good websites should have a primary goal, whether it is making a purchase, generating a lead, building a mailing list, or something specific to your company/product. Increasing your conversion rate means that you are making more sales, generating more leads, gathering more email addresses, etc. Having clear goals for your site seems obvious, but you would be surprised how often this gets overlooked. For example, many sites have a sign up form on their website. It seems obvious that the goal of a sign up form is to get people to sign up, so forms aren’t often given the careful thought needed to make the successful. The result is a form that lacks purpose. Think about the difference between these two statements:

1. Our goal is to have a sign up form on our website.

2. Our goal is to sign up 300 soccer moms by November 15th for our Free December Webinar, “How Soccer Moms Can Save Money On Car Insurance.”

The first statement makes it almost impossible for a designer to impact the conversion rate of the form. I can create a sign up form in 15 minutes, but that doesn’t mean anyone will use it. When the designer is presented with a clear goal, however, he/she can start taking advantage of the problem solving function of design. For example…

1. Knowing that the sign up for is for a specific webinar the designer can create a compelling and specific graphic to accompany the form. Graphics (as opposed to text) increase conversion rates.

2. Knowing that the target audience is soccer moms the designer can use images and text that appeals to this specific audience. Targeted messages have a higher conversion rate than general ones.

3. Having a deadline (even if it is artificial) adds a sense of urgency that will often convert a passive viewer into a conversion.

4. Knowing that the goal is to sign up 300 people is also a key piece of information. Being able to convey that “space is limited” is another way to increase conversion rates.

5. Knowing the incentive for signing up is crucial to increasing conversion rates. If there isn’t an incentive, people won’t sign up. In this case, the fact that the webinar is “free” becomes the incentive.

6. The way that the price of the product is presented will also impact the conversion rate. A price is almost always a critical component of decision making, so it should be handled with care for maximum impact.

Without a clear goal, is it any wonder that design gets written off as a luxury that can be cut from your marketing budget? With clear goals, however, the designer has a target to shoot for. If you simply ask for a sign up form on your site, you are asking for trouble.

I have been using a sign up form as an example is because the results are very measurable but the same thing can be said about any other area of your site where you want to improve conversions. Shopping carts can be dramatically improved by good design. Good design can clarify the message of your site, leading to more targeted lead generation. Good design can increase the amount of time people spend on your site. When you stop and think about it, there aren’t many things that aren’t affected by design on your website. Next Monday I will be talking about how good design can increase the credibility of your company. Stay tuned.

We have been talking a lot within our office lately about web marketing. One of the conversation starters was from an email from Aaron Brown asking each of us for our picks for the “5 Best Investments for Your Marketing Budget.” It was interesting to here the responses to that question. Not surprisingly, with my passion for design, my answers were weighted heavily in favor of investing your web marketing in design. Chadd’s responses understandably emphasized SEO. I jokingly told him, “Design isn’t in your top 5? That sounds like a fatal mistake to me.”

I know firsthand that Chadd definitely does value good design. His answer wasn’t a putdown to design, but rather an understanding of how people invest their money. Whey you have X amount of money in your website marketing plan you have to prioritize and rationalize how every dollar gets spent. You have to convince yourself that after your website marketing money is spent you can look back and see concrete results that are equal or greater than the initial investment. Design is notoriously hard to measure concretely and that makes it a tough thing to convince people to invest in. But allow me to try…

Believe it or not it is possible to measure and evaluate the ROI of design just as concretely as you can with seemingly less nebulous areas such as keyword research, SEO, analytics, and publicity. While design as a whole can seem like an abstract and fuzzy concept to invest in, it gets easier when you can assign goals to the project. For example, spending $5,000 to improve the design of your website has the feeling of being subjective and arbitrary. It might feel like you are just sprucing up a site that has grown stale. While some designers do take this “jazz it up” approach, we think about design much more strategically here at Red Rocket Media Group. At the heart of good design is a problem solving mentality. Instead of asking “how does this looK?” we design with a more valuable question in mind: “What impact will these changes have on the effectiveness of the site?”

Once you look at design as a way to solve specific problems it becomes much easier to justify budgeting for design in your web marketing plan. So instead of using the broad term of “design,” try to add real goals to describe outcome you would like to achieve with your website. By addressing actual problems that you want to solve you take design out of the subjective realm and into the practical world.

In the next few weeks I am going to address some of the practical ways that design can solve real issues for your website. Specifically I am going to address how:

1. Good design can increase your conversion rates.

2. Good design can improve the credibility of your company.

3. Good design can increase the quality of your products.

As you finalize your website marketing plan I hope that you aren’t too quick to dismiss design as something worthy of your investment. With so many people cutting back on their web marketing budgets, investing in design could be just the edge you need to stand out from your competition.

There is a temptation when website budgets are tight to use one of the cheap design companies found online. A Google search will yield many bargain website template options, but you should be very careful before pursuing them. Here are some questions to ask before you purchase a cheap $500 website design template.

How many other companies use this template?
A pre-designed template will most likely be used by many other sites. Having a unique site is important, so be aware that there will be many other people with sites that look identical to yours.

Will the design hurt my brand?
Your brand is what makes you different from your competition. If you have invested in building a unique identity then a website template is not going to match the rest of your brand. If your brochures and business cards don’t match your website there will be a major disconnect in your customers minds.

Are there hidden costs?
Sometimes cheap websites don’t tell you all the fees associated with your purchase. Does the cost include customization? Will you need to hire a developer to deploy the site? What about hosting? Make sure you know what you are getting into before you fall for a “too good to be true” sales pitch.

Is the content unique?
Some pre-designed websites sell content as well as the design. You can pick and choose from the articles and pre-written text to fit your needs. This is a major no-no if you want to be found by search engines. Google rewards unique content and penalizes sites that aren’t authentic.

What are the long-term costs?
Think about what will happen a year from now when you realize that your bargain website is completely unusable. Consider the money lost throughout the year and the additional burden of starting from scratch now that you see recognize your mistake.

Purchasing a pre-designed website template is definitely a website budgeting mistake. Luckily, there are affordable alternatives that result in high quality templates. Give us a call and we will show you how budgeting for your website doesn’t mean you have to end up with a low quality product.

You might find yourself in a situation where you can’t afford a much needed website redesign. Your website budget is tight and you need to make your money stretch. Here are some ideas to help you prioritize your web needs so that you can get the most out of your website design dollars.

Priority 1: Analytics
If you aren’t tracking the effectiveness of your website, this should be your first priority. If you don’t know what is working and what fails, then you won’t know what to budget for in your website. If you aren’t tracking your traffic, or don’t understand how to read your analytics reports, then budget for this first.

Priority 2: Identify Big Issues
Armed with website statistics of traffic and the browsing patterns of your users you can identify the big issues that need to be addressed on your website. An example of a big issue would be something like converting your table-based site to a css site. Another example would be overhauling your shopping cart to increase conversion rates.

Priority 3: Simple Fixes
In evaluating your site you will find small adjustments that might have big impacts. These relatively inexpensive adjustments can have a large return on investment. Example of small changes would be fixing broken links, updating homepage text, or updating your header with your new logo.

Prioritizing your website needs is the best way to make your website budget stretch. We hope you keep Red Rocket Media Group in mind as you finalize your website budget this year. Stay tuned for my post next Wednesday when I will talk about one of the biggest website budget mistakes.

When you are looking for ways to trim your website budget, design is one of the things that often gets cut. You probably feel like “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” That may be true, but I would encourage you to spend a little time evaluating your website design, before you completely dismiss a redesign from your budget. Full website audits can be time consuming and costly, but there are some simple questions that you can ask to get a sense of whether or not you need to invest in website design next year. Open up your website and ask yourself the following questions:

What is your first impression?
It can be hard to look at your site without some personal bias, but think of what a new visitor will think when they land on your homepage? Does your design foster trust? Is it immediately apparent what your company does and what you offer? Is your site uniquely different from your competition? Does your site look dated? If your first impression could be improved then you should probably include design in your website budget.

How easy is your site to use?
You can navigate your site quickly because you use it daily, but what about someone who has never seen your site? Find someone who has never seen your site and ask them if you can watch them as they interact with there site. Give them a simple task, like finding a certain product. Watch them fill out forms. You may be surprised where people get confused or stuck. If you see this person struggling to use your site then you should probably include design in your website budget.

When was the last time you added fresh content to your site?
If you can’t tell the difference between your website now and a year ago then you should probably include design in your website budget. Not only will search engines reward you for fresh content, but your visitors will, too. If your site is constantly changing people are more likely to bookmark your site and come back for more.

Chances are, you probably will see some areas of your site that could use some design attention. This doesn’t have to break the bank, and there are probably affordable solutions that can fit into your web design budget. The next step is prioritizing your needs, which I will cover in my post next Monday. Thanks for reading!

I read a fascinating article last weekend in Wired about placebos. The article describes how placebos seem to be getting more and more effective over the past decade. Why does this appeal to a graphic designer in Northern Colorado? As researchers work to understand placebos their studies are taking into account things that sound very much like design. For example, here are the results that they found when they tracked how the color of a placebo pill affected the patients results.

Yellow
Pills that are yellow seem to have a bigger effect when treating depression.

Red
When pills are red they seem to have a more stimulating effect.

Green
Green pills reduce anxiety better than other colored placebos.

White
A white placebo works better than other placebos when used for antacids.

Isn’t that amazing? Essentially, the only thing that these patients are experiencing is the act of taking a colored pill and they are reporting relief from their symptoms! I find this fascinating because it is so easy to let color choices be an arbitrary decision. Even the most color-sensitive clients that I have worked with rarely think about how their color choice could directly impact their sales. Is the use of color in you logo, website and marketing materials hurting or helping your business?

Color is just one of many design decisions that go into creating a successful product. Many of these decisions that seem trivial or inconsequential directly affect your sales – for good or bad. Many companies make the mistake of designing a logo or website themselves without realizing the damage they are doing to themselves. A good designer is extremely sensitive to color and the effect that their designs will have on people. The “placebo effect” of design can impact your sales in very real ways. Give us a call and let us show you why good design is good medicine.

As a northern colorado web designer, I am often conflicted about one of the most popular and polarizing technologies on the internet: Flash. You probably know that Flash is what gives many websites the slick interactive animation and transitions and you may have read passionate internet rants in favor and against Flash. When done correctly, Flash can be a great way to add some visual zing to your site. If done wrong it can really hurt your site. If you are considering hiring a northern colorado web design company, keep the following list of pros and cons in mind.

Flash Pros
1. Visual Flair
While other technologies are emerging that mimic the visual pyrotechnics of Flash, it is still unmatched in its ability to animate almost anything you can imagine. If you need complex movement on your site chances are you need Flash.

2. Interactivity
Flash shines when it comes to interactivity. If your site has elements that need to respond to or interact with the movement of a mouse, you probably need Flash.

3. Fonts
Unlike typical websites, Flash has the ability to embed Fonts. If your company requires the use of specific fonts other than the default web fonts, you should consider Flash as an option.

4. Limitless possibilities
Games, video, maps, custom apps – the possibilities are endless. If you can dream it, chances are you can make it with Flash.

Flash Cons
1. Expensive
Because Flash is a specialized skill, it can be hard to find a Flash company to help you with your website project. Once you find a Flash designer in Northern Colorado you may have to get in line because they are busy. Add that to the fact that Flash development takes longer than traditional web design and your project will might be more expensive than you would expect.

2. Hard to Update
If your site has content in the Flash sections it will probably be hard to update. There aren’t any content management systems that would let you update Flash easily.

3. Less visible to search engines
While Google has improved its ability to index Flash based websites, it still falls behind traditional HTML in search engine visibility. If SEO is critical to your site be very intentional in your use of Flash and don’t “hide” important content in the Flash ares.

I left a couple cons off my list that you may have be wondering about. One is load time and the other is the requirement of the Flash plugin. I don’t consider these to be major drawbacks because a good designer should be able to keep file size under control. With Flash penetration in the 99% area it is safe to use Flash without loosing viewers in typical web browser situations.

This list hits the major pros and cons of using Flash, but every website is different.
Don’t let this list tip the scales if you really want to use Flash. In the hands of a great Flash Designer you should be able to avoid the Flash pitfalls that other sites suffer from.

There is a statistic that I use quite often that measures the time it takes a person to evaluate your website. Studies show that website users decide the credibility of your site in the first 50 milliseconds that they see your site. While this is a widely accepted fact there are relatively few places online that really dig into this research and make connections between actual design elements and their split second consequences. One of the best pieces I have read was recently published on A List Apart in an article called “Visual Decision Making.” I encourage you to read the article if you have any interest in the impact of good design on the success of a website.

Design often is gets categorized wrongly as an art. Understandably, when design is looked at as an embellishment or a luxury, business owners are hesitant to invest money in it, especially in tough economic times. I like the way that A List Apart defines design in their Visual Decision Making article. It says, “Smart graphic design is always some balance of current expressive trends, information architecture, classical layout aesthetics, and detailed research on user preferences and motivations.”

If you are considering designing your website yourself or cutting corners with the design of your website I hope you reconsider. Amateur design is easily spotted and the visitors to your site will sense the lack of professionalism immediately. With so much at stake it makes sense to hire an experienced web design company. Give us a call and let us show you how much more successful your site will be with great design.

Web design companies in Colorado often make the mistake of talking over the head of their customers. Building a website is a very technical process and conversations with a web developer often leave your head spinning even if you are a reasonably tech savvy person. Below is an entertaining video that has been circulating the internet showing many everyday people being asked if they know the difference between a browser and a search engine.

Most people know that a web browser is the application (like Firefox) on your computer that you use to connect to the internet. A search engine is a website (like Google) that helps you search the internet. It seems unlikely that the video’s conclusion that “as many as 92% of Americans don’t know the difference,” is accurate, but it does illustrate how easy it is for the average person to get confused with even the most basic web concepts.

Most Colorado web design companies are trustworthy, but there is always danger in just “taking their word for it” when it comes to a Northern Colorado web design agency’s technical expertise. Red Rocket Media Group strives to make website design as painless as possible. We explain the technical aspects of your project so that you know the consequences of the decisions you are helping us make. If you are unsure about the technology being implemented on your website give us a call and we would be glad to help you out. We are web experts who speak your language and take the time to make sure you understand the “what” and “why” of your website design.