An attractive, functional and easy to navigate website forms a vital cornerstone to effective online marketing. Many people underestimate the central importance of website design and fail to make the connection between an effective website design and high sales conversions. It is absolutely vital to have a carefully structured and intelligent website if you want to succeed in the ultra competitive virtual environment that is the World Wide Web.

User Friendly – A website must be designed to be useful and easy for the user to explore. A user friendly website will enable the consumer to find exactly what they are looking for, quickly and easily. The website should load very quickly. Most people simply navigate away if they have to wait for a website to load, so don’t go overboard with too many pictures, graphics and special effects. The website should provide the key information quickly and users should be given the option of getting more detailed information if they so choose. There should be a sense of connectedness and clarity – users should find the website clear, simple and logical.

A Sense of Purpose – The purpose of the website should be immediately obvious to the potential user. There should be no need to hunt for the purpose of the website. A great way to instantly convey purpose is to have a strong, catchy tagline or slogan directly below the title of the business. A tagline should make it very clear what the product or service is and it should also work as a promotion for the business. A flash banner that quickly changes to convey the core elements of the business is also highly effective in conveying purpose.

Hook Your Target Audience – You need to know who your target audience is so that you can structure your website to appeal to this demographic. For example, if you are targeting users from a specific region, or age group or social class, you will create your marketing strategy to connect with their values and beliefs. Your website really is a multi-layered advertisement, so it makes sense to hire a professional writer and web builder to create colours, themes and writing that targets your ideal market.

Navigation – Navigation needs to be clear, easy and user friendly. Move from short, concise and basic dot points to more detailed information on the next link. If you overwhelm with too much content on the homepage, the user may become confused and navigate away. Less is most definitely more and navigation should be structured to reinforce this concept.

Content – Content needs to work on two levels. Firstly, you need to ensure that your content is keyword optimized, rich in detail and very well written to attract web crawlers so that you website will be ranked higher on a Google search engines. Secondly, content needs to be sales driven to dramatically capture your target audience and powerfully compel them to buy your product or engage your services. Unless you are very good writer, it would be wise to hire a professional to create your content.

Creative Design – There are so many different combinations of font, colour, images, moving banners, video files that you can incorporate into your website. Websites have become a form of art, and there are many wonderful examples available to get inspiration from. Again, you will want to carefully link your graphic design to your target market and try to make your website design visually appealing and attractive.