I love to design! Seeing things from imagination come to fruition.
For most of us, a rainbow of colours envelopes our lives.
Good valid code makes it easier for you to go back to projects and make amendments later on :)
Designing websites, writing code and debugging it all is thirsty, lengthy (and sometimes tiring) work.
It's important to know what you want from your website. Set goals and objectives you want to achieve to get the best from your site.
Having set goals helps you manage site performance and helps you improve your website in the future.
Ongoing accountability and measurement of your website's performance is paramount to achieving long-term success online.
However, most people only start worrying about the performance of their website once it has been launched.
Considering a multitude of questions and the answers you'd like before you even start a web design can reap exceptional rewards and avoid many performance pitfalls throughout the life of your website.
Here are a few things to consider:
What exactly do you want out of your website?
More direct sales? More telephone enquiries? More exposure to your market? What is your market?
Sounds simple enough, but get this most basic of information written down somewhere. Why? Well, then you'll be more conscious that, for example, a grungy, black red and pink website will not appeal to a market of accountants...
What is your capacity to receive the success of your objectives?
This is a key question. If you can only physically answer 10 telephone calls per hour, how would you cope if you started receiving 30?
Additionally, doing a bit of research on the potential traffic your website should generate will allow you to gauge realistically how many enquiries you'll receive based on industry standard enquiry levels.
You can then translate that to how many physical enquiries you'll convert to sales based on your own measured conversion rate.
For example, you know that you'll sell to 3 out of every 10 people that telephone you, and that 5 out of every 10 visitors to your website will get in touch.
This means 100 visitors = 50 enquiries = 15 sales.
Measuring Your Goals & Objectives Is Key To Web Design Success
Once you've set out your specific web design goals & objectives, and following the launch of your new or re-designed website, measuring these goals is vital.
Through the use of free web analytics software and an astute head for enquiries and conversion rates you can track the success of your web design, set benchmarks and decide whether you need to invest in any form of online marketing, such as search engine optimisation (SEO).
