Recent
studies show that consumers are using the internet more than
ever when shopping for products and services. It should also
come as no secret that a poorly developed site can hurt your
changes of attracting those new consumers. In fact, online
consumers regularly narrow down their selections based on
their experience while surfing those sites. So what's the
difference between a good site and a bad site?
Let's break it down
into five parts:
1. Visual Appeal
A site should be attractive and with colors that are
pleasing to the eye. The use of clashing or overly bright
colors may simply cause the visitor to leave before seeing
everything you have featured on your site. The site should
also compliment your established image. Only a custom
designed site can truly reflect your business's image.
2. Navigation
You site visitor should be able to move around your site
easily and intuitively. Site visitors who get lost by
complex structures and dead end links will simply get
frustrated and leave.
3. Site Content
The information on your site should be easy to read and
concise. Your content should be specific to your target
audience and focused, with attention to quick download time
as well.
4. Hosting
Your site should reside on a dependable host server with
minimal down time. Even the best developed sites are useless
if the server is down for extended periods of time. You
selected hosting service should also provide email addresses
with your domain name extension to complete the overall
professional solution.
Take a look at our hosting services.
5. Search Engine
Placement
People should be able to find your site using the various
top search engines available. If you're serious about your
site, you can't simply forget about it once it's "live" on
the web. We can also
help you cure your search engine ranking headache.
The Template Site
Trap
Template site providers have recently been appearing on the
web design landscape in greater numbers. Unfortunately, more
and more people are falling into the template site trap. Not
all template site vendors are completely bad news. But the
vast majority of template services on the web make no sense.
Why?
A template site technically designs a site one time and
sells that design over and over. Instead of a uniquely
designed custom site, you will have a site that has been
used numerous times, quite possibly by your competition. A
template site typically does not allow for much
customization on your part either. You can normally add your
logo, text and a picture sized to their precise
specifications. If your business grows and you need to
expand your site, you're out of luck. Template sites are
normally not very flexible.
Template sites also
include hosting in your monthly fee and the site must remain
on their server. As time goes on, the monthly fee may begin
to increase year by year. Unfortunately, you are chained to
their hosting service. If you cancel your account, your site
disappears and you are left with nothing. Do you really want
to risk that scenario?
Read more about why template sites make no sense here.
