Hey guys, today we decided to touch up what you should and should not do when it comes to running a website and driving it to success, what you should think about design wise, why not to trust freelance designers, and how to better target your site to into clicking more.

With the roll out of a new website; the need for an experienced graphic designer is becoming more and more prominent as it relates to how your customers perceive your website, navigate within it and ultimately purchase from it. Following are some tips we have been able to put together to better position your website so it converts at a much higher percentage of the traffic that is being driven to your site:

The use of the term “Instant Affinity“: This is a term that we use for the “that’s what I’m searching for” reaction that customers sometimes have when then find new sites. It’s an important (albeit subjective) measure because many studies have shown that visitors make a judgment about a website in a fraction of a second; normally within 5-8 seconds of landing on a website. If you do not have INSTANT AFFINITY as it relates to your branding and a value proposition message; then you are not maximizing the use of your HTML CONTENT fields to drive home your message while instilling confidence in your visitors to continue to navigate/browse and ultimately purchase from your website.

In our experience, we have found that crisp, clean, well laid out looking sites, with an appropriate image related to your product offerings and a 7-12 value proposition, tend to work well together. We’d suggest shorter landing pages, so that no scrolling is required or at least very little; this is the norm in the industry; you want to keep your HTML CONTENT landing page images to a height/width that conducive in displaying a promo about a particular category WHILE still showing product above the FOLD (Above the fold = what customers see initially after clicking on a link without the need for said customer to scroll down to view product(s)).

Here is an example of a well designed landing page:

Next is Credibility. We’re all wary of scams (like the trafficcoleman.com scam) on the web and due to this it’s important that your customers equate quality of graphic design with quality of product so trust/loyalty can ensure to drive conversion. Thus a certain level of graphic design sophistication is needed so your site SCREAMS credibility! The chances are if your design was “homemade” then it also looks that way to your customers. Wed suggest using an experienced graphic design company when putting together any marketing materials; such as DSR related promo inserts to your eBay customers, HTML CONTENT execution on your website, email targeted campaigns, etc…

But here’s the tricky part, in doing so you don’t want to fall for a scam yourself. There are so many new designers popping up every day, any young kid with a free download of PhotoShop or similar graphic software considers themselves a professional designer, purchases a domain for $10 and sets up his online design company. Many then go to setup a portfolio that does not even belong to them, ripping designs left and right, logo’s from logo galleries, css sites from css galleries and so on. It’s appalling but sadly it’s strongly in effect as we speak.

Also, freelance designers force a 50/50 payment system where you pay 50% of the full project costs before they start, then the remaining 50% after everything is finished, many times they don’t finish it and you’re stuck chasing them and filing chargebacks on top of that wasting your time.

We suggest you don’t hire a designer that does not have a real contact page with address or phone numbers, or office details of some sort. Serious designers that wont give you a hard time wont mind providing their personal details for contact purposes. Use Escrow when you can so you’re safer when it comes to dealing with payments and please, whatever you do, ask to have the designer call you so you at least have a number and know they are really who they say they are.

Freelance designers are NOT the way to go, they’re for the most part untrustworthy so aim to deal with graphic companies rather than individual freelance designers. Companies may charge more but you get your monies worth!

Lastly is Focus. This feeds directly into ‘clutter’ and how customers perceive your site. If there is TOO MUCH going on in terms of links, flash animation, promos, animated .gifs, scrolling advertisements, etc…then you value proposition of who you are and why customers should shop or continue to browse your site; will be last in translation due to a cluttered site. Like Einstein said,

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.”

We’ve found that an effective concept in any number of web marketing areas (as mentioned above). We feel that graphic design should contribute to usability and simplicity by helping those customers determine where there next clicks are going to occur on your website; based upon what your customers are looking for. We’re huge fans of simplifying navigation options by predicting what the majority of your site visitors will be looking for via the use of KEYWORD reports from your Google Analytics account as well as by using your upcoming NEXTOPIA advanced search module which contains a REPORT section that delivers to you an even more robust list of search words by your customers; then act upon these finds and then offer visually prominent links to those items; for example the use of images on your BRAND menu.

With that, you’re one step closer to driving your site steady on the road to success, good luck!