WDTalk

Center Your Pages – Pages that are left or right aligned don’t work well with larger PC monitors, and often look out of place due to the large amount of space left to one side.

Use Ample White Space – Resist loading up your pages with everything imaginable. Focus is important. Use white space to guide visitors as they navigate your site. Clutter simply invites confusion.

Consistency – This reverts back to short term versus long term memory retention and branding principles. Try to use the same terminology in your prompts and menus.

KISS – We’ve all see the term. Keeping it simple works. Highlight the key products or services you offer on your home page, then provide more in-depth information about them deeper in your site. Don’t try to squeeze everything onto one page that scrolls forever.

Embrace all five senses – reach out to your visitors in a way that they’ll best understand what you have to offer. Use a mix of graphics and short blocks of text to capture their attention.

Employ analytics – to determine how visitors reach your site, how long they stay & if they return. If your site has a high bounce rate, perhaps the search query doesn’t match well with your content, or the content may need to be revamped.

Enhance Credibility and Trust – Add an About Us page. In a era where we’re being warned to avoid certain websites, as they may infect your computer with all sorts of malware, it’s important to convey credibility at first glance. Let’s face it – the design of your site directly relates to the perception of your professionalism.

Color and Layout – speaks volumes about your business. Color themes are perceived differently in global markets, so it’s vitally important to understand your target audience. What works for car dealerships doesn’t necessarily work for furniture retailers. Research your competition – emulate success.

Online Store? Increase your conversions with options, discount codes and freebies. I know if I’m comparing products and one vendor offers an immediate rebate, I’ll opt for that every day over the option to mail in some coupon and wait for weeks to get a check back.

Updated Dec 27 2011

Web design is about perception (by the visitor) - so user-centric designs lead to more successful & profitable websites. The key here is to approach your design from your visitor’s point of view. How do you see them interacting with your site?

Just as in personal encounters – first impressions are killer. Load up your home page with clutter and you’ll lose your visitor faster than …. well, faster than my dog can woof down a hot dog.

Ponder this – what do you do when you stumble across a site that has long blocks of unbroken text on the home page? Most visitors simply glance at new pages, then maybe scan some text. They’re searching for something, so if they find that SOMETHING or even something vaguely similar, more often than not, they’ll skip everything else on that page and click through.

What are your visitors thinking? Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Once they find something of interest and click through, if the new page doesn’t immediate match up to their expectations, what do they do? HIT THE BACK BUTTON !! Why? Surfers have become accustomed to instant gratification, and if not on your site, certainly on your competition’s website.

Once you’ve captured their attention – what factors motivate visitors to convert? Converting to me could be giving up their email address, going to livechat to speak to an operator, filling in a quote request or actually calling via telephone for more info. Of course, ordering online works well also. Here, I believe great content out-trumps visual design. As far back as I can remember (in sales), solutions and NOT products or services carry the day. If your solution eases some pain & is reasonable, the odds increase exponentially that visitors will buy.

Have you ever heard the term - “Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak”? Buying means making a decision, and that decision making process begins with a need to ease some pain, then logically progresses (in person) through stages of talking, thinking and actions toward closing the sale.

Online though, there are no body clues – no sales representative to nod their head up and down, looking for a yes response, cueing the prospect to follow suit. Online, compelling landing & checkout pages are vital to your success.

Buying anything is an emotional process – for some much more so than others, like me. Using the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell to evoke an emotion (tied to your offer) helps reinforce your solution in the eyes of your prospect.

Closing the sale – isn’t simply a yes or a no. It’s a logical progression from a search query to the point “Add to Cart. “ The term, “Always Be Closing,” applies to each and every page the prospect touches until the order is completed, and really should continue beyond that, with either a survey or recommendations for other products and services based on what they just purchased.

Giving your prospect too many choices – or making the navigation from Point “Search” to Point “Buy’ difficult, is just as bad.

Revised Nov 7, 2011

Colors affect your mood – mentally and physically, and this varies by geographic location and culture, and even time. When you’re designing your website, what mood are you looking to portray – a call to action, a sense of loyalty, something safe or very professional?

As designers – we need to understand both color theory and the psychology of color, especially with ecommerce applications. Red has always been perceived as a mood stimulus invoking aggression or a call-to-action, but it can also be perceived as STOP. In China, it symbolizes celebration and luck.

Orange is actually the preferred color – for increased click-through “ADD to Cart” or “Order Here” images. For an online business, combinations in shades of red, blue and brown work well. Blue lends a perception of loyalty, while brown provides overall balance. For professional sites, white is normally a great choice, but in eastern cultures, white symbolizes coldness and sterility.

One of my favorite colors – is purple (very exotic), but purple doesn’t fit everywhere. Why do Kings, Queens and even priests wear purple robes – because purple implies royalty and sophistication. One place it does fit is in sites about interior design, accentuating wealth.

Everyone Is Going Green – because it represents nature. Its cool quality soothes, calms and has great healing powers, which is why it’s often worn in operating rooms by surgeons. If your target audience is China or France, green is not a great choice for packaging solutions. In China, green hats mean a man’s wife is cheating on him. In India, green is the color of Islam.

I just stumbled upon an article at wpmu.org - that addresses the hidden dangers of searching for free WordPress themes. With over 25 million users, WordPress dominates the blogging stratosphere. While most web hosting providers have some form of quick install for WordPress, most do not offer themes beyond the default – so where do you look for a theme that best matches your business culture, mission, services and products (safely)?

Their recommendation:

• Theme Shaper
• ThemeLab
• Theme Hybrid
• Arras Theme
• Smashing Magazine

If you want to test your theme for hidden encrypted or static info, this article does recommend some tools

• Manual base64 decode

Useful Plugins

• Theme Authenticity Checker
• Exploit Scanner
• Theme Check

Think about this for a moment. When you stumble across two websites in the same niche and one has a mix of text and graphics and the other has straight text, which would leave the better impression – given all else was equal?

First impressions are made within the first few seconds
Countless studies have concluded that first impressions are made within the first few seconds of visiting a website. Impressions based on text take longer, simply because of the time it takes to read through the content. Impressions based on a mixture of graphics and text can project a broad range of perceptions within seconds. Those could include the size of your company, the scope of the products or services you offer, and whether your visitor should hang around to shop.

An example – if you include a picture of your brick & mortar business with a mailing address, would that convert to trust and stability? If you included a picture of yourself or your staff with short bio’s, would that convert to “know” in know, like and trust – the three key ingredients to selling anything online or offline?

Can graphics be used to make a connection with your visitors?
A graphic that conveys emotion automatically makes a connection with your visitor. That connection can be one of comfort, hunger, curiosity or any number of emotions. Just as the correct use of white space can lead visitors from point A to point Purchase, graphic optimization of your website has shown to increase conversion ratios – the stuff all ecommerce entrepreneurs love.

Color themes
I’m sure you’ve stumbled on sites just as I have, that blind you with their color themes. Even if you have the best content, products and pricing, visitors will likely leave before finding that out. Don’t underestimate the importance of a good color theme.

Eye Path
Just as it’s important to be found in the first ten results on search engine queries, it’s equally important to immediately lead visitors to your website, graphically, to your Value Proposition or Unique Selling Point. Eye path should intuitively lead visitors to your Call to Action.

Product Graphics
Generally, less text in graphics implies higher quality. Great designs can double or triple your page views, return visits, time on site, and conversion ratios.

Attention to detail
I’ve also seen some shopping carts recently, where the drop down menus don’t match the images. Attention to detail is important. And I don’t know about everyone else, but small thumbnails don’t cut the mustard, if I can’t click to enlarge the image – with some solution focused caption.

Image size in bytes
Site speed is so very important now, as visitors won’t hang around waiting for images to download. I closely relate this to the fast food industry. Just last week, I waited 15 minutes in line at a drive thru, then gave up and drove to the restaurant next to it. Thankfully, my wife was understanding. I was on a you fly – I buy mission. Not only will visitors move on, but Google may penalize you in their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) – further adversely affecting your conversion ratios.

Bottom Line
Great graphics unarguably translate to improved sales. If you’re selling a recurring service, one lost sale can equate to a lifetime loss of thousands of dollars. The look and feel of your website is an investment in your company or organization. Professional graphic design is well worth the investment, in both branding and sales – and first impressions!

When a visitor finds your site - imagine it’s like your best friend knocking at the front door. You want them to come in, make themselves at home and stick around awhile. Great web site design can make that happen. Whether you’re selling a product or service, or simply providing information, you want them to feel they’ve come to the right place.

Imagine you’re Judy, an online shopper - and you’re on the hunt for a flat screen TV, possibly 3-D. You start your search on Google by typing “flat screen TV”, and your search returns over 29 million results. What are the odds Judy will look beyond the first ten results? Pretty slim! What if she typed in “3D flat screen TV?” Hey, we’re down to 8 million results. Maybe she’ll check out the first two pages of results.

Local relevance is important - What if Judy didn’t want her new flat screen TV shipped from who knows where, and wanted to find one locally? What if she lives in Phoenix, AZ and typed in, “3D flat screen TV Phoenix AZ?” Not only will her search query be reduced to 32,000 results, the odds increase dramatically that she’ll search through more results to find the TV that appeals to her. She’s now very focused.What if you were selling 3D flat screen TV’s in Phoenix? Would Judy find your site? Possibly, but not necessarily. Is the verbage, 3D flat screen TV Phoenix AZ, anywhere on your site? Is your site indexed by Google, Bing or Yahoo?

Is your site in a good Internet neighborhood?
Internet neighborhoods are very much like real life neighborhoods. Ask your friend where to find that TV and I guarantee you that they (probably) won’t send you to a guy who is selling them out of the back of a truck. They’re going to point you to a reputable store. As well, it’s in the search engines best interests to point you to the most relevant websites. They have billions in advertising dollars resting on their recommendations.

What could land your website in a bad neighborhood?
Using blackhat SEO techniques jumps to the front of the line, followed very closely by allowing links back to spammers. If you’re running a blog or forum, be sure to moderate the comments and weed out the ones linking to obvious spammers.

The Power of the Internet - The Internet has leveled the playing field for many small and medium sized businesses. It’s not uncommon for many many more visitors to find you online than could ever find your brick & mortar location. Just as that sign on the front of your business and the landscaping surrounding your location is meant to draw walk-in prospects, your website is very much the online face of your business or organization. Your goal should be to make the best possible impression with each and every visitor. Following some very simple basics will help tremendously.

Visual Guidelines - It’s best to select a color theme that supports your site’s goals without overwhelming your visitors. Simple and pleasing versus busy and cluttered.

Navigational Guidelines - Make it easy to get from Point Query to Point Buy. Include FAQ’s to answer questions.

Add a Touch of Personality - Your site needs to be different from the sites your visitors just left. Add a touch of personality, but retain consistency across the entire site. Emphasize what makes your business unique.

Graphics and Text - The right mix of graphics and text is important. Long unbroken blocks of text will send visitors fleeing for the exits. Too many graphics may impair the search engines ability to index your site. You need a balance of graphics and text to make your site visually compelling.

Attention to Detail - Broken links give the impression that your business is less than professional. If your site is not in good working order, the perception is frequently that neither is your business. What you’re looking for is a quality experience with your visitors.