July 2009


Website graphics definitely play a major role in marketing your website and are therefore, a very efficient and effective way of boosting your sales. It is very likely that your graphics give the potential customer their first impression of your site and it is very important that a consistent overall image of your site is created. The quality and positioning of the graphics contained in your website are essential for it to look both attractive and professional. If all else fails in your website design, using professional looking graphics can only serve to enhance your site.

Positioning

Obviously, in launching a website, you are trying to get a message across to the public, whether it be informative or strictly sales. In either scenario, the content of a website must be easily read. One way to achieve this is by breaking up the text with well positioned and relevant graphics, ensuring that the viewer’s interest is held while you get your message across. The graphics should be complementary to the text and aid in conveying the message. The visitor should be able to look at a web page and instantly know what to expect from the rest of the site, remember that first impressions only count once, so make it count. Website graphics and their positioning play a vital role in website design to the point where they could either make or break your website.

Image Formats

Generally, the formats used for website graphics are either JPG or GIF, as they load quicker than most others. The JPG format is mainly used for photographs and the GIF format is mainly used for buttons, logos or menu bars. A word of warning regarding working with graphics in JPG format. This format is a lossy compression, which means that every time the image is edited and saved, it loses a small amount of quality. The best way to avoid this is to edit the image in the native format of the image manipulation software you are using, and then save the final version in JPG format.

Size Does Matter

Whenever someone visits a web page, that web page is downloaded onto their computer, which means that your graphics are downloaded as well. There are two very important factors that come into play here if the site contains large graphic files. The first being that if the viewer is using a slow internet connection, the graphic will take a very long time to download, causing the viewer to lose interest and probably leave the site. The second being that graphics can use a lot of bandwidth, which means that if there are alot of very large graphic files on the site, and that site becomes popular, then the cost of running that site may escalate. Therefore, if your graphics are more than 50kb, then seriously think about reducing their size. I will cover this in more depth in my next article, but there are two points that you should consider. One, stop thinking about inches or centimetres and think in pixels, as this is what your web page is measured in. Two, screen resolution wont be much better than 96 pixels/inch on most computers, so why use a graphic that has a resolution of 600 pixels/inch and therefore six times bigger?

Summary

Professional website graphics are attention grabbers and will make your site stand out in the crowd. They can enhance your website and increase it’s popularity and thus generate revenue. Good website graphics add professionalism to your website, which will in turn entice viewers to return. On the flip side of the coin, poor quality or badly positioned graphics can cause your site more harm than good. Large graphics files can cause web pages to load slowly, potentially losing viewers and damaging your business. Working with graphics is very time consuming and an art form in itself. It might therefore, be more practical/economical, at times, to pay a professional to alter/construct the graphics you require.

Even in a profession as seemingly easy as website designing and marketing, we see this same flaw time and time again. She then retired the following year and we began designing a website to provide health information. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what’s even more essential, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer. One method of thinking about designing a new website is to use a mind mapping process, or to draw up a spider diagram.

Web designing is a perfect combination of creativity & technical expertise and both are equally important. Color choice should also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or re-vamping a website. Database templates also facilitates you to make changes to your site much more easily, and help you change certain elements without recreating the entire page from scratch The dividends of simplicity can not be ignored and put at stake While designing a website it is important that the site is attractive, fast-loading, user friendly, focuses on your content and has a high stickiness factor to it.

Design for Specific Search Engines -While designing your website, aim to get a high ranking in the top three search engines. That you like and you’re in the process of designing your website. HTML is a common language for building and designing website. Whether you are building a brand new website, or re-designing an old website, or currently using a web design company for ongoing maintenance, these tips will help to make sure you are getting the best deal. I strongly believe that this can be simply achieved if website designers are able to follow very basic rules in designing their web sites. Not only are you selling your product or service, you’re marketing it, doing the accounting, paying the bills, answering the phones, designing and updating your website and preparing and sending out mail. However, it always happens that HTML editors write clumsy HTML tags, especially when you amend the webpage layout again and again during your website designing process, which may possibly deter search engines from reading your web page and in turn poorly affect your search engine ranking.

Although designing a website for the colorblind will not limit your color palette, you’ll need to be wary of the color combinations that you use. Make sure you are well aware of these plans before designing or optimizing your website. , how to minimize issues during check-out, designing the website for instant product reviews and actual delivery time, and scheduling fast delivery of orders and pick-up of returns?

Keywords having good keywords are one of the most important areas to consider when designing a website/webpage. It’s not that difficult to build your own website and the following reasons will convince you that designing a website that suits you and your market may lead to increased profits.

In order to increase the search engine optimization for your website, some new website designing needs to be done Again, there is a much smaller pool of website designers who have the capabilities of designing a website so that it is well optimized for search engines. A common problem that many people have is that before they even start designing or building a website they need to decide specifically what the goal of the website is.

There are a number of different reasons why making sure your website experiences the best website designing can be very important to its overall success. Simply put, designing an awesome content rich website is not enough. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day mechanics of designing and maintaining a website and poor organization just makes the job harder. A web designer needs to consider a variety of online selling principles while designing an eCommerce website.

Not only are you selling your product or service, you’re marketing it, doing the accounting, paying the bills, answering the phones, designing and updating your website and preparing and sending out mail. Now that you are ready to start designing your website, you need to put a plan in place for what you want your website to achieve. Establish The Website Establishing a website consists of three steps: securing a domain name, designing the website, and finding a web hosting service. I wouldn’t name the website here, but I know well about them because I was trying to compete with them for two most competitive keywords “web design company” and “web designing company” If you doubt that these keywords are so competitive, I would like you to have a look at this great tool which would tell you how competitive a keyword and a phrase is, it’s fun to play with.

Design depends on individual taste and designing a website from a first draft that the client will like from the start, can be a real challenge. Choose a HTML Editor Before you can begin designing your new website, you will need a piece of software called a HTML Editor or sometimes called Web Editor. The number one most important thing you should always be aware of when designing a website is to, and I can’t stress this enough, is to make a good first impression. The time and effort you spend on designing your website will be obvious to your visitors and will result in sales.

Org that you like and you’re in the process of designing your website. Avoid fanciful graphics, slow loading time and inaccurate spelling when designing your website. “Well, driving high traffic to your site is important, but what’s even more important, is designing a website that makes them stay".

Blogging is very popular right now. And having a business weblog that provides good information for your customers while being timely and fun can add a new dimension to your Web site.

Blogs are a powerful tool for marketing and promotion. Because the entries are short, and often full of links, they are more keyword heavy than standard articles often are. Plus, being short, they are easy for your customers to read (and you to write), so they are more likely to come back daily to see what you might have to say on that day.

If your company is very formal, a blog is a place to show your customers that it is made up of people just like them. You can do this without becoming too personal or diary-like.

To understand the benefits a web site can bring it is useful to compare alternative marketing methods. If you wish to market your business, you are likely to need brochures and/or advertisements. Professional brochures and adverts are not cheap, they have a limited life and cost as much again if you want to change them! You have to find your customers and there is the cost of distribution. A web site is likely to have similar start-up costs, thereafter it has many advantages. A well designed web site does not have a finite life, simple changes can be accommodated for minimal cost and are immediate. Most important potential customers find your web site, you don’t have to find them! key benefits are:-

  1. A good website creates a professional image
  2. Providing it does well at search engines (choose your website designer carefully!) you can reach a fast growing global market.
  3. A website acts as a 24/365 shop window to your products and services. While you sleep it is still working.
  4. A well implemented design can bring operational efficiency
  5. refer people to your website rather than send out literature, saving on stationary, time and postage.
  6. It is cheap and easy to update compared to other marketing methods
  7. It provides very cost effective marketing
  8. Providing it does well at search engines, genuine customers will find you, you don’t have to bother finding them!

More and more people and businesses use the Internet to find information, it is convenient and saves time. Having a website is becoming so mainstream that customers and the general public almost expect a company to have a website. If people want information on a product or service, they are now saying, “I think they have a website, I’ll check that out first.”

Increases awareness of products/services
A website provides the opportunity to publish the who, what, where, when and why of your business in a powerful and effective manner. How many potential customers might be saved if they could learn a little more about you, your company, your products, etc., without having to phone or taking the time to meet with you in person? A website makes it easy for customers to learn more about your business at their own pace.

Expands market place
A website can expand your reach to a market that may have been difficult or expensive to reach through traditional advertising. Increasingly, people search the Web rather than the Yellow Pages when looking for a service or product. You’d be amazed how much shopping occurs on the World Wide Web overnight! With an e-commerce site you can even make sales when your offices are closed.

Increases hours of operation
Not only will your website be there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with the possibility of reaching millions of people every day, but now your customers are able to contact you outside of your normal business hours. Your website is still working for you while you are at leisure or asleep, and is not dependent on your having a PC or leaving your PC switched on.

Marketing tool
Replace or complement existing sales and marketing channels
It’s a very low-cost method of promoting your business. By advertising your website, in addition to your product or services, you give potential customers the opportunity to learn far more about your product or services than you could ever place in an ad.

Reduce publishing costs
One of the largest expenses a business can incur is designing, printing, and delivering marketing materials. Websites are quicker, easier and more cost-effective to update than print based media. You can keep your website more current, more affordably than any other media can.

With a website, you can instantly publish that same information: new product announcements, employment opportunities, contact information, coupons, almost anything, without material or delivery costs. People can learn about it instantly just by visiting your website.
Imagine how much it would cost to produce a catalog for 200 different products, and keep it in consumers’ hands for an entire year. You can accomplish this with a website very easily, with low development cost and almost no distribution cost.

Reduce marketing costs
Buying advertising space, whether it’s a newspaper ad, billboard or radio spots, can be expensive. In addition is the burden of the hours spent trying to figure out the perfect words to say in a limited space. A website is an unlimited number of full-page ads that you can change at will!

Reduce communication costs
A website can do far more than sell products. You can have pictures, details and prices of your products/services, the very latest company information, hours of operation and maps indicating the location of your company’s outlets on your website. It can supply your staff, suppliers and business partners with important and timely information. Just about any printed matter can be converted to a web page and distributed by email at far less cost and time than by fax, mail or courier.