What makes a great website design, well one that converts obviously. But for each company sector the structure and content pieces that will drive conversion will be completely different. Images are great for lifestyle companies that want to tap into people dreams and emotions, but would the same work for an IT Service company – probably not.

So whilst it is impossible for us the give you an exact recipe of the web design that will work for you and your company we can certainly give you some thoughts that will help you along the way, so here goes

• Without question, you have to know your audience (or audiences) work out what they are going to want from your website and deliver on it. this might mean a lot of research whilst you are at the design stage, but it will be worth the investment of time if your website turns into a lead generating machine.
• These days your design needs to work on a range of devices, from a mobile phone and iPad through to desktop machines. There are some great responsive designs you can use to manage this process for you, or if your site is not responsive remember to design a mobile version of your site that can be used.
• Colour is important, and while we all have our favourite colours so you won’t get it right for everyone, do give it some serious consideration. For example you wouldn’t build a medical site in red, the colour promotes danger and mistrust to a degree, so be careful!
• Fonts are also important, when people read, typically they do not read each letter but more the shape of the word which the brain then interprets. If you use difficult fonts, or italic text a lot these shapes become disfigured so rendering your site difficult to read. Also bear in mind the size of the font and space around it, make it a pleasurable reading experience even for those that have poor eyesight.
• With design, know what you can take out, sometimes websites can be over designed and so they lose their way. If you can identify bits you can lose, typically you’ll be left with what is important to your brand, and that will work perfectly.
• Your website home page should identify with your customer, they need to land and think ‘yes that is me’ make sure you have identified your clients carefully and have depicted who they are on the home page.
• Images are important, it is worth investing in some good quality images so that you can have your own library of resources, a badly shot, low lit image will have a detrimental effect on user experience.

Your content should follow the age old rule of marketing, the golden rules of communication which are:

A – Attention : I – Interest : D – Desire : A – Action

And finally, your website should be a non-judgmental, trusted resource that users feel confident and comfortable using. Ask yourself the question, “would I give this company my credit card details” – if the answer is yes you’re on the right tracks!