Web Design and Why It Matters

Having a business today means having a website, even if you're not actually selling from that site. People expect to be able to find you on the internet. When they can't, you run the risk of losing a bit of brand loyalty. Just having a website is not enough: this isn't the middle of the 90s anymore, and if you don't know what you're doing, your site will reflect that ignorance. You may have the best retail business in the country, but if your site looks cheap and poorly organized, it will not make a good impression on customers. Web design professionals can turn your site into an attractive place to spend a few minutes.

Promotion is easier and cheaper for the budding business today than it ever has been in the past. Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media have made it easy for a business to get its name out to the public, provided they have a strategy for doing so. However, all of this media should lead back to a clean website that attracts guests and doesn't turn them off. This is one of the reasons professional web design is so important. Yes, you can do it on your own, but there is more to designing a great site than following a step by step instructional guide. You can know the code to achieve what you'd like without learning a thing about what flows. This is where someone with an eye for beauty and functionality can be indispensible.

Remember, we live in an age where less is more. White space is better than clutter. Look at the popular websites and the ones they usurped on their way to domination. Compare Google with Yahoo. Google is as simple as a website can get, yet it is far more popular than Yahoo, which seems convinced that filling every available space on the page is the way to go. Compare Facebook with its popularity predecessor, MySpace. Some MySpace pages were nearly impossible to load due to all of the videos, flashy graphics, and bad formatting. Every FB page, on the other hand, is more or less the same. Customers chose the clean lines and simplicity of Facebook over the customization and overkill of MySpace.

If you are planning to sell directly to internet customers, web design becomes even more important. While the stigma is fading, many people are still hesitant about ordering things online. Maybe not from Amazon or iTunes, but they will be cautious before ordering from your unknown site. Don't compound this fear by having a website that looks like it was designed in an afternoon by someone with only a passing familiarity with HTML. Part of earning a sale is earning the customer's trust. You can do that with a clean, easy to navigate website.