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The 3 Key Components of Website
Development
From the simplest to the most complex all websites share
three key components - graphic design, functionality, and content. How
you implement these three components is the difference between a highly
effective and an ineffective website.
Before we look at these three components in detail,
let’s give some thought to what an “effective” website
really is.
A website has a purpose. For many that purpose is to
generate sales or leads. The goal of the website is to convert visitors
to sales or leads. Therefore, a highly effective website maximizes the
percentage of visitors who become sales or leads. Conversely, an ineffective
website does not maximize its conversion percentage and in fact may
be much lower than its potential maximum.
" The three key components in a highly
effective website
are totally focused on converting the visitor. "
Know your target market
You must know whom your target market is and how
to best appeal to them. For example, a website focused on selling hunting
and camping equipment would likely have a strong masculine design because
men are the primary purchasers of such items. However, a website focused
on selling upscale perfumes would likely have a feminine design and
a sense of luxury about it.
Once you know your target market, you can then use the
three key components of website development to create a highly effective
website for that market.
Key Component 1 – Graphic Design
The way your site ‘looks’ has a lot
to do with whether or not people will stay at your site and learn more
about your products and services and ultimately, deciding upon doing
business with you. Studies have shown that bad graphic design is the
number one reason websites lose potential business customers.
As they say, first impressions are important and this
holds true especially on the web where a visitor is just one easy click
away from departing your website. Here are some graphic design points
to keep in mind:
- Keep layouts consistent from page to page.
- Design for page loads of less than five to
six seconds.
- Keep your page download sizes to 32KB or
less.
- Keep graphics small but decipherable.
- Re-use the same graphics from page to page.
- Be aware of screen real estate.
- Design for a variety of browsers (and versions),
hardware platforms, and bandwidth.
- Avoid using frames! Ultimately, frames confuse
visitors, search engines, and bookmarking.
- Leave out advertising. It’s ugly, takes
up space and isn't why your visitor showed up. It won't make you any
money either.
Key Component 2 – Functionality
Good functionality for a website largely depends
on the way the GUI (graphical user interface) is built. A well designed
GUI makes it easy for visitors to interpret the navigation of your website.
Navigation should be consistent and always visible at the top of the
screen or down the left side of the page.
Design your site around a structure or skeleton that
makes sense to your visitors and their concerns. Keep in mind, when
visitors are viewing your web pages on your site they want to know:
- Where am I? - Provide your site name or logo,
general section, and page name on each page.
- Where have I been? - ideally, show the path
they took to get there.
- Where can I go? – show pages below
the primary level but also how to get back to the home page and related
pages on this same level.
Some other functionality and ease of
use items to keep in mind:
- The home page should include a directory of
the site's most important sections.
- Home pages are good places to make announcements
about changes, new products and services, press coverage, and so on.
- Provide site search capability (if possible).
- Make it easy for people to contact you. Include
phone numbers, addresses and your website address in the footer of
every page. That way, if someone prints out a page from your website
they have a simple reminder of how to get in touch with you.
- Keep other elements such as contact forms
simple and easy to complete.
Key Component 3 – Content
The Internet holds endless amounts of information
and is the single greatest source of information ever available to the
masses. However, finding the information you need, can sometimes be
quite challenging. In fact, people tend to read differently on the web.
Studies have shown that most people ‘scan’ for the material
that they are looking for.
Writing content for the web requires some different
techniques. Here are some good points to keep in mind when your developing
content for your website.
- Be succinct. Write your page copy then reduce
the number of words by 50%.
- Focus on what's really important to your
visitors.
- Create visual clarity. Use headlines, bolded
words, bulleted lists, tables, and other visual structures.
- Expose your personality. You don't need to
write in a dry, academic, or gray business-speak manner. On the other
hand, don't be too cute.
- Edit your copy. Spell check. Grammar check.
Errors reduce credibility.
- Use plain language that your audience can
understand.
- Make it easy for your visitors to get to
what they care about.
- Write meaningful page titles. Visitors may
enter your site other than through your home page.
Foster legibility. Use sans serif fonts (like Ariel) for body text.
They're easier to read than serif fonts.
- Focus on scan-ability. Visitors scan sites
more than they read them.
- Use multi-media sparingly. Most people are
still connected to the Internet via dial-up modems, not broadband.
To summarize briefly, a good website fulfills its purpose
– to generate sales or leads. Use the three key components described
above to maximize your website’s effectiveness with your target
market.
This article was written for our friends at WebsiteManagementTools.com
Contact us
today for a FREE Design and Usability Analysis of
your current website.
Review our website
plans to see what works best for you.
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