Website Design Online Marketing, Engage, Interact, and Convert Traffic

Website SEO requires Engagement, Interaction, the Ability to Convert Customers. Optimizing Content and other marketing is a design for success!

Here's a comment that may surprise you. No one care about how great your web site is designed! Does that bother you? Well, in reality, all anyone cares about when they hire a web designer is whether they can solve their problems and get them new clients. Ask any visitor to a web site what they want from a site and more than likely they'll tell you that they just what to find the information or the product they're after. So, in fact, it doesn't matter if a site has great graphics or is filled with fabulous flash animation because the bottom line is this: When designing a web site, your only concern is whether the web site does what it was meant to do, which is to get new business.

85% of Internet Users Are Searching For Answers!

In today's hi-tech world, studies clearly demonstrate that more than 85% of Internet users will use the web for locating services and information. Which means, in order to bring in new business, a web site must have certain qualities and features that keep customers at the site. Although most web designers realize that a site is supposed to be functional, when it comes to building and developing websites, many web designers focus more on designing a flashy site than they do on constructing and developing a site that is functional and helps increase business.

The Most Important Quality of a Web Site (Content)

Naturally, the design of the site should be engaging and user friendly, but it's function and content is still the primary key for a successful web site. No matter how well a site is designed, if it doesn't appeal to visitors, it will not translate into sales, and that's what most business owners are after. That doesn't mean that a web designer can just throw something together and put it on the web. Of course, the appearance of a site is vitally important, but how the site is presented, its ease of navigation and the content that is used to entice visitors are the most important qualities of a web site. Too many designers still believe that a fancy design is more important. What they discount is that if the content doesn't convey an effective call to action, a visitor will quickly leave.

Key Elements That Draw People to a Site?

If you have a website, think about your own excursions when shopping on the web and what attracts you to any site you visit. Are there any visuals on a site that make you buy? Do you stop at a site that has extensive flash and graphics that calls to you to make a purchase? Is it user friendly, appealing to the eye, and engaging content that keeps you browsing the site? When you stop at a site that has dull and boring content with pop-ups and ads or just the regular "About Us" "Contact Us", "FAQ's" you will most likely beat a path to next site. People shopping on the web do not have patience for outdated information, generic content, and pop-up ads. If you don't treat your website as a business and work on updating the content on a regular basis, your competition will surely do whatever it takes to eliminate you.

What Type of Content & Graphics Works Best?

When designing content for a website, you need to consider the message you're trying to convey. Any written or video content that you create or have created for your website should be professionally and grammatically prepared. If you personally don't provide the content, then you need to make sure your web consultant designs content that is refreshing, and ever changing. Is there ever too much content on a site? Not really if you make it interesting and focus on providing help that people truly need. The key to all content and graphics is targeting key words and phrases through out the entire site, which will help you achieve good search engine optimization.

The Colors You Choose for Your Site Matter

Frequently I see sites that are too dark, too bright, have too many color patterns, or are just too dull. So yes color on your website matters. As a matter of fact, tests have proven that physical changes come about when individuals are exposed to certain colors because colors have the ability to energize, stimulate, and even depress. In fact, certain color combinations can be advantageous depending on the type of business being marketed. While we all have our own color preferences, if you do research to identify what attracts and conveys the message that draws a prospect in, you'll choose your colors carefully. A general rule of thumb to remember, is that you should keep some of the site's background clean, white or a soft blue, as it's far more professional and easier on the eye to see these colors.

Make Your Site Engaging and Interactive

Engage, interact, and convert. Every site should have the ability to do this through various marketing tools you should employ on your site. Video, articles, surveys, webinars, teleseminars, email promotions, etc.... A combination of any of these will surely guarantee higher traffic, feedback on your site and service, ultimately generating sales and customer loyalty. Remember the site is not about you, it's about those who visit it. Let your customers find you, get a business email they can contact you on. Don't waste time with the generic info@xyzcompany.com that's so impersonable. And last but not least, quit hiding behind your gatekeeper. If you create the proper website people should be able to send you comments, questions, or problems, and you need to deal with them as much as you can, otherwise delegate someone in your business as the troubleshooter and let your customers know.
To learn more about building your web presence, go to www.L7marketingsolutions.com 

About the author: Ryne Landers is a leading SEO and web design consultant in the McKinney, Frisco, Allen, and Plano areas of the Dallas metroplex. He co-founded L7 Marketing Solutions in 2009 after studying Internet Marketing principles and search engine optimization techniques from many of the leading minds in the field.