We Don’t All Surf the Net on Computers Anymore

Recent years have seen an explosion in the number of smart phones in use in the UK and beyond. More of us are also using devices like iPads to get online without having to resort to switching on our computers to do so.

This means that your website has to be able to cope with being seen in different ways on different devices. There is a very real chance that a significant percentage of your website visitors are finding your site via a mobile phone or some other device – namely something that doesn’t have a large screen. If this is the case, you will lose out on that traffic if your website is not able to be easily viewed on such devices.

So when you get a new website for your business, one of the most important things to remember is to ensure everyone can see it properly. If you get 1,000 visitors a day and 40% of those find your site via a smart phone surfing session, that’s a potential 400 people you could lose as future customers. Of course you could have a mobile version of your website as well. If you do and you are ready to cater for this ever increasing audience as well as those who find you in the more traditional way, you won’t have to worry. You will also be streets ahead of your competition if they happen to be dragging their heels in providing a mobile version of their site for people to find.

It is certainly not wise to delay the task of finding customers in this way on these devices. When you realise it could make a difference to your bottom line, you’ll see that exploring all the different ways people surf the net and how you can reach more of them is incredibly important.

Fortunately it isn’t something you have to worry about if you hire a professional web design team like Ratio7 to do the work for you. As you can see, it could be an investment that lets you reach even more people.

Is Your Website looking Tired?

This month in the Red Room we look at old and tired web designs and how they can affect your business along with what message a forgotten blog sends to your customers.

Old and Tired Web Designs Hinder Your Business Progress

If you have stuck with the same website design through thick and thin, the chances are pretty good that you might be getting tired with it. And if you are getting tired of it you can be sure your web visitors will be as well.

The trick is to know when it is time to change and renew things for the better. Things change and advance quickly online and this means you could end up with an old web design sooner than you might think. If you have had the same design for a while now, it might be worth consulting a professional designer to see if you could revamp your website. You may well find you can revamp your whole business as well.

Of course you may not be sure if you have reached the point where your old design is old enough to get rid of. But if you consult with a professional designer you can get some input as to whether you are able to produce something new, modern and dynamic to better represent your business in the future.

The truth is that old and tired designs will harm your business more than anything else. If someone comes across your website and it looks very basic and old, they might be forgiven for wondering whether anyone is still running it, or whether it has been forgotten about and consigned to the scrapheap. This is not the kind of opinion you want people to form, so if you are ready to make the most of your website it might be time to give it a makeover.

Now some people immediately think of the cost of doing this and how it might affect them. But normally you will bring in more business as a result of having a fresh new website and design – especially if you promote the changes ahead of time and when they take place. So remember what you are getting here and how much it might be worth to you in the future. This is the most convincing reason there is to get a new web design.

Do You Really Need a Huge Website?

If you’re thinking about setting up a new website – regardless of what the reason might be for doing so – you might be thinking about size. Many websites are laden down with pages, sections, blogs and much more besides. But does this mean all websites should be built in this way?

Not at all; in fact it is far more likely that some sites would function just as well (perhaps even better) if they had just a few pages of information to offer. Too many pages can sometimes bloat out a site unnecessarily, making it large and cumbersome for no good reason.

This is why it is usually best to start with an idea of what you want to achieve with your site. If you have a clear plan you will be able to decide whether you need such a big site after all. For example if you run a cake decorating business that offers countless different designs for all kinds of occasions, it makes sense that you would need a large site. But if you have just one product to sell, you might be guilty of overload if you create a huge site around it. In a sense it actually confuses the customer because there is too much information for them to digest when they visit your site. If they cannot find what they want within a few moments of arriving on your site, they might leave without worrying about searching any longer. You couldn’t blame them.

So don’t make any assumptions when it comes to how many pages your new website needs. Work on some examples. Look for reasons to have a specific number of pages. Will your site need to grow in future or will it be just fine with a smaller number of pages – perhaps only two or three?

The more you learn about what your new site could look like, the easier it will be to work out what size site you will need. You can then press ahead with confidence so you stand a far better chance of getting the right site for the right purpose.

If you would like some advice or help on choosing the right size website, please get in touch. Our dedicated web design and development team would be happy to help.

Ensuring Your Website Visitors Meet Your Desires

Some people think all they need to do is to whack up a website and wait for the customers to come rolling in. Of course in reality things are very different. You might get some if you apply a casual approach to creating a website, but you won’t get as many as you would from a more targeted approach.

The best websites are dynamic, subtle and formulaic (in the nicest possible way). They have a purpose. It could be to get people to sign up for a free newsletter, so they can be marketed to at a later date. It could be to sell a particular product or line of products. But if the website doesn’t have a specific goal in mind it is more than likely that the results the webmaster gets won’t be what they would like.

This is why professional web design is so important. Few webmasters who design their own sites will start by asking themselves these questions: “What do I want to achieve with this site? What is my goal?” Professional web designers must have the answers to these questions if they are going to create a site that will achieve its purpose – one that will have a purpose in the first place.

For instance you may not want to sell anything directly through your website. You may simply want to provide information on a specific niche topic and to get people to sign up for a free newsletter to receive more information on a regular basis. Many marketers and webmasters will testify that the money really can be in the list if the list is big enough to generate the income they need.

The point is that any old website just won’t do. This is the face of your business and if you don’t know how it should look, you can’t expect to get the results you really want. Many people rush into getting their websites up and running. But in truth if you spend a little longer making sure you know your focus you’ll reap better rewards in the end.

Avoiding the Bells and Whistles

Website design is a powerful tool. When it is used correctly it can engage the visitor and keep them on the site and the page. But it can also be too powerful for some to wield. This is why it makes sense to hire a professional in web design when it comes to creating or overhauling your website.

Let’s think about what you want your customers to experience when they land on your site. You want them to be engaged and drawn in. But you don’t want the bells and whistles that some people feel they have to include. Think of an overuse of Flash or too much content packed into the page. These are the bells and whistles of the title. Sometimes you can have so much to choose from that you don’t want to miss out on any of it. This is understandable but you can end up scaring away the very people you drew to your site in the first place.

If you have ever heard the saying ‘less is more’ you will know where we are coming from. Good web design is all about knowing what matters and knowing what doesn’t. This might change to a certain degree from site to site, depending on the audience you are targeting. But in many cases simplicity beats complexity more often than you might think.

How many times have you visited a website only to find that you feel bombarded by information the moment you arrive? The webmaster is clearly eager for you to know everything there is to know right from the start. But their eagerness can put you off staying for any length of time at all.

Don’t underestimate the chances of this happening with your site. Make sure you enlist the help of professionals like Ratio7 to prevent that overload situation from occurring. The bells and whistles might be tempting to you, but they will put off anyone who makes it to your home page. You want visitors – either for clicking your ads or buying your products or services. Don’t send them away through eagerness.

Is Your Website Embracing the Future?

There was a time – a good few years ago now – when all you had to do to get online was to whack up a very simple website with a very basic design.

Nowadays of course all this has changed. It’s not enough to have a website anymore – you have to have a site that looks good, feels good and works just as your customer wants it to. If it doesn’t, you’ll lose customers. It’s that simple. This is why many businesses are enlisting the services of experts in web design – like the team at Ratio7 – to create a strong and dynamic website design to impress their customers and visitors.

But there is more to consider here as well. For instance more and more people are looking at websites on their smartphones and iPads and other similar devices. How user friendly is your site when it is called up on one of these devices? If you don’t have a mobile version of your site, now would be an excellent time to get one. This makes it much easier for anyone on a mobile phone to view your site. If you have ever tried viewing a normal website on such a small screen you will know how frustrating it can be. Even if you decide to check the website later when you have access to a proper computer, you might forget to do so, or decide to go elsewhere instead.

You can see then how important it is to have a website that is capable of embracing the future in this way. It’s not enough to have a good website anymore. You have to have one that is able to be viewed properly no matter how your customers decide to access it. That’s why it pays to get the experts in, so you know exactly what you will be offering your customers.

You might consider teaching yourself how to do all this. But where does that leave the rest of your business? Your target should be to create the best website for all platforms as quickly as possible – and to hire the pros to do it for you.

Getting the Balance of Words and Images Just Right

Your website is a window onto the world – a window through which potential customers can look to find what they need. It almost seems as if everyone knows what a good website should look like, but actually designing one and getting the right mix of words and images is a lot harder than you think.

Images speak a thousand words, or so we’re told. But content is king too, and content is what people come to read. We all like images and they can catch your attention long before the words on a page do. But the two components of a website have to work together to have the desired effect on anyone who visits that site.

There is no dream equation or formula that unlocks a great web design. It’s not as simple as putting one image in place for every four hundred words you use. If only life could be that simple. This is why it’s best to get the experts in when it comes to designing a website that makes the most of each component. It’s the only way you can be sure of getting a website that is designed to do what you want it to do.

Furthermore the words and images need to be working together and not against each other. When you’ve got the skills of an experienced web designer working for you, you can be sure that the balance will be much easier to strike than if you were to tackle it on your own. You might have ideas for your website but actually getting them to work and making them real can be very difficult. Just how big should your logo be, for example? Do you have so many words for the home page that you’re tempted to squish them down to fit them all in?

Less can be more when it comes to web design. But you can only get the balance of words and images just right when you think of them as two halves of the whole. It’s the only way you’ll get the website you want.

Mini-Sites: Big Tool, Small Site

Not every company or organisation needs a full-fledged, multi-page website with lots of features. There are times that a min-site will serve your purpose and Ratio7 has created many of these for clients. What we created for Somewhereto is a useful example of the powerful and streamlined approach that you might need versus a full website. In this case, Live Union wanted a unique site to promote a series of events they were producing for their client. Instead of a page in an existing site that might not get the notice they wanted, it made more sense to create a small, separate site to get the word out about the events.  Your company or charity might consider this for an annual event or fundraiser, linking the mini-site with separate URL to your main site.

Another common mini-site is a sales or landing page. Generally just one page that promotes a unique product or service, it links to your main site and has sales copy, product information and an order form, all with a unique URL that will drive additional search engine traffic.

Finally, it could just be that your business or organisation has no need for a multi-page, feature rich site. You might just want a simple, one page mini-site that presents a basic bio of your company and team and contact information.

While Ratio7 creates beautiful, deep, feature-laden sites routinely, we don’t want you to think we are a “one size fits all” creative team! Our designers work with you to determine YOUR needs and can create a site, big or small, that fits those needs, budget and timeline. So, before you dismiss the idea of a site as to expensive, talk to us. You might find a mini-site is all you need.

What’s Your Website’s Purpose?

Whether you are having a site built by scratch or doing a redesign of your existing site, it is really important to examine the reasons you have a website at all. Sound obvious? It isn’t. If you look at your own favorite sites, you will find that they serve many different purposes. For a graphics team like Ratio7 to build you exactly what you want and need for your business’s website, you need to explore the various types of sites and determine which one suits your business goals. A site may have several purposes at once.

The most basic site is informational. This is a site that tells a potential customer or visitor what your business is, where it’s located, its hours, how to contact you and maybe a bit more. These sites are fast and easy to construct and usually only involve a page or two. All sites have some basic information on them.

The next is a site that educates and/or is used as a reference. It might be a site like Wikipedia or Grammar Girl with information on everything or just on grammar and writing. Or it could be a health site with information on conditions or illnesses.

Some sites are inspirational. They provide you with stories and photography and music on various topics like personal development, spirituality, psychology and new age practices.

Promotional sites are also common. They generally promote a celebrity, a rock band, an author, a product and more.

Then there are those that entertain. While YouTube certainly has educational and inspirational purposes, it is most often turned to for its entertainment value. Most humour sites like Funny or Die and LOLCats are both highly trafficked and entertaining.

Finally, there are e-commerce sites. These sites exist primarily to sell you something. Amazon.com is one. Ebay is another. The best e-commerce sites combine many of the features of other sites (education, entertainment, etc.).

Knowing what your end goal is can help the exceptional team at Hertfordshire’s Ratio7 design or retool your site to be the most efficient, exciting, and popular site possible! Let us know how we can help.