Why have a Website Designed?

The Importance of Website Design

The World Wide Web is huge with countless web pages in existence and this exponential growth shows no sign of slowing. So what makes an internet user stay on a particular site for a while? Why do some users return to the same sites, time after time? A look into the elements of website design will increase the overall understanding of these questions which are essential to the effective online marketing of a given business.

History

Tim Berners-Lee put the first website online in 1991 and since then, the internet has exploded, with a concurrent increase in website design companies as well. Because the new internet is much more complex than it was in the past, the desire and necessity of professional designers has increased greatly.

Coming up with a Proper Plan

Website design is typically done by web designers who are well versed in planning sites prior to building them. Most designers produce a storyboard that shows preliminary layout ideas and text placement. There are several things to consider when doing website design, including purpose, audience, content and a newer concern, search engine optimization.

Planning the Purpose

There are several purposes for which website design is implemented, including commerce, information and communication. If the purpose of an example website is to raise awareness for a specific person, the website should be planned out to accomplish this goal. Ways of doing this could be creating an image surrounding this person. Instead of the old, boring biographical approach, some designers are actually branding individuals, creating an entire image for what the person stands for and represents. This is the power of website design. The ability to utilize the power of a website to stick in people’s minds is extremely important.

Finding the Audience

Based on the purpose of the website, a set target audience should be selected when a website design is created. An example can be seen in a newspaper website. Almost all of the major publications use white backgrounds, without much graphical use. The reason for this is that the paper is trying to portray an image of professionalism and credibility. If there were bright pink flowers and blue cartoons all over the page the target audience may not take it seriously and would get its news elsewhere. Website design should follow the website’s audience.

Content and Search Engine Optimization

There is a lot of content on the Internet, too much to fathom. If one simply writes content for a website and puts it out there, hardly anyone will see it. Simply having good content is not enough anymore. It is similar to an excellent musician who has never performed before or recorded anything. Simply put, no one knows about it.

Writing content for modern websites involves some website design, some excellent writing and a lot of search engine optimization. When writing proper SEO content, certain key words must be written in at a certain percentage, typically at a frequency of 1% – 3%. The tricky part is maintaining the flow and value of the content itself. Not doing so can have the negative effects and some poorly written SEO text will turn visitors away. The overall goals of website design and writing SEO content are to offer something of high quality that is also unique, all while making the website easier to find for search engines.