After much deliberation, you have decided you need a website for your business. Unfortunately, you do not know a thing about design, color schemes, fonts, graphics, or content. Well, luckily I can help you.  Let me tell you a something about website design and the trends that are making a splash across the World Wide Web.

Does Color Matter?

The look of your website conveys a strong message to visitors before they read a single word of content. If you have a creative and appealing website it tells visitors you are someone who has all the bases covered. You and I know you are allowed one opportunity to make a first impression.  If you are going to spend money on creating an online presence for your business, you better get it right the first time. Very often people are either turned on or turned off by certain colors.  Have you noticed most business websites stay clear of color, opting for plain whites, muted blacks, and safe grays? Although, these colors are generally accepted as representations of a serious business, they can say BLAND and NON-CREATIVE! How about demonstrating that you can think outside of the box with these colors:  Dark Citron, Slate Gray, Vibrant Terracotta, Palace Blue, or Lucite Green?

Vertical or Horizontal

Now that you have all of your colors selected, do you know how you want information on your website to be viewed? What do I mean? How about you take a look at these websites, www.fedex.com or www.pepsi.com? What is different about these two websites? If you guessed the horizontal navigation, you are correct! Once again, this simply shows your costumers you have given thought to the smallest details and you care about their experience on your website.  Honestly, how often are you surprised by the navigation features on a website? Unfortunately, I imagine not too often.

Call to Action Button

A few words can make all the difference: Download Now, Trial Offer, Free, And Click Here! Now more than ever before, a call to action must be direct, visible, easy to understand, and complete.  If you want your customers or potential customers to take certain action, remember these rules for your call to action button: the color should stand out from the rest (contrast), it should be conveniently located (above the fold), the language should be short and to the point, it should stand alone, and it should be slightly larger than the rest in size.

Forms Make Them Simple!

Have you ever filled out an online form with pointless questions? We all have! Now, when most people think of website design, they certainly do not think about their forms. But, did you know the fewer fields on a form, the higher the conversion rate?   Think about it, the form field is a call to action for clients and perspective clients and it is also a “customer engagement page.” This being said, your form page should do the following: highlight benefits to clients, keep it simple, clarify privacy policy, provide context, clarify fields, allow feedback, provide progress indicators, and provide strong calls to action. Most people think of the landing page as the most important, that is not wrong, but it is not entirely right. As I just mentioned, a form page requires patience, private information, and persistence from visitors – make it easy and interesting.  The importance of forms will be a main focus for the rest of this year and years to come.

*Did You Know – in 2008, more than half a million people chose Iris Blue as the color for their website design?

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