Spinfield: Web marketing trends today, tomorrow, and beyond…

In the fast paced world of the Internet, with its Web 2.0 and social networking, Web sites are much more than a simple luxury or accessory. They are proven effective tools to increase the profit of your business. The design and implementation of these powerful tools is something to be taken seriously. If your site is designed improperly it not only distorts the image of your business, it can also significantly effect the profit your Web site was meant to incur.

There are several things that are very important to the design process of your Web site.  Sort of like essential pillars in the foundation to ensure the stability and structure of your message. The following are things to be considered when evaluating your current Web site, or contemplating a brand new one:

1.    Code Standards - For starters, one of the things that separates a good professional Web site, from one that your teenage nephew put together for you is good valid code. A good design, no matter how flashy is only as good as the code that lies underneath. If the code that goes into making your Web site isn’t valid, it can result in a whole mess of other issues. Problems ranging from functionality issues all the way to cross browser incompatibility. Just like you wouldn’t want a Corvette with a Cavalier engine, you wouldn’t want a Web site with code that isn’t valid. A good Web designer knows in order for their design to be widely concurrent with the rest of the design community, they need to adhere to standards which are set by the W3 consortium.

2.    Cross Browser Compatibility- There was a time when you went to a Web page and it would say something like, “This site best viewed in IE4 with a screen resolution of….” Those times are no more. For anyone who has had any experience with marketing, you know that it is extremely important for you to clearly and consistently get your message out in the way that you have intended it to be seen. The same thing goes for the Internet world. It is extremely important that when someone visits you Web site, no matter from what avenue, that they get the same experience as everyone else. This way you can effectively benefit from your  Web site in a very controlled manner.

3.    Designing for SEO- This is probably THE most essential element of Web design. Making sure your Web site has clean markup, lightweight optimized graphics, and text behind images is a good start, but there is a vast spectrum of other things that go into designing for SEO that make this topic into a science. The flow of your site and the way search engines collect your information is essential to the design process of your Web site. The first step to a higher conversion rate online is making sure consumers can easily and effectively find you.

4.    Good user interfaces- When someone visits your Web site they should feel comfortable and be able to easily navigate your page without too much guesswork being involved. With all of the advancements in design applications and the power of CSS, I know firsthand that it can be very tempting to go off the deep-end design wise. What ends up happening is that the focus and usability of your Web site starts to decrease as you start to get too crazy with the graphics. A good mentality to have, which can be used in most areas of business and marketing, is a very simple one. Keep it simple. True words to live by. Clean navigation, powerful imagery and thoughtfully placed messaging will always come out on top. The key is in making sure your message is delivered, and everything else should be tools to make sure that this goal is attained.

These are four of the most essential elements of contemporary Web design. With these tools in your arsenal you can’t really go wrong. It is very important that your Web site is designed in a professional and well thought-out manner so that your Web site works as the successful business tool it has the potential to be.

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