With all the hoopla about social media it is important to remember that having a strong, solid website is still critical for any online marketing communications initiatives.
We always get asked, “What makes a good website?” The answer can both be simple and complex because it really depends on your particular industry and target audience. Nonetheless, below are a couple of items I’d like to point out.
Targeted Audience
One of the fundamentals to a website’s purpose is defining your targeted audience. Once that audience has been defined there has to be tools set in motion for the aim of that targeted audience; otherwise, having the definition is useless.
Once the target has been determined, the next step would be to categorize your audience into smaller defined groups. For example, say your business is pet sitting: you might discover one area of your clients are those who frequently travel such as flight attendants, whereas another group could be the very busy college student.
Language
Knowing the language that talented marketers utilize is another form of website success. Yes, your header must facilitate meta tag functionality, but there’s more to this tactic. There must be a balance struck between the skills of good SEO and the form of creative language.
Understanding what catches the passerby is having creative lingo; clearing away the obstacles that stand in the way of customers who know what they are looking for and directing them straight to your site is the scientific skill of the technologically informed.
Design
Of course we all know about what looks good; but again, there’s more to a good site than just “pretty”. Just as a well-trained interior designer understands color, so, too, does a talented Web designer. Anyone who has taken an art class might remember that color creates meaning. Your website needs to relay a message, and knowing what colors connect the meaning with the message is important.
Another attribute that website development requires is typology: choosing typeface, font, spacing and arrangement are all vital elements to the message of your website. It’s easy to select of font of preference, but having your words jumbled, hard to read, or confusing can relay a message of unprofessionalism, or at the very least send them packing should they have to work to figure out what the heck it all says.
These are but a mere few of the important contributions to good website designing. In the end, what may work for a song we love the sound of, but don’t have a clue what the singer is saying, is simply disaster for a website: pretty just won’t cut it.
