When you are ready to set up your web presence, it is very important to remember that this is the face by which your customer’s will view you. It is important to design a website that reflects your company’s image, and that it be as professional as possible. If you do not feel comfortable designing your own site, you may want to consider hiring a designer. Regardless of what you decide, here are a few principles to keep in mind to make sure that your company’s website says the right thing about you.
1. Well designed and organized. A professional site is easy to navigate and is designed to be visually pleasing without extraneous graphics. If your site is not organized well, it gives people the impression that your company is also lacking in these skills. The design is also very important. The colors should be somewhat subdued and should coordinate well. If you have a lot of loud colors, sounds or frivolous graphics, it sends the message that you are not professional.
2. Informative. A professional site should supply the visitor with all that they need to know about your company. They should not have any additional questions about the services that you offer, or what it is that you do. Ask someone who is not familiar with your company to go over your site. If they have difficulty understanding a section, or something is not clear, make the necessary changes. While some companies prefer to keep pricing off-site or have the customer contact them for additional information, it is a good idea to avoid using your site as a “come on.” Web visitors today are savvy and if your site smells like a scam to get their email address, they will most likely go somewhere else.
3. Privacy policy. No matter what kind of business you are in, you need to have a privacy policy on your site and it needs to be easily accessible. It is common to put a link to this policy at the bottom of every page. This builds a level of trust with your visitors and lets them know that you care about their personal information.
4. Contact information. Your site’s design should include a way to contact you, either by email or phone. A toll-free number is a very good idea and gives the impression to your visitors that you are a real company and not some fly-by-night organization. You will want to include this information prominently on your site so that your visitors know they can contact you if they need to. It is also important to have either a voice mail system set up or a live person to answer this phone number or your efforts will be in vain.
5. Live help option. By adding this option to your site design, you are giving customers an easy way to get in touch with you. This is very helpful if you have products that require a little more description or if you just want to reach out to your customers.
Tags: design, web presence
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May 5th, 2008 at 1:36 am
I think the number one point is very important. We must always keep content organized and easy to be read. I have seen some web designs that only focus on the design and its hard to read the information. We should always publish information in the most accessible and understandable way possible. I think contact info should always be put in the bottom of each page.