Note that it’s actually not a battle of form vs function. It’s the two working together.

In order to reach the pinnacle with a web design, you must base your designs on:

1. Knowing the purpose of the website and what it needs to accomplish (e.g. generate leads, make sales, educate, entertain)
2. Thorough understanding of the intended audience, which includes things like their:
   • Needs, wants, desires (as they relate to the web design) 
   • Intentions
   • Age, sex, occupation, personality type, demographics
   • Experience with websites
   • Likely viewing environment (Is it at home? At work?)
3. The intention to deliver what the audience needs and wants 
4. Deep study of user interface principles for web design
5. Experience, knowledge and flair for web design (or design in general).

Now to achieve all of these points, you’re going to need more than just a web designer.

Firstly, you need to bring to the table what you know about your customers and what they want from your website.

Secondly, you need to engage someone who can plan your web design around the needs of your customers. This person has expertise in typical user behavior on the web. This is often not a web designer.

Lastly, you need a web designer.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too !

Contact us on 1300 248 362 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages®is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Get Web 1.0 right before thinking about Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is a popular term that refers to things that encourage sharing and community between users. Think Youtube, FaceBook, MySpace, Linked In et al. Think user ratings, reviews, blogs, polls and opinions. 

The hype of it all can be overwhelming, and there are some awesome things about the whole Web 2.0 thing… but… if you think you need Web 2.0 features for your site, ask yourself first:

Will Web 2.0 bring me a return on your investment?

In reference to this question, Jakob says, ”If you’re a mainstream business site (including government and non-profit sites), your user experience needs are very different than those of the few hot sites that attract all the attention.”

The hot sites that attract attention are of course Facebook, MySpace, Amazon, etc. Unless that’s your business and you’re well down the path of raising $60 million in capital, your website is not like any of those.

What should you do instead? Jakob continues, “Instead of adding Facebook-like features that let users “bite” other users and turn them into zombies, the B2B site would get more sales by offering clear prices, good product photos, detailed specs, convincing whitepapers, an easily navigable information architecture, and an email newsletter.”

All of these things fall under the banner of good content, aka. Useful Information. Sustainable web marketing is about delivering useful information to the customer. That’s the first place to start improving your website’s return on investment.

You can read the full Alert Box article here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/web-2.html

From the author: As a web programmer I have been involved in developing several content management systems. I was hands on in developing our own content management suite called eComMetrix®.

What I know from working on hundreds of lead generation and eCommerce websites over 11 years is that there is something far more important in creating a website than the system that you use. It’s your conversion rates and it’s a measure of how effectively the content of your website engages with your website visitors.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark™.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too !

Contact us on 1300 248 362 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your website.

You must give your website visitors all of the information that they require to make a purchase.

Seem simple? A good eCommerce system and good information are the first steps to maximising your eCommerce website conversion rates.

Here’s some of the information that is typically required on your product pages for a user to feel comfortable making a purchase.

Product details

At a minimum, your product copywriting should detail the benefits of the product and the problems that it solves. Information that’s required includes things like:

• Features
  • Size, colour, height, width, depth, weight etc
  • Options, add ons, upgrades, requirements
• Benefits 
• Stock levels.

Think of the things that your customers always ask about your product and make sure they are addressed in some way.

Product pictures 

For a physical product, you should have:

• A hero shot – showing the product doing it’s job (like making someone look good)
• High resolution closeups – Consider using a flash zoom in utility
• Showing details of Front, Back, Sides, etc

Interestingly a good flash close up zoom utility gives the user an experience similar to that of touching and feeling the product. It’s a great conversion tool for eCommerce items like shoes and clothing.

Even a virtual product like an eBook should have a product shot. 

Trust elements

In order to have any chance of making an eCommerce sale. you need to satisfy the question of trust. You can go a long way to doing that by keeping important details up to date on your website. Details such as:

• Your physical address, phone number and email addresses
• Pictures of your physical location, staff, factory or warehouse 
• Information on how to get help
• Product Warranty, Guarantees 
• Shipping Policy
• Payment options
• Returns Policy
• Privacy Policy

Once you cover the basics and start to get more advanced, you can add things like product reviews, recommendations, comments and live help to your eCommerce website.

The trick to making it all work is making sure that your web design uses space effectively in order to present information in a logical way so that a website visitor can process it.

From the author: If you run an eCommerce website then you might wonder, “How do I know if I’m getting as many orders as I could be through my website?” The answer to that question is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your eCommerce website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too !

Contact us on 1300 248 362to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.

Well, it’s not a revelation that website visitors have learned to ignore banners and ads. But, a recent article on Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox shows that banner blindness can spill over into your web content!

An interesting finding from the article was that website visitors often ignored “big red characters.”

If you have an important piece of information that you really want to convey to your website visitors, then follow these three of Jakob’s homepage usability guidelines:

• Don’t use clever phrases and marketing lingo
• Limit font styles and other text formatting
• Don’t look like an ad.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too !

Contact us on 1300 248 362 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.