Web Design is a broad term and is the slightly shortened meaning of website design. There are three main areas that make up web design which are:

Graphic design for website (images & Pictures)
Coding to make it all work (behind the pictures & images)
Content writing & SEO (The text content & titles)

You need to get all three elements of the web design done so you end up investing in an effective website for your business and Organisation. As a web designer it frustrates me when I come across a small business owner who had a real novice and poor website designed and after they get no benefits from their website they think the internet offers no opportunities to the business.

The fact of the matter is you need a nice professional looking website that will attract the right customers. It must be easy to use and navigate so it works well so they don't get put off your website and go to another. When you have achieved this your content must make it easy for potential customers to act i.e. buy your products or call and inquire.

Never forget that even though you have a great web design & the best product if no one can find your website you will never have any visitors. So always keep your focus simple – I want customers buying my products online, or I want local home owners to find my service when they need it. The you need market, advertise and make sure your website is search engine friendly.

Your web design is your business window on the internet as a web designer it is my job to construct your online presence with an effective website. Always research your online partner carefully, don't get over charged for a poor website.

If we can help please do not hesitate to get In touch with us

www.gloswebsitedesign.co.uk/webdesign.html Visit our blog www.gloswebsitedesign.co.uk/wp

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With today's website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they're from, what kind of browser they're using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won't tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers.

Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they've already got, they don't need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn't bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not.

The Setup's The Thing

Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement.

We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax.

The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and they fear losing viewers before they ever get to the so-called “good-stuff.” But without a proper setup, an audience is just not primed to accept what you have to say.

You can't sell anybody anything unless they understand they've not been getting everything they need and deserve. That understanding creates dissatisfaction with your competition and opens the audience's minds to what you have to offer. In short, the setup needs to touch a psychological nerve.

The Customer Is Always Right – Not Quite

We've all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” The fact is the customer is not always right, and in many cases they don't really know what they want or what they should have; and sometimes even when they do, they resist it because of a variety of misinformation, misunderstanding, self-doubt, and preconceived notions of conventional wisdom. It's your website presentation's job to set visitors on the right path.

Being The Expert Inspires Confidence

You're supposed to be the expert in what you do, and if you are, you need to have the ability to dig deeper into what people really want, need, and desire. I am always reminded of friends of mine who hired an interior decorator to furnish their new home. The decorator asked them what kind of furniture they liked. They answered that they were looking for Colonial, to which the decorator answered, “No you aren't. What you want is Country French.” And after he showed my friends what he was talking about they quickly agreed. The decorator knew his business and understood the clients. Yes the clients liked the idea of the homey Colonial look they'd seen, but not being furniture experts they didn't understand what the options were, and what kind of furniture best suited their lifestyle and budget, while still providing the homey rustic but comfortable aesthetic they wanted. Customer satisfaction is about providing what the client really wants and not necessarily what they say they want.

Learn How To Communicate So Audiences Get It

Let's face it; we all like to read about how the digital revolution has opened up the business world to more audience influence, but the fact is people are influenced and manipulated and desires created through marketing and advertising as much as ever. How many website owners actually benefit in any meaningful way from social networking and search optimization, or do they do it because it's expected and promoted by proponents as the tactic du jour.

If you think a particular song you like is played on a thousand radio stations because it's good, or even because it has a following then you are living in a fantasy world. If you thing the vast majority of viral videos produced by corporations go viral all by themselves then think again.

Audiences are being manipulated and transformed into customers all the time, not because companies responded to what the public says, but rather to how the public reacts to various communication and marketing stimuli. What's truly amazing is how bad companies are at doing it. With all of the television industries' research into viewers, they still fail to deliver consistent quality programming that people want to watch. Every Fall new shows are yanked faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, but the same crappy commercials live-on for what seems an eternity. Television viewers are a captive audience and if they want to watch their favorite show they have to tolerate the commercials (PVRs aside), but the Web is different. If your website presentation stinks, nobody is going to stick around to absorb the smell.

Web Television Convergence Has Arrived

If you think of your website presentation as nothing more than a digital brochure, you're already behind the curve. Welcome to the Web on TV.

All you need is a laptop computer or one of the new gaming consoles attached to your big screen TV to access the Web on television. And as network programmers scramble to get their acts together more and more people are opting to spend their television time on the Web. Kind of makes you rethink what kind of website presentation you should be offering. It's time to start thinking of your website as your own business channel and the content on it as programming. It's the future and it's here, now.

Who Visits Your Website?

Before website visitors can be transformed into clients, we have to understand who they are in terms of their mental outlook or frame of mind when they first arrive at your home page.

1. Accidental Tourists

Accidental Tourists are website visitors who find their way to your website by serendipity. Your company's link may have come up in a search for something mentioned on your website, but not something that's a core element of your business. But just because these people didn't really intend to visit a site like yours doesn't mean they're a waste of time. Perhaps they never thought of using your product or service, or perhaps they never realized how much they really wanted what you have to offer. If your website presentation is exciting, meaningful, and entertaining you at least have the opportunity to plant the seed of desire for your product or service.

2. Brain Pickers

Brain Pickers show up at your site with little intention to buy anything, in fact they're there to pick your brain and find out how to do what you do for themselves. But if you're truly an expert at what you do, you at least have the opportunity to show these people that what you offer is special, and doing it right requires a company with your skills and resources.

3. Penny Pinchers

These guys are looking for a bargain. You are on a list and they are checking out who is offering the cheapest solution to their problem. But not all Penny Pinchers are penny-wise and pound-foolish, some, just need to understand why you're the best at what you do, and why what you are charging is the real bargain.

4. Tire Kickers

The Tire Kickers love to look but rarely buy. They want what you've got but they just can't make the commitment to buy it. They visit your website a hundred times, each time pressing their noses against the virtual storefront window trying to make a decision that rarely comes.

It's up to your website presentation to push them over the edge. If they want what you got, you can sell it to them. All you need to do is find that soft under belly of desire that gets them eager to spend their money.

5. Missourians

These guys want what you offer but need the reassurance of some practical input to get them to buy. The desire is there, but it's frustrated by their mental need to justify the purchase with practical excuses. “But Honey, I know little Johnny is only three, but think of the eye-hand co-ordination he'll learn playing these video games.” People ultimately buy what they want, and rationalize the purchase with logic and reasoning, but without desire, no amount of statistical evidence will work.

6. The Enemy

If you're any good, you'll have plenty of competitors hanging around your website looking for ideas they can use. It's all part of the game. Better to be out there showing people what you've got than hiding, afraid someone might take advantage. Besides if you're really good, you'll always be at least one step ahead of the competition anyway. That makes you the leader and them the follower. And everybody wants to do business with the leader.

7. The Needy

The Needy crave what you've got but need a lot of reassurance, handholding, and customer support. These guys have the potential to be good customers but your presentation has to make it clear that you'll be there to answer questions and concerns and not just leave them in the lurch like so many other Web-based businesses do after they've got the sale.

In The End

If you're fed-up with social networking self-gratification, frustrated by ever changing site optimization requirements, and ineffective advertising then it's time to re-evaluate what your website presentation says and how it says it.

In the final analysis it's all about communicating your emotional value proposition using your most important venue, your website; delivered in the most engaging, informative, and memorable manner that compels your audience to pay attention to your marketing message, and act upon it.

About the Author: Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Here are some of the best practices in building a lasting website design:

1. The Code, The Core

There is no better way to keep your website design stable and as strong as launching it on the internet with an unbreakable code. It takes a good programmer to be able to master two common website tools, HTML and CSS, but here is what you need to know: you do not have to be a programming geek just to have a website design that can last for ages and generations.

Only too rarely can you find someone who has studied CSS and HTML and yet fail to make their sites impactful and successful.

Here are a few tools to help you along the way:

a. validator.w3.org – To check your HTML & XHTML mark up
b. jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ – To validate your CSS code

2. Layout vs. Purpose

Let's get it straight: these two important things should perfectly complement each other.

If you are creating a pitch page try to keep it as a 1 column layout
The cardinal rule for websites that requires scrolling is not more than 1.5 pages length
Start from eye-level and Keep Layout Centralized
Navigation should be bold and obvious.

3. Design, Design, and Design

Launching your final website design can be as easy as a single click. What happens after the click could make or break everything that you have worked for in the past two months or so.

If you need help in color selection, try colorlovers.com

Strong Colours: Bright rich colors visually attract attention. Use them to divide section and highlight important element just like sign boards.

Rich Surfaces: Proper use of drop-shadows, gradients and reflections help make visual interface feel more matured and polished Web 2.0 feel. The best areas to create this effect would be on important content and your navigation menu.

Gradients: Web 2.0 designers simply love them to help soften the surface area with an illusion of a raised surface area. One common gradient combination is to use white-to-blue, which creates an aerial perspective as if the background fades into the background. You should also note that gradients work best when used with areas of flat tone or color.

Reflections: Realistic effects of water droplets, shiny surfaces and polished acrylic buttons have been very popular recently to create that “Ipod Feel”. This is usually created by a light source above the tabs which when combined with diffused glow help creates a plastic effect. Strong white highlight can also create a carbon-fiber appearance which adds to a level of polished professional feel.

Cute icons: Bubbly “Pop Up” Icons has always been used to project easily recognizable meanings in a graphical manner. A hallmark of most popular web 2.0 sites, especially when you are highlighting specific “wow” factors of your product or services.

Bold logos / Touch Screen Logo: Keep your logo work visually in its main context. Ensure that it is recognizable and distinctive represent your brand's personality and qualities on first look.

About the Author: Christina Humble Bee does web design at Internet Marketing Company – Conversion Hub. She also actively contributing to forums on topics related to advertising and Web 2.0 website designers. She is also design logos.

Have you done everything you can to promote your business and present it in a positive light? Do you have an effective, well designed company website? If you don't have an effective website for your business, you may be losing a lot of potential customers, and a lot of money.

According to a survey by Genex, an Incorporated 500 company, it is crucial for a business to have an effective company website that is visually appealing, up-to-date, easy to use, and that is rich in information about your company. The survey found that: 65% of potential customers will not shop on a poorly designed website, even if it is the site of a favorite brand; more than 75% of customers between 25 and 34 (the age group that makes the most purchases) say that usability is important in their online and offline purchasing decisions; and almost 30% of consumers will even quit making offline purchases from a company if their online experience at the company's website is poor.

According to David Glaze, Vice President of Creative, Genex, the survey shows there are “substantial financial consequences” when a company does not pay enough attention to the design and usability of its website.

Some companies that design effective company websites for businesses offer a multitude of services, including website design, video production, advertising design, and search engine optimization (SEO). Such companies will often design a website for a business and host the site too. Companies that use their services may find it easier to communicate with their customers in an effective and clear manner. They may be less likely to lose customers.

According to experts, an effective company website can provide a path to success. Such a website must be consistent in its design, relevant and compelling, easy to navigate, unique but familiar at the same time, up to date, fun and interactive. If a website for a company is all these things, the company with the effective website may find an increasing degree of business.

Some business experts say that customers often look online first for services or products. If you have an effective website customers will be more likely to buy from you, but the survey by Genex proves if you do not, you may likely lose customers permanently.

One problem is that some business owners think they cannot afford an effective company website. The survey by Genex proves they cannot afford not to have such a website. A website can pay for itself many times over in increased revenue for a business and may not cost as much as a business owner thinks.

Often potential customers will not look past the first page of your company website, so the site must be effective. You should buy from a web design company that knows how to provide SEO services. If SEO services are effectively used, your website could have a higher chance of being found on the first page of an Internet search for your search terms.

To increase your business, make certain you have an effective company website.

About the Author: Receive a FREE consultation from a custom website design company in Rochester MN that specializes in web development in Minnesota, and advertising and marketing agency services.

A company that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), understands algorithms from search engines can be used to improve the quality or volume of traffic to a given web site. In general, the sooner that site appears in the list resulting from a search, the greater the number of "hits" it will receive via the search engine. This process may target various types of search that include local and image searches, and vertical search engines that are specific to a particular industry.

Making a web site searchable mainly involves tailoring its HTML coding and content to remove any obstacles to search engine activity that exists, and increase the sites' relevance at the same time. To be successful with international markets, complete SEO may also require registering a top-level domain name in the chosen market, professional translation of the page text, and web hosting that includes local IP addresses. Many Internet programs use back-end systems that alter both meta-data and visible page content to make a page more relevant to search engines, and this is based on the way in which previous visitors arrived at the original page.

Why you need SEO

Attracting visitors to your site is essential today, and researchers tell us that 72% of the adults in America use the Internet on a regular basisincluding 92% of those with college degrees and 94% of those earning $75,000 or more annually. They have also discovered that more than 187 million people use well-known search engines to find the information they need and want. Savvy marketers know that the "cost per lead" with internet advertising is far less that the cost per lead related to the traditional Yellow Pages. Small and medium-sized businesses in particular are beginning to devote more of the advertising dollars to being "found" online by potential clients and customers.

While studies show that web searchers scan a list of search results from top to bottom as they look for relevant information, this is not an automatic guarantee of an increase in sales. Successful Internet marketing often involves the following:

- Using paid advertising with search engines and other sources,
- Creating a first-class home page that is both engaging and persuasive,
- Dealing with various technical problems that may prevent search engines from crawling and indexing the site, and
- Establishing programs that will analyze the owner's successes and improve the page's conversion rate over time.

Finding the right advertising and marketing group

Look for an organization that has invested a substantial amount of time and energy into studying the major factors related to successful search engine placement, and can apply that expertise to your organization's web site. Ideally, they will have a full-time SEO staff, perform ongoing research, and provide a history of placing sites in effective search-engine positions. In addition, their web site design will be creative, accessible, and innovative, combined with SEO services, advertising design, and full-service video production. If a marketing group is truly interested in helping your organization, they will also communicate your message in a way that is clear, compelling, and cost effective.

About the Author: Receive a FREE consultation from a search engine optimization (SEO) company in Rochester MN that specializes in Minnesota SEO, and advertising and marketing agency services.