Let’s get one thing straight: web design is a challenge. There is a surplus of options when it comes to designing your web page: colors, font choices, spacing, layout, and sizing to name but a few. If you make changes to your own website through a content management system, there are a lot of things that can disrupt the chi of your website that your designer developed. The wrong combination of fonts, colors, and imagery can spell disaster to the most elegant of designs. Here are three great tips to help you avoid some common mistakes.
#1 – Leave the fonts and colors alone, please
Consistency throughout a website is very important to maintain a professional appearance in your web presence. Design elements such as colors, layout, and fonts, need to look the same from page to page. If your content management system allows you to change fonts and colors, ignore those features. Your web designer has given a lot of thought about these basic building blocks, and you’ve paid for his/her expertise. Why second guess his/her decisions?
You can avoid inadvertently making font and color changes if you…
#2 – Don’t copy and paste from Microsoft Word
…or almost any other program, for that matter. It’s an issue of compatibility. When you copy and paste from Word to PowerPoint or Excel, you don’t expect the same results, right? It’s the same when copying content from another program to your website. Whether it’s from Word, Publisher, or another website, you’re just asking for trouble when you copy and paste. Often, unseen bits of code get copied along with your text. This code might be ignored or filtered out by the content management system you are using, but sometimes it can cause some pretty crazy behavior, such as:
- Font types get changed
- Colors and sizing goes out of whack
- Elements get pushed out of place
- Text is centered when it should be aligned or justified
- Garbled looking code appears out of nowhere
There is better way to input text into your website. First, open a basic text editor (Notepad comes free with Windows). Copy and paste your text from Word, or any other program, into your Notepad. This will remove text formatting and any hidden code that might be hidden along with the content, slimming down your information to what you need: just the text. Next, copy the text from Notepad into your website.
But what if your Word document had photos that you wanted to add?
#3 – Resize your photos before you upload them to your website
There is a lot of terminology that gets tossed around when talking about image sizing and resolution, and I’d like to clear up one point of confusion.
You may have heard people say that your images should be 300DPI for print and 72DPI for web. The second part of that statement is a myth. For the web, the ONLY numbers you need to be concerned with are pixel dimensions. Take a look at the two images below. The image on the left is 72DPI (about 4 inches wide when printed), while the image on the right is 300DPI (about 1 inch wide when printed).
Penguins at 72DPI
Penguins at 300DPI
These images look exactly the same. That’s because both images have the same number of pixels (300×225).
The term DPI stands for “dots per inch.” A 300DPI image contains more pixels for every inch of printed space than in a 72DPI image. The 300DPI image above will print smaller than the 72DPI version, as more pixels are used up for every inch of printed space.
Whether that all makes much sense or not is beside the point, which is: you should be aware of how large your image is in pixels before you upload it. The best size will vary from website to website, depending upon the amount of space available on your web page. There are a few ways to determine a good size for your website. An easy way is by trial and error. Start by uploading an image roughly 500 pixels wide. This size will likely be too large or small, so resize your image until you find a comfortable size for your website.
Subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss my next post, where I’ll be explaining more in depth about how to optimize your images for the web.
In my personal opinion, this is quite the complex question, and I guess the answer really depends on what you are trying to achieve with your website. There are literally loads of great people offering website creation services. All of them have a place in this market, but I think it is important to draw some specific distinctions between those who develop, design and install websites so customers can understand why there is such a wide difference in costs quoted by these providers.
So, there are many different types of providers, and I may not have that all covered here; this is pretty generalized. I will focus on 3 types, often there are companies who are a hybrid of these services.
The three types are:
- Website developer
- Website designer
- Content management system provider
Website Developer
Website developers have the skills to create web-based applications which are very prominent in today’s websites. This often involves designing database structures and writing code for the website to interact with those databases. They are adept at writing code that will allow a website to perform specific tasks as defined by a customer. A website developer is the type of person who could program a CMS (like Wordpress), write plugins, or develop an interactive website without a CMS at all. They are often fluent in many of the web technologies and languages. Rarely will you find a developer who also has the skills of a website designer, which I will cover next.
Website Designer
Website designers are the graphically talented folks who can take your vision or help you create a vision that draws interest in your products or services. Using visual imagery and a little psychology, they understand the impact colors, proximity and visual spacing will have on a prospective customer. Many web design folks have some skills with html and content management systems, and fewer may have real development skills.
Content Mangament System Provider (CMS)
Generally, CMS providers are masters of one or more of the well known CMS platforms such as Wordpress, Joomla, or Drupal. Some have been known to even resell configuration of things like GoDaddy templates. They have the knowledge to properly install, update and even add plugins (programs which perform certain customer necessary functions) to a website. Though many online templates have “how-to” information freely available, make no mistake… there is a skill in getting this right. The CMS provider is not always gifted with the other web skills, but will install one of the many free or pay templates you can purchase on the internet and add graphics and functionality to a site. These templates allow you to add logos, photos, text, etc.
You can see there are some significant differences of what these various providers have to offer. Choosing the right one will depend on your goals for your website and the budget you have available. Generally, the developer is more costly than the designer, who is, in turn more expensive than the CMS provider. My company, Ikon Marketing Group, offers services in all three catagories which allows for a lot of flexibility in what we provide to our customers, though we are very rarely involved in a straight CMS site.
Remember, regardless of what type of provider you choose, be sure that you emphasize results! Results are conversions. Thats all that matters in the long run, if a company cannot prove results, find one that can.
What are your thoughts? Fire Away!
Isn’t the bottom line of having a website conversions?
Yeah, this sounds pretty simplistic but the truth is this one major fact is often overlooked by business when building a web marketing plan. What you really want to do is create a path for your customer to make a decision.
I believe a conversion is different in web marketing, because your website may not be the location where the final decision is made. If you are selling services, a contact form submission or an email is a conversion created by the site that allows you an opportunity to close the sale on a personal level.
So the website is the vehicle that drives a customer to make a decision, if it is created properly. There is no such thing as an “Informational” website, I believe all websites have a specific purpose and it’s best to embrace this concept to get the most bang for your buck.
Your website may also be your best salesperson. Many consumers do online research (a local Real Estate agent suggested to me that in that market it is 50% or more) before making a purchase decision. Is your website ready to handle that kind of responsibility? Does it provide the right amount of information? Does it present your company and products in the way you want to be represented? An outdated or poorly executed website essentially tells your prospective customer
a) I am not successful enough to have a good website.
b) I don’t see the value in new technologies.
c) I have a friend who does it but I can’t break up.
d) I hate spending money on marketing to grow my business.
Why is this important to you? Because you need a plan!
Your website should be designed with its customer in mind, and that means you, as a business owner, may not be the best judge of that! You need to think about what your customer needs to know to make a decision and make it easy for them to act on it.
So what does your potential customer need to experience when he visits your website?
- A professional looking website that says “We respect our customers.”
- Easy to use navigation that allows visitors to find the information they need.
- Calls to action that help the potential customer make a decision.
- Relevant traffic using search marketing and social networking.
Look for blog articles on these 4 topics in the coming weeks!
