Website Design, Website Development

Website Design, 5 Critical Elements

It is no longer a question as to whether a quality Website would benefit your business, now the question seems to be "what should I look for in a quality website development company?"

If you, or your company, are considering having a new website built or re-designing your old one be sure the company you clearly understands five critical  elements of website design so that your website will not only be totally up-scalable but Search Engine compliant as well.

You need to clearly understand the (PDF Files) "5 Main Reasons Why Websites Fail" as well as "Understanding Quality Web Design."

Your company's website needs to sets your company apart from your competition so it's important that your website be outstanding. MMN understands just how important these elements of website design are:

1. Branding and appearance - Your website is your calling card on the Web, and in order for people to recognize your brand name and recognize the product branding is very important. You need to have uniform branding from the package to the website and on everything in between. Any custom web site design needs to incorporate your brand image and your company colors into the appearance of your web site.

2. Navigation - Whenever you have custom web site design done for your company one of the priorities of the design needs to be navigation. A website is no good if it's difficult for the user to figure out how to get around on the site. You want people that visit the site to look around the site, read the content and maybe shop on site. If the site is hard to figure out and hard to get around they won't stay on the site very long.

3. Load time - Flashy custom web site design that is full of animation or large graphics is definitely not the way to go for a business web site. Not everyone that visits your site will be using a high speed Internet connection and a custom web site design that is full of Flash animation and large graphics will take too long to load. Your visitors will just surf away rather than wait for everything on the page to load. People that are trying to access the site from PDA's and cell phones won't be able to load the site at all. Any custom web site design should be simple and clean with no Flash if at all possible.

4. Search Engine Optimization - Websites today need to be search engine optimized. Even if the custom web site design company you hire doesn't search engine optimize the content of the website they should do search engine optimization on the tags in the HTML codes of the site.

5. Functionality - If the site that you are having built is an ecommerce site then the company that creates your custom web site design should make sure that the shopping cart and payment processing systems that you want to use will integrate seamlessly into the site. The shopping cart and the check out process should be tested and re-tested before the launch of the site.

Here are six (6) questions you should ask yourself before choosing a web design company:

• Have you checked out their client's websites and search engine rankings yet? Before you ever consider hiring a web developer take a look at their website and current search engine ranking. (Ask us to contact some of our clients!)

• What kind of work do they do? Web development companies seem to get stuck in a rut where all the websites they build tend to look the same. Be sure you check out a few of the websites they have built and most importantly what current search engine ranking do these websites they built have before you retain their services. (See for yourself!)

• Do they provide all the necessary services to create an effective Website? Search engines evaluate Websites on many criteria. Content, technical optimization and link building are just a few. Most development company’s offer specialized services for one or two of these areas leaving the Website underdeveloped and thus destined to fail. (See for yourself!)

•  Are the company's goals consistent with yours? Many companies offer a Website product and treat it as a commodity (the easy for you to edit type of website). Pay half up front and half when the site is developed then you're on your own. The problem is there is no accountability. Find a company that has a vested interest in your success. (Our goals is to make your company more successful, what is yours?)

• Will you receive personal support down the road? An effective website is one that changes and grows. It should not be viewed as an online "billboard" that is static and stale. Does the company provide news feeds and/or updated monthly newsletters? Services like these will show clients as well as search engines your site is relevant and fresh. (Yes, it is apart of our service)

• Can they provide real search engine optimization? Do some business area searches using your city(s) in Google. Who shows up? Who is your competitor using? Are they showing up? When it comes to Web development services past success can be a strong indicator to future opportunities. Be sure that all the websites they have built are in the top 10, by generic key word search, of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. (just ask our clients!)

We, at Market Me Now, offer you the most complete and up to date website development, design, search engine optimization, and cross media paradigm marketing on the market today.

If you want your website to be a business investment rather than a liability contact us TODAY!