Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:59:18 +0000

In today’s competitive economy, one has to be very strategic about self-promoting your business. If you;re currently running your own business then it’s important to use a unique marketing strategy to make it flourish. Getting your own company website designed is one such marketing tool.

People are technology savvy these days. The Internet has made the world a global village. So, all you need to do is make your own niche in this global village.
In order to make your online presence felt and get your business to reach supreme heights, you must get your own business website designed to attract potential traffic. There are several web design companies in Sydney that can help you with creating a website for your organization. To find a good website designing company in Sydney, you can begin your search on the Internet by using some keywords like website design Sydney . This will provide you with a list of various service providers that specialize in website designing. You can randomly choose some of them and do more research to finally settle for any one particular company.

To choose the best web design company you must follow some important guidelines including:

A popular misconception is only big corporations with a large number of employees can deliver quality work. However, creative arenas like web designing are unique. Even small companies with expert web designers can deliver high class quality work. So, always go by the quality of the work and not the number of hands involved in doing that work.

Go through the portfolio of the selected companies to see the sample work results that comply with your needs. Accordingly, decide which company can offer you with the best performance in terms of creativity. This is also helpful in knowing whether the company is reliable enough or not.

Check out the company’s market reputation and authenticity by asking around or searching on the net, before hiring it for your work.

Look out for a well-experienced web designing company.

Clear all your doubts by asking the web designers as many relevant questions as you can think of, before allocating them with the work. Know what technology and planning will be implemented in your work. Also, brief the designers about all your specifications and needs to ensure the best communication. This will ultimately deliver good results.

Ensure that the company works within your set deadline and its price quote does not surpass your budget.

These guidelines will surely help you in finding a good web design company with professional web designers in Australia whose work experience can be seen by searching in the online forums using keywords like web designers Australia .

This article is written by an expert working at Define Studio, a Sydney web design company. For more detail about web designers Australia here.

If you are contemplating going into business online, have awebsite, or are creating a website for your existing business,this informational resource will prove invaluable to you. Itprovides you with ten very important and easy to implement webdesign tips to ensure that your website is designed to make youmoney. You can have the best or most inexpensive product orservice of its type, but if you don’t follow certain guidelineswhen designing your website, no one will stay there long enoughto know that! Following these simple but effective tips willincrease your chances of being successful on the internet.

10. DO have an easy to use navigation system in place on yoursite. One of the quickest ways to lose visitors andthereforesales, is to have a navigation system that works likethe Winchester Mystery House (an attraction in California thathas doorways leading to nowhere). If your visitor gets lost andcan’t find their way around, or if they have to keep clicking aback button to return to your homepage just to visit anotherpage on your site, they will tire of this and just leave, takingtheir business with them. Make sure that you not only have anavigation bar at the top of each page, but also put a textnavigation bar at the bottom of every page, so they don’t haveto scroll to the top to travel through your site. The easier itis for them to move through your site, the more they’ll see, themore comfortable they’ll feel and the more likely it is thatthey will purchase from YOU and not your competitors.

9. DO NOT use too many large or active graphics. Graphics canincrease your load time and most surfers don’t want to waitaround to see a large but ‘cute’ animated graphic of yourservice – they’d rather be informed about your products orservice. So keep your graphics simple and use them sparingly -especially animated graphics. Too much animation will detractthem from where their attention should be – on your products orservices.

8. DO make sure your text is clear, concise and error-free.Keeping your text concise and easy to read is important becauseif your visitor is confused about what you offer, you will losethem to a competitor. If writing intelligible text is not yourforte, hire a professional copywriter to make sure that yourtext describes your products or services in an intelligent, yeteasy to understand manner. And make sure your site is 100%proofread! Nothing lowers the opinion of a potential customermore than a site filled with typos and errors in spelling,grammar, punctuation or syntax. (Gee, if they can’t even spell’electrical’ properly, or don’t know the difference between’their’ and ‘there’, they can’t be very intelligent, thereforewhat would the quality of their service or product be?) Andthat’s another point that must be made here – NEVER rely on a’spellcheck’ program to do your proofreading for you – they haveno idea if you mean ‘there’ or ‘their’ so therefore you can runa spellcheck until you’re blue in the face and you will stillhave those kinds of errors on your site! And again, if this isnot one of your strong points, hire a professional proofreaderto check your site.

7. DO NOT overuse audio effects on your site. Nothing is moreirritating to a visitor than to have some new age music or somestrange noise blaring over and over and over during their visitto your site. A brief one-time sound as a special effect on thehome page can catch their attention and be beneficial, but don’tloop it so it plays on and on. And even if you provide a way tomute a sound effect, they still have to deal with locating thecontrols and hope they work properly – and they did not come toyour site to be an audio technician, they came to your sitebecause they were interested in what you have to offer them.Make your products or services the most interesting items onyour site, without repetitive, annoying audio to distract yourvisitors.

6. DO use colors that are complimentary and subtle. There isnothing that will make a visitor leave a site quicker than thatday- glo lime green background with fire-engine red graphics!Always make sure that your colors compliment each other andblend well together. If you choose to go with primary colors,then stick with the basics (true red, true blue, etc.) and ifyou choose to use more dusky colors (teal green, dusty rose,beige, cranberry), then stick with those. Use bright colorssparingly and for accent only – not as the background or foryour larger images. And you should have only THREE main colorsin your design. And those three colors should always be from a’web-safe palette’ to ensure all your visitors will see thecolors you intended. You want your visitors to focus on yourproducts or services, and using the correct colors to showcasethem properly will increase your sales.

5. DO NOT launch your business site on a ‘free server’ with ads.A professional website should be just that – professional. Foryour visitors to really take you seriously, you need to takeyour business seriously. Either get your own domain name andspace, or have your web designer host you on their webspace.Nothing is cheesier or more insincere than to have a businesssite on a free server with ads popping up and under and all overyour site! There are thousands of ‘come and go’ businesses thatare on the internet to make a quick profit and then take themoney and run. If you want to establish your business as areliable and trustworthy enterprise, you must present that toyour visitors by being willing to invest in an ad- free presence.

4. DO make sure your META Tags accurately reflect your business.One of the main ways to ‘advertise’ on the internet involvessubmitting your site to search engines. And most search enginesrely heavily on META Tags to properly index your site in theirlistings. Therefore, if you do not use the proper format foryour tags or use keywords that don’t describe your products orservices concisely, you will not be listed correctly in thesearch engines. Use two to three word phrases that describe yourmain products or services, and list them as you would enter themyourself if looking through the search engines for that productor service. In other words, if you have an auto repair business,some of your keywords could be: car tune-ups, automobiletransmission repairs, car lube and oil changes, etc., inaddition to just automobile repairs. And also, always make surethat your keyword phrases are inserted into the text on yourhome page. Search engines check the content of your page to makesure that the keywords match your text to ensure that yourbusiness is legitimate, so this lends credibility to your site,increasing your chances of a better placement.

3. DO NOT pay huge amounts of money for Flash. Now you may besaying “But Flash is so on the edge – so trendy”, but thereinlies the problem – it IS just a trend and it will pass, becauseit takes way too long to load in, and 9 out of 10 of yourvisitors will hit the ‘Skip Intro’ button and never see itanyway! Therefore, you will have paid a large sum of money forsomething that only one out of ten of your visitors will evereven see. Not a good value at all – this is a way for webdesigners to take more money from you. You are much better offhiring someone to design an attractive, well laid out site withsome tasteful graphics, that focuses on your services orproducts, not some flashy pictures. Flash is a waste of yourmoney and your visitors’ time. (Think of how many times *you*have clicked that Skip Intro button, or gotten impatient waitingfor a Flash navigation bar to emerge just so you can travelthrough the site! How many times have you *left* that sitebecause you got tired of waiting?)

2. DO choose your web designer carefully. If you decide to hirea web designer, always get a comprehensive estimate from anumber of designers before hiring one. Always check out theirportfolios to see if they design original sites and do not usetemplates that are replicated on dozens of others’ sites. Makesure you are clear on what you expect of them and find out ifthey charge extra for any services or if they are included inthe original estimate. Items like copywriting, proofreading, ordesigning logos, for example, are sometimes in addition to abasic web design estimate. Also, some limit the number of imagesyou may have, or charge extra for simple JavaScripts (such as anavigation bar that changes color or images). Make sure the webdesigner you hire states clearly if they charge extra for theseservices and make sure any charges such as these are listed inyour original quote. Also check the sites in their portfolios tosee if they do use clear, concise text, spell words properly,use uncomplicated navigation systems, have optimal load timesand properly reflect the business they are representing.

1. DO NOT always choose the most expensive designer. Justbecause they charge more does not necessarily mean that you willget a better website. While there are some ‘fly-by-night’designers out there, many small design companies will provideyou with a professional website for less money. Again, refer tothe designer’s portfolio to determine the level of theirexpertise, not how much they charge. I have been to manywebsites designed by big design houses that have typos,navigation errors, broken links and other poor design features.And going with a smaller designer can also improve your servicewhen you need updates/changes to your site down the road. Havingfewer sites to maintain can mean your site will receiveattention in a more timely manner than a large design house withdozens of sites that may keep you waiting weeks or even monthsuntil they can get around to your site.

About the author:Shirley Marshall is the owner of Perfect Sites Web Design andhas been designing websites professionally for over three yearsnow. This is her first of many articles. To contact her pleasee-mail her at: mailto:Info@PerfectSites.com or visit her sitelocated at: http://www.PerfectSites.com