Content Is King, But It Still Has To Look Good Too!
Yes, it’s more true now than ever, Content is King! There’s no denying it. However, we are visual creatures and how a site looks and feels does matter to us.
Is this a real business or just some guy?
We’ve all had that experience before. We do a search for something we need and click on a few of the links that pop up on Google.
We come to a site that seems to be what we’re looking for…. well, sort of. But, it looks like a site that was designed in the mid ’90s.
Maybe the color scheme is rough. The colors don’t work well together or support the them of the site, or the business.
Maybe it’s got amateurish looking graphics, or heaven forbid, some flashing graphics or a scrolling message.
Maybe it’s got broken links that don’t do anything, or even worse, pull up a Error 404, Page Not Found.
Or maybe it’s just very boring looking. It looks more like an online report than a living, breathing web 2.0 site.
Will this inspire you to want to do business with this company? No. Is that what you want your visitors to feel the first time the find your site online? NO!
Only One Chance To Make A First Impression
When someone comes to your site you want them to understand that you are great at what you do. A successful looking presentation can help you with this.
Now, this doesn’t mean you need a huge multimedia presentation that bombards the customer with bells and whistles. That can do just as much damage as the previously mentioned afflictions.
Elevated Presentation
You and your business need a website that has the look and feel that will inspire confidence in your customers. It will have the appropriate look of success that tells people you are serious about what you do, and you’re good at it.
Functional for Mobile
Mobile browsers are reported to be the most used browsers when surfing the web these days (is surfing still a contemporary term?). How does your site look and function on an iPhone or iPad? Many businesses used to downplay this in their website’s planning stages, but these days it’s too important to dismiss.
WordPress Themes
If you’re using WordPress for your site (which I strongly suggest) there are a lot of themes out there you can choose from. If you’re doing the development yourself, be very selective when choosing your site’s theme.
In this case you’ll have to be careful to choose a site that not only has the look you want, but is also coded well. A lot of (especially) free themes out there can have very poor programming under the hood and this can actually do your site harm in function and in it’s standing with Google.
StudioPress
If you are shopping around so you can do this yourself, I recommend premium themes created by StuidoPress.com (affiliate link). The not only look great but the coding is fantastic. The support is fantastic. The compatibility with WordPress, plugins and other aspects of everything that’s involved is very good.
Custom Design
The best solution is custom design that is specifically developed to support your image and elevate your presentation so that people can easily understand how cool you and your products are. If you do decide to go this route, I would be happy to talk with you about that and answer any questions you might have. Then you can decide for yourself which path works best for you.
Web Design Issues: Light vs Dark – Which is Better?