In my 10+ years as an eBusiness expert specializing in web design and development, I have been asked by many business owners and entrepreneurs to evaluate their website. Although their biggest complaint is lack of traffic, when I analyze their site, I realize that traffic is NOT their biggest problem. Even with traffic, I know that the site will not produce conversions. These websites fail miserably in interrupting, engaging, educating and closing the visitor. The primary reason for this failure is a website that is not professional in design, layout and content. In this day and age of the internet when a quality website is the biggest marketing asset for a business owner and entrepreneur, this is not an area to take lightly.

Here are 10 common web design, layout and content mistakes to avoid: 

1. Design that fails to draw the visitor’s eye to important content on the page.
2. Lack of relevant and emotionally compelling graphics.
3. Absence of powerful headlines and sub-headings that interrupt and engage the visitor in the message.
4. Distracting and competing content that confuses the visitor.
5. Lack of white space around content placing text and graphics too close to margins and borders.
6. Colors that are inappropriate for a particular market, industry and culture.
7. Spelling and grammar mistakes.
8. Not placing the most important content above the fold or the scrolling point of the website.
9. Design that lacks a visual appeal in different browsers and monitor settings.
10. Content that fails to perform as a effective landing page with elements that interrupt, engage and educate; include a unique selling position and testimonials; answer objections and provide a low risk or no risk offer.

An effective and professional website design can be the difference between a significant return on investment for marketing dollars and a site that doesn’t pay for the costs of its maintenance and even worse, projects a negative and unprofessional image for the website owner.

Learn how to choose a web design and development company. 
Call 239-513-9764 or contact WebPuzzleMaster to request a complimentary web site design consultation.

Content and Components for Optimal Performance of the Website or Blog:

• Information that establishes trust and credibility. This may include content about the company, clients, testimonials, policies and customer service. The company’s unique selling position can be briefly mentioned on the home page with a link to more information on an about or mission page.
• All pages should include benefit-rich headlines and sub-headlines that interrupt the visitor with a relevant message and engage him or her by solving their problem.
• Include appropriate artwork that arouses an emotional response in your ideal customers who are visiting your website.
• Include effective multimedia whenever possible to enhance your message.
• Each landing page should include a single call to action. This may be to subscribe to a list, request a free consultation or buy a product or service. Visitors who are asked to do multiple things, e.g. join a list and buy a product, will be confused. It is a known fact that a confused prospect seldom buys. Lead the visitor to take one single action on each landing page that will meet your objectives for that page.
• Make it easy for the visitor to contact you through an inquiry form that allows them to select all their major areas of interest in your products or services.
• Include email to a friend functions to make it easy for visitors to share your information.
• Include an opt-in email list form with a bonus incentive that encourages visitors to subscribe. This list should automatically build a database and provide you with access to an system of follow-up through autoresponders and email marketing. Keep in mind that many people will not be ready to buy right away. Seeing your name and information appear in their email over time can greatly enhance your lead generation and sales conversion results. This happened for me recently when I was contacted by a prospect who had read my ezine for quite some time. Over a period of time, I earned his confidence and trust through the information I provided and the projects I developed. I am now working with him to develop his project.

Hopefully by now you have read all 3 parts of Web Design Elements for Lead Generation and Sales Conversions and have acquired some powerful tools for capturing your market and turning them into loyal leads, customers and referral agents. For more information about web design for significantly increasing lead generation, sales conversions and viral sharing, visit www.WebPuzzleMaster.com

Have you ever gone to a website and gotten lost in the navigation. Maybe the content didn’t match the link names or there were so many links that the focus of the site was difficult to determine. Perhaps you had to click your back button to return to a particular page. Diligently planning your design will help you to avoid these issues and communicate your message in the best possible way. Effective website layout is essential for lead generation, sales conversions and creating a viral marketing response.

Effective Website Layout Keeps Visitors Engaged in Your Message

When people cannot easily find what they are promised and looking for, they quickly move on to other websites. This can be avoided through proper planning that assures the visitor ready access to the content they seek and makes it easy for them to join a list and/or become a customer.

Organization and Website Links Enhance the Visitor’s Experience

Give careful consideration to the organization of your content and your main navigation links. Naming your links with keywords that are descriptive of content in that section will help your visitor to find important content. If you have a great deal of information related to one topic, consider creating a main category link with a sub-menu of related links available from every page within that category. Think about your primary objectives when deciding on links to include in your main menu. For example, if your goals are to sell books, offer consulting and sell a couple of services, you might include each of these as a main navigation link. If you offer multiple services however, you might include a single link to your services from your main menu and a descriptive sub-menu link to each service within that category. Also part of your main navigation should be links that provide credibility, education, and information that provide support, answer objections and close sales. All main navigation links should appear on the top or side menu bar and in the footer navigation. It is common to include additional and less important links in the footer as well. Using keyword rich text links instead of image links will allow the search engines to find your content and drive more of your market to your website or blog.

Whatever is important for your visitor to know should be included within your main website design and should be available on every page. If customer contact is important to you, make it available from the same place on every page. This is where a template greatly enhances your efficiency and effectiveness. When a template is used, changes made to the template are automatically applied to all pages assigned to that template.

What appears above the fold or before your scroll on the page, is particularly important to capturing and holding the visitor’s attention. Each landing page should be laid out with this in mind.

Look for Website Design Elements Part #3 Coming Soon! For more information about web design for significantly increasing your lead generation, sales conversions and viral sharing, visit www.webpuzzlemaster.com.

The design of your overall website and each individual landing page must be aesthetically pleasing, relevant and immediately create an emotional response in your ideal customer. The emotional component is one of the most important to convey. It is a known fact that people buy because of emotion and not because something that makes sense. Buyers can and will justify almost any decision if they are excited about the product or service they are purchasing. Winning ingredients for effective lead generation and sales conversions includes design with emotion-stirring graphics combined with benefit-rich copy that answers objections and presents a low-risk offer. Before you can decide on the graphics that convey the emotional response you wish to communicate, your first step is to define your ideal customer and identify what is important to them. Put yourself in their shoes and feel what they feel. Think thoughts that they think. Carefully define their emotions that are likely to motivate them to buy from you.

Let’s take an example. Perhaps you are a merchant selling automobiles. Whether online or in a magazine ad, you are going to be more effective if you zone in on a particular automobile for a particular market. Some of your customers may be interested in a family vehicle while others may be looking for a sporty luxury car. It is vital to carefully define your ideal customer for each product you sell. Then identify the emotions that are likely to captivate this particular market. Some possible emotions include happiness, security, excitement, adventure or family protection and closeness. If you are selling a sports car to middle age single men or empty nesters, make your sports car landing page communicate all the things important to this market. This may include spontaneity, fun, luxury and adventure. These people are less likely to be motivated by security, economy and family values.

Artwork for Lead Generation, Sales Conversions and Sharing

Carefully select artwork for the main design that is a metaphor for your selling message. Since this web design element is seen on every page, make sure it resonates with your ideal customer and captures his or her emotional response. Additional artwork on landing pages is also important in communicating your message and capturing your market. Obviously, this is much more important in websites where pictures are major selling tools for the products or services. Quality artwork will be particularly important for the sale of jewelry, artwork, crafts, home building and services such as aesthetics and plastic surgery for instance. Make sure your pictures clearly show your products or services. If detail is important, offer an enlarged view. Proper editing assures that pictures are crisp and clear with good lighting and are cropped to avoid unnecessary background distractions. If your visitor gets excited by what they see and experience, they are much more likely to buy from you and pass your information along to others. This is where your results can significantly improve your bottom line!

Look for Web Design Elements for Lead Generation and Sales Conversions Parts 2 and 3 Coming Soon! More great information about web design for significantly improving lead generation, sales conversions and viral sharing at www.WebPuzzleMaster.com

Why Choose a Professional Web Design

I’m sure you are very good at what you do but you probably are not a professional web designer, website developer or marketing pro. If you aren’t a mechanic, would you repair you car’s engine? Why use an accountant when you can do your own taxes? Maybe it’s because you want to get better results and pay fewer taxes. The same holds true with your marketing and web design. Your web design and web development project is a specialized part of your marketing. It is a highly creative skill that will determine whether you capture and convert visitors to quality leads, customers and referral partners. An expert in this area can set you apart from your competition, brand you with your market and help you to produce a thriving profitable business. You can be penny wise and pound foolish, struggling to do it yourself to save money and your results will most likely be proportionate. So do yourself a big favor and let the experts create your professional web site design while you spend your time doing what you do best.

The Importance of a Good Web Site Design

Now that I’ve given you some good reasons to hire a professional, it is important that you understand what a good design can do for your business. An effective and professional web site design will perform as a SELLING and LEAD GENERATING machine.

Understanding Web Design and Web Development

Sometimes these terms are used interchangeable but they are two separate aspects of a web design project. Web design refers to the colors, artwork and organization and display of copy and content while web development refers to the type of project that is produced to meet your objectives and deliver your message. Your web development solution is determined by your mission, goals and budget. It may be a single landing page, squeeze page, eCommerce website, membership / directory website, eLearning system, Content Management System, brochure style website or blog. Regardless of the type of project you develop, a design based on your brand is integrated to effectively communicate your message.

Components of an Effective Web Site Design

All of the following are essential to creating a web site design that performs as a selling and lead generating machine:

• There should be a clear and interesting message for a specific market.
• Pages should be easy to navigate with consistent links and navigation on all pages.
• Colors should appropriate for the intended market and industry. Some colors are better for certain markets and industries and some colors may offend certain cultures.
• Artwork should contain emotionally charged metaphors for the message in order to capture and hold the attention of the visitor. People make decisions because of emotions rather than the facts alone.
• The design should draw the visitor’s eye to important content on the page.
• The most important content should appear above the fold.
• Font sizes, bolding, bulleting, tables and other formatting should make the copy easy to read and scan.
• Pages should have a clear call to action with a single objective.
• If the goal is for the visitor to buy a product, there should be a clear and easy path to ordering.
• Copy should be well written, conveying clear benefits and solving a problem for the intended market. Copy should also be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Including testimonials, headlines and sub-headlines that are rich in benefits will entice readers to want to explore further information on the pages.
• Include professional quality mages and multimedia such as video, audio and podcasts to make the site interesting and informative. Syndicated multimedia can greatly enhance traffic, branding, credibility and help to establish a trusting relationship.
• Include a subscription form for your mailing list or ezine with a bonus incentive. This is a very smart strategy for staying connected with your hot market through email marketing.

Designs that incorporate all of these elements can effectively produce websites that perform optimally as selling and lead generating machines.

© 2008 Web PuzzleMaster LLC, www.WebPuzzleMaster.com, Ruth Kuttler, the WebPuzzleMaster, All rights reserved.