When I founded our company three years ago I was highly focused on SEO. I quickly learned that for most companies, effective SEO meant rebuilding their websites from the ground up. While this wasn’t my initial plan, it was where we ended up. What I didn’t realize is that I was going to love website design. Without question, I fell head over heels in love with WordPress and the world of website design.
I love to watch Google Analytics shift from good old fashion SEO, but I also love to hear my clients provide feedback on what a more professional design has done for their business. Hearing a business owner tell you their revenue doubled and their leads are much more qualified is music to my ears. Our clients’ success stories does my soul good and it makes me happy. Web design makes me happy.
His voicemail stated he wasn’t getting any return from his website. He said he wasn’t getting organic traffic and the pay per click traffic he was buying wasn’t generating any leads or revenue.
He added his logo to WordPress’ basic Twenty Ten and then added a few scant pages of content. He thought that would be enough to bring in oodles of traffic and convert that traffic to new clients.
Last week I received a voicemail from a gentleman I spoke with over a year ago. Once I saw his website, I immediately remembered him because he was in my local area and I was very familiar with the industry in which he works.
As much as I hate to admit it, I didn’t return his call. From his voicemail, I could tell he was in the same position and mindset is the same as it was a year ago. I can’t change his mind then, so I know I cannot help him now. This immediately upset me and brought my mood significantly down – but only for a moment. What I did was remind myself of all the people we have helped over this last year. My mind whipped through all the web design projects that did make a difference. My mood immediately shifted and I was once again in love with internet marketing, website design, and the Genesis framework.
I thought I would share a few before and after images of website design clients we’ve had over the last year. This is far from all of them, but these are some great examples of strong website design and how it can shift the impression a website leaves on visitors. Make no mistake, a professionally designed website does make a difference. And if people can’t afford a completely custom website, then a professionally designed stock theme can be just as powerful if implemented properly.
I’m happy that I can help people craft that first impression and that some how along the way, I found my way to the world of headers, footers, colors, and code. It’s truly been an amazing journey these last few years.
I’ve always believed a strong website presence is the foundation of all marketing activities. Everything you do online typically returns to the website. You need to have a place you’re proud of, where you can invite people in, and leave a really good first impression.
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This discouraged any one company from monopolizing a propriety browser and programming language, which could have altered the effect of the World Wide Web as a whole. The W3C continues to set standards, which can today be seen with JavaScript and other languages.
The HTML markup for tables was originally intended for displaying tabular data. However designers quickly realized the potential of using HTML tables for creating the complex, multi-column layouts that were otherwise not possible. At this time, as design and good aesthetics seemed to take precedence over good mark-up structure, and little attention was paid to semantics and web accessibility.
Since the start of the 21st century the web has become more and more integrated into peoples lives. As this has happened the technology of the web has also moved on. There have also been significant changes in the way people use and access the web, and this has changed how sites are designed.
This can be an age group or particular strand of culture; thus the designer may understand the trends of its audience.
There’s also a risk that advanced interactivity may be incompatible with older browsers or hardware configurations. Publishing a function that doesn’t work reliably is potentially worse for the user experience than making no attempt. It depends on the target audience if it’s likely to be needed or worth any risks.
Most site layouts incorporate negative space to break the text up into paragraphs and also avoid center-aligned text.
