04 September 2016

Multiple Skills Are Required For Professional Website Design

By Timothy Stone


Since its inception the internet has created countless opportunities for numerous entrepreneurs, businesses and other organizations. To this day it remains the biggest trading and communication platform in the world, and it still offers many opportunities to anyone ranging from Johannesburg to Baton Rouge LA. The modern day internet, however, is extremely competitive. Only those that make use of highly skilled professionals for website design purposes can hope to compete effectively.

There was a time when a good looking user interface and some attractive graphics were enough to do well on line. Those days are long gone. Modern sites are extremely sophisticated and the interface that the user see is only the tip if the iceberg. Home made sites simply cannot hope to compete in the fiercely competitive on line environment. There are countless sites, all vying for attention.

Anyone that is serious about competing on line will hire the services of a professional designer. Great care should be taken, however, not to hire an individual that has mastered the workings of one or two software packages. Truly professional designers have experience in and an intimate knowledge of on line marketing and they can use a wide variety of tools to create sites that will achieve the results desired by their clients.

The very best designers will not perform any development work before they have spent a considerable amount of time on the actual design of the site. They will define the intended target group and base the further design of the site on the unique characteristics of that target group. They will also research the sites of competitors and get to grips with the technical aspects of the products and services that will feature on the site.

Modern internet users are spoilt for choice. If a site does not appeal to them they simply move on. Designers will therefore go to considerable lengths to make sure that the site appeals to the target group for which the site caters. They will make provision for feedback and enquiry facilities and they will pay close attention to the format of the site content.

Even the most sophisticated sites will fail miserably if they do not feature prominently during user searches. Millions of users employ search engines to find whatever they are after and they are routinely presented with a results list containing thousands of sites. Only the first few sites on the list can hope to attract traffic. Successful sites therefore employ optimization strategies to make sure that they perform well during searches.

Underlying management systems are invisible to users but they play a vital role in the success of a site. These systems monitor visitor behaviour. They count the number of visitors, record the time of day that visitors access the site, measure the time that users spend on the site and record the origins of visitors. These statistics can help site owners to make meaningful changes to their sites.

The internet most certainly offer tremendous opportunities but anyone that wants to exploit those opportunities must be ready and willing to compete in a very tough environment. This can only be achieved with a highly professional on line presence. Paying a professional to create the site is an excellent investment, not a burdensome expense.




About the Author: