25 November 2007
What to look for when hiring a Web Designer.

Most web designers are selling what THEY enjoy – design. Designs can be beautiful, however, if they don’t sell your product or service, or are optimized to work well with the search engines, you have just bought one of the dozen for a dime. Your website must contain marketing strategies in order for it to sell your business.
There are two rules to always be aware of when marketing your business.

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3 second rule – You have approximately 3 seconds to capture the attention of your visitor

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7 visit rule – A visitor needs to visit your website 7 times before they are willing to buy your product/service.

On one hand, that’s an awful short time to win the attention of someone who might make that purchase. On the other hand, that’s an awful lot of visits to win that sale. You must provide your potential clients/customers a reason to want to stick around. Offer them valuable information, discounts - and constantly change the discounts, or a fun website to visit.

Have your site reflect the real you and not someone else, just because their site looks better. Layouts on websites are all pretty much the same. However, design techniques, such as colors, text, interactivity will make your site unique to you. A lot of people are really into Flash sites, heavy on graphics. Unless your designer knows what they’re doing, search engines will not see your site.

Text is the name of the game. Studies show that 75% of the time, text is read long before graphics are noticed. Text can be used to make or break you on the Internet. When writing your text, keep it concise with lots of “Call to Action” statements. e.g. Buy now! Call today! Also, talk to your audience not to yourself. In other words, when writing your text, include more you’s and yours than me and I or we. This makes visitors feel like you're talking to them - that maybe, you know something about them that they don't know and they're willing to pay to find out what it is.

If your web designer knows their business, they will design a site that will bring in sales. Always remember that SEO is important, but if you’re not getting sales with the visitors you currently have, something is wrong.