In today’s online orientated world, effective website design strategy
is essential. After all, without a solid website strategy, how else
will you be able to reach the millions of potential customers who could
be actively searching for your business right this very second?


The online world of business works in a similar way that traditional brick
and mortar businesses work – customers walk through the door, and browse
the products on offer, before deciding whether or not they wish to make
a purchase.


In the online world, the main difference is that customers
are far more likely to make that purchase, as they are already often
searching for your products. This is why it is so important to ensure
that your website is perfectly geared towards making sales and making
those browsing customers purchasing customers.


To begin your web design
and online marketing strategy, you first need to consider the factors
that influence online sales. Each one of these plays a vital role in
determining your success online.

The first step in developing a winning website is to determine your
specific goals. For most businesses, generating leads and making sales
is the primary goal, which means that you should be focusing your
efforts on making these goals happen.

• Attracting as many web
  users as possible, and ensuring that they click through your website
  through online searches. This means your website design strategy should include SEO elements to bring in these users and help them browse your website easily.
  
• Help users easily find the information that they need to make an educating buying decision on the products that they are looking to buy. This meanseffective navigation to help them find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
  
• Entice and encourage users to purchase, get a
  quote or make an enquiry. This means adding plenty of calls to action
  that point customers in the right direction.
  
• Bring in new
  business and continue repeat business to ensure that your customer base grows. This means marketing your business online, through fresh content,reviews, blog posts and social media marketing to draw potential business from a number of different sources.
  

For the best success in your online marketing strategies, you need to
understand your primary target market. Are you targeting women, other
businesses, students or homeowners? Or are you targeting a large
demographic of consumers for a home shopping business? Whether you have asmall market or a large one, you need to target each market
group in order to bring in online sales.


The design of your website should
be developed with your primary market in mind, to ensure the best
success with your website design strategy. If your market is younger,
then a fun, ‘cool’ design will attract these users. If your market is
the female population, then a feminine design will attract your
audience. Navigation, images, content and other design elements should
all be designed with your market in mind.

One of the most effective ways to implement a solid website design strategy is considering hiring a professional agency to design and develop your website. Some may feel that they can save money by designing their
website themselves, and while this may be true, this will not always
give the results one would expect.

Professional designers have years of experience, and understand factors such usability, navigation, functionality, conversion, SEO and many other design elements that are required for a successful website.


Designating a budget for your website is often the best way to ensure the best results, which in the long term will be well worth the money spent by
having your website designed by professionals.

Old,
outdated content is not only bad for conversion, but it is also bad for
Search Engine Optimisation. A good website needs fresh content that is
updated on a regular basis in order to rank well in the Search Engines.
Likewise, browsing users also require fresh content in order to find new
products and services, and find a reason to use your services again.


Add
unique content features such as video, blog posts, reviews and anything
else that puts you ahead of your competition, and both users and Google
will sit up and take notice.

The
final important thing to consider for your website design strategy is
website analytics, which allow you to monitor your online results. This
will tell you how many visitors you are getting each day, where they are
coming from to find your website, which search terms they are using,
where they are based, and what other pages they are viewing on your
website.


This data provides invaluable insight into how your customers
act on your website, which in turn helps you consistently improve your
online marketing strategies to bring in those customers, time and time
again.

By Alek Jones