So much goes into designing a website – where do you start? There are any number of places to work from, for sure, but we’ve listed three below that we think are pretty critical when it comes to combining aesthetics with delivering the service that your consumers (or potential clients) are in need of.
1. What is your brand?
It would be easy to scoff at this question for designing a website. “What’s my brand?! Well, I already thought about that when starting my business.” But seriously, it’s something we look at intently when designing a site for a client. People often underestimate the links between the offline and the online world, and for a truly successful website – particularly in the case of local businesses dependent on brick and mortar sales – the branding in the digital world needs to match the real world.
This means not only obvious traits like brand colours, but everything from feel to how central to your service customer queries might be; contactability; access to quotes; information about services. Every business is different, so your online presence should reflect as true as possible your storefront offline.
2. What can be expected online in the near future?
There’s no point designing and building a website in, say, HTML5 if word on the street is that it’s about to be moved on for HTMLX (side note: this is imaginary!). The point is, we always keep an eye on expected trends and possible changes coming up whilst designing a new website. A couple of years ago, consumers were trending massively towards mobile internet browsing, so web designers needed to keep that in mind and not just design a desktop-centric website.
3. What do you love about your favourite websites?
We know, we know – the website is for your customers, not you. But if you’re going to be passionate about your business for years to come – and again, this is especially true for local businesses that we often work with at Wolf – you need to appreciate the strengths of your website, and convey this passion to your clients/followers/leads. There is no point owning a website you’re embarrassed by, after all.
Got questions about web design? Get in touch with us right here!
