Top 9 Web Design Myths
1. If You Build It They Will Come
You can have an amazing website design but if you don’t market your products or services no one will know about your website. This is why search engine optimization (SEO), which is the processing of improving the amount of traffic that comes to your website from the search engines, and having a marketing plan is important. It takes time and effort for your website to reach the top of the search engines results page.
2. Website Design Takes Months
Most website designs don’t actually take months to execute. A simple website can be finished in as little as a few days. It’s the complex ones that take a few weeks. Your company simply needs to supply the website designer with the information they need to design the site and make it live. Images, graphics, content, topics, navigation and colors are just a few of the things you should discuss with your web designer so they know what you want.
3. The Website Designer Will Create the Content
Your website designer is trained and experienced at designing, not writing. He doesn’t know how you want to present your products or services to your consumer in writing. That’s why you should hire a copywriter or do it yourself.
4. Flash and Graphics over Content
It’s still kinda true that “content is king”, and having too many flash animation, audio clips, graphics and slide shows to your site can cause the page to take too long to load. Most people prefer not to wait for a website to load (it should load in 10 seconds or less) and will move on to the next website. You need to know the right balance between this and the content. Or you need to know if this is appropriate for the target audience that you’re catering to. People still need to know what your company is about and content provides them with this information, plus search engines love content.
5. Your Site is the Same on All Computers/Browsers
Unfortunately, all computers and internet browsers are not made equally, so your site might look different on Internet Explorer and Safari then it will look on Firefox. You or your web designer should check how your site looks on the different internet browsers. What about the resolution? If you’re building your website with a resolution of 800 x 600, you should also check it in 1024 x 768 to make sure it still looks good.
6. The Louder the Colors, the Better
Remember that viewers will be reading your site, so the colors you choose shouldn’t make reading difficult or hurt their eyes. If it does they probably won’t return. The colors should enhance your site and add a certain ambiance. It’s best to stick to 2-3 colors and you should make sure that the hyperlinks on the pages are all the same. Even if red and yellow are your favorite colors, they might not make the best text/background combination.
7. You Can Never Have Too Many Images
When used properly, images can enhance the look of your site and help you to effectively illustrate a point. Having too many pictures and graphics can slow down the load time of your website, especially if they’re too large. Remember to save your photos in the correct format. Photos with a multitude of colors should be saved as .jpgs, while web images, clip art and more should be saved in .gif.
8. The Design Is Final and No Improvements Are Needed
Wrong, no website design is ever final and you should periodically change the look of your site as well as add new features to keep your audience engaged. Plus, the internet is forever changing and the search terms that people use to find your websites do eventually change and so should the content on your site.
9. Do It Yourself and Save Money
You need to save money but selecting a friend, employee or relative to design your company site is not the way to go. You’ll get what you pay for. Don’t lose time and opportunities by having someone whose inexperienced design your site. You wouldn’t let just anyone represent your company to your most loyal clients now, would you?
