Friday 29 June 2012

Creating Effective Web Designs

A website is essential for all businesses- whether big or small. Many small business owners now make their own website design to reach out to a wider audience. Either they do it themselves or they hire a website developer Sydney to do it for them.  As an entrepreneur, you must keep a few points in mind when conceptualizing a design for a website.

Effective Web Designs

When doing website design, it is advisable to think outside the standard template. It is alright to use a standard blogger or WordPress template, but the result will be a forgettable one. Features are also less. If you cannot afford to hire a web developer Sydney, then at least opt for a premium theme. Customize the site by yourself.

It is recommended to create a distinct brand aligned navigation bar and header. It should have a professional feel- but not too stuffy. The header should not distract the reader from the main content.

Ensure that everything fits in its place. Design and branding should be interconnected. Key themes like shape, color, illustration style and imagery should be repeated across different areas and graphics of the website. The design should be in accordance with the overall branding and should be extended offline to labels and business cards.

If you want to create your own website design, select appropriate fonts for your brand and ensure that they are functional. A plain font would not get you anywhere. If you want your brand to get noticed, get premium fonts that are unique and fit your business. Needless to say, such fonts cost money.

After creating a unique website design, it is now time to test and adjust. To do this, understand how visitors are spending time at the site. Use that information to prioritize. Also, try dissimilar sets of sidebar buttons. Use them separately- one for two weeks and the other for the next two weeks.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

The Final Touches of Great Website Design

Every good job needs a final polish to make it better. For web design professionals, it involves putting extra detail that makes the website simply jump off the screen. The following text explains a few finishing touches that will put “wow” into the lips of your target audience.

Website Design
The first tip is to employ anti-aliased text.  This is especially applicable in case of image based text. Anti-aliasing is the method of minimizing the distortion artifacts. A few ways exist to do this- but the most preferred way is to utilize the “Character” panel.  As a Sydney web design professional, you have a choice between Sharp, Strong, Crisp, Smooth and None. Experiment with different fonts to know what works best. Experiment with different sizes also. It must be mentioned that a sharp setting is generally used in a majority of cases.

You can use subtle contrasting stroked borders to make a positive impact. Use one pixel stroked borders and lines to give that extra jazz. These borders add extra crispiness to the design. This is because the extra contrast in comparison to the surrounding elements gives the design more depth.

Another finishing method is to use subtle gradients. They can add aesthetic and depth to a design. A design comes alive because of them. A new dimension to the design becomes apparent due to the resulting slight transparency. The total effect is of that the design seems to come off the screen.

You can use a grid. They are extremely useful and very important. Proper spacing and alignment in web design leads to order. It also organizes the page and groups website parts for easier navigation. Careful attention must be paid so that the logo and text are aligned. Use rules from rulers tab to help you. Also utilize levels, unsharp masking and curves. Verify the color balance, contrast and sharpness of each image so that it is in balance with the rest of the page and other images.

Monday 25 June 2012

Standardization is the Key to Good Website Design


Professionals working at website design Sydney companies are an experienced lot. They are working in web design for a long time and know the job like no other. The following text is a distilled version of what they know.

Good Website DesignThe first topic up for discussion is graphics. To start, images should be small. And the average size should be approximately 12KB. Bigger images means slower loading. This holds true for broadband connections too. It is better to optimize the pages before uploading them into the net.

As any website design Sydney professional would say, the graphics must match the content. The pictures must complement the text. Unrelated images only confuse the intended reader and may misdirect him or her to a competitor website. Blinking images are another no-no. This includes images that rotate or flash or move. They are distracting and make viewers angry.

To make the web design more appealing, it is advisable to stick with the standard layout. A non-standard layout may look great on the screen, but for the reader, they are pain to navigate. The search for relevant content becomes a pain. The 3 column layout is very popular for a reason. It works.

Whitespace is very important in web design. It is a vital part of the layout. Whitespace affects how the content is viewed. Graphics should be treated as par with elements in the layout. A far out example occurs when text is wrapped around the image.

For fonts, serif should be used for headlines and sans-serif should be used for text. According to the professionals working in website design Sydney companies,  the logic behind this is the fact that sans-serif is much easier to read in computer monitors due to the fact that screen resolution is effectively lower than print. Using serif fonts may blur together and makes it difficult for the visitor to read.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

How to Increase Conversions in Shopping Websites

E-commerce
A better website design Sydney Company lays stress on the factors that make up a successful E-commerce website. A number of web designing companies populate their website designs with Flash animations. This slows down the shopper’s browser. The web pages may look attractive, but they can be a nightmare for online shoppers when they are trying to checkout. The following text elaborates on how to make your website more attractive by using simple design techniques. The website’s conversion rates will also improve.

The first website design tip is that you must make sure that the shopping cart is visible. This is important as when customers add items to the cart, they will know with surety that the item they want to buy was actually registered. The web page must have an area that lists the number of items in the customer’s cart. Relevant check-out information should also be there. Visible checkout data also makes checkout easier for the customer. The shopping cart information should be easy to find. To do that, use contrasting colors compared to the rest of the page.

You should optimize the “add to cart” buttons for better conversions. Studies have revealed that customers and site visitors react dissimilarly to action buttons and their phrasing. Customers take a lukewarm approach to indirect calls-to-action. Direct calls-to-action garners a positive response from shoppers. Specific phrasing is found to increase sales. Coloring also plays an important role in this instance. Particular colors could cause certain visitor behaviors.

Website design Sydney companies use Auto-complete function to help simplify visitor’s searches. A search box is a very important part of an e-commerce website. It helps visitors to access products which they want. It is seen that more than twenty percent of visitors prefer to type directly into the search box rather than browse through the shopping site. The Auto-complete function is important as a standard search query may return excess results or none at all if a wrong query is typed. The search suggestion helps visitors to match product they want much faster. The specific product page too is directly loaded rather than the search results page.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Turning Emotions into Profitable Web Design Strategies

Web Design Strategies
A website must be attractive to make sales. The primary responsibility of a web design Sydney Company is to ensure that its client companies enjoy financial success.  A number of factors are involved to make this venture a successful one. Creative logo design can be an integral part of the process. What the client needs is not merely visitors, but visitors who purchase. Such positive financial transactions are termed conversions. The following text describes the ways of creating a website that will not only attract a large number of visitors but will also be characterized by a lot of conversions.

Since success in web design is determined by human emotions, much study has been undertaken to create websites that are effective and engaging. Thus study went over various human facets like decision-making, neuroscience and motivation. It gave rise to a new technique in web designing- Neuro Web Design.

Neuro Web Design is a process which explores human motivation and behavior when it comes to website designs. These are very important where there is the factor of user experience and usability. In this scenario, the site must cater to a particular audience to increase sales. If this is not done, the customer will simply go to competitors’ websites. The key is to tap into human instincts like logic, emotion and then instruct.

The first instruction in neuro web design is to target the emotion of the end-user. This can be done by skillfully using the technical nature of the web. Stress should be made on tapping the emotions- just like importance is laid on blogs and content management systems. The design elements as well as the creative logo design must create a design that helps to tap an emotional bond with your product. The aim is to stimulate a response that will ultimately lead to sales.

A number of web design Sydney companies also put stress on logic in web design. The page elements should be arranged in such a manner that creates a natural dialog. This enhances the experience of the user. Questions should pop into the reader’s mind and they will then browse the site with their expectations.

Thursday 14 June 2012

Success Strategies for Web Design



Any website design Sydney Company worth its balance books knows that a great web design strategy works wonders for any company. This holds true for both existing sites and the ones that are at a conceptual stage. A design strategy for a website tells the company’s story in a compelling manner that is very difficult to duplicate anywhere else.

Strategies for Web DesignA good website developer Sydney always emphasize on the landing page. This is important as potential customers must have a positive impression at first sight. A positive impression means increased chances of repeat visitors. If the impression is negative, there will be a fall in visitor traffic. An increase in visitor traffic correlates to a higher conversion rate.


Any design strategy in case of a standard web design Sydney can be divided into six parts. All of them carry equal importance as per web design strategies. The six parts are the website goals, the branding of the site, targeting the audience, identification of most in-demand work, assessment of work done and limitations due to technology.

Defining the goals of the website is the first part. The aims should be written down in order of importance and acted upon accordingly. The most important should come first. Remember that the aims should be ably supported by business reality.

Branding is very important. To build a successful brand, fresh content is very important. The content should reflect the business goals. The tag line is very important in branding. It should be worded as such thus it can be easily memorized.

The correct audience should be targeted. Know the profile of the site visitor. Know what makes that individual wants and write contents that targets the specific audience. Prioritize the workload in view of most read and wanted.

You should identify the work that users want most. Does the existing content match up to the requirements? If not it should be changed. Assessment of work done is also very important in this regard. Many website designs Sydney companies also suffer from technology limitations. This can be overcome by optimizing existing technology that is currently being used by the particular company.