Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Attractive Web Design vs. Effective Web Design

Thousands of new websites are created and uploaded every day. Even in small industries, new businesses are emerging every day. Even though the competition is increasing day by day, but should small business be really concerned with the growing number of websites? Internet provides information and it's good to the information available in abundance, however, what a lot of websites lack is creativity and ability to attract their market. So, from this perspective, most businesses have nothing to worry about because their existing competitors and new entrepreneurs lack in creating effective web design for their business.


 


What a lot of businesses care about (when they create a new site) is that they want it to look good. They care about images, colors and the overall layout. They try to create a cool and nice atmosphere, but fail to realize that their websites must be practical and easily accessible instead of way too attractive.

Attractiveness won't give you any benefit if people are unable to browse your website and find the information or products that they need. An effective websites focuses on usability along with having a nice and decent design. However, merely focusing on design is probably the biggest mistake a business can make.

 


See, you just don't want people to come to your site and praise your design. You want them to get involved and then later take action as you like. To engage them and bring them back to your website, you need more than an attractive web design. What you need is an effective web design which is a combination of attractiveness, easy accessibility, simplicity and simple navigation. Otherwise, you won't be able to have your visitors perform the action that you want and all your precious traffic will be a total waste for you and your business.


 


If you are unable to convert your visitors into customers, if you are unable to sell your products to the most relevant visitors, then it means your design is not effective and it's not doing the job it is supposed to do.

It may be attractive, but it won't, of course, pay your bills. A lot of designers, when they create new designs, don't create about readability. They don't care about the font size. Thus, with a weird and small font, they make it extremely difficult for the visitors to read the content. This is a very big mistake.

 


Your content must be easily readable and it should look neat and clean. The overall design may look good with small font, but you shouldn't expect your market to read your content and take action. Another mistake that a lot of people make prevent their web design from becoming effective is that they create complex navigation. They make it extremely difficult (not on purpose of course) to browse the site and find the required products or information.


 


So, the bottom line is that your attractive web design may look good, but it may not help you convert your visitors and make money. Hence, it will actually be a bad design. Whereas, an effective web design looks nice and also allows visitors to browse the site easily and conveniently. Hence, an effective web design can convert more visitors. So, go for it and avoid creating a messy fish market.