Website Design and Development

An effective website is a must for most businesses today. (For a basic overview, see our Small Business Internet Marketing article, Does Your Business Really Need a Website?)

But what exactly makes for a good website?

First and foremost, website design and development centers around an understanding of what your customers are looking for online and what you can do to make it easy for them to find it. A good website should include (at a minimum):

• Design ('look and feel') that is consistent with your brand and conveys the right message for your business.
• User-friendly navigation that makes it easy for your site visitors to find what they're looking for.
• Compelling content written for the web that helps direct visitors and tells the search engines what your site is about.
• Functionality that encourages visitors to buy from or interact with you, or provides them with needed information.
• For many businesses, a content management system that allows the website to be updated easily and makes the site search-engine friendly.

Why Does Your Site Have to be Great?

Even if you are in a niche industry on the outskirts of online marketing, your visitors have been trained by leading organizations to react to the best of the Web—and that's how you will be judged.

Brian Dempsey, Red Clay Interactive
from MarketintProfs.com