Lesson 2: A Professional, Eye Pleasing Site Design

The first thing your web visitor sees is your website design... and if it stinks, they’re gone in a heartbeat – and you lose them forever – they won’t likely ever return! Furthermore, the site needs to load fast, look really good, be professional, and have visual interest for the visitor.

If it’s eye pleasing, appealing and not overloaded with advertisements and flashy distractions, they will very likely stay and look around. That’s your goal! You want them to stick around long enough to at least sign up for your mailing list... because then you will at least have a fighting chance to sell them your products or services with your ongoing message system.

• First Impressions: They are everything, especially with niche content sites. Your visitor has researched the net to find you – so when he or she arrives; you want to make a fantastic first impression. You do that with your choice of colors and design. There are several websites that help with choosing color palettes if you have trouble with that area... and one nifty one I found is at Colr.org.

  Of course, it’s much easier to use web templates than to start from scratch, and I think you’ll appreciate having hundreds to choose from at no cost over Open Source Web Design. You can choose by color family or by niche and find some awesome templates that work very well, look professional and are very eye pleasing designs.

  So, even though you might personally like a bright, neon background with flashing animated gifs, chances are that your visitors will not... so choose a professional, clean, crisp and attractive look that will appeal to a broad audience.

• Logos & Graphics: You may or may not have the talent to create your own professional logo or graphics, and there are hundreds of artists for hire on the web, just search for a graphic artist + keywords and/or key phrases that match your chosen niche. You can then look at their portfolios to choose the best one for you.

  The prices will vary widely, so do a little research, especially if your budget is a concern. Sometimes you can get a ‘generic’ graphic cheaply, and then spend some time making it ‘yours’ with a graphics software program. You do not need PhotoShop™, even though it’s the ‘de facto’ for most people. You can get a perfectly great graphic program for nothing at Paint.Net and it even has a plug in for editing Adobe’s PSD files!

  You can also use that same program to edit or create header and footer graphics for your pages. For example, I visit OSWD to get a template, and when I want to add some text to my header – I just open it in Paint.Net and add my text and save it and upload it to replace the ‘generic’ original header graphic.

  You can personalize a site further with your own photo, too. People like to know the person they are dealing with... and if it’s tastefully done, a bit of personalization can often add still more value for your visitors. (Just be sure you optimize all graphics for visual appeal, while keeping them as small as possible so they load quickly).

  It’s the ‘trust factor’ you must establish. People want to know they are dealing with someone reputable, trustworthy and honest, because likely they will spend money with you if that’s all securely in place for them.

  People can sense dishonesty, and they need to feel confident and safe at your site. Be ‘real’ and post your name, your company name (if applicable) and a way to contact you on all of your websites. Have a solid privacy policy in place, too... and abide by it! Visitors want to be assured of privacy before sharing their info with you.

  Lastly, be sure to answer all legitimate contact queries – otherwise the visitor (who is your potential customer) will feel ignored, not cared about and certainly not important. If you treat them well, they’ll repay you with their loyalty for years to come by giving you their ongoing business.

• Keep It Simple But Elegant: Nearly all web surfers are seeking information about a subject they want to learn about when they arrive at your website. They definitely don’t want to see a sloppy page with no organization when they land. t’s also important that they feel that the information you have provided will satisfy their quest. Make the navigation of your site easy for your visitors to use.

  And again, be sure you have a way to obtain their contact information on every page, that way you can follow up with them and hopefully garner a sale down the road if not the day of their visit. Generally, a niche-related ‘freebie’ that sounds enticing is enough to get them to share their name and email address with you.

  Once they arrive at your site, they’ll happily stick around if you have top quality content and not some static, stale, old information. It is vital to do some research and spend the time editing what you find to add to your page.

We’ll cover how you find and provide quality niche content in greater depth in the next segment.