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Web Design
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Website Design
A Website's design is not only a reflection of your company's unique personality, it's also an important, yet often ignored marketing tool. Despite the importance of marketing in the design phase of a site, less than ten percent of all business sites ever give it a thought. Most businesses, especially those with brick and mortar locations, design their sites for their convenience, not the customers. The customer has to figure out the site and use it as best he can. What's more, few of the so called Internet marketing gurus ever even mention the indisputable relationship between Web site design and marketing success. This training segment will change all that. We will present the subject of Web design as it relates to function and marketing. The right functional website design can make or brake your service. Everything that is discussed in this segment can be acquired directly from Disability Associate's hosting service. Like most everything else you've ever built, building a Website will require the right tools. These tools come in the form of software that allow you to create Web pages and perform specific actions on the Internet. To build a professional looking Website that functions properly, you'll need several different Web development software programs. Development software can be placed into three categories. These categories are browsers, content creators and editing and management tools. As you might have guessed, editing and management are two functions that are controlled in the same way. Therefore, one software program usually performs both functions. If you're non-technical, we suggest using our hosting service. We can direct you in how to inexpensively create a professional looking website without programming knowledge.
The reason for having both browsers lies in the fact that different browsers may display your site differently. The difference may only be slight, but just enough to ruin your site presentation power. Having both browsers is convenient. It allows you to check how each site page will look on each browser, right after you create them. This inexpensive design precaution could add thirty percent to your bottom line. It does this by avoiding authoring errors that result in poor or distorted site presentations that can costs you customers. Content Creators: A content creator is a program designed to make pictorial or animated content for Web sites. There are literally hundreds of programs that meet the definition of content creator, but here are our humble suggestions. Use Flash and Fireworks software to create art, banners, web objects and simple animations. Use Adobe Premiere for movie creation and Sound Forge software for audio editing. Possessing these tools and a willingness to learn how to use them will save your company a small fortune. To hire a developer to create custom content for your Website could cost thousands of dollars out of your marketing budget. Learn these content creation programs and you'll have complete artistic control over your business Website. Not comfortable with artistic web design. No problem. Disability Associates offers both custom logo and header design creation at a modest price. Using our service, you can acquire custom logos and headers for your sight without purchasing additional software or learning graphic design. Contact your mentor for details. Editing and Management: Editing and management software is critically important to a business site. All development and most of the management duties will be performed through this type of software. The two most popular editing software programs on the market are Microsoft Expressions and Dreamweaver. Both are excellent HTML editing programs. An HTML editor is simply a program that turns words and pictures on your Web page into HTML code, so you won't have to. We recommend the Microsoft Expressions program. It's complex, but it allows you to create powerful websites. Designing and marketing a site are one and the same thing! Marketing should be the driving force behind everything you place on your site. This insightful realization only came to us after several years of doing it all wrong. Everyone who markets on the Internet must come to the understanding that on the Web, design is marketing! Think of a Website as an electronic brochure. As with a paper brochure, how it is structured and presented will determine how well it sells the service being offered. In short, how you present your Website will determine its success. There are two areas of concern when designing a business Website. These are: 1) Function in marketing When we say function, we're not just talking about navigation buttons. Despite their importance in Website design, a navigation button is just another link. There are many other considerations! The most important of these functional considerations when building a Website are: Let's quickly address each of these important functional design considerations. Web objects is a general term used to describe art designed for the Web. Art designed for the Web is usually in Jpeg or Gif format. Of course, there are many other file types that can be used on the Net. Web objects allow you to add beauty, color and animation to your page. For our purposes, think of a Web object as a picture. In order to relay the desired message about your company to a potential customer, the objects need to be right. Web objects should be meaningful, small in file size and fast loading. They should be appropriate for the products and services being offered. They should also accent and not overwhelm your Web page. Web objects should be used sparingly and should never be used in a morally offensive manner. Layout can be defined as the physical look of a Web page. It describes the physical location of text, graphics and other elements within the Web page. A business site should always have a consistent layout on all pages of the site. The layout should not confuse or frustrate the customer. Simple layouts almost always work better than complex layouts. Try to make the layout blend and compliment the artistic design of the page. Plan your layout before developing Web objects for the page. Know where things will go and how they will look. Make sure you develop alternative layouts in case the first doesn't work out as planned.
The exception to the short page rule comes into play when using Frequently Asked Questions. An FAQ page can be as long as needed to answer all appropriate questions. Try to keep all FAQs on a single page. Use graphics only if they add to the meaning or understanding of the presentation. Don't allow graphics to detract the reader from the content. Feel is a term used to describe a complex emotional concept. It can be defined as the look of a site and how that look affects the reader emotionally. You should strive to create a site that reflects you and your company's uniqueness. You do this by choosing your own color theme, page layout, logo, header, fonts and content. Together, these elements act to make your site the only one of its kind on the Internet. Make sure that you also include signs or symbols that reflect a local feel. That is, use a picture of a local landmark or some other pictorial reference to your community. Doing this is important because it gives your customers the feeling that they are working with someone they know. Keep in mind that the majority of your customers will reside locally. Someone who lives and works in the same community that you live and work. This hometown feel works well for those offering disability advocacy services. Navigation is another very important marketing consideration when building a business Website. Get this wrong and you lose potential customers as a result of their confusion or frustration over using your site. Navigation elements should be easy to read, consistent and informative. The navigation label text should tell the customer where the button leads and what information is provided. Avoid confusing messages on navigation buttons. Use duplicate buttons at the top, side or bottom of a page when appropriate. The fewer navigation buttons the better. A minimum of eight and a maximum of twelve buttons works best on most sites. An even number of buttons has a positive psychological effect on Internet users, so always use an even number of buttons. Your navigation panel should not overwhelm the content of a page. Layout navigation design so that it appears secondary to content. It's the content of a page, not the navigation bar, that makes potential customers want to visit and revisit your site. Optimization Optimization is a complex process that is used to direct the design of a website. Website optimization enables a website to be better seen by the search engines. A search engine will crawl a website to determine the relevance of the information provided. A properly optimized website will be noticed by the search engines sooner and this will result in a higher placement within the search engine pages. This higher placement translates into greater traffic for your site. The more traffic you get, the more likely you are to acquire new customers. The Home page of a business Website should be short and dynamic. It should contain a headline that describes along with the benefits of your products or services. It should briefly describe what your company does and your unique selling position. The Home page should also contain a menu bar to the rest of the site, your logo, a local pictorial reference and a credibility patch. A credibility patch is usually a banner showing membership in some type of business organization like your local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau. Don't forget to place contact information like a business telephone and e-mail address on your home page. Or, you can place this data under your contact us button. Color patterns and other design elements on the Home page should be carried to the rest of the site. Having a consistent looking site is extremely important for any business Web page because it provides the customer with psychological cohesion. A consistent design makes a company appear more capable and stable. These virtues are extremely valuable to an advocacy and should always be reflected in your web design. Although an "About us" page is optional, it's an extremely useful tool on an advocacy service Website. The About us page allows the site owner to talk about himself and or the firm. It gives you the opportunity to describe your background, training, experience, status and memberships. It's also an opportunity to showcase both your individuality and that of your company. Rule: Keep it short. Two or three paragraphs should be enough. Any more than this and you run the risk of appearing self-absorbed.
All business websites should include a contact us segment. This enables you to provide your customers with information that enables them to directly contact someone within your firm. This is an optional page that can help you to track visitors who visit your site. A first time visitor page usually requests that a person complete a short form. Think of a first time visitor page as a "Thank you for visiting page." Or as a "Visitor tracking page." The purpose of the first time visitor page is to collect information about the person who is viewing your site. You can do this by supplying text boxes that can be filled out by the visitor. You can also create custom cookies that collect this information without the customer knowing it. Creating cookers requires programming experience. Therefore, text boxes are the easier choice. If you use text boxes, keep the number of questions to a minimum. Request no more than four or five lines of information or you run the risk scaring the customer away. This same approach can be used to collect detailed information about a customer's case. We also use this 1st Time Visitor or Free Case Review approach to get our online customers to sign up for our free case assessment. A 'What's New" page is also optional. It should only be used if you really have new products, services, materials or events that you want your customer base to know about. Keep all descriptions short and concise. Be sure to point out the benefits of any new products or services you offer and make a clear request for the customer to order when appropriate. This page type is extremely important for a disability advocacy service. An article segment is a page that delivers helpful or little known information to a customer base. People visit Websites to find free information on a given subject. Your article page should be that free source of information the customer is looking for. Article pages are a primary reason why people visit Websites. Therefore, just having an article page on your site will attract more visitors. Rules: Create a separate page for each subject covered in your article segment. Make sure that the subjects of the article pages coincide with the products or services that you offer. Offering unrelated content in your articles makes no sense and will confuse the visitor. Keep in mind, that on the Internet, content is everything. The more interesting and relevant your content, the more likely people are to visit and revisit your site. See "Content" segment of this training program for ideas on finding and using content on your advocacy Website. All disability advocacy Websites should contain a "Frequently Asked Questions" page. Disability advocacy is a complex concept that few people are aware of and even fewer understand. There are countless numbers of sources out there that supply bad or inaccurate information on the subject of disability advocacy. Therefore, a FAQ page on your site can go a long way toward helping a potential customer to understand disability representation and the value of the services you offer. Rules: Although an FAQ page may be long, you should still keep each answer as short as possible. Make sure that your answers are accompanied by a question. What is a Disability Advocate? How can your service help me? Make the questions and answers personal by presenting questions and answers that are commonly asked by your customer base. Make sure that you have one or more questions that directly relate to using your service. Example, How do I begin using your service? Or, I want to be represented, what do I do next? Making it easy for your customers to use your service will help grow your company faster. As with the marketing of any product or service, you must properly describe your business to your customer base. The rules for describing your services are the same both on and off-line. Use headlines. List the benefits to the customer. Briefly describe what and how you do business. Cite the advantages of using your service and use articles and other information sources as a means of educating your base. Try to make your descriptions interesting by providing personal insights or snippets of interesting facts about SSA. Whatever your approach, try to both train and entertain your visitors. You wouldn't believe the number of sites out there that do a wonderful job describing their products, and then forget to ask for the sale. Rules: Ask for the sale on every appropriate page of your site. This includes article pages. Ask the customer for what you want. Don't be shy about offering your services. If you don't ask the customer to respond in a certain way, he may never go beyond just looking at your Website. Ask for the sale and make it sound as urgent as possible. Example: Don't wait to be denied Social Security disability benefits, sign on now for your peace of mind! As you know, you cannot guarantee someone that you will win their case. However, you can still use the guarantee page to reassure your customers. On a guarantee page, tell the customer how SSA works and that you cannot guarantee the outcome of a case. However, you should mention that there is no fee unless you win. This fact alone will put the customer at ease and significantly lower his resistance to signing on to your service. Do not make the mistake of using people you have represented on a testimonial page or in your marketing campaign. Although this would be a good marketing approach, it may cause conflict with Social Security. SSA's confidentiality rule states that a representative cannot use the names or faces of a disability applicant for purposes of marketing and promotion. The identity and personal information of a client who has applied for benefits must be kept secret at all times. Therefore, we suggest that you avoid using testimonials on an advocacy website that provides the full name of the client. You can use client testimonials on your site as long as you do not make it possible for someone to directly contact the client. A "For the Press" page on your Website is an extremely powerful marketing tool for disability advocates. A press page is a page that contains information about your company that can be used by your local media (Newspapers, magazines, etc.,.) to create stories about your service. Disability advocacy is so poorly understood by the general public that it always makes for a good news story. Disability advocacy is also a public service that provides benefits and value to any community that has one. Take advantage of this characteristic of disability advocacy and push your company into the public eye using your local media. We cover the subject of public relations in greater detail within our advocacy training program. However, this technique is a great way to begin using your Website in public relations marketing. If you use a press page on your site, make sure that the button leading to the page is placed in an obvious position on your navigation bar. Changing the size or color of the Press button makes it more obvious. You do this to make it easier for Press visitors to notice and use this page. The content of your press page should be contact information, a brief description of business and services, a list of the unique aspects of your company and a bit about your personal background as the owner of the business. If you make your press page information interesting, this might be enough to motivate the Press to do a story about your company. Keep in mind that a single story about your advocacy service in your local Newspaper could guarantee the success of your service for years to come. Don't depend on the Media source for the subject of a story about your company. Be willing and open to helping the Media to create a story line about your company. Write your own story or suggest as many storylines as you can think of and offer them to the Media. Doing this actually helps the media do itsr job. After all, no one knows more about the subject of disability advocacy than you do. Use this knowledge to the advantage of your company. Become a source of Social Security information for the Media. Ask them if you could be placed on their information source list for future interviews. Every time there is a story concerning SSA, the Media will come to you for an informed comment. These comments are free publicity for your company and provide you with personal credibility that money cannot buy. Do not place another company's advertising link on your Home page unless the company's products or services in some way enhance or compliment your products. The home page is the first impression page for your business. You don't want any type of competing messages on the home page that would distract a customer from your product message. I know that many businesses cram their opening page with junk from everywhere hoping this will "add credibility". From a marketing standpoint, they're just plain wrong! Links from home pages distracts customers from your message. Never link advertising from other business sources on your company's home page. To do this would run the risk of decreasing sales of your own products or services. Rule: If you use link share on your site, use the link page approach with an exchange partner as outlined in the "Links" segment of this course. In this instance, the link button should connect to a link page describing the products or services of the link subject. If the customer wants to learn more about the subject, beyond that supplied on the link page, he can click on a secondary link button located on the link page. This secondary link takes the customer to the link sources Website for additional information. Make sure that your exchange partner uses the same link rules as you do. Make sure that you are receiving as much prominence on the link sources site as he is getting on yours. Keep links to a minimum and make sure that the link sources partners products or services are related to or in some way enhance your advocacy services. If you're offering a product from your site that requires the use of an order page, this is no problem. You can actually purchase an order form or a full shopping cart directly from Disability Associates. Adding secure order pages adds convenience for the customer and helps to make your site more functional. Do not place your contractual agreements or fee structure information on your site. To do so would invite competition and copyright infringement of your custom materials. In most cases, your contract was probably created by an attorney with your input. You paid a fee for your custom forms and they are the property of your service. Your custom forms must be protected from those who would profit from your work. Protect your company's proprietary information at all times. This security can be more easily accomplished if you do not openly share your company's inner knowledge with the public or publish it on the Internet. You have completed the "Web Design" segment of this course. For best results, we suggest that you now begin the "Content" segment.
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