Web site design 411

What makes a good web site design?

Here's what all great web sites have in common:

1. Great web sites look good

When a visitor comes to your site for the first time, they immediately decide whether you are professional or just "winging it." A "me too" or dated-looking site tells them you aren't worth their valuable time. And when you make a poor first impression on the Web, research indicates they are not likely to ever come back.

On the other hand, a well-designed web site has the power to attract, entertain and inform visitors unlike any other marketing tool. It can be the center of your business, providing you with a 24/7/365 connection between you and your customers. What makes one site "sticky," and other sites entirely forgettable, is what great design is all about. It involves working through color combinations, type styles, layout, white space, navigation, and helping the customer through checkout in an effortless — and even entertaining — way. How you join them together in one cohesive visual statement is the art and science of web site design.

2. Great web sites have easy and clear navigation

Fundamentally, the Internet is an information delivery tool. Someone who comes to your site is almost always looking for something specific: a photo, a video, contact information, a tour schedule. If you can't get them to that information in a bare minimum of clicks, you've created a frustrating experience that they are not likely to repeat.

Conversely, clear and concise navigation tells customers you know their needs and are able to get them what they want. That's a great way to build customer loyalty, that is measured in longer time spent at your site, more return visits, and bigger sales at your site.

3. Great sites work right

Nothing communicates a lack of professionalism more quickly than links that don't work, images that don't load, store functions that give error messages, email unsubscribes that don't unsubscribe, and site sub-navigation that doesn't reflect the site map.

That's why we've built a web site hosting and management platform that has the most modern and reliable database systems, with sites hosted on one of the most secure, stable and managed server systems on the planet. Our content management system was custom designed to suit the needs of the new breed of web site — one that requires a broad and expanding array of features and functions, and gives our clients complete control of their site's content, files and site data.

4. Great sites are affordable

You should never spend more money than you have to design a new web site. Unfortunately, the world is now full of companies who got sold a proverbial bill of goods for a new web site, and were left holding the proverbial bag. Web sites can be very expensive, but they should do what you need them to do on the budget you have to spend. That's why we never, EVER, bill a client for anything they don't already know about and have explicitly agreed to. And we always tell you how much things cost before we ever start designing a site.

Our bills look amazingly similar to our estimates, because they are identical. Every time.

How much money does it cost to design a web site?

Web sites can be as cheap as free, or as expensive as five, six or even seven figures. Pricing is always based on three things: Customization, features and expandability.

Free options

The Web has exploded with a variety of free web site options. The most popular are MySpace and Facebook, as well as blogging networks like Blogger (owned by Google) and WordPress. The best aspect of these services is the price, as these networks are supported solely by selling advertising and customer data to third party marketers. They all have powerful content management systems that give you control over a very standardized feature set.

The downside to these free options is that they offer very little customization, and give you very little if any control over what advertising shows up at your site. Of course, the other big down side to the free design world is that there's nothing that separates one site from another except the content itself. Nevertheless, free web site networks like the ones listed here are the best way to go if you have no budget.

Static content site

For many industries, a good online brochure is the way to go. If you have a business where your information rarely if ever changes, then you may be able to design your site one time, put it on a web server, and let it do its job by serving as an information destination for web surfers. Static sites can be designed for as little as $2500, plus monthly hosting fees that are usually measured in tens of dollars, not hundreds.

Dynamic content site

More than ever, clients want to have a site with constant updates. After all, if you rarely update your web site's content, there's no reason people will come back. That's why most companies now want a dynamic site: a site that uses a content management system and RSS feeds to keep new content flowing. Dynamic content sites use databases to store and display data (text, images, music and video), and require some sort of database programming and development to make them work right. You should expect to pay anywhere from $1500 to $3000 for development for a basic site, but custom development can cost much more. It all depends on what you want, and how much you have to spend to get there from here.