When embarking on your next website design project, it’s vital to take the time to think about and discuss what your site’s visitors are likely to want from it, as well as what you want from them. We often find that those two are rarely quite the same; so finding a proper balance between them is the key to your site’s success. This balance is all about maximizing the area of overlap between your company’s goals and those of its web site’s visitors, all while minimizing the tension between them.
Although the process is not always easy, it is possible when done right. With our experience in building enterprise-level websites in the healthcare, technology and professional services sectors, we’ve found that for every successful website project, there exists a perfect balance of these 4 crucial elements:
- Creative: the creative process for your website involves a lot more than painting a pretty picture. It’s important to push the creative envelope just enough to achieve a level of memorability while still adhering to the accepted and expected usability practices.
- Project Management: while world-class creative direction is essential and a team of talented strategists and programmers is a must, it all means nothing without proper execution. Your project management team should not only be experienced, technical and marketing-savvy, but they should also know how to coordinate, communicate, plan and execute flawlessly.
- User Experience: at the most basic level, a website’s user experience (UX) is the art and science of making a site as easy to use as possible for its intended audiences. Regardless of how great a site looks, or how much traffic it gets from search engines, if it confuses or frustrates the user, it fails. Choosing the right web designer can ensure your website never endures the common symptoms of UX failure.
- Content Management: previously considered a “premium option” for website projects, the most elite and professional websites on the web today could never be what they are without a flexible and easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS). For majority of companies, an open-source platform such as WordPress is the most logical solution, as it allows a company to easily manage and maintain their website without needing the technical knowledge of a web developer.
If you’re finding yourself in a less than ideal situation with a website that has become so outdated with a design that leaves eyesores and information that provides too little value for your visitors, the balance of your website is off.
At the end of the day, your website should be the marketing machine of your dreams, can you really afford to risk doing it wrong?
