WEB DESIGN

In a time where a website is the most visible part of any business. PlayOn Media (a Hamilton, ON company), can promise your website will make a solid first impression on a customer. Websites that have a modern look are more trusted by potential customers. Users usually have many options, that is why users are less tolerant of bad designs. It has been shown that websites with good design have a better conversion rate. Users will be more likely to stay on your site and browse. A website provides a communication channel between customers and your business. Designed properly, a website can be a key asset to a business. 

A CLEAR DESIGN

Having good web developers in your team is important, but no matter how well the site is built, if not designed well, the site will not perform. Web design can be difficult to do well. The website must be simple enough to navigate. Which allows users to find what is relevant to them quickly. There should be a clear direction on the flow of the site. Normally, when a user goes on your site they already have their mind set on what they want. Any form on your site should only include fields that are necessary and nothing more. It must also be consistent in look and feel, and follow standard user interface design principles. This will create an atmosphere where the customers are already familiar and comfortable with the site. Your company name and logo should be prominent because it is a first impression moment. The website must be all of this and still be seen as appealing.

RE-DESIGNING A WEB SITE

Creating or re-designing a website gives you an opportunity to re-focus on aspects that are important to your business. It also creates an opportunity where you can transition to new technologies to make your site more powerful. The most obvious example of this is developing a site with responsive design in mind. Which allows for a better experience on all devices, and better search rankings. You can also choose to take advantage of content management systems that allow you to easily publish new content without any domain-specific knowledge. Regular new content with a system created for search engine optimization can make a key difference.

RESPONSIVE & MOBILE FRIENDLY

There are many important principles unique to mobile sites. The site should be navigable with touch events for mobile users. So avoiding hover events is important because hover is not possible for mobile users. Avoid the need for pinch to zoom and allow images to be viewed in full-screen. Avoid using flash even for video. Flash availability differs depending on the platform. If you want to play a video, consider HTML5. And especially do not use flash for the entire website, as search engines will not be able to crawl your site which will make your search rank suffer. Mobile sites should be stripped down to only the most important content because of the small screen real estate. And a site search with proper results would be beneficial.

Similar to the City of Hamilton’s roads, the design of a site can directly affect performance. Images should be minimal to keep website size down. The design also determines how the site will be developed. For instance, it will determine what JavaScript libraries will be used. Delivering content as quickly as possible is a feature and should be considered in the design. Most people will abandon a site if the page takes longer than 4 seconds to load. There are a number of ways to optimize a website. Some examples include:

• Minify JavaScript and CSS
• Remove redundant or unused code
• Use content delivery networks to distribute the load
• Use compression
• Enable caching, especially if the content is static.

BUILDING FOR CONVERSION

Conversion is the core reason for building a website. Whether the purpose of the site is for informing or for eCommerce the idea is the same. Ideally, you would like the users that visit your page become eventual customers. The idea is to maximize convenience for the users. For example, if you plan on providing some eCommerce functionality for the Hamilton, ON, consider the ability to have users be able to purchase as guests. Requiring users to register an account can be off-putting. Allow users to explore your website before committing to a purchase. Ad relevancy and ad placement are also important. Ideally, you want an ad to be as little intrusive as possible. Adding ads directly in the content area should be avoided. Normally you’d want an at on the side of the page or as some kind of banner directly above or below the content.

Since its inception, the web has been constantly changing. From simple text-based sites to “Web 2.0”. Businesses that cannot keep up will suffer. In this ever-changing world keeping up with new standards is imperative. A website should reflect this world. We provide a service to make this world simpler.