“Web surfers are like the snitch in Quidditch, if you don’t catch them at first sight, you will find yourself flying through the cyberspace trying to capture them. But once you do, you can win the game!”

If you are not a Harry Potter fan like me, you may not know what Quidditch is or what the Snitch is. The snitch is the game winner in Quidditch and the team that captures the snitch wins the match.

For your business website, the people who view your website are like the snitch. You have 3 seconds to capture their attention on your website – you don’t even have the 30 second elevator pitch anymore.

The strength of your customers’ experience is directly related to the strength of your website’s design. If you can not convey your vision to the people, you can not convert them to buying customers or brand ambassadors for your business.
Get a FREE Website Health Check on the 26th March

Planning your website is key!

A website becomes popular with people because it offers them something. Browsing websites on the internet is not a hobby or pastime, it is a necessity and we have become very good at naturally filtering out stuff that we don’t want to spend our time on anymore. The old adage, If you fail to plan, then plan to fail, comes to my mind right now. It is so true!

I see so many websites on a daily basis and more often than not, minor changes to the site would be sufficient to relay the key message to me. I believe that a lot of the times, people start businesses knowing what they are going to do and how they are going to succeed. The websites, in some cases, seem to be an add-on and not a necessary business tool. They see the website as an extension of themselves and design them as such.

Create a Website Design For Your Customers Not For Yourself

This is a common mistake because we believe in our business idea and believe that we know best. That is true but it is your prospective customers that consume your website not you. Your website is not about boosting your ego but about boosting your business. It is vital for your website to be liked by your customers.

Marks & Spencer may not like selling products by other brands but they do it because in the long run it brings them more business!

They made a business decision to start selling other brands to boost their own brands.

Your website design is for your customers!

If you feel that your website design falls in this category, contact me today and I will send you 10 practical tips on how you can improve the site performance.

Website Design is Separate From Website Development

A website is developed in 2 distinct phases

• Website Design – This is the first phase of planning your website where an expert, like Xava,  helps you translate your business vision into a design that your consumers will look at, read and engage with. The expert will take your strength and use his/her own expertise and turn it into a beautiful design that speaks about your business in those vital 3 seconds. Take a look at Mills Design and make up your own mind about the website design.
• Website Development – This is the technical phase of your website design. This is where all the scary buzzwords like HTML5, PHP, Javascript and CSS come in. This is the part that you shouldn’t have to worry about because your website development expert, like Xava, will take care of all the technical stuff for your business.

I don’t mean to suggest that you can not do all the work yourself. It is more to illustrate that it is important to think of the website work in stages and it is even more important for you to think as an outsider looking in on your business if you decide to do all the work yourself.

Get a FREE Website Health Check on the 26th March
Register for the Whats What Business Fair in the Red Cow Moran Hotel and come talk to us at Stand 39!