Why Web Design Is Like Getting Dressed.
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008Everybody knows that you should color coordinate your wardrobe in order too look your best. Don’t wear clashing colors, pick one or two colors that complement each other, etc. In the same way that you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing socks in sandals *chuckle* you should be sure that each of the various components of your website match. I’m not talking about just each of the pages on your site — I”m talking about every step of the process ANYBODY could use to interact with you online.
In order for your website to fulfill it’s full potential every part of it should match. This includes the shopping cart, your affiliate program (if you have one), your e-mail campaigns, any videos you do, and even your advertising. In the offline world this is known as branding, and is practiced by nearly every company. Sadly, many websites are strongly lacking in branding. Even if you paid for a professional, brandable theme for your home page, you may have still kept the default theme in everything else, such as your shopping cart, which hurts your branding efforts (not to mention conversions).
Imagine you’re shopping at a large online retailer. Their site looks very professional, with a color scheme of blacks and blues. You like the site and browse around for a while until you find something you like. You click “Add to cart” and it suddenly looks like you’re on a totally different site! Everything is white and orange! Are you going to be quite as eager to give up your credit card number and make the purchase now?
How can you stop this from happening to you? First, ask your web designer if he’s familiar with the shopping cart system you plan on using, or the forum software, affiliate software, etc. If you don’t yet know what software you want to use, ask your designer if what he/she recommends. If your designer is familiar with the other software you plan on using he/she can usually create themes for your other software that match the theme of your website. If your site design is already complete, talk to your designer anyway. They should still have the working files for your design saved somewhere, and from these they can easily build a template for your extra software.
A large part of doing business online is establishing trust. Before someone will do business with you, you have to convince them that you are trustworthy and will give them a fair deal. Without the face to face interaction that an in-person meeting provides, your site has to work extra hard to develop that trust. Take a look around your site for anything that jumps out or looks like it doesn’t belong. Then remove it. Remember that on the internet people are looking for any reason NOT to trust you, and will judge you by the smallest things. For that reason, making each part of your site match will go a long way towards making a customer feel you care about them, and are serious about business.
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