When most people think of design, they think in terms of visuals; colors, fonts, images, etc. Those things are certainly important in designing for the web… but there’s so much more involved. Web design is as much a science as it is an art, and not solely due to the amount of code one needs to write to render those colors, fonts and images in a useful way. Good web design must also consider how the user will experience the site, how they currently use it, and how it can be made more useful in the future.

An organic cycle

Good web design is not something you build once and then forget about. It’s an ongoing process of refining and tweaking. Technologies, as well as the way users interact with them, change every day. A good website adapts and evolves to take advantage of those changes, thus optimizing its ability to do what it was designed to do: Clearly and effectively deliver your content to as many people as possible.

The anatomy of a website

A website is more than just code, words and pictures. It’s certainly all of these things, but if the components are properly implemented, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Here we have a simplified visualization of a website. You can see that each aspect of a site must work in harmony with the others to create a user experience. By visualizing how these elements come together, we begin to understand the importance of balance in design.

The practical value.

You may be thinking: “It’s all well and good to talk about the philosophy of design, but what about the more pragmatic elements?” “How can spending all this time thinking about how a website should be constructed help me make more money?” Well, I’m glad you asked.

Good design means more sales.

Design considerations are often overlooked when it comes to building a business, but it can be one of the most important aspects. Imagine two stores; both carry the same merchandise, and have the same prices. However, one is a crumbling roadside shack with no parking and a guy picking his fingernails with a switchblade at the counter. The other store has a gleaming edifice, with large doors, wide aisles, clearly marked products, and the staff is snappy and ready to help you. Now, which one of these stores would you shop in, and which would you avoid like tetanus?

Social media marketing

Social media marketing, is (according to Wikipedia):

“A recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix; advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion. Increasingly also viral marketing campaigns are grouped to integrated marketing communications.
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Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and better customer service.”

Here’s the gist:
Social media is great for business. Lets say you’ve just launched a new product in your line, like coconut puffballs. Announce it to Twitter, Facebook etc… maybe even offer a coupon of some kind. Lots of internet socialites are on the lookout for new products and deals, and can’t wait to be the first of their friends to “discover” something new. They’ll chat it up on their networks, and the readers of those networks will pass that info on.. and on… Suddenly, coconut puffballs are everywhere.

Analytics

Specifically, business analytics, refers to (according to Wikipedia):

“The skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. Business analytics focuses on developing new insights and understanding of business performance based on data and statistical methods. In contrast, business intelligence traditionally focuses on using a consistent set of metrics to both measure past performance and guide business planning, which is also based on data and statistical methods.
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In other words, querying, reporting, OLAP, and alert tools can answer questions such as what happened, how many, how often, where the problem is, and what actions are needed. Business analytics can answer questions like why is this happening, what if these trends continue, what will happen next (that is, predict), what is the best that can happen (that is, optimize).”

Here’s the gist:
Analytics give you an idea of your customer’s habits; what they like to buy, when they buy it, how they buy, etc. You can use that information to make adjustments to your business plans. For example, if you wanted to know the best day to run a special on, say, banana cake, you could track the number of sales on a per day basis. Maybe people buy them in droves on Monday, but want nothing to do with them on Wednesday. Running a special on Wednesday could boost sales for that item… or you could sell carrot cake that day.

Hook vs. net

Really, this could be looked at not just as a hook vs. a net, but a hook and a net.

Think about sales as it’s evolved. In early days, it was door to door salesmen, selling to one person at a time… one after another. Then on to radio, and eventually television; advertisers cast a wide message in the hopes of getting the attention of people who are probably making a sandwich while your expensive commercial runs.

Then came the internet, and the social boom. Now, rather then casting out a big message to people that may or may not care to hear it at that particular time, you make your message available at all times for people who are seeking that information. Plus, you have people mentioning you to their friends. Studies show that people are much more inclined to take purchasing advice from friends than they are from advertisements. With all these elements working together, you essentially have hundreds of unpaid salesmen introducing your always available message to people who are ready to listen. It’s the best of all worlds.

To be continued.

There’s quite a bit more that could be said at this point, but I’m afraid I may be rambling on a bit. If you’ve gotten this far, I appreciate you reading this, and hope you’ll come round again at some point in the future, where I get even more specific about this topic, possibly to the point of becoming tiresome.