Bread and Butter Front and Center
Here’s a simple tip from the marketing aspect of web site design - keep your bread and butter front and center. Many sites are crowded with extras and bonuses, but the main business of the site is overshadowed. You must determine what a “sale” is in your market, then arrange your design elements around it.
Ever wonder why Google doesn’t start shoving the advertising in your face on the search page? It’s because their main business is getting you to search, then the ads appear. Decide what a successful visit to your site looks like - what’s your ultimate goal? Is it getting them to buy a product? sign up for a newsletter? contact you for more information?
When you’ve decided what a winning visit looks like, make it as easy as possible. If you want people to sign up for a newsletter, don’t bury it deep within the site and require people to make five clicks - put it in the sidebar. If you’re selling hamster muzzles, make sure there’s some kind of image of one on the front page with a way for people to make the purchase in as few clicks as possible.
Take for example Mobile Concepts 360. The client determined that a winning visit would result in a client contacting them for more information on beginning a new business venture in the event marketing industry. Building a contact list is the bread and butter. So we used a Mootools accordion-style contact form that appears in the sidebar on every page. We also left a single contact page in that is linked to from various parts of the site. No matter where you are, contacting the owners is a cinch.
What’s your bread and butter? Put it front and center. Make it bold. Make it pretty. Add in some extras, but make sure your potential client can easily find what you’re all about and proceed to checkout!
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Filed Under: Advice For Businesses, Web Design Articles
