Guest post

Professional web design – what is behind it?

Today it can be said that a website belongs to every success-oriented company like the brush to the painter and the saddle to the rider.

Designing a website is not a standard job where every day looks the same. Rather, each homepage is as individual as the company behind it. The technical possibilities of a professional Internet presence are already far advanced, imagination and creativity have few limits. It is precisely this limitlessness and the lack of technical know-how that make it almost impossible for companies to create a handsome, customer-friendly and fully functional website in a reasonable amount of time. This is where web design comes into play.

What is web design?

This term covers the conception, design and technical execution of a website, i.e. the Internet presence of a company, an association or an individual. Thereby quite different goals are pursued. For example, the website can serve as a source of information, to increase awareness, as an advertising platform or directly as an online store.

The design of a website is a creative process that requires different skills. Design requirements, selection of colors, fonts, graphics and images, arrangement of elements and navigation through the finished site are just some of the many considerations and decisions that the designer must make.

The Internet presence influences the success of the company

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The company’s homepage is often the first point of contact with prospects and potential new customers. Visitors to the site pay attention not only to the information content, but also to the design, user-friendly interface and up-to-dateness. More or less unconsciously, a connection is made between the quality of the Internet presence and the quality of the website operator’s performance. Accordingly, the design and functionality of the site are important for the success of the company.

One’s own Internet presence is a kind of figurehead, which contributes both positively and negatively to the corporate identity. To ensure that the result is pleasing, visual design and user-friendliness go hand in hand. The site must be accessible by all common Internet browsers, preferably adapted to the end device used. This ensures a higher dwell time of the Seitenbesucher¬innen and increases thus the probability of a purchase, an establishment of contact or generates additional incomes by successful advertisement.

The success of the homepage can be measured

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In fact, it is only in retrospect that one can say whether the web designer has done a good job. For this purpose, various key figures are analyzed, which provide information about the behavior of the page visitors_innen. The term traffic describes the number of visitors on a page. Several visits of one and the same person can be summarized and thus unique visitors can be evaluated. Unique visitors refers to the individual visitors to a website within a specified period of time. This does not necessarily describe the quality of the page itself, but the findability of the same in common search engines. Accordingly, traffic is closely related to the click-through rate, or CTR for short. The click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of clicks on an ad to the total number of times the ad is displayed. If this is low, the web designer should check what the reason is.

Time plays a crucial role in the evaluation of CTR and traffic, because depending on the industry, there are always recurring low points. For example, in one case it can be weekends, because the company’s customers are not working at that time, while in another case there is a high precisely because there is more time for extensive online shopping on days off.

The conversion rate (CRV) shows how many of the visitors to the website became customers. For example, if 10 out of 1,000 visitors to the website buy the product offered, the conversion rate is 1%. Such an evaluation is especially interesting if the site has its own web store or a possibility to book corporate tours. A high conversion rate testifies to convincing services and products, but also to a convincing Internet presence.

The work of the web designer

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To impress, the appearance on the Internet must be authentic, for this a close cooperation between designer and website operator_in is necessary. Before the technical implementation, the designer therefore works out a strong concept together with the customer. There it is a matter of determining what is to be achieved with the website, who is to be reached, what is presented on it and how it is presented. Technical and graphical decisions always work together.

Once the concept is in place, the programming begins. The web designer uses different programming languages, which are needed for the correct placement and reproduction of texts, images, ads and buttons. Thus, the web designer ideally masters creativity, programming of different languages and a feeling for the corporate identity, i.e. the personality of a company.

Once the website is technically ready and meets the customer’s requirements, the next step is the so-called SEO optimization, i.e. search engine optimization. The name says it all, the aim is to achieve the highest possible ranking on Google and Co. Important keywords and their placement in the information texts on the website play an important role here. They correspond to the search terms that users enter into the search engine. If these keywords are well chosen, the own page will be found before those of the competition on the market and used accordingly.

A well-functioning and up-to-date homepage must be checked regularly to ensure that it remains so. Since the designer knows best about the site, maintenance and troubleshooting are also part of his duties.

Why invest in good web design?

First impressions count. At first, this still has nothing to do with prejudice, but with our instincts. They have remained with us, even if we use them differently today. Within not even one second we decide whether we like something. Accordingly, it is first visual stimuli that decide whether we will take a closer look at a website or give the next Google hit a chance.

Investing in quality web design means attracting potential new customers to your site and keeping them there for as long as possible. Ideally, they will return again and again, make further purchases in the online store or book services and thus become reliable regular customers. For this to happen, your website needs to have a lot of persuasive power.

This is where the web designer comes into play, for example from neu-protec. He controls the most important means of communication between you and your customers, conveys trust and competence and thus contributes to the success of your company.