Attention
Business Owners: Simplicity Is Your Friend
The
term “simple” is not synonymous with “ugly”
or “unattractive”. In fact, when it comes to
the internet, I would argue that the opposite is true. In
the case of business websites, simplicity can be the key
to success. As a for-profit business, your website essentially
has one goal: to sell your product or service as quickly
and efficiently as possible. Any extraneous text, images
or animation serve only to distract the customer from focusing
on your goods or services.
Sometimes
it can be worthwhile to use fancy animations or offer free
services for the purposes of brand awareness, customer loyalty,
return visitors, etc. However, always remember that the
main purpose of your website is to sell your products and
services, not to dazzle viewers with unnecessary images,
animations, and gadgets. Provide only the content that will
benefit your users, and display it in a simple and logical
manner.
If you’re
trying to generate sales, you don’t want users to
be bogged down with slow load times, complicated navigation,
frustrating Flash menus, sound effects, and any other gizmos
that can detract from the main purpose of the website. If
you take a look at some of the largest, best-selling websites
on the internet, you won’t see complicated designs
with extravagant colour schemes or crazy fonts. You won’t
see pages so loaded with images and text that they’re
simply overwhelming. Instead, you’ll see classic designs
with simple navigation menus and white backgrounds. Most
will still be aesthetically pleasing and leave a lasting
impression, but none will be so complicated that you are
unable to access the information you’re looking for.
In addition
to usability, simplicity in web design has other benefits.
Potential customers are much more likely to trust a company
that has an elegant, professional website. Sales, in turn,
will be higher. It can also be significantly more affordable
to develop a simple and stylish website. They are cheaper
to design, build, redesign, host, update and maintain. Someday
you may have too much information and too many pages, and
require an upgrade to a dynamic content management system.
This is much easier to implement on a simple website than
a complicated site full of buttons, banners, and irrelevant
images.
Why
spend more money to have a website that’s less professional,
less usable, and harder to update? Follow the example of
the most successful companies on the internet – stay
simple.
Mark Borland is the owner of Borland
Studios Web Development. With over ten years of experience,
he specializes in affordable web design and web marketing
for individuals and small businesses.
Contact
Mark Borland
Tel: 250.413.7577
mark@borlandstudios.com
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