Businesses Website Marketing: from graphic to design
The minimum target for any website and its collateral web marketing activity is to describe the company profile and showcase products/services clearly highlighting their value and their distinctive characteristics.
Most of the times businesses and professionals expect their websites to be not just a window for visitors, but also to get contacts, leads and, in the eCommerce sector, online sales. From this is evident that creating a website is from the very beginning an online marketing task which goes beyond formal aspects.
Focusing on graphic elements only in terms of visual impact on users is a frequent mistake visible analysing many companies’ websites.
Website graphic design is indeed only one of the factors which affect the final result. In order to make effective the company online exposure, reaching business objectives, is wiser to appeal to design which allows to encompass values of functionality, ergonomy, usability, communication and psichology: all aspects which make the difference when it comes to encourage user to act according to our expectations.
Therefore, converting visitors in active users and clients who produce value is a challenge that requires a combination of different expertise. A single project where web marketing strategy and web design work together towards the business goal.
In order to avoid to frustrate investments on SEO optimisation and online advertising, website design should be planned involving to the highest degree possible the following dimensions:
- technology and development (server choice, platform and database, code, etc.);
- graphic (colours, typography, photos and images, information displyed,etc.);
- accessibility and usability (functionality, navigation system, access to information, pages loading time, information architecture and contents organisation);
- texts and copywriting (contents and copies quality, communicative clarity);
- SEO (form of search engine marketing devoted to optimise websites to get a better ranking).
As communication products and digital marketing means, websites must be treated like complex works whose esthetic and graphic value represents just one of the many aspects to take into account.
Among the five areas above identified, design includes: graphic and accessibility/usability. For a business to think and plan according to web design best practises means to carry on a more sophisticated and complete approach to website marketing.
Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era – it’s a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good.
— Clement Mok
Developers, graphic designers, copywriters and web marketing esperts are called to a collective effort to make of a website a successful work. The primary task of an online marketing consultant, prior of any digital marketing campaign, is to support the team and/or project manager in order to help them to recompose their efforts in an overall perspective.
Final business results will be strictly dependant on how this process is managed.