We all know what website design is. Rarely a day goes by when we don't visit a website in some way shape or form. Whether it's catching up with friends, scouting for new business opportunities, watching a movie, or playing a game. All of these activities involve a website. A website which besides offering a specific functionality has its own look and feel to it. We call this a website design.
What is Website Design Really?
For most of us, these two words have come to symbolize everything about the online world. If somebody wants to launch a new product, they'll look for a website designer to design a website. If somebody wants a brochure so that customers can understand who the company is and what they do, it's the same story, sell a product or service, a wide variety of business activities have been improved by the introduction of a website design.
These successes have resulted in widespread education. And for many a website has come to mean the be-all and end-all of interacting with customers.
This however is not accurate thinking. In reality, a website is a platform that allows us to deliver a message to an audience. The same way a fax machine, radio, television set, or a newspaper allowed us to do 20 years ago.
A Website Design is only as Good as You Make It
Once one accurately defines the role a website plays many difficulties disappear. By understanding that a website design is just one part of a bigger system one is then able to take more responsibility for their website. And as we know the more responsibility one is able to take, the more in control of a situation one becomes.
The situation, in this case, is the generating of profits by bringing new customers in the door and keeping existing customers happy. If you haven't guessed it already, we are talking about your marketing system.
A website can embody all aspects of your marketing system. Care should be taken to discern that a website itself is not a marketing system, it is the product of a marketing system.
As consumers, we have the ability to buy many things ready-made. Just add water types of products.
But these off-the-shelf products are themselves the result of a marketing system. A process whereby a company created a product or service and through interaction with its clients recognized over time that by adjusting and accommodating their clients they could make more profits.
Think of a loaf of bread. Can anyone remember that many years ago it was not possible to buy a loaf of bread presliced?
Now days barely anyone bothers to buy bread they have to cut. But it didn't start that way. It was a learning process. A process that involved both the business and its customers.
So unless one is producing an identical product and selling it to the exact same market as one's competitor then one has no option but to build that marketing system up. This means that one should be open to the idea that no matter how perfect one's website design is, that it must over time accommodate changes that improve its customer's experience.
The mistake comes in when startup companies try and bypass the learning phase. They start off with the goal of buying a ready-made marketing system. A website design that is identical in function to a million other websites with only slight variations in the look and feel.
Imagine that a website was like the old beige Datsun your favorite grandmother drove. She's the Granny that always has time for you. The Granny that will go out of her way to help you. So even though you see lots of other cars that you admire on the roads, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Toyota. Theres a special feeling like no other when you see an old beige Datsun.
The reason isn't because of the car, it's because of the memories you have of the person who drives it. In your case your Gran.
A website design is the same. You might be able to buy an old beige Datsun off the shelf. But you cant buy the way your Gran made you feel, off a shelf.
That is something only you can do for your customers. And the longer you do that, the more you start to do it as yourself. The more your character and personality rub off on your marketing materials. Until eventually you have a message that is as uniquely you as Grans old beige Datsun.
We Design Great Websites
Don't let the phrase make money online confuse you. Online or offline businesses that provide good service will make money. Yes, there are some things that one has to consider when it comes to online, but they are often versions of offline business activities.
When you choose us to do your website design our goal is to ensure that it compliments your marketing system perfectly.
