Websites that work

By Bridget Gourlay

In our digital world, websites are the new shop windows. They are the first glance, and if done properly, they’ll make people want to come in and look around. In this case, bigger isn’t always better. Don’t think flash graphics, acres of text or expensive tools are necessarily going to drive business.

Olivier Teernstra, programmer and graphic designer at Imachination, says the best advice he can offer is to keep it simple.

“Make sure the most important information — the ‘about us’ and contact details are very prominent. As long as you stick to making sure the most important information is no more than a couple of clicks away then everything else is just the cream on top.” 

Recently I visited a property investment website which showed 15 seconds of panoramic shots of the area they were selling before I could see the homepage, which made me feel bored and frustrated. Am I just a product of the MTV generation?

No, Teernstra says. That would irritate most of the website visitors. “People hate that. The client may like the flashy images, because it shows off the brand but the customer or the visitor just wants information.”

Teernstra thinks www.apple.com is a great example of a website with a lot of information that isn’t overwhelming. He says it is really easy to navigate and is aesthetically pleasing. 

Andrew Duck, executive director of Quigcorp, says many small businesses get a website built for the wrong reasons.

“The thing most people miss is purpose — clients say they need a website right now, because their competitors have got one. They don’t have an understanding of process or an idea of how they will use it or what you can do online.”

Marketing miss

Duck says he knows a business who spent $30,000 on a website but never put it on their business cards, let alone marketed it properly. And once a business has a website, it should continue to asses its worth and information.

“SMEs should know how many first time and how many repeat visitors come to their website, every week, every month. They need to know what areas of the site they visited and how many visited the parts of the site you want them to visit the most, for example signing up for email updates.”

Duck says a well designed website is the most important factor. But he says speed comes a close second.

“Statistics used to show that people would wait seven seconds before deciding whether to stay or go. That statistic is now 0.7 seconds. As soon as they see first image they decide whether to trust you or not, and trust is a currency.” 

Bold headings, hardly any text, quick access to information without fancy videos? It may sound like the ideal website should be designed for five year olds.

Alternatively, you may prefer to think about it in Leonardo da Vinci’s terms, who said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

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