How to plan your bespoke web design

Tweet by Liz Stokes

If you’re looking to impress clients that little bit more, a standard website template may not be enough. Bespoke web design will illustrate the thought and attention that you, as company, have put into your reputation and first impression. However, if you are not a web-based company to begin with it may feel a little daunting to try and put together an idea of exactly what you want beforehand. Corporate web design is important but, more significantly, it doesn’t have to be difficult. We’ve put together some check points for you to think about before commissioning your own bespoke web design.

Who are you targeting your website towards?
Your web designer needs to know your exact demographic in order to create something that is suitably targeted. Corporate web design is all about steering your customers to a website that resonates with them in order to raise the profile of your company, and in turn your profits. Try to do some market research and find the average age, preferences and possibly even careers of your customers. All of this will help with colours schemes, text and the general tone of your final site.

How much information and text should you include?
This question comes down to what your customers are looking for when they land on your website. In order to get the most out of your bespoke web design you need to decide on a text/image balance that suits your buyers. Most visitors to commercial websites are either ready to make a purchase, or are looking for information to help them decide what to buy and who to buy from. If you are selling kitchens, rather than simply listing the different ones available and what they come with, provide a section about maintenance tips, material properties, and other information which adds value from your visitors’ perspective. The more your web site content caters for your visitors’ needs, the easier your task of converting them into customers.

How are you going to use colours?
As your website is for customers, all corporate web design must be very aware when it comes to using background colours for the site. The colour and the font used in the website should be soothing to the eye and avoid strain – your web designer should know this, however, you may want to put forward some suggestions when you give them a specification. Bespoke web design gives you the opportunity to be in the driving seat when it comes to the overall look of your company’s online pages so consider all aspects of visuals.

Consider data size when planning your ideal site.
Customers are not likely to stay on a site for very long if it takes a long time to load. Corporate web design is all about snappy, instant responses, if your customers had time to kill they would have probably phoned you rather than searching for you online. Remember that you need to keep data heavy images off the landing page, and preferably the whole site, so as to avoid them losing interest.

How will your customers navigate around?
There are a few commonsense rules to remember with navigation. Buttons to travel around a site should be easy to find – towards the top of the page and easy to identify. They should look like navigation buttons and be well labelled. Aside from the common sense, it’s also important to make navigation usable; for example, if you have a rollover sub-menu, ensuring a person can get to the sub-menu items without losing the rollover is important. Similarly changing the colour or image on rollover is excellent feedback for a user.

There are many design agencies in London that can help with your branding - if you need a recommendation, please do not hesitate to email us.