The word 'relevance' includes many facets when it comes to website design. The word can be linked to the purpose of the website and also to its goals. But what is even more important is whether the website design is relevant in today’s times. Is your website relevant enough to meet the challenges of the present? Will it stay relevant in the near future? These questions should be kept in mind while designing a website.

So why’s 'relevance' so important?

Relevance Attracts Visitors

The purpose of a website is to offer information and/or sell products and services. For this to happen, the website design must be able to attract visitors. It must be the kind of design that impresses and expresses at the same time. The focus should be on design that is trendy, in line with the expectations of the target audience and cater to their interests and preferences. A design that looks like a relic is something that needs to be avoided at all costs.

Relevance prompts Call-to-Action

Consider your website as a vehicle of persuasion. It needs to persuade visitors to buy your products and services. Once it attracts visitors, it needs to be able to take the next step – call-to-action. Design relevancy of the website is determined by the influence it can exert on the visitors in terms of showing interest in the products and services on the site.  A pertinent web design is one that is able to convert website visitors into customers.

Relevance enhances Shelf Life

Like any product, even your website has a shelf life. But let’s substitute the word shelf life for usability. Your website should not only be useful now, but should also be useful in the near future. You don’t want to be making changes to the website design within a few months of launching your site. That’s not good news for your overhead costs and your overall business prospects.

By making sure that your design will cater to the changing needs of your target audience and keeping in mind the growing needs of your business, you can design a future proofed website.

Quite a number of website owners and even designers forget to put prime focus on ‘relevance’. This means that their website has every chance of becoming redundant. In a world where businesses are always upping the ante, when it comes to competition, it makes sense to ensure that the website doesn’t lose steam in any way or form.

You need a website that is compatible with your purpose and can achieve your objectives. For this, it needs to stay relevant.

There are some mistakes that can be overlooked, but there are others that are unpardonable. This fact comes out very strongly when it comes to website design. There are some website designing mistakes that are unforgivable. To call them mistakes is an understatement; but we need to make do with this word

The reason why I have come out so strongly against what many people might just term "mistakes" is because these so called mistakes can break the backbone of a website. They take the website down to such depths that there is absolutely no hope of its rising again.

1. Subject Lacks Appeal
   
   Designers need to craft their website design around a particular subject. This 'subject' needs to be centered on the purpose of the website and its target audience. As can be imagined, if you get this wrong, your website as a whole can go wrong. If your subject is not appealing in any way or form, the design will not create an impression. Visitors will get bored and go to some other website.
    
2. Color Stuffing
   
   Overuse and misuse of colors is a common problem in the design of a website. It’s important to remember that using minimal colors in the layout and fonts is going to help the design stand out. But, in some cases, designers tend to go overboard and to put it literally "paint the website red". Yes the quantity and nature of color is enough to shock the visitors. There is a difference between a riot of colors and a flood of colors. Color needs to complement the design and not overshadow it.
    
3. Images Excess
   
   Images are a part and parcel of good website design. Some of the better websites are powered by the quality of their images. Now, the keyword here is 'quality'. It’s the quality of the images that matters and not the quantity. Overuse of images is actually misusing the images. If you have overused images and, that too, unnecessary images; you have committed website design suicide. It leads to a cluttering of the website and confuses the visitors.
    
4. Flash – The double edged sword
   
   Firstly, Flash should only be used if it is absolutely required. Now, if you choose to go with Flash, it’s important that it adds to the visual appeal and interest quotient of the site. Designers, in an attempt to showcase their creativity, use long drawn out Flash set pieces that take time to load and don’t help the website design in any way. This is the kind of Flash usage which should be made an offence.
    
5. Complex Navigation
   
   As soon as a visitor enters your website, he should know what to do and where to go. The navigation structure of your website must be simplicity itself. A website navigation that makes the users spend time thinking about it is an unsuccessful navigation.  Nobody is going to waste time making sense of a complex navigation structure. As can be imagined, this is a designing mistake to its very core.

Avoiding making these mistakes is going to help you immeasurably in designing a highly successful website. But, if any of these mistakes do come up in the website design, it is something that cannot be ignored; such mistakes directly impact the quality of the website.

The next time the ratio of conversions on your site gives you a shock (we are talking about a decrease in conversion ratio), take a look at the loading time of your website. If it’s taking ages to load, you have identified your problem or at least a large chunk of it for sure.

‘Page load time’ has been a topic of hot discussion since the time SEO experts, internet marketers and website developers realized its importance, with respect to conversions. It’s been written on a lot, and the value of a quick page load time cannot be emphasized enough. But, webmasters continue to ignore it time and time again.

So, here’s a wake-up call for all those who think the loading time of their website has little or no relevance for a successful innings on the World Wide Web.

Prevent your site from getting abandoned

Research indicates that web users appreciate a site that loads quickly. The expectations vary, but the general consensus is that a site that loads within as little as 3 seconds is the kind of site most users will visit. If it takes time, users will just abandon it and go onto some other site. It’s important to remember that web users are an impatient lot. They are looking for instant gratification. Your website shouldn’t and can’t impose on their time. If it does, say good bye to conversions.

So, from a visitor’s perspective it makes sense that the pages of your website load quickly. This markedly improves the chances of the visitor going through the site, which in turn can improve conversions.

Life from Google’s Perspective

We told you that the users expect a site that loads quickly; but what’s more important is that even Google likes sites that don’t take an eternity to load. But, don’t panic. Google does factor in the site speed while ranking pages, but it’s one of the numerous factors that this search engine considers while ranking a website. Think about it this way. Optimizing the page load time is one of the many ways you are trying to get your website ranked higher in the search engine rankings. This in turn will have an immense bearing on the conversion rate.

It’s always a good idea to look at the bigger picture.

So what can you do about it?

Does your site load time really need a boost? Confused? Well, the best thing to do in this case is check the speed of your page. There are plenty of online tools and resources that offer this service. One of the better ways of doing this is through the Google Tool. But the choice is yours. Choose what you think suits your requirements best. Another important factor that you need to consider is your target audience. If your target audience has a slow internet connection, they are fast going to lose patience with your site if it takes forever to load. So, configure your site accordingly.

There are plenty of ways that can be used to improve the loading speed of your web pages. Some of these include:

• Image Optimization: Reducing image size helps your site load faster.
   
• Using external files for your Scripts and Sheets:  This helps avoid cramping up your web page and the browser loads one file at a time. This improves loading speed.
   
• Don’t resize images with HTML – Avoid image resizing by creating a smaller version using HTML. The problem is that the browser still uploads the whole image and then resizes it. This will actually increase load time.

These are plenty of other options available that will help speed up the loading of your web page.

The importance, in a nutshell

When you are on the Web, you need to make each second count. This fact assumes paramount importance when your website is selling products and services. A site that loads quickly has an effect on the shopping behavior of the visitors. A visitor that waits for a long time for the site to load is one irritated visitor. Chances are that he won’t buy from your website. On the other hand, a site that loads quickly, improves the mindset of a visitor, which improves your chances of making a sale.

This is why speed is of the essence. If your website doesn’t load quickly as compared to your competitors, it’s definitely not good news for your business.

The boundaries between the traditional and online ways of doing business are diminishing and there is a constant overlap between the two. The dependency of large enterprises on their online presence, for improving their business performance, is growing day-by-day. This means that the scope and scale of websites for large enterprises is constantly on the rise.

The larger the scope of the website, the bigger the role played by enterprise web design solutions.

So, what is it that exactly defines a successful website design for large enterprises? The question is a difficult one, and there are plenty of answers. But, if you sift through the various answers, there emerges a consensus on 5 primary features. These features form the very foundation of an effective enterprise web design. Everything else is secondary.
 

1. Getting the Fundamentals Right
   
   So, what are the fundamentals of web design? Ask around, and you will get a plethora of answers. But, for us the fundamentals of web design are encapsulated in one sentence – Deliver a Message with Clarity. This clarity is reflected in the visuals on the website, the navigation buttons and various other elements that make up web design.
    
2. Multiple Audience Focus
   
   Web design for large enterprises is all about targeting multiples audiences. The design should be such that it targets the grandfather and also his 20 year-old teenaged grandson. This is figuratively speaking of course, but you get the general drift. The design must be perfectly balanced to suit the interests and preferences of a wider audience. For e.g. zany looking images might suit the tastes of a younger audience, but a middle aged audience might not appreciate such images
   
   At the end of the day, it’s all about the target market and whether the website caters to B2B or B2C clients. The focus of the design should be in line with what they expect from an enterprise website.
    
3. Advanced design solutions
   
   Typically, enterprise website design is a coming together of various complex elements such as ecommerce shopping carts, database management systems, and content management systems amongst various others. The website design should be able to integrate such information systems efficiently. It should be able to comfortably bring together these elements into one user friendly interface. Advanced designing solutions involve the use of the latest designing concepts customized to suit the intrinsic need and requirements of the website.
   
   Designing solutions should be in a constant state of evolution, especially in the case of designing for large enterprises.
    
4. Visibility Centric
   
   Search engine friendly design is of paramount importance, irrespective of the size of the website. The fact that your website is online and can be accessed through the World Wide Web doesn’t make it a success. It needs to be seen by your target audience; and that is only possible if the website design is search engine friendly.
   
   You just can’t ignore the search engines.
    
5. The showcase approach
   
   The website design is a showcase for the enterprise. Think of it as a display case for various products services and also a definitive tool that handles a variety of business processes. Then think how all this is going to come to life. If the large enterprise website is designed like a definitive showcase, it’s going to work wonders for its performance.
    

If you want your website to make use of these features, it’s always a good idea to get it designed from an experienced web design company that has proven expertise in enterprise web design solutions. This is the kind of company that will ensure success for your website and make sure that it keeps meeting the changing needs and demands of your enterprise.

Let’s face it. These days, just getting your website up and running isn’t going to ensure website success.  If you want your website to stand out from the crowd, you must ensure that it impresses the visitor. 

It can only impress the visitor if your get the graphic quotient right. The first thing that a visitor is going to notice is the graphics – Nothing Else. Let’s see, how great graphic design can help your site make a mark.

Graphic and your Home Page

Think of your website Home Page as your assault page. It’s because this is the make or break page for your website. If it doesn’t work for the visitor, there is no chance that your website will succeed. The graphics on the Home Page determine its efficiency. Using colors and images that are in line with your website’s message is a perfect way to attract attention. It’s important that you don’t overwhelm visitors with graphics that are a riot of colors and visuals but convey the kind of message that is all over the place.

Graphic and your Content

There is always a debate on as to what is more important – Content or Graphics. There is no denying the fact that words are as important as form. For our money, the use of graphic elements should enhance the value of the content. A visitor coming across a specific image on your website should want to read up on what the image is all about.  The perfect image is one that entraps visitors’ attention and forces them to read the content.

Effective graphic design improves recall

Great graphics have an instant recall value. Say your website, has an interesting animation that talks about your products and services, e.g. a 2 –D animation that uses cartoon characters to inform visitors about the features of a particular product – Wouldn’t that be an instant hit? What’s even more important, it’s going to stay in the visitors mind for a long time to come.

Graphics create a Buzz

I was searching for some stationery products the other day, and came across this website that had some incredible graphics. It was innovative and I had a great time going through it. I told my friend about it, who was as impressed by the website as I was. He told somebody else about it and I am sure that this ‘somebody else’ told ‘somebody else’ about it.

Inventive and engrossing graphics are one of the ways that you can create a buzz for your website. It actually becomes a very important promotional tool.

Graphics and your brand identity

Graphic design also includes the creation of a logo. A well designed logo is a part and parcel of any website. It helps project the credibility of your business and tells your visitor that it is there for the long haul.  A logo improves the trustworthiness of your website.

There is absolutely no doubt that a competitive website is a result of making the perfect use of graphics. Using them at the right place and in the right amounts will help your website go places.