10 Huge Tips for Your Web Design Project

As a web design agency, we know how hard it can be to make a website that is appealing to the human eye yet does all the things you need a website to do. There are so many things to remember about making a website so we thought that we'd help and and give you a list of ten very important things to remember when creating a great website.

1. You have mere seconds to capture attention. When you have a website, you only have 5 seconds to get someone's attention and convince them that they have to stay on the website; they need to explore past the first page. One of the most commonly used features of web browsers is the back button. Your site needs to let people know that it is the site for them right away or they will back out of your site, likely to never return. Using compelling copy, aesthetically pleasing images/graphics, and easy navigation will help keep people for longer than five seconds. 
2. Copy that captures. You want to have copy on your site that is clear, concise, and gives answers. If your site does not have copy that actually helps anyone but rather just keeps giving mediocre information, then people will leave your site, even if they have made it past the first page. 
3. Feature your call to action. Give the people who view your site some sort of command, like "connect with us" "Contact us" "Get a free estimate" or "Schedule an appointment" etc. Whether it will actually work on people depends on the person, but it's always good to have this on your site. 
4. Build trust with viewers. This is important to do no matter what kind of site you have but it's especially important if you have an e-commerce site, whether it sells products or services. Have that great shipping and return policy, show positive testimonials from clients or customers, etc. Make your contact information prominent so people feel like they can contact you easily, this makes people feel more confident using your site. 
5. Keep fresh content. Always try to keep the content on your site fresh; not every page always has to be refreshed but make sure all the content is always relevant and applicable. When you have outdated content, change it. Try to have an internal blog page and another page or two that is a place where you can constantly place fresh content. 
6. Have social media plugins. Using social media is a great way to connect with clients and consumers and it looks great when you have the plugins on your site that connect people directly to your social media. Social media marketing is key and tying that with your site will look great. 
7. Make navigation easy. If there is anything on your site that takes more than two clicks to get to, it is not as easily accessible as it can be. People should not encounter dead ends and have to figure out where to click to get to a new page, it should be very apparent. 
8. It's about the user, not you. It doesn't matter what you want, it matters what people who view the site want. What do these people want? They want to feel like they are making the decision to use your products and services, they want to feel like the hero. Don't brag about yourself but rather what you can do for the consumer. 
9. Keep up with the times. Don't fall behind on the times and what your competitors are doing, make sure to stay ahead of the game and current on the times. 
10. Create while remembering SEO. Your site should be launched already being internally optimized. If you have to go back in and do internal search engine optimization, then your site was not built correctly. 

If you have questions about web design or search engine optimization, then make sure to contact Integraphix - a Chicago marketing company. We have been a chicago creative agency for over twenty years and clients of all sizes. 

Choosing a CMS

Have you ever wondered what is lurking behind all of your favorite websites? Web designers in Chicago have many different options when they are first presented with a web design project. There are many different Content Management Systems available for web designers such as Wordpress, Joomla and Krypton. With so many options how to you choose the one that is right for your website?

There are many different types of CMS available for editing and managing.  When considering a content management software there are many things that may come into play with your decision. Some CMS platforms are more based around blogging than a pure CMS website. Other CMS platforms are more compatible Search Engine Optimization. Before the design comes into play, you always need to consider what your main target is with your web design. Things to consider when choosing a CMS:

1- Cost: Cost is always an important aspect when making a business decision. There are many different types of CMS available for free and commercial.

2- Security: There is nothing worse than experiencing spam on your beautiful web page. Commercial CMS are licensed version platforms. They may be expensive, but they will be worth the money when it comes to security.

3- Flexibility: Open source CMS provides the flexibility that most designers in Chicago strive for. With flexibility you will be able to create exactly what you are envisioning on your computer screen.

We have collaborated a list of different Open Source CMS to highlight the differences.

­Wordpress:

Wordpress was released in May of 2003. Wordpress is a free content management system based on PHP and MySQL.  It was first introduced and geared towards bloggers and is now used by over 65 million users and not just for blogs, but for websites as well.  As mentioned in the previous blog Awesome Wordpress Plugins, Wordpress allows for many different customizations.  Plugins allow Wordpress users to extend their abilities with web development in a multitude of ways.  There are over 18 million Wordpress plugins available.  Wordpress is very well-organized and very easily learned by new users.  It is a favorite CMS among SEO companies due to its ability to implement and track Search Engine Optimization results.

Joomla:

Joomla is also a free content management software and is written in PHP.  There are over 30 million Joomla users and it is still rapidly growing.  Joomla was introduced in 2005 and just recently released their newest version, 3.0.2, which was produced last month.  There are over 10,000 free and commercial extensions available for Joomla users.  The Joomla extensions include plugins, templates, modules, components and languages.

Drupal:

Drupal is another content management system that has a very large amount of users.  Instead of focusing on blogging like Wordpress, Drupal is purely CMS for websites.  There are a wide variety of optional modules that can add forums, user blogs, profiles and more to your website.  The Drupal CMS is used by 2.1% of websites worldwide.  Although Drupal is seems quite difficult to use, it has very basic website administration and installation.