How many times have you gone to a website and been completely disappointed with the design and user interface that you left? Without even checking what you came to the site for? By show of hands there are a lot of us out there.

I am sure that there are people out there that think that web design is left up to those with creative minds, artists, who have the chance to express their voice with a website to the entire world. But in reality there is a lot more that goes into it, or so we hope. Now I am not saying that anyone could design a website, nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot questions that must be answered before you can design a site successfully.

Take a moment and think about your favorite website… what do you like about it? Is it the colors? Or a cool looking logo? Is it the user interface? (how easy it is to navigate through the website) Or does it have nothing to do with the look, is it all about the content?

Now take another moment and think about the worst website you have come across… what was it that made you cringe when you arrived? Was there music playing? Did it have banners flashing or moving objects? Was it over crowded with no rhyme or reason to the information? Was it impossible to find the information that you came to the website for?

This happens to so many web users, they go onto a website looking for something specific and they end up leaving after ten seconds because they cannot stand the music or the waving flag in the corner. As anyone can attest to, distractions are easy to come by and makes us move on even faster.

You do not need to have a background in design, art, or web design to understand how the fundamentals of a website should work. You do however need to have background in those things plus an understanding of the fundamentals of consumers who surf the web to make a good looking website with a great user interface. People always want the best of both worlds: they want websites to look amazing, and they also want them to be easy to navigate and the information readily available with little effort to find it.

Being in the web development world it is simple to pick up on the latest trends of website production. These days a website needs to be eye catching without all those silly distractions like music and flying objects. The website also needs to look advanced for it’s time. People need to be able to find the navigation easy to maneuver through and whatever information they are looking for can only be less than two clicks away. Anything longer than two clicks will make your website visitor go bye-bye.

Take my test: go to three of you favorite websites and see if they have the above criteria, and go to three websites you hate the most and find out what they are missing. Tell me what you find.

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Being in Bakersfield for almost a year I have come to some conclusions, working for Jupiter Labs for a couple of months has given me some more conclusions on Bakersfield. I want to touch on one of them today: Bakersfield and the world of websites.

Bakersfield is a fairly old community, with “home-town” feelings and outlooks. When it comes to web, they might be quick to think of spider webs more than the “world wide web”. This scared me a little when it came to having to talk to Bakersfield business’ about the internet and what the web can do for their business. I thought to myself, how am I supposed to persuade these people that a website can do wonders for their business and reputation when over 50% did not even know how to get onto the internet let alone that business’ had websites. So out came a new strategy, before we can get folks to see the value of a website they need to understand the “world wide web” and what it’s capabilities are. That is what we set out to do, show people what the web means and then show them how to use it to their advantage.

We showed business’ that there is a whole new marketing strategy out there, and that if they wanted to bring in new generations of buyers to come that they were going to have to jump on the wagon. See times are changing and the new generation of buyers no longer look to that dusty ‘ol phone book in the closet to find take-out or a new doctor, they go to the internet. They have found new ways to find the information they need to buy what they want. The main reason that the internet is more appealing than that phone book is because it is fast, easy, and always there and up-to-date. And for the new generations if it is easier and faster why would you use anything else? They are using their old phone books for door stoppers or “strong man” challenges in their backyard, one thing we know for sure is that they are not using them for information.

Okay so let’s say that I am an old business in Bakersfield, I have made my place in this town by putting in hard work, selling a good quality product, and by creating a good reputation, what is a website going to do for me? Well ask yourself some questions: What is my customer base? Do I have mostly new customers or old loyal ones? How did my customers come to hear about me? How can I get new customers in, and how can I target a larger area? All of these questions can be answered with a website. Let’s examine how by answering these questions…

Let’s define our business for answering purposes. We are a dog boutique, that specializes in toys for all different kinds of dogs, dog clothing, and custom dog tags.

So what is my customer base now: any dog owner (in town, or has heard of my company before) What could it be with a website: ANYONE

Most of my customers are old, who have come here before, I only get new customers from advertising (local TV/Newspaper), word of mouth or walk-ins. Potentially with a website most of your customers could be new because of the exposure on the internet. You are not just getting the greater Bakersfield area with your TV and newspaper ads. You are getting anyone and everyone is has access to the internet.

My customers mostly have heard of me through a friend or some kind of referral, I do get some people who have seen my commercial or saw my ad in the paper. Like I said previously with a website now anyone can find you or hear about you, what larger target area could you get than that.

Now I have shown you some obvious reasons why and how a website can help your business. It’s pretty easy and painless, you just need to do a little homework and find a web design or development company that knows what they are doing and has your best interest at heart. There is a next step, once you have a website for your business, you then need the knowledge to know: is it doing anything for your business, am I sending the right message, ARE PEOPLE FINDING ME?

This last question about “are people finding me?” is probably the most important and this leads into Web Marketing, which I will talk about in my next blog. I also want to talk about the world of web design and what is out there.

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