{"id":440,"date":"2013-05-17T23:38:24","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T06:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/?p=440"},"modified":"2013-05-17T23:45:09","modified_gmt":"2013-05-18T06:45:09","slug":"does-website-design-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/does-website-design-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Website Design Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is a constant stream of advertisements for \u201ccreate your own website\u201d for free, after 30 days pay only $7.99\/month or simple sounding ads like \u201cDesign your website in minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s sounds so easy and the price sounds unbeatable.\u00a0 In the early days of the internet this might have been just the tool for many businesses.\u00a0 As a web designer who codes these templates are cumbersome to use. For the novice they require a lot of time and frustration to learn the software.\u00a0 You will still need your content: photos and page copy.\u00a0 Your photos need to be optimized to download\u00a0 quickly, so you need some photo editing skills and learn\u00a0how to choose what compression is best.\u00a0 You need to spend\u00a0time learning\u00a0at least some basic search engine optimization (SEO) and learn about meta data to compete for organic results.\u00a0 All of the above are the nuts and bolts of using a template website.<\/p>\n<p>Websites need \u201ccall-to-actions\u201d which are eye appealing and well placed.\u00a0 Navigation needs to be simple \u2013 easy to figure out so customers can quickly find what they are looking for.\u00a0 Frustrated visitors won\u2019t become your client.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond all the code and functionality, yes, design matters. \u00a0A welcoming website sets a tone for your business, the same as a showroom displays your products. \u00a0The layout and design bring all the elements together.\u00a0 The bottom line is people will judge your business based on the looks of your website.\u00a0 Statistics reveal over 90% of people said they trusted or mistrusted a website based on design alone, less than 10% said it was content.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s much like packaging of food.\u00a0 Yes the generic brand is cheaper, but the jar\/box isn\u2019t nearly as creative as the name brands, who give great thought and expense to their brand.<\/p>\n<p>While it doesn\u2019t have to be award winning you want your design to send a message of trust, professionalism and quality.\u00a0 You know your business, hiring a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/website-design.html\" target=\"_blank\">professional <\/a>to create your website is a good investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a constant stream of advertisements for \u201ccreate your own website\u201d for free, after 30 days pay only $7.99\/month or simple sounding ads like \u201cDesign your website in minutes.\u201d It\u2019s sounds so easy and the price sounds unbeatable.\u00a0 In &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/does-website-design-matter\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11,202,201,26,4,104,105],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-first-website","tag-custom-website","tag-free-websites","tag-search-engine-optimization","tag-seo","tag-small-business-website","tag-web-design","tag-website-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}