1. COLOR SELECTION

Color invokes feeling and mood and can cause a spectrum of reactions in different people from different cultures. Consider your audience and marketing objectives before choosing the colors for your website. There are positive and negative connotations with color, take a moment to consider them.

POSITIVE COLOR MEANING FOR YOUR WEBSITE

NEGATIVE COLOR MEANING FOR YOUR WEBSITE

2. WEBSITE LAYOUT

There is more than one way to layout a website. The tendency is to want something new, different, interesting. The important things to remember when choosing your website's layout are as follows:

Website Usability: You only have a few seconds to engage your visitor. If they have to figure out how to use your website, they will leave and not return. Your visitors will become impatient if they cannot find EXACTLY what they're looking for in seconds. Consider your visitors experience when deciding on which web layout to use.

Web Conventions: There are billions of books in the world, and they are conventionally shaped the same way with a cover, a table of contents, page numbers, etc... Yet, each book is individual and unique because of the substance held within. You always know what to do with a book. The web is still too young to have many conventions, but the ones that are there should be embraced.

Search Engine Optimization: Search engines can only read text, and they read your website in a certain way, a certain order--and they only have about three seconds per page. It's important to build your site to be friendly to search engine crawlers, while strategically placing keyword phrases throughout your navigation. Steer clear of any layouts that smother search engine crawlers in muck of unreadable code such as Flash, Javascript, Images and Animation.

According to our research and experience with SEO, there are three basic ways to layout your website to be friendly to search engines.

SEO WEBSITE LAYOUTS -

The following website layouts offer the best search engine optimization potential and are therefore the best way to arrange your content for lead generation after launch. All layouts below are good for real estate websites, broker websites, financial services, mortgage brokers, small businesses, attorneys, corporations and more.

3. WEBSITE HEADER

Your website's header has many functions to accomplish in the first few seconds that someone enters your site. To be most effective, your website's header should tell your visitor...

— Where they are.
— What company's website they are on.
— The exact purpose of your site.
— What you can do for them. 
— What you want them to do.
— Whether they can trust you.
— Whether you have what they're looking to find.
— That your website answers the questions they are asking.
— Your website will not waste their time.
— Whether your company is reputable. 
— How do they contact you if they're rushed?

We achieve these objectives in the following ways:

Creating billboard-like headers for visitors traveling 70mph on the Superhighway. We help your visitor become acclimated to the site very quickly.

4. WEBSITE NAVIGATION

Your website's navigation must be created in a precise manner to assist your website in achieving top search engine rankings. Using images for your navigation is off-limits and dire to your sites end-result, as is using a menu made up entirely of Flash or JavaScript. Crawlers cannot navigate beyond your home page when there are no text-links in your navigation. Your site can be rendered invisible.

There are basically five types of navigation systems to choose from:

— Plain Navigation - Horizontal (Left)
— Plain Navigation - Vertical
— Drop Down - Horizontal (Left)
— Drop Down - Vertical
— Expandable - Vertical (Left)