What Makes a Good Website as your companies Internet Presence?

Most websites are poorly designed & developed and do not follow key principles. The importance attached to each principle depends upon the ultimate objective of the website. What is essential however is that if you are serious about your business then having an effective website is no longer a luxury, it is a business imperative. You simply MUST have one.

There are many do’s and dont’s, but quite simply the following 5 principles should form the basis of your website and its design.

1. Have a clear purpose in mind. 

Web sites should have a clear purpose for existing. They should concentrate on a particular theme or topic.

2. Know your intended audience / customer. 

Often the perceived correctness of a particular interface design is largely dependent on the personal preferences of the individual user. For this reason, an important first step in the design of a user interface is to know who will be using the interface. Typically there will be many types of users particularly where goods and services are being purchased online.

3. Have a well structured site. 

The user interface needs to communicate clearly with the intended user. In order to communicate clearly, a user interface should be well organized and structured Web pages within the site should have a consistent and predictable appearance, so that it will be easier for users to make sense of the web site. The best approach is to consistently apply a few basic design principles to each web page in the site. This is particularly important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

4. Make your site easy to navigate. 

If your web site is going to be useful, it must be easy to navigate. Navigation occurs at two levels; within a particular web site and between web sites. Menus are often used to aid navigation within a web site. Menus should be neither too shallow nor too deep and may lose their effectiveness if they don’t have at least four or five links. One way to enhance navigation within a site is to include navigation aids such as "return to home page", "previous page", and "next page" links on each web page. This not only increases the navigation ability within your site, but allows users who visit your website on a page other than your home page, to easily find their way around.

5. Keep your site current.

The World Wide Web is constantly changing, as new sites are developed and old ones are changed or go out of existence. It is up to you to keep your site current and accurate.

What Are The Benefits? 
 If you are in business and want prime exposure online then your website must be designed to deliver key objectives that directly support your organisation’s business strategy. Typically these might be:

• Increased Traffic to your website
• Increased Sales Enquiries made from your web presence
• Direct sales, bookings or memberships made from your e-Commerce website
• Interest in your organization , your products and services that you promote on your website
• Lead generation and creation of a visitor/ customer database from your website
• Increased Customer loyalty
• Online presence of your Brand Exposure
• Customer Testimonials online

Why ICT Internet Presence (ICTIP)?

ICT Internet presence (ICTIP) specializes in effective and efficient website design and development processes. It has several years experience of delivering websites that deliver our client’s objectives. Our development process requires in-depth analysis and specification of our client’s unique and specific requirements. Our Business Consultancy, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts can offer a rigorous, tried and tested methodology designed to deliver the website your business needs.

Clearly defining your goals is the essential first step that will make or break your website strategy, yet is often overlooked by many website designers and developers. ICTIP web sites design & development centres have experienced and skilled in-house technical staff trained in using industry standard practices, processes and procedures to ensure the highest level of technical proficiency in meeting your website internet presence requirements.

However, ICTIP recognizes that technical competence is only half the story and of itself does not guarantee prominence over your competition. Such prominence can only be delivered by understanding your business and combining your business objectives and requirements with a sound technical platform is the combination that will ensure your success. ICTIP places great importance in a collaborative and inclusive approach to designing, developing, delivering and implementing your website to deliver your business objectives.

Alongside this collaborative approach, technical competence ICTIP cal also design and incorporate all your corporate stationary including Logo Creation, Business Cards- both electronic/ printer friendly versions, Corporate Letterheads/ Fax mailers/ Corporate Envelopes, E-mail Headers.