Oct 08 2008
Don’t put off a spring spruce!
Spring is well and truly in bloom now, and while you’re taking care of all your other business activities, have you been putting off a website spring clean?
… It’s not as hard as you might think to give your site content a creative lift and draw more interest by your site visitors. Here are a few important design tips to make your pages clearer, interesting and give that polished and professional look overall.
1. Graphical Appeal
Carry through your message in images.
It might sound like a no-brainer tip, but adding some well selected graphics or photos to your pages is great for evoking a response from your potential customers or info-seekers.
- Select some small photos to break up large blocks of text and try to make them as relevant to the text as possible.
- You can get your article’s text to wrap nicely around the image by using the editor’s image align options in the SauceOpen CMS.
- Where do you get images? - try istockphoto.com
This is a great way to attract a potential customer’s eye to a block of text; Putting in a catchy graphic near your critical sales point or call to action is a definite winner.
2. Are you listening? - Put Up Some Signs
In the way that we add images for allure, we can also use a tried and true technique often called signposting - put simply it’s the use of graphical elements, indention and blocking, bullets or numbering, or text styles such as bold and italic that makes your content much crisper and lucid.
- People on the web have a VERY short attention span! so numbers and bullets are fantastic to use as people may skim most of the text, but bullets are usually read.
- Bold and italic emphasis should be used within reason, but when really hammering home a point - are essential.
3. Do the drapes clash with the carpet?
Your business has an image, and your website should represent this too. Approach your content with your colour scheme in mind and the overall site design.
- Pay attention to your color scheme on your website. eg. Ask yourself (or us), “Will this bright red text match my otherwise calming and pastel site design? - is there a better way?”
- When Sauce Software designers make a site template for your SauceOpen website, using the default heading and text styles will bring out great consistency. eg. Set that line as a “Heading 3″ and it will take on the colour scheme of the site and reflect the other text in the way the template has been designed all over the site!
- When adding images - the colours and content should complement the overall look of your site too.
4. Keeping the balance
Visual effects such as animated images, or flash content are great to add interest and draw visitors eyes to where they need to be, but there’s always a ballance to keep.
Try not to add too many images close together, especially animating ones, as having the site flash and flicker at you can be as detrimental as having no image allure at all.
5. We’re happy to help - challenge us!
Sauce Software’s designers can offer you advice on how to get clarity and interest into your site and create graphics and layout to achieve your aims. Ask us for design consultation on 1300 559 165. Easy!
