Web Design Inspiration: Where to Get It for Your Site?

If you have a business website and want to ensure that it features professional web design, you may be wondering where you can find the right inspiration. While you can technically find inspiration anywhere, if you’re looking for a more structured approach that’s been tested and proven across a wide range of industries, here are the four steps you can follow:

Figure Out What You Want Your Website to Say About You

Although some of the traffic to your website will be from existing customers, a significant percentage of it will be from people who haven’t previously interacted with your business. As a result, what those visitors see when your website loads is going to determine the initial impression they have of your business.

Before you start looking for inspiration, you should decide exactly what impression you want to make. That decision will depend on your specific business and industry. For example, a clothing retailer that targets women in their 20s may want to give a chic but playful impression. On the other hand, a B2B company that provides a mission critical service will want to present themselves as established and reliable as possible.Identify What You Want Visitors to Do on Your Site

In addition to deciding how you want your site to convey your business, you also need to identify the ultimate goal of your site. For most businesses, this falls into one of two categories. Either they want visitors to fill out a contact form so that the business can get in touch with them by phone or email, or the business wants customers to make a purchase directly through their site.

The reason why it’s important to complete this step before you start looking for web design inspiration is because if the goal of your site is to generate leads, it’s probably not going to make sense to spend much time looking at e-commerce sites. In addition, if you are going to sell products directly through your site, you’ll want to primarily focus on sites that have a checkout process as well.

Look at Your Competition

Once you’ve identified the impression you want to make and the goal that your site needs to accomplish, you can start doing competitive research. By seeing what design approaches other companies within your industry are using, you’ll be able to come up with your own fully optimized unique web design.

Get Help from Experienced Professionals

If you ever feel overwhelmed by this process or are simply too busy to handle it on your own, keep in mind that you can always let an experienced company guide you through the process. While you’ll have final approval over all the elements of your site’s design, enlisting professional help can save you a significant amount of time.

Whether you end up doing everything on your own or opt to enlist professional help, following the steps outlined above will ensure that you’re ultimately happy with the way your site turns out.

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  • By Dennis Consorte
  • Published on August 9th, 2013