When do you need a new design for your website? If you have a website, there will be a time when you decide to change the look and feel of it. Before you revamp your website, you must consider it properly. To revamp your website, there must be a specific reason and you need to identify it. Is it because there is a change in your corporate color? Or perhaps you want a more refreshing look and feel on your website? Whatever reasons you have, when you feel is time to change it, do it.

If you have the same design for years, it is good to consider changing the design of your website. You will not want your visitors to leave your site because it is outdated and boring. The industry of web design is always changing. Every day, there are new compliance and standards. Today, websites need to be search engine friendly, engaging, interactive and user-friendly. If your current website does not fit the bill, it is time to revamp it.

Although it is important to keep yourself updated to the trends of web design, it does not mean that you need to revamp your website every year. It is recommended to do a major revamp once every three to four years. During this period, there can be little touch-ups to the website.

Other than changing the design of your site, you should consider updating the content regularly. No one wants to see outdated content. A good idea is to add a blog to your website and post new entries once or twice every week. Also, search engines love fresh content. With fresh content, search engines will rank your website higher on their search result listings.

One thing to consider before you redesign your website is to determine whether it will lose its current identity. This is because your long-time visitors or customers may be too used to your old design and may not be able to recognize your new look. There is a chance that you will lose them as they could think that they have landed on the wrong page. So make sure that you retain some of your current identity, such as logo and corporate color.

Last but not least, your website should be consistent with other marketing collateral. Website is your marketing tool and nothing is more annoying than having a website that is completely out of sync with your current marketing collateral.

Working in the web design industry you can come across a lot of great websites, as well as a lot of very badly designed sites. With web design you only have a few seconds to make an impact on your visitor which will determine whether they stay or go. To increase your chances of keeping your visitor after those first few seconds (and hopefully inticing them to return) I have put together a brief list for anyone to make a good start in the right direction.

1. Do – put yourself in the shoes or your target visitor.

You should get to know your audience and write your content with your visitors in mind. This is important for both your visitors and search engines. Make sure you keep the content relevant to keep your visitors engaged and entice them to come back. You should also ensure you include your keywords within your content, that way both the visitor and search engines are assured that your site is indeed what they are looking for.

2. Don’t – expect something for nothing. For a website to be of any real benefit time and effort need to be part of the process. A 10 minute job may do more harm than good where company perception is concerned. If you have a poor website visitors will associate that feeling with your company, likewise on the other hand if your website is great then visitors may be more inclined to deal with your company. This doesn’t just come down to appearance of your site however, make sure you include all the relevant details including contact details, help sections if appropriate, and if your business requires good customer service make sure it’s in place.

3. Do – have simple and clear navigation. Once a visitor has landed on your site you want to keep them onboard, so make sure they can use and locate the information they need. Avoid complicated menu systems that are not guaranteed to work on your visitor’s machines. Also avoid dead-end pages, ensure that your visitors can always return to a main page, whether this is the homepage or a sub section page – there’s nothing worse than feeling lost.

4. Don’t – use splash pages. As the forefront or ‘shop window’ of your website you need to have a positive impact, but even though it may look pretty to have a splash page they don’t serve much purpose. Not only do you risk losing your visitor through potential loading times, confusion, or annoyance but you also limit the content a search engine has to index.

5. Do – keep your site fresh and updated. This works well from both a visitor point of view and for SEO (search engine optimisation). For visitors having new content will give them more reason to return to your site, for search engines it lets them know that your website is currently active. Recommended ways of doing this include having a news section or starting up a blog.

6. Don’t – forget to ensure your pages validate. With so many browsers, screen resolutions, operating systems etc. you should try to make sure your site will work in as many different situations as possible. Validation and accessibility checks as provided by W3C should be on your list of things to do to limit alienating potential visitors.

7. Do – make sure your pages load quickly. By using well written code, optimised images and table-less code to name a few. Limiting your load times will in turn limit the number of visitors that leave through waiting times.

8. Don’t – forget to test your site extensively before it goes live. Make sure there are no broken links, and if linking to external websites that the target page is still relevant and the owner has not changed the content.

9. Do – use stylesheets. Keep all of your formatting out of your main pages to eliminate repetition, using an external stylesheet means you’ll only need to define styles once. Then if you need to change a style you’ll only need to update one file and not x number of pages. Your stylesheet is also the best place to reference any background/decorative images.

10. Don’t – stop looking for ways to improve your website. Once a site has been put live it doesn’t mean the work stops there. Keep on top of your site to get the most out of it. Implement ongoing SEO to constantly improve rankings in search engines (or to maintain high rankings), add and keep your eye on analytics, look out for visitor trends and use these to your advantage.

Most of all remember – If you want your website to work for you, you need to work for your website!

Selecting the perfect color to represent your brand is a crucial stage in designing your website because your chosen color has a huge impact in creating a good impression to your target audience. Branding differentiates a certain business from its competitors in the same industry. Your chosen color scheme has the ability to create an invisible connection between you and your target audience. Choosing the color can help you strengthen your brand identity.

Your brand expresses the character of your business, its philosophies, goals and the message that you want to tell your customers. And these things will be effectively delivered by the right choice of colors.

Here are few tips to consider when choosing the best colors that will fit your brand:

1. Pick the Color That Best Describe Your Brand

People have very little attention span these days so you have to choose the color that will easily register in the minds of your target audience. Make them remember you even at their first sight at your brand (logo, website, etc.). Through your chosen color people will get to know who you are. Let the color of your brand send the message that you want to tell your audience.

2. Know Your Color Psychology Colors Affect Your Customers Psychologically

To ensure that you will deliver the right message to the public it is imperative that you know the meaning of every color and how it is used. Color is consistently used in an attempt to make people hungry, associate a positive or negative tone, and encourage trust, feelings of calmness or energy, and countless other ways.

3. Know What Colors Your Competitors Use

Like in any aspect of business you also have to know what your competitors are using in order for you to differentiate yourself from them. But you still have to make sure that your chosen color fit in your industry. It should complement your brand’s personality.

4. Know the Impact of Colors to Consumers

Learn how color stimulates the mind of your target customer. For example, color red motivates people to make urgent action. Likewise, orange makes a product look attractive and tempting that urges people to buy it.

5. Remember That You Are Not Limited To One Color

When choosing the color for your brand, you don’t have to stick to only one color. If you think that using other colors for your brand will make your brand look more attractive and captivating. Never hesitate to use two or three combination of colors. You can actually apply different colors to convey a stronger message to the audience. You should not limit yourself in choosing colors for as long as it helps your target audience perceive your brand positively.

6. Use Matched Colors

See to it that your choice of colors harmonizes with one another. Mismatched colors are distracting to the eyes of consumer. People would not be interested to mismatched colors in your website design and would just leave it. Hence, select colors that complement to one another so it will look more interesting to visitors.