Designing a Website That Will Get You Bookmarked

Your franchise opportunity may or may not have included a personalized web page or site where you can showcase your products and/or services, provide an outlet for online sales, an offer some education into the products or service your business offers. Most franchisors will leave it up to you to create your own online presence as long as you follow the terms of the franchise agreement and respect the use of logos and other trademarks.

When you begin designing your site, you have one major objective to accomplish: to provide plenty of easy-to-read and understand information about the company, its products and/or services, and what role you intend to play in the local marketplace to get your online visitors coming back for more.

The Four Basic Design Elements of a Website

Every day people browsing the Internet are bombarded with the pages and pages of information on the websites they visit. Only a few of these make it to their “Favorites” or “Bookmark” category. Therefore, start by doing some research and compare a number of website from companies that offer your type of product or service. Then, find yourself an experienced web designer who can give you some insight into the following key areas of website excellence.

Layout

Your website should have three panels: a larger, central panel and two smaller left and right panels. The central panel is where the information will be displayed; the two other panels contain the menu items or other links that allow your visitors to move deeper and deeper into your site. The left panel normally contains the most popular menu items that visitors will select often, and the right panel usually contains miscellaneous information such as offsite links or advertising. Your layout should first be drawn on paper, incorporating all the elements that best illustrate your business. This is the most important step that will take some time to finalize.

Colors

When the layout is complete and you are satisfied with it, the next step is to select colors. The central panel should always be white; the two side panels should be made to stand out from the middle panel using creative web design techniques. As you can see from About.com’s home page, the menu items on the left are in a pale shade of grey with red type. As you can see, there is very little red anywhere else on this page. Most of the color on this page is found in the images and graphics in the central panel. The colors you select for your website should be representative of the franchise concept. Do not use more than three colors (excluding black and white) on your site and try to stay away from using colored type unless you’re using it in subject headlines or sub-headlines.

Use of Images

The images you use on your site should only tie into the products and/or service you offer. Use images sparingly unless the site has a shopping cart in which case keep the image size within reason and uniform. Images that do not belong to you or the franchisor may require licensing or permission. Place advertising images in a consistent location rather than scattering them throughout the site. Keep these images a consistent size.

Navigational Use

Most people will get turned off from a website when they cannot figure out how to navigate around it. The menu items on your left panel should be available on every page visited. If possible, have your designer create a navigational trail which highlights the name of each page the viewer visits (usually at the top of the website) so if they get lost or want to jump to a previous page, they simply click the link. See the navigational trail at the top of this About.com website. Offering too many menu links can be confusing; you want to use the reverse funnel approach to get viewers to stay as long as possible on your site and eventually create a bookmark to visit the site again in the future.

How Flashy Do You Want Your Website To Be?

Depending on your industry, you may need to add special features to your site which include music, moving images, video, or animation. These features do add sophistication but are expensive and you are running the risk of limiting your online hits because many people will not bother installing the required plug-ins to make these features work.

If you do plan to add any one of these components, remember to include the links to the websites that provide the free plug-in download. People with older computers may be limited in using some of these added features because of the requirements to run them. If you truly want to optimize your website views, keep it simple – and keep your customers reading. Information sells. The last thing you want them to do is bookmark your site and come visit your place of business!