Web Design & Development: Essential Success Ingredients

If you are in business, chances are you want to have your message heard. Whether you are yodeling the benefits of your product or service or heralding a “call to action” for your cause, your message is the very foundation and basis for generating a “sale”. If the message of “your excellent product” is “right”, a product is sold. If the message of “your excellent service” is “right”, the service is sold. If the message of “your excellent cause” is “right”, the idea is “sold”. Some people ask if a website is even needed to do business it is people, not technology, who make sales. I assert that nowadays, it is necessary. Businesses that do not provide online access to information about their offering operate at a severe disadvantage. They have a much smaller audience to whom they may present their message. They do not have the advantage of accommodating the convenience of online payments. They do not benefit from the reduced costs associated with providing access to online help. Simply put, business websites are no longer an optional sales channel. Websites are an essential part of how sales get done in business. In fact, online retail continues to grow. E-marketer, an online resource that focuses on internet and business trends, updated its growth projections in May of 2009. They charted retail e-commerce rising from their 2008 number of 133.6 billion dollars through the year 2013, where sales are estimated to rise to 203.5 billion. That is over 10% growth per year and does not include other types of online sales (Grau). However, if you want to have part of that success, it will take more than just having a website. You will need to understand the fundamental principle: web design and web development are essential ingredients for online success in selling your service, product or cause.

I do not want to not get too philosophical. But, it would help to ask, “What is a “sale” and why does it happen?” A sale is simply any exchange for items, services or ideas. Sales are the life-blood of any organization. Businesses realize how important online sales are and a recent internetretailers report of Forrester Research data shows that despite the cutbacks of 2009, 70% of retailers “continue to spend” or “will spend more” on effective online sales measures (E-Commerce A1). With the right expertise, resources and focus, online environment can be maintained to make sales happen. These businesses know that sales happen naturally when certain key elements are in place: trust, supply, demand and means. Additionally add satisfaction if you hope to have return customers.

• Trust •

Trust’s “set-point” or starting point is an almost instant decision based on what someone sees or hears about your site. Trust is a required component of people doing business with you. Online, trust can be impacted by testimonials, whether or not your site looks professional, “together”, well-thought-out, etc. The initial impression your site makes in the first 7 seconds is critical. After, you will only effect the customer’s impression incrementally from their initial “set-point”. Web development and how well your site works, including interface design, flow and usability effect your site’s service quality. Service quality is the key component of trust as authoritatively stated by Zhou in Information Systems Management, an academic journal which focuses on the high tech community (Zhou 334).

• Supply •

Supply means not only that you “have it” (whatever it is) but that they can “find it”. You or your website needs to be accessible to the consumer. Web developers can wield powerful variables in the ongoing process of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO effects the search words that someone can use to find your site and in what order it appears relative to other competing sites. It will likely come as no surprise that Nielsen ratings ranks Google as the most widely used search engine. In October of 2009, of the top 10 search engines, over 2/3 of the searches where done on Google. That weighs in at 6,759,395 searches a month or over 225K searches per day (En-us Rankings B1)! Although a web developer can use SEO to make your site more visible to others, it is not the only way people can find your site. A comprehensive online marketing strategy should also include newsletters, blogs, email marketing, viral video, affiliate programs and possibly even twitter or some other real-time update service. Just putting your site up on the internet will not make your business a success even if you have the best product in the market. It needs to appear in front of them. How do they find you?

• Demand & Means •

Demand: potential customers “need” or “want” or “are made to want” what you are offering and in the “online world” even more so we combine that with the means – the ability to “buy it”. Means is more than just about having the funds though. It is also about a whole system of transferring the money from the buyer to the seller. As the method of transfer becomes easier, the amount someone is willing to part with increases. Web developers assist in developing the mechanisms that allow the processing of credit cards on websites. They additionally create processes that help meet customer expectations about how the processing of those transactions will transpire. You might ask, “Are the people who are online the customers with the means?” In a 2009 study, the Leitchman Research Group (LRG) found that 89% of households with and income greater than $75,000 per year have broadband internet access (Santo). Those with the largest disposable incomes would likely be able to find your service or product if it is readily available online. Essentially, most people in the U.S. with the funds (the means) and the desire (demand) do have access to this method of buying your product if they can find it (supply) and you can provide the ability to process the transaction (means, second part).

• Satisfaction •

Satisfaction relates to service quality, product quality, solution suitability, the process of purchase and “did I get what I expected?”. Without satisfaction, you may have made the first sale but it is not likely that you will get many more. Additionally, dissatisfied customers discourage other potential customers from purchasing from you. There is a well known piece of “sales-lore” that says one in every ten satisfied customers will tell others about your business but that every dissatisfied customer will tell 10 others about their negative experience with your business. The report, “The relative Importance of Website Design Quality…” mentions studies that confirm a well designed site is the main factor affecting first time customer decisions. They continue to confirm how service quality ties in with trust and also effects user satisfaction (Zhou 327). Online, service quality equates with: how well does your site work? What is the sequence of user interactions with the site? Is it easy to use? Does it feel dependable? Does it address the concerns of the user? Does it provide easy to understand feedback? How does it satisfy conscious and unconscious expectations? It is where web design and web development overlap and aims to balance “pushing the envelop” and “handling the users needs or expectations”. Depending on the type of site and the type of business, that mixture will vary in ratio. A web professional can help determine an effective mix.

• Website Design & Development •

Website design and website development are key processes that tie into your site’s effectiveness in creating trust, satisfaction, usability, service quality and thusly sales. Web design is more than simply about how your site looks; it is about how it works psychologically. It is how the information is presented. It is very important. Imagine walking into a store with great prices and the sales person comes up to you and begins yelling! You might walk out after being so assaulted and you certainly would not be in the mood to make a purchase. There is a reason why stores play music while you are shopping. Music can make you feel good. Store owners know that when people feel satisfied and pleased, they are more likely to make the decision to make a purchase. Presentation and ambiance effect purchase decisions, confidence and ideas about the identity and intention of those with which we are interacting. Good web developer ensures the experience on the web is solid, problems are caught, nothing falls through the cracks and that there are no unsightly errors. This leads to both customer confidence and satisfaction improving, which according to the design and service quality report mentioned earlier, increases likelihood customers will return (Zhou 334).

If you are going to invest time, effort and money into a business, you want it to be successful. Online success requires the solid foundation for sales, trust, satisfaction, usability and service quality that a professionally created site will deliver. It is a dividend which pays over and over with every person your site touches. When considering how you will implement technology in your business, consider the breadth and depth of the impact your website will have on your customers perception of your company. Website developers and website designers alike have a deep impact business. A professionally designed, professionally developed, professionally implemented website can literally make a business.

It can take years to learn all the skills used in artfully developing a website that ensures a full robust experience. It can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars in training and certification to establish a deep, wide scope that enables the right design and development decisions for a business owners needs. It can cost thousands of dollar for the sophisticated, industry standard software needed to design, develop and implement high quality sites especially when adding video and multi-media. Adobe Master Collection, the industry standard for web and video creative studios and professionals, is $2500 alone, not to mention all the other software that goes into the development process. When you consider a designer and/or web developer for your business, make sure there is a depth to the strategies that will be implemented for your organization. A proper hybrid designer-developer will be able to help you answer: What is your online strategy? What on-going budget is needed for SEO results so that people will find your site? How can we ensure there is a consistent brand to all our customers? How will the technology scale with more customers (e.g. grow in capabilities to serve a growing number of customers)? How will we process online payments? How can we fulfill orders? What strategies can we use to leverage technology in our existing business model? What models work online and which ones do not work so well?

Those businesses that do not choose to invest the time, effort and resources into their online strategies and processes are doomed to re-visit the decision over and over or worse; they pay for it: each customer costs more to find; they have lower customer retention; lower customer loyalty; and they are burdened by additional processes required to compensate for inefficiencies just to do the same things well-developed sites can do. Most companies understand that the “my brothers kid knows the web and he can do our website for only pay $500 and be done with it” attitude is leaving a company’s online potential to not only inexperience but to chance. Most also understand that a web designer’s or web developer’s scope, skills, training, experience and persistence will positively impact succeeding online; but still, some do not.
Your business can be stronger, more innovative and more visible if you utilize the proper strategies that are provided by professional web development and web design. Given the resources and proper input, web designers, web developers and hybrid designer-developers make the difference between websites that do not get results and those that create success on the web.

Works Cited

“E-Commerce spending will rise 11% to $156.1 billion this year, study says | InternetRetailer.com – Daily News.” InternetRetailer. Vertical Web Media, 05 May 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=30341>.

“En-us Rankings.” En-us Home. The Nielsen Company. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://

en-us.nielsen.com/rankings/insights/rankings/internet>.

Grau, Jeffrey. “EMarketer Revises E-Commerce Forecast.” Market research & statistics: Internet marketing, advertising & demographics. EMarketer Inc., 5 Mar. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1006948>.

Santo, Brian. “LRG: Economic divide extends beyond broadband.” (2009). Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine. Advantage Business Media, 11 June 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://www.cedmagazine.com/News-LRG-Economic-divide-beyond-broadband-061109.aspx>.

Zhou, Tao, Yaobin Lu, and Bin Wang. “The Relative Importance of Website Design Quality and Service Quality in Determining Consumers’ Online Repurchase Behavior.” Information Systems Management 26.4 (2009): 327-37. EBSCO. Taylor & Francis Group, Sept. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/10580530903245663>.