Get Freedom's Website Design Philosophy

Build A Lean, Clean, Search Engine Friendly
Selling Machine

To have a website design philosophy that is any less, pretty much defeats the purpose of having a business website. Entertainment websites being the exception.

I subscribe to these 6 basic Tennants in My Website Design Philosophy:

Every Web Page Must Be Quick Loading
Yes I know the increase in Hi-Speed Internet Connections has grown exponentially but even hi-speed users still expect immediate gratification. That means no 100k plus images, FLASH or bloated JAVA scripts.

Reveal the WIIFM Immediately (Above The Fold)
What's In It For Me - If site visitors don't immediately see whether or not you have what they came to your web page for, you can't expect them to look around on their own to find it.

Have Text And Image Content That Is Compelling, Easy To Read And Understand - Your page content has to quickly persuade your site visitor they came to the right place.

Make It Easy To Navigate To The Rest Of The Sites Information
Even if your web page initially persuades a visitor you have what they want; If navigation is confusing or cumbersome - CLICK - they are outa there.

Layout Must Be Conducive To Reaching The Goals For Each Web Page - A web page layout can directly and indirectly have a dramatic affect on the potential for that page to accomplish the goal the site owner has set for it. For example: If the goal of a web page is to get the page visitor to click on Pay Per Click advertisments like Google's AdSense, the site owner may want to see what Google has to say about it. If filling out an Opt-In Form to sign up to receive the site owners weekely coupon specials, the layout may be significantly different than for Pay Per Click ads. If both are on the same page, maybe a different layout all together.

Must be Architecturally Structured To be User and Search Engine Friendly - Just because you are able to capture the attention of your site/page visitor, that doesn't mean you have captured the attention of the major search engines. If you can't do both on every page of your website, you are only doing half the job.

All of the design tennants listed above are my foundation when considering the actual structure of a website's pages.

So lets take a look at the architectural structure of a web page from the average Internet user's point of view.

Information Architecture Challenges and Solutions

THE CHALLENGE - Understanding Who and What your Internet Prospects Are:

First and Foremost They Are Spoiled And Require Instant Gratification

We've all been spoiled by the Internet. The Result; We All Want Immediate Gratification, (Admit it; you do too). With the proliferation of hi-speed Internet connections, we now have at our finger tips, instantaneous access to the combined knowledge of the entire planet.

All we have to do is type in a question at our favorite search engine; press ENTER and we are instantly served up a list of the top 10 web pages or content choices the search engine determines are the most relevant based on keyword phrase or term and site popularity.

We click on the listing description it appears will best address our question or problem with an answer or solution.

Once we get to the linked page that hopefully contains the information we seek, we quickly scan what is immediately visible (Without scrolling down
. . . not yet that is). We may take 5 to 7 seconds (10 if the site owner is lucky), to see if a web page might actually have the information we're seeking or will at least lead us to where we can find that information.

If we don't find what we're looking for immediately, we know we can (And usually do), instantly click back to the original search engine results page and click on another descriptive link to see what it has to offer.

The Plot Thickens - now we have an adult "Generation X+" of impatient people that grew up online, trying to find what they need or want in seconds versus maybe 5 or 10 minutes of thumbing through the old Yellow Pages - or god forbid actually going to local business and shopping a couple of hours to find what we need.

THE SOLUTION - Step Up To The Challenge - Take Advantage Of The Modern Online Prospect's Impatience; you present your business offer on your web pages in a way that turns that problem of impatience and quick scanning eye balls, into an opportunity to pull that potential buyer into your virtual mini-presentation and immediately start forming a relationship with your prospect.

For more about Online Relationship Marketing . . . .