5 Design Tips To Enhance Your Brand’s Exposure
Our host today is Noel Addison Agnote. If you're interested in getting in front of the readers of Site Sketch 101, check out our guest posting invitation here.
With the massive boom of the World Wide Web, many companies have started taking their brands online. The allure of reaching out to a bigger market is too much for even small companies to pass up. With millions of internet users, business owners understand that once they gain respect in the online front, their businesses would take one step higher in the ladder of success.
Building a website though is an arduous task. While one can get away with a bare-essentials website back in the early days of internet marketing, the same cannot be said in these modern times. Apart from making it standout from the millions of sites on the Internet, it is also the duty of internet marketers to make sure that their brand is imprinted in the minds of every visitors of their website.
#1
The Logo
One of the first things that you need to take care of is your brand’s logo. If you are not good at drawing a logo from scratch, you can easily find freelancers to do it for you. Once you have that done, or if you already have one used in your offline business, make sure that it is prominently displayed in all pages of your website. The top left of each page is the best place for it as internet users are used to seeing the name of the website displayed in that space.
By having your logo in all pages of your website, you ensure that every visitor to your website, no matter what page they land in would instantly know where they are. An eye-catching logo would further pique their interest to learn more about your company which brings me to the next web design tip.
#2
The Footer
Have a uniform footer that would be displayed in all pages of your website too. In the footer, make sure that there is a link to your “About Us” page. By doing this, once you have grabbed the attention of website users, they can easily navigate to that page to learn more about what you do or what products you are offering.
#3
The Tagline
A tagline is also strongly recommended. Big name brands have always used taglines to tell people what they are about. Think of it as your “About Us” page compressed into a phrase of a few words. Your tagline should be catchy and at the same time have something to say about your business.
#4
The Favicon
Since we are talking about web design, it is also a great idea to have your own favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar of browsers. This is an easy way for people to check what sites are open in what tabs. While it would entail making another design, usually a smaller version of your brand’s logo, it goes a long to ensure that your site users would have an easier time looking for your website especially today where multi-tabbed browsing is the norm.
#5
The Color Scheme
Pick a good color that would match what your company does and use it as a theme for your site. When picking the color, make sure that it would be easy on the eyes. Stay away from loud colors as it could be straining to the eye, an inconvenience that could drive potential customers away.
Brandi Starr said:
Great post a #6 to this could include having the sharing icons prominently placed on your site. The more the visitor can connect with your brand the more likely they are to become a customer.
Ava Jae said:
Great tips! I definitely have to start thinking about designing a favicon. I’ve been putting it off for too long.
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Stan Faryna said:
It’s hard to believe that I have been making websites and online marketing collateral since 1995.
So much has changed. Technology, browsers, standards, bandwidth, etc.
So much remains the same. Good design, for example, will always be good design. And design? Design is always about solving one or more problems.
Whether we are talking about brochure-ware or the million dollar community application, all are judged equally by the same basic criteria: Service, Usability, Information, and Trust.
I’ve reviewed and analyzed 10,000 or more websites since 1996. And I still find myself going back to the same question that I asked ages ago: Does the SUIT fit?
Noel lists some good tips here. Pay attention.
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Matei said:
I tend to use a lot of blue in my color schemes…at least until i get a little trust from the visitors and from Google.
Don’t know if you believe me, but blue makes the visitors trust more the site, don’t know why.
Ricardo Bueno said:
The tagline is the part that I keep revisiting. Right now, it’s a bit long in my opinion. But so far, it seems to work and effectively communicates what my site is about.
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Ryan Critchett said:
Big deal. It’s pretty interesting reading about UX and the difference the color in the call to action button makes in people’s minds. So needless to say, design is definitely affecting psychology. Going through the process of building all of this up with a new blog. OOOO! It’s always so exciting.
ah hong said:
Personally I love dafont.com as the source to create logo at zero cost. But if you are doing serious business, follow Noel’s advice by getting a freelancer to design the logo for you cos’ branding matters
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Noel Addison said:
Thank you for your great comments!
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Gary Riding said:
Nice post and thanks for explaining what a favicon is! I managed to get a really nice logo done for only $5, so it should be within the grasp of anyone creating a brand.
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Ellen said:
really nice post, it tells all the basics of building a site. i haven’t designed a favicon yet, but now i’m inspired to do it. thanks for sharing!
Alexis said:
Such a timely post as these are ALL things I’ve been thinking about. Good tag lines are so FANTASTIC and also RARE (I actually hate my own and have been furiously brainstorming without success).
Does anybody have any good thoughts for how to most effectively use the footer? So often it becomes a repository for things already found in the main navigation or sidebar. Is this the best use? Are there other things that should be there? Do people even scroll down that far anymore?
Would welcome any thoughts – thanks!
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AffiliateReaviewsHome said:
Nice for the reminders, I agree with what you said in respect to Brands Logo. Thanks.
ron@AML said:
I have considered all the 4 on all my sites layout, except the footer.. i didn’t really minded the footer and never thought it could give much essence to the site, but after reading your post here..i guess i need to redo my layouts abd bout the favicon i just made a smaller size logo arroud 35×35 pixels. Nice post by the way and it was a good read.Thanks
Samuel said:
Wow the favicon! Didn’t think that it was that important, but reading it here, it does make sense in a way. Sometimes I myself have open many tabs and I quickly find exactly what I need at looking at the tab icon. What coincidence to this article.
android development said:
favicons are not VERY important but i think you will agree that it’s much more pleasant to see an icon for a tab than nothing. so it adds to the favorable impression from your site
Gruzovie Perevozki said:
Good post. I think the serial connectors annoy all of us. However, the jokes on them, because it really is a waste of time.
Jae said:
I would only one thing to this; and that is either a phone number or email address where your potential customers can reach you.
Eric Bloom said:
Dang, I’m missing 3 of these. Back to work!!
Eric
Matthew said:
Your sites awesome. Great job.
Andrea said:
This is a great list. I think we should delegate this tasks to a good designer. Sometimes we want to build an online business alone and the results are not always optimal.
Noel Addison said:
Thanks for the great comments!
Nitin Agrawal said:
Hey!! Noel ,, its really good..#6 designing tips are very beneficial for me..
Thanx for sharing such information
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Pete said:
I always leaved the logo and branding ect to the end of any project – I think I’m probably getting it the wrong way around.
The next site I’m going to set up will be logo first…
Tom said:
These are all important steps which are often ignored. Favicon’s are often left as the default of the theme. These are important for when people bookmark your site.
Shane said:
Nice. I love reading these condensed tips, they’re always a good way to check yourself and keep you on track. I think I have most of these down but No.3, I always struggle with the tagline.
Tiffany said:
Hi Noel,
You made excellent points in your post. To sum it up though, I think creating a design for our website is like creating the right packaging for a certain product. Everything should speak about our brand.
greg ascentive said:
I’ve run into so many small businesses that see their logo design and web layout as basically after-thoughts. There are so many poorly designed logos out there… if you don’t have a wonderful talent for design, you need to admit this to yourself and outsource to someone with the skill to deliver a classic iconic logo!
Wong Chendong aka The Bad Blogger said:
I have to admit good design does get a person more exposure then he or she could possibly dream of.
I started out with just a normal theme and a logo 3 years ago, and now my blog design and logo design had make great numbers of people who remember it. I had spend $1000 for my blog design and almost $300 for just the logo, and I had not yet regret the investment as it brings me the exposure and liking from money blogger in the same niche as I am. I’m really proud of it!
Trudis said:
Great takeaways Noel! All the tips are substantial to promote your brand however, I think stressing more on the logo and the tag line will help viewers retain a certain part of you each time they visit your website or see your brand. It has to be catchy and easy to memorize
Jan Wayed said:
Thanks! Yes, I agree with you Trudis.
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Derek Little aka Hamilton Web Design Guy said:
Great takeaways Joel – you’ve hit all the high points. Keep up the good news.
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Noel Addison said:
It’s Noel not Joel. LOL! Anyway thanks Derek!
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Tim said:
Hi Noel,
Love the tips! I added a favicon to my site too and it’s really cool. I still don’t have a logo but my team is working on it. Like you said, it’s one of the most important things to consider in terms of branding so we’re really thinking of an awesome logo to represent who we are. Great stuff man, thanks!
Robin Jennings said:
Favicon’s are so often an after thought but can really aid in creating awareness.
Especially with so many peoples huge amount of bookmarked sites that having a nice Favicon helps to make you stand out.
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Jason Osborne @ Web Design Dallas said:
Noel, great article. You detailed five tips I start out with every day while evaluating a potential client’s website.
One other tip I would point out…although it is off topic. If you are going to put up a website, please please please advertise an email address @ your domain. I cannot count the number of clients who still have yahoo or aol email addresses on their business cards.
Ok, my rant is over. Again, great article!
Sahil Kotak said:
All the points above mentioned are really important factors. Logo is surely most important in my views and then comes the color scheme.
Thanks,
Sahil
Kavya Hari said:
Logo is one of the most important part in the designing side. And, it will be attracting side on here. So, i would like to say thanks for given great article on here
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Gold Investment said:
As a beginner designer I liked this post very much and your blog design is awesome
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Joel said:
A small business can get a lot of mileage out of a good tagline, and it can go a long way toward helping establish a unique identity, which, is a major goal of marketing. A tagline I’ve been using for about a decade
(with some variations) is “Small Business Marketing Strategies that Produce Optimal Results.” It makes use of targeted keywords and includes one of the words in my business name: “optimal”.
Mel Melhado said:
Logos says a lot about our business so its important to design it perfectly, freelancers do such works perfectly and at a cheaper rate. Whether its online business or any type of business it is important to have a good logo.
Akash Kumar said:
Good post, however I have’t seen many of the big websites even using a favicon. Just wonder why?
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Really? I see favicons at most professional websites. It’s also incredibly useful to have favicons for folks who use the Pin Tab feature in their browsers.