Are looks everything in Webdesign?

Surfing through different websites on the internet, a great looking website will always attract you as a viewer. And the looks of a website are very important. But websites can not thrive on looks alone.
A website has to not only look good and function properly. And you should always remember that the purpose of most websites is to be found on internet searches, to appear on page 1 of Google and to enable an increase in traffic to your business. Anything that might restrict any of these points should be used carefully.

When it comes to websites ranking on the search engines, robots are the key. And to achieve high ranking, you need the search engine robots on your side. Robots crawl through the text of your website but do not see images, images are more or less useless from the robots view. So any web design that is mainly images may well lose out when crawled by the robots compared to a website that has fewer images and more text. This is why flash websites can perform badly in search engine rankings. They look great but are difficult to crawl.

Websites needs to be designed as robot friendly as possible. It needs to be fully compliant with current web standards, none compliance can mean that a robot only crawls part of a web page rather than the whole page and so misses key points on your web page. A robots ideal web site would be pure text and code. Very boring for humans.

So for a website design to function well it needs to satisfy robots need for text and code and humans need for looks and images. So it is the balance of these two factors that is important. And a good web design should give equal effort to both aspects to give you a website that will perform.

So the answer to the question is NO looks are not everything in web design.
Feature article by Afford Web Design Suffolk UK in Raw Business http://www.rawbusiness.com/features/are-looks-everything-in-webdesign-afford-web-design-suffolk-discusses-157.php

What does a website bring to your business?

Business web design Suffolk

When a business decides to get their first website, they see it as a tool to attract more customers and increase their business. And this is exactly what a website should give to a business, whether its a new website or an established website. Unfortunately alot of businesses don't really know what they want when they coomission a website design. They think that 'all websites are equal'. And this is far from true.

To illustrate what I mean by 'all websites are not equal' I will elaborate on this. At its simplest a website is an extra form of advertising for your business, like an online brochure or leaflet. And like any brochure or leaflet, there are several points that will determine whether your brochure will 'pull in extra business'. The biggest difference between paper and internet brochures, is that the internet offers so much instant choice to people. So you need to 'grab their attention' very quickly and a slick website may or may not do that. A few points to good website design for success in business.

• Design of the website or brochure is important. A design that looks good is important in attracting attention. But equally important is a design that is easy to read, easy to follow and gives a clear call to action. A website looks great but is difficult to navigate or difficult to find contact details is little more than useless. So looks are important in website design but they are not everything in web design. 
• Website must project exactly what your business is about in an instant. For example a lovely picture of a motorbike on the front page does not on its own indicate whether you sell, repair, review, polish, drive, rent, photograph motorbikes or maybe sell motorbike clothing, holidays, garaging. The first page of your website has to convey exactly what you do within a few seconds because most people assess whether to stay on a web page or not within just a few seconds.
• Web site design should be clearly show your contact details. Your contact details should not be an after thought in the footer but near the start of the web page. This is particularly important for 'smaller, unknown businesses'. Big businesses like Marks and Spencers are well known and don't need added credibility on a web page whereas small businesses that want to widen their market to become national or international need to give themsselves added credibility with good contact information. Many people are nervous of online information and added credibility is good.
• Web site must be easy to navigate. If I land on your web page having searched for motorbike helmets, I need to be able to see exactly where to find my information on motorbike helmets. The information or page link should be very clear. If I can not see it within a few seconds I will go to another web site to find my information.
• Links on web pages should work correctly. This may sound obvious but how many times have you clicked web links and either nothing happened or you were directed to a parked page? Web links must work correctly.

If all these web site design pointers have been addressed, you will have a working and useful website. The next step is to optimise your web site for the search engines to get found by the search engines. Affordable Website Design Suffolk UK can help achieve good business web sites within a sensible budget.