There's no doubt that the rush to web design seen ten years ago is higher and in more demand. But the business with a ten-year old web site design might as well be in the black hole of nobody trusts your site.
People have grown more savvy along with the ever-evolving Internet. You cannot just throw up any old web site with a do-it-yourself design or a freebie design some hosts and domain registrars give away as an incentive. It's obvious that these design solutions are not going to get you where you want to go. After all, there bare-bones creative with generic layouts and no imagination. They are free! Suited for a large audience so anyone can fit into the mold.
Who in the world is going to believe the information and trust an ecommerce site that is pathetic in creativity and lacks unique business credibility?
It's true that in many ways site design has stabilized over the last 5 years. The big corporations who now dominate the Web have brought stability, but also a level of dullness.
Of course, we all want usability: that's the term for how easy sites are to use. So say goodbye to the days of in-your- face graphics, fancy backgrounds and flash for banners and even entire websites. Websites heavy in graphics are still seen, but most (a very high percentage) are in a league of outdated creative. All premier websites are slick, fast-loading and highly creative.
So just want does creative services mean?
First, the consistency of style. You want your web pages to put on a conservative lounge look. White backgrounds, black text and blue links are normal, but you want to add touches of originality. Pretty much every home page looks like interior pages, so dress up with a separate layout. Create a dynamic and WOW home page.
From the visitor's point of view, creative consistency is good thing. Thin files containing very little formatting download in zippy. There's plenty of comforting familiarity and next to no confusion. Also, good.
The existence of what amounts to a plain site across the Web (mostly meaning simplicity) is part of the strongest signs that in the space of only ten years, the Web has moved from a minority pursuit to a mainstream medium. This is especially true for information look-ups and now with gas prices zooming beyond our comfort zone, more people turn to the Internet.
Use of creative tools means PNG so small it's barely measurable. Of course, GIFs and JPGs optimized for the web.
For web content, the Web is due for a shake-up. All indications are that many content providers are not seeing a return from original content. The cost and return figures just don't make it, and in this new, realistic Internet environment, that's a big deal. You want good web content, and that means creative services copywriting, and no skimping. Naturally, creative copy writing is what you want, In fact, for many site, a copy revise it essential!
All this change and evolution has a significant impact on the way the Web looks as a whole. Many web owners will make better use of existing material and rewrite and redesign to keep up with change. Meanwhile successful web page content continues to add web pages with sell copy and creative design solutions to up their ranking and build link popularity.
Change is already in progress, but expect a lot of rapid change as web owners run to make money. Fast-changing content will be the outcome for the savvy marketers and web owners. Even now. It's happening.
The creative services news for web development is that 70% of the top 130 Web sites researched used CGI and PHP turns up surprisingly often. Web development that we use for our high-end creative sites is Java, because it's currently on a rulling rampage. Java offers great flexibility and is only limited by the availability of web programmers to apply these scripts with creative pinache. And that's what we do!
Best advice. Add more pages, less graphics and more original content with plenty of sell copy. |
