There's web design, and then there's professional, business-oriented web design. What's the difference? This article simplifies that question into four critical answers.

On today's internet, your clients are becoming experts. Your competition is also quite savvy, and the bottom line is that the internet is no longer a dust bowl where any sign of life is welcome.

No, today, the internet is a sophisticated place requiring a sophisticated presence. A business web design firm has to provide you with that required level of sophistication - and if it doesn't, your website will be, at best, "quaint."

So, from our experience in providing web design services, here is the expert answer to what differentiates just any useable design, from a good business website design. Skip any part of this advice at your own peril!

Top-Notch Presentation

Look around the web and think about it - the point of pristine presentation is not nearly as obvious as it seems.

A business web design needs to be professional-looking, sure. Everyone knows that. But that's not the end-all, be-all point of presentation. Unique use of color and space are a good start. Correct use of industry style guides are important, albeit easy to overdo.

Emphasis of your company's branding is for the tame and the weak. The mark of an excellent business website designer, is taking your branding to the next level, not only utilizing it, but amplifying and contributing to it.

In short, the modern bar for effective, correctly-realized business web design is one that goes far beyond the "Yeah, sure, okay" mark. You want a designer that aims much higher, and has the confidence and skill to pull it off reliably.

Action-Oriented Site

Back in the 1990s, businesses were saying, "Well, I guess we need a website." Today, that's a woefully unfinished statement. Business web design goals are now inseparably married to core business goals, and like any good marriage, the website needs to pull its weight in that relationship.

Your company needs leads - your website must provide all the same avenues for gathering those leads, as every other part of your company combined.

Your company needs revenue - your website needs to attract people who are ready to buy now, ready to evaluate their shopping decisions now, ready to build their wish list or gift registry now.

An effective business website is not designed to be a throw-away brochure that does nothing but remind the public your company exists. It needs to be a tool for the most important segment of your market - people with cash in hand, ready to take action.

Search Engine Optimized

5 Shades Media includes basic search engine optimization (SEO) with every website design contract, for one simple reason. Every business website design contract lacking a level of effective SEO, is a complete waste of money.

Neglecting SEO on a business website contract, is like building your storefront in a county that doesn't have roads, electricity or plumbing. It's a tree that fell in the woods where nobody heard it.

Ask any entrepreneur you know who's commissioned a business website, but didn't get SEO services - and they'll tell you that they got zero return on investment. Zilch, nada, nothing.

Search engine optimization for a business website, to craft a clear analogy, is the road and the parking lot outside your business.  Without it, you're surrounded by crickets.

Technically Excellent

In a big way, this point is an offshoot of search engine optimization. Every website is being constantly, silently judged by search engines. First the search engine finds you, through normal SEO practices... and then the search engine judges your quality, based on the way it uses technology.

This doesn't mean that the website incorporating the most bells and whistles wins the race.

It means the website that focuses on doing things right, with industry-accepted standard practices, wins.

In Conclusion

You need a business website design firm that knows business just as well as it knows website design.

The dividing line between an artist and a crafts person is found in these points that either lead to revenues, or don't.

Do you want a work of art, or a well-oiled, buyer-facing business machine?

Contact 5 Shades Media to get started with effective business website design services.