For any business nowadays a web site is a must. The Internet has become the place where people browse for entertainment, find out information and socialise. That means a huge amount of potential customers out there but it also means a myriad of sites that are the competition. So how do you get people to come to your web site, stay to look and come back?

It basically comes down to how your web site is designed.

Web designers Netclues have designed numerous web sites worldwide and here in Cayman and talking to Jay Mehta, online marketing and sales manager gives an insight into the way people use the internet; how it has evolved and changed; and how this in turn has affected web design and the knock on effect of how people do business.

Mehta says “Google and face book have changed the way we do everything.” Face book because it allows people to recommend sites to each other and Google because of its vast search engine. He also says that content has become king and people want more information, news letters, photos, videos and so on.

What you really need

For a small business getting a website up and running may seem slightly daunting but that is where designers like Mehta come in because they have the experience and expertise to know what works and what does not and how complex your system actually needs to be.

The first basic thing you will be asked by a web designer says Mehta is “What

 kind of business is it? If say its something like clothes you might just need a basic website where you show what you offer. Next one up would have links with social media sites such as Facebook so that there is two way communication and people can share it.” Social media has become very important as it is a word of mouth type recommendation.

Another more sophisticated system would be providing a newsletter to detail new products or news about the company. This is done through sending emails to what ideally would be a constantly expanding group of customers. If you are selling products then you will also need the ability to sell online and the security set ups that go with it. Mehta says they also get a lot of requests for video and photo libraries which adds yet another dimension to a website.

Simple or complex

Systems can be

simple or complex depending on what the business needs or the budget available. A basic website costs around $1000, while a more complex site with more systems attached can cost around $15,000.

Most businesses nowadays opt for content management systems because they incorporate most of the features needed. Netclues has designed its own a state of the art PowerPanel that can be customised and managed to suit individual businesses with features such as newsletters,photo and video libraries built in.

Mehta gives an example, “For instance if you are a coffee shop and you want to send out daily menus at 9am to people on your list then the system can be set up to automatically do this. Once it’s added no-one has to go in and manually do it again until it needs to be changed .”

Yet another example he gives is of a bank which had three different versions of a website for three different countries. This obviously creates confusion and does not send out the message of it being one brand.

Mehta says “what it needed was a worldwide site with one domain. Then you navigate to the other sites and they have the same people, same theme.”

Text and visuals

How you set up your text also has to be considered depending on what type of company you are. Mehta points out

that “a financial institution needs information; that means text, then how  many pieces of text,

 then you have to consider how many lines in each text.”

The first information people will be looking for on a real estate site on the other hand, is how to find residential or commercial properties

 and then you want to be able to view the properties - so the two different businesses require two very different approaches.

How text is laid out and what type of text is used are just the bare outlines. How your website becomes a workable and attractive reality is down to the designer’s magic touch.

Mehta says they also get people who come to them for solutions for a website that is just not working for them.”Sometimes we get people who come in and say ‘my website looks pretty but it does not come up on search engines and I am not getting many hits. Why?’ This is down to how different servers scan information. Netclues systems on the other hand are set up to be search engine friendly - they are scanned quickly and the site comes up quickly.”

Their websites also have what is called a Google analytics service which gives statistics of how many people visit a site and how long they stay, as well as more information which gives useful feedback on how effective a website is.

Mehta says that their role is to use their expertise and experience to advise a client on what the best options would be for them considering the purpose of their business and then, along with the client’s input, to come up with a website with a design which is functional but also draws in the public.