The power of color in web design is well-established. Most of us know the basics of color theory already: Blue is soothing. Red is passionate. Orange is energetic. It bears repeating, but it’s not earth-shattering news.

What’s more interesting to us than color psychology is how you can leverage this psychology to drive on-site behavior. Can you use specific colors to influence action?

The most obvious target for this, of course, is your website’s CTA.

It can happen to anyone and happens more often than we like. You hire a web design company or developer to build a website with the loftiest of goals, only to be served up a web asset that’s nothing like you envisioned.

Oh, maybe there were some red flags along the way that you overlooked. Maybe you didn’t vet your developer or web design company carefully enough. Maybe they assured you that delays were a natural part of the process. Or maybe they promised you that even though each deliverable was different than you imagined, the end result would come together as your vision brought to life in perfect form.  

Regardless of how it happened, your new website doesn’t cut it. What happens now?

We’re long past the days of “stock photos” being shorthand for lazy design. These days, many high-quality stock libraries are produced with care and are vetted by teams of creative professionals to make sure the images are up to par.

There’s a lot of work that goes into stock photos, and website owners shouldn’t underestimate their potential.

If you’ve followed any of our previous blog posts, you may have noticed that we’re not big fans of clutter in web design. Websites rife with distracting text and imagery overwhelm users and steal attention away from the most important aspects.

Here are three essential considerations for an e-commerce website designed with concise imagery and messaging.

Your website’s primary goals are to provide information, interact with visitors, and, eventually, set them on the road to conversion. Of course, “conversion” can mean many different things: Providing an email address, downloading content, receiving a quote, or even purchasing a product outright.

The web has come a long way from the clunky gifs that would often fail to load on Geocities. CSS animation has been building a reputation for itself as a design industry darling for some time now and not without good reason. There are unique benefits to using CSS animation in your web design in regards to functionality, UX design, and style.

By now, most of us are familiar with minimalism in web design. It’s the idea that you can say more with less and create a visual style through strategic use of simple elements:

• Hidden navigation/menus
• Simple, clean layouts
• Understated color palettes
• Preference for visuals over text
• Generous white space and room to breathe

What’s the point of a website?

Is it to provide information to your customers? Is it to engage with them? Is it to show off your brand’s persona?

Sure, all of the above is true. But to borrow from Star Trek, none of these goals are your Prime Directive. The Prime Directive—your website's guiding principle and number one goal—is to generate quality leads. Everything else is secondary.

Your website is an investment, and you’ll achieve a strong ROI only when you maximize your website’s ability to collect information, convert visitors, and bring these users into your marketing funnel.

The best way to do this is through a simple and understandable conversion path.

Who really "owns" a website?

Is it the business that sponsored its creation?

Is it the web design and development team that actually designed and built it?

Or is it someone else?

As a website owner, you probably believe that your website is yours. It’s not!

In truth, your website doesn’t belong to you—it belongs to your audience. They’re the consumers; the primary market for everything you do. As such, your web design and development project isn’t really about building what you want—it’s about using deliberate and stylistic choices to help you hit your mark.

Let’s review a few ways to make it happen.

As we recently discussed, the EU-based General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) are here, taking effect on May 25, 2018. This new regulation came in the wake of growing concerns about consumer privacy, particularly in how businesses handle the storage of personal information.