Article - Solid Web Site Design or Vanity Web Sites?

In spite of the fact that successful web design and promotion largely depend on high quality content, compliant code and a clear understanding of visitor preferences, many clients in need of web design services disregard tried and tested methods and their own customer's preferences in favour of a personal vision of how things 'should' work.

An example of this may be found in an overseas property company which shall remain nameless. The owner of this company, specializing in the sale of properties in Cyprus, insisted that his web site be designed to mimic the appearance of a well known British tabloid newspaper.

Whilst the client was quite correct in his observation that this publication is the most commonly read newspaper in the UK, his subsequent conclusion that any luxury overseas property web site which adopted this same newspaper's layout and colour scheme would attract large numbers of clients was fundamentally flawed in a number of ways.

For one, commercial web design must cater for a project's target audience and, whilst a tabloid may indeed have the highest readership of any newspaper in Britain, its readers are (by and large) not the type to buy high-end villas and penthouses in the Republic of Cyprus.
If a newspaper layout is to be used to sell luxury properties, a broadsheet appearance will hold far greater appeal to those with both the capital and active intent to buy a property overseas.

The second fundamental flaw was the fact that according to the customer (who is always right; right?) absolutely every page on the site had to be part of the main navigation menu to "make things easier for users".
Since the basic brief called for an eighty plus page site, this took some doing and eventually led to an intensely confusing user experience.

Flaw number three entered the frame through excessive use of specialist knowledge.
Whilst convincing your visitors that your company is an authority in its field is a desirable thing, it is not normally a good idea to treat them as complete idiots and patronize them every step of the way.

In this case however, the customer could not be gainsaid or even coaxed into taking a more user-friendly approach to his site's web design.

As a result, although the site performed as well as could be expected in the major search engine's listings and received a substantial number of daily visitors (300+), its conversion rates were sadly lacking with hardly any enquiries being registered.
Traffic statistics revealed that the bulk of visitors were hitting the site, taking one look at the garish red colours and cluttered layout and disappearing off to find an overseas property specialist with a slightly more respectable looking and less confusing web site.

Ultimately, the client paid an 'SEO Guru' several thousand pounds for a critical analysis which confirmed what a series of humble web developers had been telling him all along:
"The site is confusing and not nearly user-friendly enough."

Whilst this article may sound like a bit of a rant, it does highlight an all too common problem for today's web design industry or at least that part of it which deals with small and medium businesses; the vanity web site.

A certain percentage of clients blatantly disregard every common sense approach to web design & promotion and ask developers to produce sites according to strict personal specifications without even considering their expert input for an instant
("If you don't want to do it my way, I'll find someone who will.").
In these cases, the results are often a testament to the client's ego rather than a viable attempt at designing, launching and promoting a successful commercial web site.

Worse still; when things go wrong as they invariably will, nine out of ten of these clients place the blame for their vanity web site's lack of performance squarely on the web designer's shoulders without a moment's hesitation.

Most established web designers and web design companies benefit from many years of industry experience and will advise all clients to the best of their ability.
Any prospective client not willing to listen to this advice is likely to be after a vanity web site rather than a serious commercial endeavour and therefore liable to cause a long-term headache for their designer.

Before taking a web design contract of this type, ask yourself whether it will really be worth the potential aggravation left in its wake.

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About The Author:

Sasch Mayer has been writing under contract to IceGiant Web Design in Cyprus since the beginning of 2006. An experienced author with over a decade's experience, he currently lives in Larnaca, Cyprus. The IceGiant web site provides, further, non-syndicated articles, information and high-quality web services.

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