Continuing something of a theme from last week’s blog post, it’s something that will be patently obvious to those experienced in working with ‘creative’.
And that is that the better the quality of your logo, the better the quality of your website.
To many, it will follow that those who invest wisely in their logo will follow suit with their website, but there is more to it than that.
From the outset, a poor quality logo will set your website visitors on the back foot, as it gives the perception that your organisation is not completely quality conscious or perhaps a little out of touch with professional presentation.
Whilst professional presentation may not be critical for many businesses, it still provides a cue to your general quality standards and may mean the difference between the visitor going on to do business with you or not.
Good design = good organisation
Don’t underestimate this when it comes to doing business online. Because visitors often can really go on what they are seeing on your website, everything they see online will either give your business a little tick or a little cross.
And needless to say the more ticks you get, the more likely they will take that vital next step with you.
In fact, one piece of research dating back almost a decade suggests that it takes only milliseconds for website visitors to determine whether or not they want to continue into your website.
This isn’t so much an indication of a short attention span as it is the standards visitors expect of websites.
But apart from this, logos provide a starting point for the rest of the website design.
Logo as starting point
A good designer will create the look of the website around the general design of the logo.
So, if your logo is red and yellow, they will select colours for panels, text, menus, backgrounds and other elements that will complement those colours.
Similarly, if a logo is futuristic, they will design the rest of the website to appear futuristic as well, using imagery, visual effects and elements like buttons and other page transition factors.
In good hands, the end result is a cohesive and enticing design which not only gives your organisation a stamp of professionalism but encourages the visitor to take the relationship further.
That uneasy feeling
But in bad hands, you end up with a website that seems to fight with itself, with elements that just don’t seem to gel and give you the opposite feeling to the above reaction.
In other words, a website that is an effort to move around and just give the impression that either the designer or the business, or possibly both, doesn’t quite know what they’re doing.
Even in the non-online world, a good logo provides that sense of professionalism that lifts your business above the competition.
How often have you been handed a business card and had your opinion of the person providing it altered by its fundamental quality?
“But I can’t afford a good logo” I hear some of you cry.
Very affordable design
Whilst I would never encourage any business operator to scrimp on the cost of having a professional (and ideally local) designer create this important ‘corporate identity’, the truth is that technology has seen the cost of good design plummet.
Crowdsourced design services like Design Crowd and 99 Designs can provide outstanding designs for under $500.
If you aren’t familiar with these, they are essentially design ‘competitions’ where participating designers submit their creative work based on your briefing and the successful applicants wins your business.
If want to keep the business local, you can even nominate that all designers sourced must be from within your country or region.
These provide an excellent starting point not only for your website but for all of your business stationery and promotional materials.
So, if you’ve struggled to get your website appearance to compete with your competitors, consider investing in a new logo or corporate identity and having that applied to your website.
It may well make the difference you have been looking for to convert your browsers to buyers.
In addition to being a leading eBusiness educator to the smaller business sector, Craig Reardon is the founder and director of independent web services firm The E Team which was established to address the special website and web marketing needs of SMEs in Melbourne and beyond.
Craig has been assisting and educating Australian smaller businesses with their marketing and website requirements since 2002 via his business The E Team.
Comments