Boutique Website Design F.A.Q.s

Why Is The First Page Of My Beautiful Website Design Important?

A concise, relevant home page tells the visitor immediately the products or services on offer. I don't mean a blank gateway page - which is an SEO no no, I am referring to a spa, salon or boutique front page that is keyword rich, intelligible and leads the reader through the site in an organic and natural way, keeping the interests with well written copy and gorgeous imagery.

Know your spa salon or boutique visitor, find out what she likes and dislikes in a site. I personally dislike flash sites that I have to wait for them to load so they can show off the skills of the designer. I want the low down of the site, and I want it relatively fast. The more legible, stylish and/or fun and chic your first page, the more likely your potential female customer is to click through to other pages in your boutique. Relevant content on that first page means search engines can read all about your stylish and feminine business and list your content on their index.

While an opening spa salon or boutique splash page may be pretty, you need to weigh up the need for SEO factors versus being pretty. Think of it like the front window of a store or a reception area of an office. If people don't know what is in the store or office why would they open the door?

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How To I Turn A Visitor Into A Customer?

An inspiring spa salon or boutique "call to action" or contact icon on each page is vital. Clear icons can be really effective. Make sure your contact page is clear, and all your contact methods are listed. Also provide clients with as much information as possible. Google Maps can be embedded into your site showing your customer how to find you.

Is The Text of The Website Important?

While a beautiful web design is vital, the actual text content is one of the most important features to your website’s success. Grammar, spelling and well organised information is probably the most important factor in your feminine website design. Give people a reason to stay in your online boutique. Offer clear concise facts about your girly product or service, and keep it up to date.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

A much thrown about term, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO refers to the way a site is structured, submitted as well as the content within the site, that makes it relevant in internet searches. Great, relevant content is the cornerstone to success on the internet.

Most search engines base their criteria for results on about a million factors, and so getting to the top in the rankings can be a complicated process, but there are some things you can do to make your site search engine friendly.

Why Are Keywords and Metadata Important?

The objective is to ensure that your site comes up in the first page of search engine results for your main keywords.Your keywords not only have to be in the head section of your site, but much also be found in the actual content of the site, and in this case subtle repetition is the key.

For example, if your website is for a natural cosmetic range, your metadata might include terms such as 'make up', 'makeup', 'cosmetics', 'lipstick', 'gloss', 'natural', 'organic', 'mineral' or any other terms that best describe your range. However, some keywords are just too competitive, unless you are specific, and go for a niche in that market. So, instead of "make up" you might want to have "natural make up", "organic make up", "natural cosmetics" and so on.

To lift your position in search engines' results you also need to ensure your title tag is descriptive and you use your keywords in the body of your document as well as in your metadata.

Can You Desigm The Site to Be Search Engine Friendly?

A website's structure (the relationships between its content) needs to be mindful of SEO issues. From a client's perspective, it is more cost effective to incorporate Search Engine Optimisation when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it. At Blossom the site is designed proactively, incorporating SEO factors.

It is always more reliable for long lasting search engine results to conform to the search engines' guidelines with no deception. Ensure that your create your content for users, not for the search engines, and make the content easy to access. Trying to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose is called Black Hat SEO or Spamdexing, using link farms and keyword stuffing. This degrades both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Many Search engines are wise to this and look for sites that employ these techniques and ultimately remove them from the index.

Why Is Good Photography So Important?

Invest in professional photography if you are selling products online. Blossom has a close relationship with a professional photographer so please enquire about photography if I am doing your ecommerce site.

The more professional your product looks the more upscale your brand looks.

Remember, your customer can't touch, taste or smell your products, in the same way that you can when in a physical store, so photography and diagrams are a must.

Sharp, well retouched and colour balanced product images may mean the difference between a confirmed customer and a passing visitor.

Don't try to save money on your images. The advantage you have over a retail store is very low rent, but one of the major disadvantages if that the potential customer can't see the item. Allow them to do this through clean, colour matched, well lit, professional images. images taken with your phone or happy snap camera simply don't cut it, and will drive your customers away. It's well worth the investment.

Why Should a Site be Simple and Clear?

There is enough visual pollution online. If there is too much going on the visitor will be overwhelmed and leave. Avoid the temptation to use all the bells and whistles available to web designers (e.g. flash). Search engine prefer that topics are separated onto separate pages, so if you have one long page with many topics, you may not rank high in Google.

Why Keep Your Colour Palette SIMPLE?

The most professional sites tend to use only 2 – 4 colours across the site. Use colour for a reason. Create a mood, to highlight important points or to enhance a product with colour. A fabulous site for inspirational colour usage is colourlovers.com

Don't Write a Ransom Note!

Keep your font use fairly minimal and clean. Make it legible, but not chunky. Use contemporary css styling to maintain styles throughout the website and keep it clean.

How Can I Inspire Customers?

Put yourself in your customer's shoes. Think about what they want to see and feel about your product. Make them feel good, give them a positive experience at all levels of the purchasing experience including the sale. Have a gorgeous yet effective checkout once they buy, send attractive emails after the sale thanking them. Women tend to appreciate the little things more than men, so take this into consideration with your site design at all levels.

Flash Vs Web Standards

This is an extremely complex issue, but put simply, Flash has a place in but a complete flash site may not impress all of you visitors, especially if it is slow to load or generally “takes over”. Flash and other non-HTML formats can be problematic for search engines, so ensure your or your web designer takes the appropriate steps to optimise the content. There are many people that hate waiting for a flash site to load. Respect your visitor, and give them an option to skip a flash intro. Question whether it is necessary or if you are just satisfying the ego of the web designer.

Navigate with Ease

Your site must be easy to get around. Navigation should be simple and consistent. If your menus are logical, intuitive (but still innovative) and easy to follow you visitor can find what they are looking for easily and quickly.

Keep in Touch

E newsletters are a cost effective and environmentally friendly way to keep in touch with clients and attract new ones. It’s simple to implement and really does make a difference if the content of the newsletter offers the reader insights, special offers or tips. Note: Make sure if you do collect data from customers and visitors, have a privacy policy to ensure your subscribers that you will be respectful of their information.

Respect Your Visitor’s Time

Keep your site load time to a minimum, with optimised graphics and reasonable sizes. If you have a graphic heavy site (let's face it, sometimes they look better), optimise and compress the files so they load faster. If it's not essential to the sites function or overall aesthetic, can you do without it? You don't need to put every bell and whistle in your designer's tool box. Keep your images optimised and a consistent size.

Know Your Visitor

Keep the needs and wants of you visitor in mind when you write or design your site. Women approach web sites in very differently to how a site is designed. Most visitors skim the content rather than read, making quick choices not really evaluating. It's an emotional experience a lot of the time.

The female visitor is generally goal driven and can be impatient. Simple clear information is vital, either in photography, text information or navigation. A designer creating sites for a feminine target market must have clear insight into those goals. Your designer needs to be able think like your potential customer, and generally if you target market is female, it makes sense that your designer female (or at least in touch with their feminine side).

When writing your content or choosing your imagery, think about where, how and when the end user will want to see it, in what context. Think about what the customer wants to hear about the products and which key factors will encourage the visitor to stay in your online boutique, website or store.

Keep Track of Your Links

Make sure that all in the links in your site are functional. “Dead” links can be off-putting to potential customers and may drive them away.

AVOID HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do not ever use more than one exclamation mark. It looks cheesy and cheap!!!!! The biggest mistake of website owners is to over hype their site with anything to attract attention. With feminine, elegant products, let's just say, woman can be more refined. Unless it is part of the typographic style (as above) don't put everything in caps. Please avoid saying general and unsubstantiated claims like "AUSTRALIA'S NO.1 WIDGET COMPANY " or "THE BEST WIZZ FIZZ MAKERS IN THE WORLD!!!", unless of curse you can qualify this.

I've found that companies and people who say they are number one without some kind of measure or award, are generally far from it.

Why Have A Menu on Every Page

It might be obvious, but ...popping a simple menu on the left or the top of each page will make life a lot simpler for most visitors. (For instance at the top or sides). Putting navigation links only at the bottom of page means that your visitor will have to scroll down to the bottom to get to them (unless your pages are short and "above the fold").

What is Carbon Neutral Hosting

Blossom chooses carbon neutral hosting to powder our website.All of the technology for our hosting, including servers, routers and air conditioners are eco-powered. Selecting this kind of hosting wmeans only will you be hosting your website on state of the art hardware, you're also showing your commitment to a more sustainable world.