It looks like the San Francisco 49ers couldn't quite make it past the Baltimore Ravens in this year's Super Bowl. In business, we also strive to pull ahead and stand out among leading competitors. Winning customers in a business arena can be a challenge. So, when faced head-on with competition, will your website stack up or are you just throwing a Hail Mary?

1st Down - Branding: Does your website and homepage reflect your product or services and who you are as a company? If the first impression of your website does not resonate with your demographic, you have lost their attention at kickoff. A cohesive brand image and identity is essential to gain credibility among your consumers or clients.

2nd Down - Layout: Ease of navigation is key to pull readers into your content without overloading them with data and endless text. Think of your layout like a game plan where you want clients to look, click and how they drive into your website will steer them to take action or forfeit the search altogether. Simple, organized layout wins hand over fist against dense copy, dozens of tabs and multiple, competing messages.

3rd Down - Subscribers: Capturing visitors is a must; and integrating email marketing is the first step to turning these new subscribers and leads into loyal customers. Make the call to action simple and provide something immediate of value. Continue educating and send relevant communication for these prospects to stay engaged with you and your company.

Touchdown! Fans: Done all of the above? Fantastic. Now integrate a blog and social media channels that your business utilizes. Get up close and personal with customers and clients, hear their praise and criticism of your industry and learn to be transparent- love this. Knowing your audience on a personal level will be invaluable, and the insights can leverage your business ahead of the game.

Extra Point - Content Strategy: From the copy on your homepage, to articles on your blog and pictures and questions asked on social media, creating a compelling message and valuable content unites all elements of your brand. Know your voice, where you want to position your business in the industry and your customers' trust and loyalty will follow.

Need a conversion?
Think you may be lacking in one or more of these areas? No problem. Give us a call or shoot us an email today and we will get you and your website trained and ready for the big game.

If you want to succeed, you must succeed online. Maybe going online is not the very first market you need to conquer. If you have a coffee cart, for example, your brew may be so good you might be a raging success before you even design your logo. But you have to pay attention to the online world eventually, even with a popular coffee cart, and for most of us, the online world the very first thing we think about. Why?

Online is where the conversations begin. It's where 'word of mouth' is happening on a global scale.

Getting into that conversation means putting up a website with the grabbiest graphics and the most potent message.That's the common wisdom. But here's a better idea. Ask first, 'What is my website for?'

Types of website experience

I'm not just talking platforms, like WordPress, Tumblr, Drupal, Joomla, or some fancy proprietary platform your designer is trying to sell you. I want you to think about the visitor experience. You may want a website that is basically a business card. I'd call that an information experience. You may need people to shop through catalogue and buy something - a consumer experience. You may want to share images, information or music - a sharing experience. You can build a community experience with blogs. If you say, 'oh, I just need a fancy business card that moves and stuff and has pretty colors,' you will be missing out on a lot. Community and sharing are powerful drivers. If you can get people involved and engaged, they'll come back. Wouldn't that be nice?  If your site is all about you it might not be as engaging as a site that invites the viewer in to your experience. Think bigger than 'you' and offer more than an online business card. Here are those categories again. What kind of site experience do you need to offer?

• information experience
• consumer experience
• sharing experience
• community experience

Functionality

Ok, scary word. But functionality means what kinds of bells and whistles you site will have, and how they will affect the site. Most important factor? Site load time. If you want to showcase lots of beautiful images and your site takes five seconds to load, you will lose visitors. They will bounce off impatiently. I've seen sites that are dumb as dirt become very popular because they are fast to load and to the point. Find a balance between beauty and practicality.

Desktop and Mobile

Remember that your visitors are looking at your site on all kinds of screens. I worked with a designer once who did great work, as long as it was viewed on his humongous cinema display. He wasn't interested in hearing me talk about people with 13-inch displays, or tablets or phones, who might be trying to view his masterpiece of design. How well will your site travel to different screens?

As you look over your website plans, ask these questions:

Who will this reach?

Know who your audience is. Try to understand what they want and what your site will deliver. Sounds basic, but this will make your site far more effective.

How easily will my visitors find my site?

Are you going to put up great content that draws visitors like a powerful magnet? Are you going to invest in advertising? Are you going to depend on organic search queries, and optimize your site for them? You better do something. Or else nobody's going to show up.

What should my visitors do?

People may find you online, but then what? Every website has a narrative. It may not be linear, but there is a story to tell in words, pictures and sounds. It has a first, second and third act, just like a good movie or play. Do people need to end up on your contact page or buy page? If so, how will you lead them there?  If you want your visitors to simply 'get to know more about you' that's nice, but that's all they will do. Is that enough for you? What is the call to action? Having one makes everyone happy. A call to action gives visitors a sense of mission when they visit your site. Get that right, and then move on to business cards if you need them.

Oh, and if you know about any coffee carts better than the Mud Truck in NYC's Astor Place, let me know. Always in the hunt for those.

PHOTO CREDIT: Question mark by alexanderdrachmann via Creative Commons License.

To avoid risking your search engine positioning, be sure to follow these three helpful redesign tips:

Site Structure

Layout your site before you begin the development process. Plan with sitemaps, wireframes and mockups to build an appropriate site for both you and your visitors. Even though the layout changes you are proposing may make perfect sense to you, they may not make sense to your customers, or the search engines. Let’s say you want to de-clutter your site, going for a more minimalistic look is great, but it may cut off navigational paths by reducing or removing relevant content. Don’t diminish the content that feeds Google, Bing and Yahoo relevant information about your site. During a revamp, don’t inadvertently make your site less known to the search engines; make sure you leave appropriate content and important links on your web property.

Timing

A new look for your website takes time; not only for your designers, but also for your development crew and IT team. Every department needs the time necessary to digest, implement and test the changes that occur during a redesign process. Allow for a reasonable amount of time for all departments to become familiar with your site’s required changes. Don’t rush a redesign, because chances are you’ll sacrifice your search rankings.

Testing

Yes proofing content and testing navigation are crucial, but make sure you are also checking the SEO elements of your newly designed site. It’s important that this testing occurs before you launch the site. If you neglect this procedure your site’s positioning may suffer. Going live with a new site without properly testing the potential SEO impact almost always results in traffic loss and decreased positions.

Among web fonts, colors and layout, remember to consider SEO when redesigning your website. What’s the point of having a ravishing site if it doesn’t surface in search results or drive visitors?

White space, text and graphics all influence the overall design of a website. Oneupweb conducted the study, “Revolutionizing Website Design: The New Rules of Usability” which revealed that websites should be appropriately balanced for the user experience, by consisting of the following proportions: 30% graphics, 30% text and 40% white space. That being said, let’s see who will score the most points in the game of best designed homepage.

Beginning with the first half of the game; take a look at the screenshot featuring the Packers.com homepage. Get ready, it’s game time!

The white space [refer to figure 1] is almost nonexistent on Packers.com. A balanced website usually consists of 40% white space and the Packers’ homepage seems to have less than 10%—fumble for the Green Bay Packers. More white space would have benefited visitors—leaving them less bombarded with graphics, videos and text, and better able to navigate to their desired destinations. The distractions on the homepage overwhelm visitors and may be causing them to leave the site. Successful website design should be action-oriented—emphasizing positive user experience. Users don’t want to spend time searching on a site, they expect instant results.

While there are various reasons for people to visit Packers.com (to purchase tickets, look at team member stats, buy merchandise, etc.) with the appropriate balance of graphics and text, the Packers’ website could encompass clear action paths if the main navigation [refer to figure 2] played a more dominant role on the page. Those action paths would help accommodate the needs of every visitor. The site also has a confusing secondary navigation [refer to figure 3] as it has two competing sections; large slideshow of images that link to various stories, and a column that serves as a news feed, which consists of timely press coverage, events and information about the team. Unfortunately these two sections don’t support one another and cause distraction for the user. The Packers’ homepage displays a number of photos and the visuals are good, but not great—the imagery could have supported the content better to aid site visitors with navigation. So far, the Packers receive a field goal, but don’t earn a touch down.

Let’s see how Steelers.com performs. At first glance, it seems nearly identical to the Packers’ site.

Just like Packers.com, Steelers.com has little white space [refer to figure 1], because it’s overwhelmed with content and images. And again, like the Packers, the Pittsburgh Steelers seem to struggle with the design of their main navigation [refer to figure 2], which is stripped from dominance as it’s a black bar on a nearly black background—the lack of contrast deprives visual impact. This homepage also has a power struggle between two secondary navigation sections [refer to figure 3]. Unlike the Packers’ photos, which fade into its white background, Steelers.com consists of sharp photography [refer to figure 3] due to the juxtaposition of the dark background, which provides users with an edgy, strong and assertive setting—all of which are characteristics of champions. Steelers.com earns a field goal with their impactful graphics.

Sorry, no half time show today (and after last night’s performance, I’m sure you’re relieved), but get ready to witness the next halves of the homepages!

As you scroll down Packers.com, you’ll notice that the white space [refer to figure 1] increases a little bit—they earn a field goal for their decision to not carry imagery down the sides of the page. Unfortunately the text [refer to figure 2] is sporadic, which makes it confusing for the user to decide which content to read first. The images [refer to figure 3] on the bottom half of the homepage aid in illustrating the text and help to somewhat clarify what the content is about, but overall the homepage still doesn’t provide users with easy visual recognition.

Steelers.com didn’t continue to display images along the sides of the homepage, but they’ve created a heavy texture [refer to figure 1] and its darkness weighs down the site. The Steelers’ website is more streamlined than the Packers’, as it consists of less text and is condensed and organized. Their simple, large and creative images [refer to image 2] are engaging and draw the user in, because they provide categorization. Steelers.com makes a touch down for providing order and ease for its users. Unfortunately, their social media is separated on the homepage, which causes major confusion for users. People are accustom to sites displaying their Facebook and Twitter links near each other (often side-by-side), and Steelers.com has their Facebook and Twitter located in distant locations [refer to figure 3]. This was a poor decision, because it makes the site visitor have to find the other social media outlet, or worse, the visitor will assume the Steelers are only on Facebook or Twitter (not both).

Despite their social media slip, the Steelers steal the victory of the Homepage Bowl! There was no bias here, because as a Michigander, I still (after many years of disappointment) support the Lions.

So how can you mimic the awards of “The Social Network” to better your web presence?

Website design, social media and search marketing may not win you a Golden Globe, but it can certainly win you customers and accounts.

• Best Director: Having great leadership in your business is key for executing award-wining work. Make sure you have the right people leading your digital marketing strategies.

• Best Original Score: Give your audience something to listen to, or rather, give them something they want to listen to. In your corporate blog, post relevant and informative content—providing your readers with takeaways. The same should apply with your Facebook posts and Tweets. Be sure to construct a solid social media strategy that fits the needs of your friends, followers and customers.

• Best Screenplay: Content, content, content! The copy on your website needs to be structured so that it intrigues visitors, yet also helps your site position well on search results pages. Award-winning copywriting is certainly something to strive for this New Year.

• Best Picture: Graphics! Make sure your images illustrate the content you have displayed on your web properties. You won’t come close to receiving a nomination if you have photos or graphics that don’t relate to the content on your site, YouTube channel, Facebook page, etc.

Get ready to win in 2011!