A recent study has shown that approximately 95% of all web visitors determine within one second or less if any given website is worthy of their business. What is the difference between a website that a user will navigate away from vs. a website a user will stay and perhaps purchase from? In most cases, it’s a matter of aesthetics. A professionally designed site will often install trust into the visiting user. It shows that the owners of the website have put both time and money to produce a site that is highly professional and appealing for their users. Take a moment to think of some of the sites you have bookmarked in your browser. Chances are the vast majority of the sites will share a professional design where content is well defined, navigation is user friendly, and the page layout is visually appealing. In an increasingly competitive market where literally billions of websites exist, websites without a high quality professional design will never reach their full potential. A site that is built upon a professional design and layout is more likely to succeed over a competitor without a professional design. It’s a fact that cannot be ignored.

The Web Design Myth

Professional web design is expensive. Web design companies will charge you a base fee for the initial design and layout, and then charge an additional fee for each page in your website (usually starting at $75.00 per page). You can expect to pay upwards of $1500 for even the most basic of sites consisting entirely of HTML. That is a pretty hefty chunk of change that can easily triple or quadruple before your website is complete! Not everyone has the financial means (or willingness) to drop that kind of money into a website, especially when just starting out. The only way to put forth a professionally designed website with beautiful aesthetics to draw a user in is to hire a professional company to do it. If you plan on doing it yourself you’ll need to be an expert in HTML and have some sort of degree in design or the IT industry. That’s the myth… now here is the reality. You can put out a professionally designed website without ever needing to enlist the services of a web design company! The best part of all, you don’t need to be an expert in HTML or web design and you can do it for less than $60! All you need is this guide, some basic HTML skills, and a few hours of time and you’ll be on your way to owning a truly professional quality site that your competition will envy!

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In the early years of the internet the actual design of a website was either very basic or had to be done using a software package that needed a specialist to use it. Not surprisingly, website designers were in short supply and could command huge fees for their services. All that has changed dramatically and website design is not such a complicated procedure as you might think.

The actual look and feel of a website is more down to personal preferences than current design trends. Internet users want websites that are nice to look at, sure, but they are much more concerned with the ease of use of a website. If a visitor to your professionally designed website cannot find the information that they are looking for quickly and easily they will go elsewhere.

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