Archive for the “Web Design” Category

When a visitor lands on Google’s home page there’s pretty much one thing to do – search for something. This is a great example of a clear call to action. Often websites are littered with so much information, it becomes difficult to know what to do or where to go next. This is why knowing your goals and creating a call to action that is rooted in those goals is essential to the success of your website.

What exactly do you want a visitor to do when they visit your site? Is it clear? Below are a few examples of clear calls to action.

Browse: Upon arrival to Mandel’s site, your eye is drawn to the scrolling images of condos and apartments. With several listings highlighted on the right that include eye-catching images and appealing descriptions, the visitor is invited to browse their properties.

Donate: Although MPTV’s website has a barrage of information on the home page, a clear call to action is visible. The ad box on the right draws the visitor’s attention using bright colors and typography that emphasize on a call to donate and support MPTV.

Volunteer/Get Involved: Involvement is the cornerstone of Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition’s organization. With two callouts on the home page asking visitors to contribute and volunteer, they are able to enhance the opportunity (or possibility) for visitors to get involved.

Subscribe: Mead & Hunt leaves little room for misinterpretation, highlighting the ability to download or subscribe to their publications as you arrive on their publications page.

Connect: Meriter Health serves a large base of clients in the greater Madison area, so they wanted to provide multiple ways for their visitors to connect. They devoted a section of the home page for the opportunity to connect with Meriter, providing the visitor with direct access to newsletters, volunteer opportunities, and social networking sites.

Learn More: With countless products that live within the Briggs and Stratton brand, it is crucial for the visitor to learn the extent of what their products have to offer. By providing a delicate balance of white space around ads that ask the visitor to learn more, Briggs and Stratton emphasizes the opportunity to become educated on their products.

Apply: Northwest Healthcare is the largest employer in Kalispell, Montana. To emphasize the importance of employment, they have a prominent ad at the top of the page inviting visitors to learn more about jobs at NWHC.

Multiple Calls of Action: The Vital Voices home page highlights multiple calls of action, encouraging the visitor to learn more, make a donation, download the newsletter, or register for their latest event.

Conversions: Once your goals have been linked to a clear call to action, it becomes crucial to define and monitor your success. This could be as simple as completing a form or a successful transaction. Analytics can help provide the tools needed to measure success through conversions. Looking at specific metrics can either give you the satisfaction of a job well done, or provide the information you need to make revisions. This is accomplished by looking at things such as:

• Where are your visitors coming from?
• How much time does a visitor spend on a specific page?
• Are visitors leaving shortly after visiting the site?
• How many visitors are taking advantage of your call to action?

Let Starkmedia help you examine your goals, implement them through a clear, and track your success.

The Who:
Sump and Sewage Pump Manufacturers Association, SSPMA, is an organization that has been representing over 90% of the manufacturers of sump, effluent & sewage pumps, together with component and accessory suppliers for 55 years. Their mission states that they “represent the industry in a manner consistent with the highest standards of business practice . . .” Starkmedia’s goal was to align their presence on the web with their mission.

Starting with the Basics:
The website design was completely revamped to be more professional and present a clean streamlined look. Along with the design was an update to the size of the site to meet today’s standards for browsers. Special attention was paid to simplifying the navigation to allow users to find information easily. While addressing the usability of the site, we decided to implement floating navigation so that as the user scrolls down the page they don’t lose important navigational elements.

The Wow:
One of the largest changes made was taking a static site and making it interactive. The education page now boasts hotspots on the ad block. Providing hot spots presents a less traditional approach by giving the user the opportunity to interact with the information. When landing on the page the visitor is presented with a large interactive image of a home and the places within it where sump and sewage pumps are most commonly used. As they scroll over the image information pertinent to each spot appears. Finding new ways to communicate your message can make the difference between a mere visit and an interaction.

The Result:
SSPMA now represents their industry consistently both online and off. After interaction was applied to the site visitors now spend more time on the site using all the resources that it provides. Most business owners flock to social media for a quick fix of interaction, but there are many ways to add this element. Is your site still static? Consider other avenues for interaction on your site.

A company we worked with a while back was having difficulty finding the focus for their redesign. After going through the exploration process and determining the goals of the website, we discovered their people were the “rockstars” of their company and yet they weren’t anywhere on the website. The new design focused on highlighting the people that powered this amazing company.

Have you lost focus? What are you trying to achieve and how are you tracking your success? Who or what is the “rockstar” of your company?

Photo Credit: Simon Howden

PRODUCT
Prent is a global leader in the plastic thermoform industry. When you arrive on prent.com you see their product showcased in large scrolling ads that highlight their products and how they are used. The diversity of their products is sure to inspire confidence within their customers. The design is clean and understated so that the eye is drawn to the product and message.

PEOPLE
First Business services many different areas within the banking/financial industry, but their selling point is the quality of their people. In addition to the plethora of information and resources you will find on FirstBusiness.com you will also see that their people are showcased throughout the website. By incorporating people through the site, they are able to incorporate the personal service that sets them apart.

SERVICE
As personal injury attorneys, Davis and Gelshenen needed their service to be apparent upon landing on their site. Once arriving on the site a strong call to action is made and their messaging speaks directly to the services they provide. Not only are their services apparent, but their credibility is as well. Everything from awards to testimonials supports the services that they provide.

MISSION
The Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on speaking out about breast cancer through education, collaboration, and legislation. Their mission resonates on the home page as evidence through distinct colors, imaging, and tag lines. The combined effort of all of these elements communicates the strength of their mission and encourages participation.

Do you need to regain your focus?  Is it time to realign your website to support your company’s goals?  Through our exploration process, Starkmedia can help determine goals for your online presence.  Whether you are using imagery, placement, design, or messaging, Starkmedia can help bring it into focus online.

Shorewood, Wisconsin is an urban village located just outside of Milwaukee.  The village prides itself on being both the first suburb north of the city of Milwaukee and being a walkable community. Their previous site highlighted the ability to walk the community, but left little reason for return visits.

What makes your website unique?  Are you encouraging visitors to return?
Armed with images and interactivity, Starkmedia redesigned the Shorewood Today website to become a community web destination. Drawing upon the appeal of the Shorewood, Starkmedia chose to hone in on the aspects that make it unique, giving visitors a location for gathering information.

Photo Gallery
To highlight the strong sense of community within Shorewood it was only logical to provide a photo gallery. The photo gallery highlights village events and allows visitors to share them through social media. Serving dual purposes, the gallery displays the strong sense of community and also gives visitors a reason to return.

Marketing Support
The village’s magazine, Shorewood Today, is quite popular among its residents. To support all marketing efforts, the website showcases the magazine by giving visitors the ability to view different issues and articles. Playing off the success of the magazine by providing a popular source of information online gives visitors another reason to return to the website.

Shorewood Happenings
With summer in full gear Shorewood is bustling with activities. By creating a designated section for news and events visitors now have a destination to return to when inquiring about future happenings in Shorewood.

New Business Development
In today’s economic climate it is a rarity to find thriving communities that are continuing to develop, but Shorewood is one such place. To continue to encourage growth the website highlights recent developments, providing appeal to potential developers. Beyond showcasing Shorewood’s vast events and walkable community, the website also provides information on being a green community.

The redesigned website now encourages repeat visits by providing valuable information.  Not only do residents now use the site as a resource, but it also appeals to prospective residents by highlighting the village’s advantages. Analyze your website to discover your daily web traffic.   Do you need to attract more web traffic?  Starkmedia specializes in interactive marketing and can help you find ways to draw more attention to your website.

At Starkmedia, we have a detailed process for creating a website. From the exploratory phase to final testing, we take into consideration each business’ specific needs and try to translate them into a web presence. Whether you’re looking at a redesign or you’re creating a web site, below are a few important things we consider when beginning the process.

renjith krishnan

1. Think About Your Audience. Who are you targeting and what are they interested in? The latest and greatest web application may not be relevant to your audience. Instead of getting caught up in a specific design because it is appealing to you think about your target audience. At Starkmedia, we often conduct interviews to research the specifics of what your target audience wants.

2. Stand Out but Look Appropriate. When beginning the web design process it is important to think about how you can stand out from your competition. You want to look different, BUT you also want your visitor to be able to recognize that it is you. If you strip out all indicators of your industry you could potentially confuse your visitors. Our designs look unique, professional and updated while also clearly communicating your business to the visitor.

3. Think Clearly not Cutesy. When thinking about the verbiage on your website remember not to use industry speak or create names that may not translate meaning easily. Lead your visitors to important information instead of leaving them to contemplate the meaning of your words.

4. Be Informative & Provide Direction. Your visitor has come to your website for information so provide it. If they don’t find exactly what they want on the home page you’ll need to direct them to their desired content with intuitive navigation. If specific information holds a lot of weight we often create a static footer so that the information remains visible when navigating through the site.

5. Provide a strong sell. Make sure to tell your visitor what you want them to do. Not only should you tell them what to do, but also provide information on why they should do that. At Starkmedia, we help our clients develop a strong call to action that gets results.

No matter where you are in the process it is important to make sure your website is achieving the desired results. Starkmedia can help analyze your site to see if there are areas for improvement and provide direction moving forward.

Jung Pumpen, a new brand of Pentair Water, is a premium brand of wastewater handling systems. Their innovation and engineering has allowed them to stay on top in the European drainage industry. Jung Pumpen’s recent international expansion efforts continued with product introductions in the United States.

Interaction is Key
With little initial brand awareness in the U.S. drainage market, Jung Pumpen marketed a sweepstakes offering to generate product and brand awareness through the web. Their approach was to create something that allowed them to interact with web visitors and also highlight their intelligent clog prevention that sets their grinders apart from the competition. How do you make grinders both interesting and interactive, well those questions led to the birth of the Will it Grind video series. In order for the sweepstakes to be a success Starkmedia implemented a few important components:

Add Interest Through Video Without Kittens.
The average person spends 15 minutes per day watching videos presenting a valuable opportunity. Without taking advantage of the appeal of kittens, Jung Pumpen published a video series on YouTube and embedded it into the site. By using YouTube’s platform, Jung Pumpen was able increase their potential for exposure.

That’s Entertainment Not Mindless Copy.
Rather than stare at static images a gaming element was added to the video to provide interaction. The visitor selects from a group of items and decides if they will grind or not. The video displays the outcome of their selection.

Incorporate a Message; Send Information Subliminally.
With a subtle message scrolled across the screen you’re not screaming at your audience but instead sending subliminal messages. Each video highlights a unique feature of the grinder, which displays across the screen while the video plays. The messages enable the video to provide more than entertainment potentially bringing the viewer closer to the point of purchase.

Convenience is key; Labyrinths aren’t popular on the web.
After the video has played a lightbox displays with the entry form for the sweepstakes. This allows the user to easily enter the sweepstakes and also allows Jung Pumpen to gather important information from interested prospects.

Starkmedia worked with Jung Pumpen’s creative team on the execution of their U.S. introduction. By incorporating entertaining features into the appropriate portions of your online presence you can bring life back to your website. Interactive video is a perfect way to highlight a new product on your site. Give your visitors the opportunity to engage and have some fun doing it.