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How do you know if your business’s website design is good? It all depends on your website visitor. How they view your site and the purpose that it serves. You have less than twelve seconds to grab your site visitors’ attention and hold them on your site. So creative design is VERY IMPORTANT. Also you must make sure that your website can reach as far and as wide as possible. This means realizing that there are a lot of site visitors that use high-tech devices to access your website. These days, people can browse the internet using their mobile phones. Making sure that you follow the correct guidelines that we recommend will ensure that 95% or more of site visitors will be able to access your website.

Let’s start with answering a few questions. Such as: What would you like to feature? What’s your target audience? Is it kids, teens, yuppies or seniors? Married? Single? Will it be in plain text? Full color? Or would you display flashy images or videos from the internet? Perhaps a little bit of everything? So, when you’re planning the design of your website, you must take all of these things into consideration. This is essential in effective lead generation for your business.

Now to the design. You want to start with a clear design and layout. Don’t exaggerate the use of Javascripts or Flash that can affect the major functions of your website menus and sub menus. Make sure that important information is easily accessible on your site. Also, avoid using any colors that may be irritating to your visitors eyes. If you want people to visit your website on a regular basis and do business with you, you want to make sure that every time they visit, they feel soothed and relaxed. This is because loud colors and schemes may disturb site visitors and discourage them from returning to your website. You can always follow the basic primary colors when you feel at a loss. Yet most people use the color wheel.

The overall look of your website should follow the basic types of color schemes. There are 3 types: Analogous, Complementary and Monochromatic. Analogous color schemes make use of colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. Complementary color schemes are those colors that you combine that are directly across from each other on the color wheel. Monochromatic color schemes are those same colors with different hues. The colors used in any color scheme needs to be balanced with the overall design of your website. Professional advice from a good website design company will benefit you greatly in determining the effect of those color schemes on your website. This ensures that you’re able to effectively connect with your site visitors.

Next, use a uniform theme that is clear and concise throughout your web site. Themes are the overall design of your website. Every page of your website should have a connecting factor to other pages by making use of a consistent layout and color scheme. Also, each page should stand on its own, making use of images and information that would be appropriate to the product or service that you offer to your customers.

In addition, pay careful attention to your use of fonts. Fonts are the styles of lettering. The two basic types are serif and sans serif. Of the two, the san serif is being used by most websites because their content is easier to read than the serif fonts. When choosing a particular font to be used in your website, it’s vital that you know how much lettering your site will have and ensure that you use the same font throughout. Using too many fonts of different shapes and sizes can become unpleasant and overwhelming to your site visitors. As before, seek the advice of a good website design company on the best fonts to use for your site.

Another good tip is to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) when designing your website. In this way, the content and navigation bar will have a consistent look and feel. Since the outline is arranged to take place through CSS, no matter what, it will appear as an “eye pleasing” design. The CSS design techniques also allow you to play with sophisticated layouts without making your website “out of touch”. Keep in mind, simplicity is beauty.
Remember the goal of your website design is to connect with yours site visitors, make them feel comfortable and not scare them away.

Your web site must also be USER-FRIENDLY. It should be easy to navigate, highly memorable and very useful to your site visitors. A site map is also good to use. This is essentially the “table of contents” for your site. It enables your site visitors to more easily determine what your web site has to offer. Also, you want to leverage eye catching graphics, engaging photos and flash to give your site an exciting look and feel.

Lastly, your contact information should be strategically placed above the fold (the portion of a web page that is viewable without scrolling) of each page.  Make sure that your contact information is able to viewed on EVERY PAGE of your site. This way, your site visitors won’t have to go back to the “Home Page” or “Contact Us” page of your site just to find your contact information.

In closing, the elements of good web site design are simple if you follow this advice. You can be confident that your visitors will enjoy your site and return to it time and time again.

Let’s say the you live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and design websites. You work from home and serve customers throughout. Your orders are taken via on-line transactions and you design your clients website in your home office’s design studio.

However, you’ve been thinking about expanding into larger markets to attract new clientèle. How can you do that instantly?

Answer: By opening a virtual office!

You can go from a Coeur d’Alene based home business to having a business presence in a major metropolitan area instantly, for example: New York! Your company now has 2 locations! Imagine how snazzy a Manhattan office address would look on your website!

Opening a virtual office in another country can also make you an international company instantly and open up the market for you to sell your products and services beyond the US.

Need local fax and phone numbers to complete your business presence? No problem! VH International Business Solutions can get them setup for you in a few hours. You can also have a live operator answer your calls, a machine answer your calls (voice mail) or, we can even transfer your NYC phone calls to you in Coeur d’Alene. You can also receive your 212 Manhattan faxes right in your email in-box.

Need to meet with a client or vendor in Manhattan? No problem. You can rent a fully equipped, fully furnished private office or conference room to meet with clients on an as-needed basis. You can even have your lunch or breakfast meeting catered in the office.

Need a local hotel or restaurant recommendation? We can help you with ideas! Our knowledgeable staff is at your service. Our neighborhood is chock-full of first-class hotels, chain hotels and wonderful boutique hotels. Our neighborhood’s Michelin Stars sparkle amongst restaurants boasting top chefs, celebrity chefs, and world renown chefs.

See how easy it is to open a virtual office… Keep doing what you are doing in Coeur d’Alene and we at VH International Business Solutions will handle your New York business presence.

What Do You Think A Business Card Is For?

The use of business cards, or calling cards as they were more popularly known, is still widely prevalent today, even in this age of electronic communications. Technologies of instant communications such as Bluetooth and infrared connectivity are easier and much handier ways of sending and receiving data and information, including those contained in a business card. Yet people —and particularly businessmen— still carry around small stacks of business cards, giving them away at every chance they get and at the slightest provocation. Don’t ever tell a businessman you’ll call and he will give you his card, faster than you can say “Jack Robinson”, whoever he is, regardless of whether he has given you one earlier.

This only proves business cards still play a vital role in business or even everyday life, because even those not in business, such as students, have calling cards in their names. Why so? A number of reasons have been advanced as to the business card’s functions, and they range from as a source of personal pride to a business tool.

The functions of a business card

As a business advertising tool. A business card will normally contain the owner’s name, form or list of business or service rendered, phone or contact number/s, and some sort of catchphrase or slogan for the business. In this way the holder will immediately see in the card if the card owner is the appropriate solution to his immediate needs. So actually the card acts as a kind of ’sleeper’ or inactive advertising for the owner, accessed when needed.

As a social link. Many people accept other people’s business cards and promptly forget both the card and the person right afterwards. Then the card is remembered when the holder needs to contact the card owner socially, and so the card is dredged up from the dustbin of ‘where-did-I-place-it’ questions. Or, you may not care what the guy sells, but he is so hunky…

As a travelling reference. If you know a friend who requires his boat engine serviced and you bump into someone who does that, you may wish to request his card to pass to your friend, who might later pass it on to another with similar needs. Without the card, neither potential customer will remember the boat engine service provider when the service is required. With it, the card owner may well capture a whole boating association.

As a personal affectation. It is simply classy to give away business cards, even if the owner has no business. It gives the owner a feeling of ’superiority’ -for lack of a more appropriate term-over others. It is also a lot easier to just hand a receptionist, say, your business card instead of explaining who you are.

So, the card

Different people have different uses for a business card and if you think one reason is enough, then you’re wrong. A business card does all of the above, and often, more.