Website Wednesday: Website Design Trends

Staying up on website design trends keeps you in the "know" and serves as a measure to evaluate the effectiveness of your web design.

This 3 column design is used on an American Express business forum.

The three-column design is everywhere. Corporations like Starbucks, McDonalds, and the American Express Open Forum incorporate the format.

Mid-size companies, small businesses, and the solo entrepreneur can easily make three symmetrical blocks of information using images and text.

The format organizes key blocks of information and a horizontal image on the home page allows the blocks to show above the fold.

Easy-to-use drag and drop platforms mean you can create three columns and bring in the text boxes.

You can see this in my website Running a Small Business.net which is in process.

Need a robust Do-it-Yourself or professionally designed website, then I can provide through Right Touch Marketing.com. Contact me there for a free quote.

One of the credible sites to read up on website design trends is Enfused. One of their topics focuses on the need to design web sites so they respond to different devices, especially smartphones.

Click here to read more from Enfused.

I have no affiliation with them and you can click here to read more on 2013 web design trends.

Web site assessment questions for small businesses

A small business owner who runs a store recently wanted a Web site. I wrote out these questions to help determine why a Web site might benefit his business:

What is the primary reason for wanting a Web site?

What do you want a Web site to achieve for you?

Is the Web site going to be part of a local marketing campaign?

Is the goal to get Web site visitors the chance to shop online and purchase online?

How long has the store been in business?

Who is the typical customer? Where do they live? What do they buy?

How much money does the typical customer spend?

What is the budget range?

Click here to read this post on more assessment questions

Marketing Tools: Reviews of Low Cost Web Sites

Looking for a professional, low cost web site?

Professional looking web templates makes a web presence possible -- even on a tight budget.

I just created a web site for Right Touch Marketing & Media using a free Wordpress template.

I've also created a personal site using Homestead.com.

Other places worth looking are both Weebly.com and Templatemonster.com.


Here is my review:

Wordpress templates. Cost range: free to . . . as much as you want to spend.

Type "Wordpress templates" in to Google and you'll find there are many options to choose from. So what do you choose? Functionality is a big factor. My Wordpress site doesn't have drop down menus.

However, if you're skilled with Wordpress, or are willing to learn, an unlimited number of pages can be created and then linked within the site to let visitors move around easily.


http://www.homestead.com/ 30-day free trial and then from $ 4.99 a month to $ 49.99 a month.

I created a personal site using Homestead. Yet, the capabilities can handle many business site functions for small to growing companies. The templates can easily be customized. Homestead does an excellent job of providing a content management system that is easy for non-techies to use.

As always, there's a learning curve. But it's a do-able curve.


http://www.weebly.com/ 2 sites free and then $ 3.99 a month for an unlimited number of sites.

I tried using Weebly. I really did and found it a bit awkward. And, yet, a little more patience and I'm sure I would have been fine. I went back to Homestead for my personal site, though. I do think Weebly is a good option.


http://www.templatemonster.com/ more than 14,000 templates available from a $ 10 to $ 100 price range.

This is one of the most popular template sites on the web. It links to other resources, including a company that will revamp an existing web template for around $ 1,200. So they do know that many people who don't have web experience really don't have the time to experiment and learn on their own.

Professional looking sites are possible today for any size business.
What's really most important about your web site? It's making sure the message stands out clearly no matter what option you use.