Sage Digital Marketing & Design’s standard is simple:

Design beautiful, functional websites that our clients love

As with any design effort involving branding, web design must:

1. Match the brand
2. Appeal to the target audience(s)
3. Reflect the audience’s perception of the brand

If your design doesn’t look better than that of your competition, you’ve got a problem.  Perception drives a visceral response, and web design quality directly affects a visitor’s perception of a company’s professionalism and the visitor’s interaction with the site.  Apart from mandatory brand attributes and elements, web design demands its own set of specific requirements:

Usability – Be easy to use

Websites can be confusing.  Navigation tabs often don’t link to the information you might expect.  You’re not sure where to click or where to find the information you’re seeking.  The art and science of making sites easy to navigate is called “usability.” It combines:

• Placement and prominence of elements
• Navigation design and word choice
• Integration of features

When designed properly, visitors know what to expect and where to go.  The path from learning what your company does, how your company does it, and how the company can do it for the visitor is (or should be!) effortless..

Search engine friendliness –

Be easy to find

Websites are either designed to be search friendly or they aren’t.  If not, it’s often impossible to retrofit a design after the fact.  Although there are typically some design and content compromises, keeping SEO in mind during the web design process can mean thousands more visits over time.

How?

Start with the following

• Navigation – use text-based links (rather than graphical buttons) & avoid drop-down menus
• Text formatting – pay close attention to page headings and use internal links, bullet lists, captions, etc.
• Additional search optimized text – include an area for keyphrase-rich text, often at the top of certain pages or in the footer

Flexibility – Be easy to update

Great web design can accommodate not just what is on the page today, but what might go on the page next week or next year.  Think ahead and keep the design flexible. This is especially true for restaurant website design.  How would the page look with twice as much copy?  Or half as much?  What if the site was all flash and you didn’t have the tools to update it?   How will the site look if you add four more pages to that section?  Web designers are constantly asking these questions.  A content management tool is only as flexible as the design in front of it.