The Ocean Agency

A recent article from Smashing Magazine relates how to make your corporate website a design success, but the strategies presented aren’t your obvious sort of rules. Instead, they offer seven key components that make a web design great. They don’t all concern simply imagery or content, but they highlight the necessary facets a good website should employ to please their users.

The Seven Ingredients of Great Corporate Web Design, according to our web design company:

1. First and foremost, good design is based in visual imagery, which means a good logo is very important. It should be communicative and instantly recognizable.

2. You have to convey your message in words– which makes typography an integral part of your design. Large corporations usually choose a simple print, like Helvetica.

3. A simple necessity is color. The tones and hues you choose should echo the philosophy and strategy of your company.

4. Your website, above all else, represents your brand. Your brand message and objectives must be clearly and concisely represented in your web presence.

5. Quality, like branding, should be represented at every level and in every incarnation of a company. On your website, the quality of your company is show through its policies, procedures and responsibilities to the consumer.

6. Another of the less tangible, but most important, ingredients to a good website is community. Whether its through word-of-mouth, social media, or customer loyalty, building a dedicated, enthusiastic and active community is the best way to further what your website embodies.

7. Finally, a company’s website is only as good as its culture. Culture is the tastes, manners, knowledge and values that are shared and favored by the community. Being aware of your corporate culture and catering to it with your web design guarantees a successful website.

For examples of companies who exemplify some or all of these components, see Smashing Magazine’s elaboration on the topic.