There are people who passionately answer Yes to this question, as well as those who passionately say No, it doesn’t matter - what is more important is the product / price of your goods or service, and that the website is easy to use. In taking this side of the argument, an example is usually given of a very basic / ugly looking website, which is easy to use, and has a large sales volume going through it continually. Who wouldn’t want the sales volume?

It’s the ‘form over function’ debate.

So how can we account for the ugly, yet very successful, website?

• An excellent sales and marketing strategy.

However, you have to think that if you continue with the excellent sales and marketing strategy, and add a great looking and easy to use site to the mix, then surely the results would be even better?

I’ve just received an email from a client telling me that her business has increased dramatically since we moved her website from being a basic one page design (it wasn’t ugly, but it certainly needed improvement) to a professional looking site with pages describing her services, testimonials, her background, etc.

The bottom line is that getting the most out of your web presence is, and always has been, about doing a range of things well: a design that connects with your target audience, a site that is easy to use and guides the visitor to where they need to be (this is about design, content and functionality), a strategy to market your site (and your business) to attract prospects and stay connected to your client base over the long term, and a well-oiled system to handle website enquiries and deliver your product/service.

It is possible to do better than your competitors by only doing some of these things well; but if you achieve them all, then you will certainly receive the results.

At Contact Point we are passionate about both the form and the function of a website, with different members of our team specialising in these different areas. We can also assist you with marketing your website and utilising email / SMS marketing to stay connected to your customer base.

What do you think?

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In nearly every website we build for clients, we add a footer with Copyright client name and year in it. Recently I was asked to update the year in the footer to the current year for one such website, on the basis that they wanted to appear like the content is fresh. It’s a very interesting point that our client raised; the perception that the date next to the copyright indicates when the site was last updated.

As a compromise, and after a bit of discussion, we agreed that the footer should be changed to have the copyright year as the original year (as it may help to determine the year that the content / design was created for copyright purposes, and also perhaps deter someone thinking of stealing the content) and add another statement into the footer which reads “last updated Nov, 2008″.

What’s your thoughts on this? Do you read the date next to the copyright notice as indicating how fresh the content of a site is?

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