Is your website only half brained?
You may possibly be aware that the different sides of the brain are responsible for different functions; the left half of the brain is logical, analytical and objective whereas the right half is random, intuitive, creative and subjective, and in the majority of people one side of the brain that is dominant leading to distinct personalties and skill-sets: left brained people are methodical, organised, technical deep thinkers, whilst right brained people are sparky, creative, abstract and conceptual thinkers.
Looking around the Base Creative office I see our developers taping away, brows furrowed in concentration, writing the lines of code and planning the infrastructure that make our websites work both from a functionality and from a Search Engine Optimisation point of view; clearly both are very left brained. Across from me I can see David, our lead designer; he's leaning back in his chair, doodling in a sketch pad, thinking about design concepts and ideas for one of our current projects, creativity oozing off him: clearly he's very right brained, guided by his imagination and powers of visualisation.
So what is this article about? It is amazing how many websites I see that that have clearly have been put together by only a designer: they'll be visually exciting, quite often with striking graphics or animations, but lack easy navigation, the structure is not intuitive and they are virtually invisible to the search engines. Alternatively there are many that have been put together by only a developer or programmer: the website design will be laid out in an orderly fashion, there may be one or two graphics but nothing creative that makes you go wow, and it will be as inspiring as a page in the dictionary; on the other hand it will probably do well from an SEO point of view, the content will be well organised and it'll have been built with future updates in mind, however will it actually promote an organisation and lead to increased sales, almost certainly not! Both types of websites I have described I'd describe as being only half brained, not through any fault of the site author, but just because of the way the human brain functions.
What is far rarer is to see, are websites that have both effective design and development, these I'd define as being full brained: not only is the design captivating, influential and appeals to the target market, but the sites functionality works: it's quick to load, easy to navigate and all the relevant information is easy to find as it's right where it should be. This is the advantage of using a good web design agency who have a team in place with both right brained designers and left brained developers working on the website design projects. Their work is balanced and effective, it attracts qualified potential customers through effective Search Engine Optimisation, and then converts them into customers through excellent conversion tools from the design.
So look at your website objectively: is it only half brained or have you achieved that rare website nirvana, a fully brained website with both excellent web design and excellent technical functionality. If you have you'll be attracting and converting more clients than you can deal with, which I'm sure you'll agree, is a great situation to find yourself in!
If you'd like to talk to me about making your website fully brained, and generating you lots of new business, then drop me an email.