If you’ve ever toured re-sale homes with a realtor you’ll agree with me. When you first walk into a house you know right away whether you’re going to put in an offer based solely on your first impression. Your decision is made pretty much instantaneously.
A web site is very much the same. When a visitor lands on your site for the first time they will take in a lot of information (whether contained in your text or not). They’ll see your logo, the background colours, the fonts on the page, the photographs displayed and how they are displayed—within an instant.
It is the right combination of all of these elements that makes a great website. Your logo is at the top of this totem pole. If your logo demands attention, is creative, employs a great colour palette and creatively conveys the business you do, it will set the tone for the website.
Surely, like me, you have visited pages where a rookie designer has forced the logo into an image placeholder that isn’t the same size. The result is a disjointed and often fuzzy appearance – this is not to be overlooked, if a customer senses you don’t care about this element of your own site their confidence in you to care about them is diminished.
Conversely, when a great, simple logo is displayed with 100% crispness and is allowed to breathe on the canvas, the path to having a great web site is open straight ahead of you—and is yours for the taking.
This leads me to my most important word of advice…let your web site breathe. Negative space is perhaps more important than the space you have filled with content. This will allow the content you are introducing to take centre stage and will eliminate competition between your core messages. There is nothing worse than a site that is designed to have every aspect attract attention. Let the most important component naturally be viewed first, non-consciously by the visitor.
Keep your logo visible and use it intelligently throughout the site to re-enforce your brand at every step through your site. The visitor may not know much about your product yet, but at least give them a feeling of comfort and ease when they land on your site and you’ll find they are staying longer and visiting more pages.