The chances are it won’t be the colours that have been used – but nonetheless they play a vital role in how you perceive that site.  A web designer will often consider which colours will have the best impression on the visitors to that site.  If you have ever come across a website that is packed full of garish colours, you will know how quickly it makes you click away to something else.

As you can see, colour actually has far more importance in the grand scheme of things than you may think.  Get it right and visitors will stay longer.  Get it wrong and people will flee.

Some businesses make good use of colour to enhance their brand.  For example, think about those companies that have some interest in green products and saving the environment.  They traditionally use some element of green in their logo and website.  This is the most obvious example, but there are others too.  A business involved in selling toys to children may use the primary colours to indicate that particular marketplace.  Pastel colours wouldn’t work as well in this case.

Some people will pick colours for their website on the premise that they are their favourites.  But the colours should be chosen for the effect they have on the customer, not how much the website owner likes them.  Some won’t have thought about colours at all, which is why hiring someone experienced in website design is often a good move.

Certain colours stand out more than others as well.  Red is a classic example.  A website holding a fire sale may well use red to grab people’s attention, as well as tying in with the fire theme.  But red can also mean danger to a lot of people, so it is important not to put people off.  It could be a case of experimenting with using different colours, to see which ones get the best results.  And it has been known that changing the colour of an order button can influence the number of orders a website gets.

Some companies spend untold amounts of money on figuring out which colours work best for them.  But most of us don’t have access to that kind of cash.  That’s why it pays to do a little bit of research on your own.

And don’t be afraid to approach a website designer to find out what they know about colour and the effect it has on marketing.  They may be able to give you more advice and knowledge in a short conversation than you would get from weeks of research on your own.

Be aware that the perception people have about a particular colour can change depending on what country they are in too.  That is a good point to consider if you have a market that is global, compared to one that is countrywide.  But regardless of that, colour can certainly hold the key to more sales.

The secret is Web 2.0.  Some people are still a little mystified by this term, and it’s true that it does involve a number of different things.  But it also points to a more advanced idea of the internet, compared to how it first began.

If you take a look at the wealth of websites available online today, you will see that many of them are interactive in some way.  Back in the ‘old days’, websites were very much static entities.  You could look at them and read the information they contained, but that was about it.  Now you can take an active part in them in a number of different ways.  Think about forums, social networking sites and the like, and you’ll get the picture.

So how do people turn all these sites into sources for traffic?  The basic premise is simple, although there can be many ways of actually putting it into practice.  But the key is to connect with the people you need to have as customers.  If you are selling golf clubs then you need to connect with people who love golf and want to buy the right equipment.  If you are selling eBooks about making money, you need to connect with people who want to make money.

It sounds simple, but it can take time and perseverance to get real results from tapping into the power of Web 2.0.  It is one part of online marketing that can bring great results for little or no budget at all.  But you need to be patient to build up an audience worth having.

Take Twitter for example.  If you start following a thousand people, the odds are that a lot of those will start following you back.  But if those thousand people don’t form a key part of your potential audience, you won’t refer many of them back to your website.  It’s about finding and attracting the right people, not just anyone.

The people who make a success of getting traffic in this way have spent the time and the effort to get things right.  They don’t just assume they can post one message on Twitter, or set up a MySpace page and that’s it.  Just as some methods of advertising require money, this one requires time and effort if your internet marketing is going to get a healthy boost.

So yes, it is possible to get a huge influx of visitors from these sites.  But those who get the best results don’t focus all their energies on one site.  They go to a number of different ones in order to get the best return.

It’s not for everyone, but it is there for everyone to try.  And those who don’t are leaving a lot of potential customers behind.

But this process doesn’t just apply to individuals – it can equally apply to online businesses as well.

The question is whether the process of reinvention needs to be a constant one, or whether it should only be tackled occasionally.  Online businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and no matter how well you are doing you should never settle.  Even considering whether or not to reinvent your business can lead to exciting new developments as you move ahead.

There is no doubt that all online businesses should be examining and reviewing all aspects of their progress on a regular basis.  For example, how is their search engine marketing doing?  Is it bringing in the desired results that are needed, or is that business relying on old and outdated methods all the time?

Similarly, is their website design in need of a make over?  The current design of many online businesses may have worked wonders a year or more ago, but is it in need of a modern and fresher feel now?

And this just scratches the surface.  While the most important thing is clearly to keep doing business with those who bring in the profits, it’s easy to slip up and not see how your business is faring for the long term.  Some businesses may be happy with the level of sales they are achieving at the moment.  But if they were to reinvent themselves and their website, could they actually achieve more?

Almost always the answer is unmistakenly “Yes”.  But is it essential to reinvent your business ‘constantly’?  If you did that it would be extremely easy to confuse your customer base.  They come to you because they know you, they are familiar with your business and they understand what you offer.  What would they make of it if you constantly changed things in the name of ‘reinvention’?  The chances are they might even land on your site and not recognise it.

So it’s a careful balance that must be drawn here.  Every business wants to advance and develop.  But it must do so in a way that retains its core audience, whilst attracting new customers as well.

Reinvention sounds like a process that should be enjoyed – and it is.  But it also sounds like a process where all the old beliefs and ideals should be thrown out in favour of the new.

And this is where some people – and businesses – trip up.  Reinventing any online business should not be viewed as an ‘all or nothing’ event.  It should be viewed as an opportunity to change what isn’t working and carry on with what is… all the while keeping the number one priority firmly in mind.

And that of course would be the customer.

But then there are those other websites. We’ve all seen them. As soon as you get on the home page it’s clear that design has triumphed over common sense. There is no menu to navigate by. The home page is either littered with too much information, making it difficult to decide where to go next, or it is so minimalist that it’s hard to tell what the website is about in the first place.

If content is still king, then navigation must come a very close second. Online marketing demands that your website is as good as it can possibly be. People are too impatient to hang around and try to figure out how your website works. If they can’t arrive and find their way around straightaway with no problem at all then they will go elsewhere.

But some webmasters seem to think that people will stick around and give them orders no matter what they do. This is wishful thinking. If you know there are other websites that sell the same thing or provide similar information to the site you’re on, you’re not going to hang around are you? Why struggle to understand the navigation system of a sub-standard site when you can click away and go elsewhere instead?

In this sense, navigation is a crucial part of your web site design. You need to be sure that people can go where you need them to go, and this begins with knowing what purpose your site will have.

Think about it for a moment. If you want people to buy stock from your website, you need to be able to break that stock down into sensible categories. If you want them to sign up for a free newsletter so you can build your mailing list, you need to make sure they know it’s available. It’s no good tucking it away on a page that is hard to find.

As such, your home page is the front door onto the rest of your website. If you imagine that front page as being the entrance door to a huge department store set on many levels, what’s the first thing you’ll see? In real life it would be a huge sign telling you which departments are on which floor. Websites are no different.

This is where a professional website designer is worth their weight in gold. The experience they have of putting countless websites together for different reasons and different clients makes it easy to produce a website that works on all kinds of levels.

But this doesn’t just apply to new websites. If you have a website live on the internet at the moment and you know it isn’t doing as well as it should be, invest in the advice of a professional and benefit from the difference it makes.

Now some of them might admittedly be right – if they are web designers themselves, that is. But the rest will fall short of the high standards that are required to attract any real attention online today. There is no doubt that it’s cheaper to try and do it yourself. A DIY or template website costs a fraction of what you would pay to a web designer. But there is a big caveat that you should be aware of.

Let’s suppose you are going to sell a wide range of goods on your website when it launches. How long will it take you to create your website, do you think? A couple of weeks? A month? Maybe longer?

It takes the average person a lot longer to create a half decent website than it would take an experienced web designer to create an outstanding one. And if you factor in all the lost sales you could have made if you had got professional help for your website design to start with, how much money does that add up to?

In truth a lot of people end up going to web designers anyway in the end. They find that the task of putting a website together is beyond them. With web design you really do get what you pay for. The best service will provide every last nut and bolt, and all the things you need to be able to compete with your rivals in the same sector. How much of that could you reasonably create yourself?

You still need to have a good idea of what you want to achieve with your website however. If you approach a website designer with no clear idea of what you want, it will be virtually impossible to come up with a website that will serve your needs.

You need to know your business inside out and know exactly how it works to be able to talk with someone who can realise your dreams for you. Do you have an idea of how you want your website to look? If you have a particular colour scheme in mind make sure you mention it early on, for example. It all helps the web designer to move towards the perfect solution and the ideal look for your site.

A good web site design is crucial to succeeding online. Anything less will be spotted nowadays and that isn’t the way to do business online. You may need to save up to be able to afford the service but while you are doing so you can research your business topic more fully. In turn you will be more prepared and more able to push your new business forward.

There will always be some people who will try to go it alone in this department. But they are rarely the ones who make a grand success of their online business.

Whatever the answer may be, you only need to start surfing the internet for a few moments to discover the fact that there are lots of websites out there that are woefully in need of attention.  Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people about who think that having a website is all you need to succeed with online.

That isn’t true, of course.  You need more than a website – you need a good website that has a strong design and a clear message, and if you don’t have that you stand a chance of making very few (if any) sales as a result.

Website design is one of the most important elements of any site, and it is fair to say that a lot of people don’t give it fair consideration.  It is very much a case of getting what you pay for, and a lot of people unfortunately think that designing their own website with minimal design skills or experience will be good enough to create a site that will rake in the sales day in and day out.  As anyone who has actually tried this will know, it isn’t as easy as you might think.

The fact remains that there is a huge amount of competition out there, and while some websites will naturally fall by the wayside with every day that passes, there will always be plenty more springing up to take their place.  In short, if you don’t keep up with your design obligations you will soon find that you will struggle to keep on making sales.

Another important point to bear in mind is that good website design incorporates words as well as pictures and format.  It all rolls in together in such a way as to ensure that the best effect is achieved and the website achieves its ultimate aim – which is always to bring in more customers in some way, whether that is through selling items directly or getting the details of people who are interested in their products so that they can get in touch with them later on by some other means.

Even among those people who do make the effort to get their site professionally designed right from the start, there are those who don’t worry about doing anything more with it once the process is complete.  But a website is a living thing; it develops and grows just as a business develops and grows, and if you learn to accept that fact and embrace it your own website will bring you more rewards than you could imagine.

There is a world of difference between a website and a good website, and that is often a difference that only an expert can understand.