Ten ways you can do now to set up a good-looking Web shop

What I have done is pick out from my experience and from others only the most essential things you can do now to set up a good-looking shop.

The first three steps involve ways you must do before the actual work of designing the web site of your dreams. The effort you spend on these preliminaries will give you a firm foundation from which to make decisions about the look of your site:

1. Start with your audience.

Begin by thinking about your audience--not any kind of audience. Would you want to invite everyone to your party? Decide whom to invite and keep.

Know what kind of persons they are, their wants or dislikes, what they are looking for.

If you target middle-aged male executives, know what clothes they wear, what colors they like, what sports they are engaged in. In what industry are they in sufficient number?

In short, profile your would-be web guests. It gives you some idea on what look your web pages would attract them.

2. Examine your company, product or service

How is your product packaged? With what colors, marks and symbols? What is the shape of the bottle or container? What typefaces or fonts are used? What are your corporate colors and the look of your logo?

For service companies, look at your portfolio and corporate visuals. You might have “packaged” your services using a particular look in a brochure, folder, slide or multimedia CD-ROM.

The idea here is to use the visual identity that has won you a big number of customer offline that can be duplicated or adapted to the Web. If your offline image is not appealing, chances are it will not be attractive to visitors on the Web as well.