Direct Planning Solutions had an existing website designed by Pogo. Top ten search results meant it drew good traffic and converting that traffic meant the site represented a good return on investment. As a website though the original wasn’t as accomplished as it could be. We felt that we could better convert traffic and represent the company. DPS were keen to re-invest in Pogo web design based on the performance of the previous site. The result is the site you see at Direct Planning Solutions.
Telling The Story
Every company has a story and it’s the job of the website to convey that story. With this site we’ve taken that literally and have used a narrative approach, expecting our visitors to scroll down and get a sense of the company as they go. The bottom of the page features a bold call to action (the contact us button).
Whereas the previous site was a bit too information heavy, with this site we’ve deliberately leaned off the information. Extra information is available on the site for those who want it, but the front page is kept clean and allowed to spell out DPS’s narrative. And with an eye to converting traffic to inquiry we’ve include the call to action at the bottom.
Many website’s rush to their call to action. They put it at the top because they’re unsure if visitors will get all the way to the bottom. It’s our job to ensure they do by providing interest and information in digestible bites. With this site we’ve combined attractive and relevant graphics with a slightly parallax-based design to provide visual interest. We’ve include what information we felt was relevant, links for more information as required, and a video halfway down (because videos are low investment for our visitors but can convey so much).
Some popular web effects (such as parallax) will be be conspicuously over used soon, so we’ve tried to take a light touch to them. For the moment I think that those who use them well have a small advantage because they’re visually interesting. We don’t want to over-play our hand on these things though. They’ll become a cliche of web design pretty soon.
