So you have gone out and engaged a new company to create the perfect looking website for you. You have got the brief done correctly , you have met with the design team and they have what you feel full filled the brief and delivered what you think is a unique looking, and stunning web design.
The question now arises and is very impotant; will this new web site create extra sales for your business. I mean will people who are looking for a product and or service and stumble across your site will suddenly drop every thing because of the design and make a purchase from you.
There are some schools of thought that would say no. people go online and will buy purely based on the price offered. This may be true in the case of a consumer buying a product that is generic and can be bought any where. If for example they are looking to buy a certain pwashing machine, they will obviously buy from the web site that has the cheapest price.
On the flip side if you are looking for a service then the design of a website comes heavily in to play. If for example you are looking for an architect you would clearly look for a site that is the most unique and stylish looking that reflects the character of the company and the personality of the work that they have done. You would want a site thats individual in nature and a site thats not template driven or a carbon copy of another site.
So you really have the break down into two components. If you have a product to sell that is fairly generic then the design is not as important as a company that has a sevice to offer. Again, if you do have a product to sell that is also unique and hi-end then you would want the web site to reflect this as well. Look at the boutique hi end Italian furniture web sites to get an idea of how a site should really fit the type of product it is selling. If you are a consumer on one of these sites you would expect to see a stylish very contemporary web site. If they see a cheap looking, budget basement bargain hunting type web site they will in most cases not end up buying from you . Remeber the rule of thumb is to design according to your business and to what your customer would expect.