If you’re building a website for the first time, or want to improve the web design of your site, you’ll need to work out whether you want to target a local or global market. Whilst it might be tempting to create a web design that falls into both of these categories, if you’re building a website from scratch for a brand new business, then it might be a good idea to focus your web design on just one of these categories. 

Go Sitebuilder offers ready to go sites which are completely customisable, so that you can build your website with a web design that perfectly suits your business, whether you’re aiming to keep it local, or to make it global. We take a look at some of the differences between local and global web design to help you decide which is the right web design for you. 

Colour scheme 

The psychology behind the colour scheme of your website is more important than you might think. According to TrueList, 42% of shoppers base their opinions of a website on the overall web design, and colour is an incremental factor when it comes to forming these judgements. When selecting the colour scheme for your site, think about what emotions you want to evoke, and what emotions the colours might inspire. 

If you’re building a website with the aim of targeting local customers or clients within your area, consider if there are any colours you can use that resonate with your locality. For example, if your town or city has a renowned sports team, you may choose to select a colour scheme which slightly mirrors the colours of that team. However, you also want to have a distinctive colour that resonates with your own brand – see if you can incorporate a colour which is unique to your business into your web design. 

On the other hand, if you’re building a website with the purpose of selling your products or services globally, you’ll want to pick a colour scheme which is more general. For example, some colours have negative connotations: in South Africa red is the colour of mourning, so you might want to opt for a more neutral colour scheme to ensure your web design is appealing to your global audience. 

Images 

Images also play an important role in the aesthetic appeal of your web design, as they not only add to the overall appearance of your site, but they help to convey a message. Using images is one of the quickest ways to communicate with your target audience – according to MIT, the human brain can process images in 13 milliseconds. That means it’s crucial to choose the right image for your website, as it is a great way to capture the interest of site visitors. 

If you’ve created a web design targeted at a local audience, one of the best ways to boost your image as a trusty, local business is to use local images. This doesn’t mean uploading a few snaps of some local landmarks onto your site – try snapping images of your products being used in a local area, or maybe upload a picture of your business collaborating with another local business. 

For a global web design, images of your local area are much less important: you don’t need to use images to highlight the fact  that you are a local business targeting local audiences, so you have more freedom in choosing which images to add to your web design. Use more general photos: stock images are a good way to add a professional touch to your website, without the cost of hiring a photographer. At Go Sitebuilder, we offer a huge range of stock photos to choose from, helping you build a website perfect for a global market within a few clicks. 

Content 

When building a website, your content not only conveys a message to your audience, but it also plays a big role in SEO, which affects your ranking on Google. You’ll need to decide how you want to structure your content for your web design: if your aim is to build a website for the global market, then you might want to focus mainly on keywords referring to the the products or services you sell, so that Google’s algorithms rank you higher on its search page results when someone searches for a specific item or service. 

If you’re a local business, you’ll still want to use keywords for your product, but you can also capitalise on local keywords, as it is fantastic for SEO: if you incorporate your location within your content on multiple pages then Google will rank you higher when someone searches for your products or services within the area. 

Whether you’re building a website for a local or global market, it’s important to find a website builder that is easy to use, but also offers quality services; Go Sitebuilder offers ready to go sites with completely customisable web designs, so that you can build a site that’s perfect for you. Our 14-day free trial gives you all the freedom you need to try our services, completely free of charge – try it today!