What’s the most important part of a good sale? The pitch! But online you only have a few seconds to garner and maintain your audience’s attention in order to keep them on your site, let alone make any sale. What will keep them looking at your content? Other than loading time and site back-end mumbo-jumbo, it depends upon your website’s visual presentation.

The visual presentation can include anything from graphic design, brand, packaging, as well as product or service design. Whew. This is a lot to keep in mind while designing your services and online presence. This gets you to the point of realizing a need for a cohesive design, but a method or look is still lacking. Look around at the big powerhouse companies and what they are doing.

Apple and Amazon are great examples of simplistic, easy to navigate websites and overall branding. Apple is renowned for their simplistic ideals in product, services, graphic design and visual appeal. Amazon is also similar in this. Both logos are straightforward and plain with well laid out websites.

Say you are just beginning though – where to start? Keep it simple when in doubt. Understated can sell your professionalism a lot more than an over-the-top, busy logo and website. Once your logo is set, move on to your web presence. Keep your brand the same throughout your presence online. Before you start your website, start with the basics: good content and following Google’s webmaster guidelines. That’s the surefire way to get a good footing in the market.