I made a brief side step into web design last week, when a VC fund for which I created the fund raising presentation needed a web presence as well.
This fund (like many other businesses), needed a simple "business card", a decent, professional-looking web presence that works on all types of browsing devices. It was not trying to sell a product to consumers, it was not giving access to a content library, it was not powering a market place.
Many of these business card web sites look poor:
- People pick the wrong platform. A template that offers too many features, that can only be maintained by a web developer.
- People let the design be driven by the menu structure that the template offers, rather than the content
- People enthusiastically create active content sections (blog, news, links to social media pages) that then are not maintained.
For business card web sites, keep things very simple, but over-invest in the design of the web site. And design does not mean spectacular effects, video, and clever popups. Does the page look balanced and good (on both large and small screens). Pretty much like you would design paper/print work.