Title: How to Achieve a Winning Online Presence Word Count: 985 Summary: A professional looking and stylish web design helps to establish a strong, positive online presence. In the visually competitive world of cyberspace where first impressions and image do battle on the front line, it's hardly surprising that a strong, positive presence plays a vital part in internet success! Keywords: website design Article Body: In the online world of the Internet whether you like it or not your initial success is about 80% dependent on your image. If you think image is important to success in real world business, then just think how much more important it is to online business where your success literally depends on what your visitors see on a computer screen! Just think about that for a moment. To succeed you simply must communicate the right image, period! Anything less will fail. You'll simply loose the edge! Give yourself the Best Possible Chance: Use a Professional Web Design Service! A professional looking and stylish web design helps to establish a strong, positive online presence. In the visually competitive world of cyberspace where first impressions and image do battle on the front line, it's hardly surprising that a strong, positive presence plays a vital part in internet success! It's true there are many web site design programs, tutorials, and online site builders available on the Internet, but nothing quite compares to the expertise and experience of a professional web site designer. First Impressions are VERY Important! It is vitally important that your web site conveys the right image and with maximum impact. You never get a second chance with a first impression, and nowhere is this truer than on the Internet where everything is visual! It has been proven that you have no more than six seconds to grab a visitor's attention. Therefore if your web site lacks that "professional look", and communicates the wrong message, you will almost certainly loose out on many potential customers. Communicate Nothing but Professionalism right from the Start! Your web site conveys a great deal more information about you and your business than you might at first expect. Most of this information is communicated on a subliminal level just below consciousness, but make no mistake: it IS communicated. If your web site looks disorganized or over busy; if it has no sense of style, no visual flow or co-ordination, then you will be seen in a similar light. You will come across as disorganized, indecisive, un-professional, lacking control, and without sense of purpose - do you really think you'll be taken seriously?! Now contrast that with a web site that looks stylish, organized, structured, polished and professional. A web site like that just oozes success! What subliminal message does it send to visitors? Simple: the person or persons behind this site are seen as being well organized, positive, competent, decisive and above all SUCCESSFUL! Granted, there are other factors involved in running a successful online business such as content, products, reputation etc., but there is no getting away from the fact that image is the initial front line influencer. The message or image that is conveyed in the first few seconds a visitor sees your web site is crucial to whether they stay or leave. Any other factors only come into play IF they stay! Never ever underestimate the power of first impressions, especially online! The Power of Subliminal Visual Communication! Using a professional web designer will give your web site that professional look, the edge, that "something extra", that indefinable quality that attracts visitors and captures attention. So what exactly is it, this indefinable something extra…? It's something that professional designers have a knack for; they instinctively know how to arouse curiosity and capture attention through artistic design and visual communication. This is something that most of us just can't quite grasp; we know it when we see it, but we're not quite sure why. Have you ever looked at a web site and thought: wow, that's a great looking site! If you have, have you ever wondered exactly why it impressed you so much? Chances are it wasn't down to the high quality photographs or that the fonts or graphics were particularly striking. In actual fact it's far more subtle than that and is rarely down to one single factor. This is the power of subliminal communication in action. It is a combination of many factors all communicating at the subliminal level that arouses your attention. Skillful colour co-ordination for one can be a powerful attention arouser. And then there are the many subtleties of page composition; the way in which various shapes, blocks of colour and text, all relate to one another on the page. All these visual cues have a direct impact, and ultimately influence how your senses process the page. Very skillful page composition can even lead the eye in a predetermined direction – how powerful is that?! Are You Getting Negative First Impressions? So if your web site isn't attracting the amount of traffic and attention you'd like, it really could be down to negative first impressions. It can be that simple! So many people fail to see this, yet it is so obvious. They spend weeks or even months pondering over why they're not generating the traffic or making the sales. Then out of sheer frustration they begin tweaking their web pages in a desperate attempt to rank higher in the search engines! It really doesn't matter how many visitors you get to your site: if they don't like what they first see – they will leave! So take a hard long objective look at you web site as if for the first time: does it instantly attract you, arouse your curiosity, does it communicate professionalism, competence etc.? Be brutally honest with yourself. If the answer is no or you're not sure, then it may be time for a design face-lift and a new positive image. With the continually falling prices of web design services, it now makes perfect sense for anyone who's serious about their online business to enlist the expertise of a professional designer. If you really want to give yourself the best possible chance of online success, then you must use only the best possible design technology. So get the Professional edge, and WIN!!