Many business owners think of design as something artists conjure up out of their creative depths -- that coming up with the right color scheme, choosing the best font and lining up the best graphics are things that can only be inspired by creative minds.

While there is a bit of inspired creativity that goes into web design, there’s a lot more science involved than you might think. Here are a few scientifically proven ways to get better results from your website.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

It's a question you may have asked applicants a hundred times during the interview process, but when's the last time you asked yourself that question? It's just as important to know where you want your company to be in the future as it is to have your own personal goals and aspirations. After all, if you're not looking forward, you could easily find yourself stuck in the past. 

As a marketer, could anything be better than getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a successful company? If so, it must be a glimpse that also reveals how that company is reconciling challenges just like yours.

L'Oreal, the global cosmetics company, offers a tantalizing glimpse into how it is integrating consumers' preference for mobile, digital interactions – meaning, both information and purchases. You may wish to take a page out of L'Oreal's playbook if you share its goal: “We recognized that digital couldn't continue being its own channel,” Chief Marketing Office Marie Gulin-Merle says. “It had to be a part of everything we do.”

Ah, the evolution of the internet. 

First came the websites, text-heavy and full of header tags, paragraphs and links. Then table-based sites and online page builders emerged, allowing for the introduction of multiple columns and text-based design. 

There was a time around the turn of the century (the one in 2000, not 1900) when leading marketing professionals could pretty much just go with their guts when it came to making decisions. 

Ah, the joys of ad targeting on Facebook. 

It's a practice that puts your ads in front of the people who are most interested in what you have to say. It works for businesses large and small. It allows you to focus on location, age, gender, interests, demographics, behaviors, connections or a combination of them all. 

Capturing people’s attention is the foundation of all advertising. But what is able to grab a person’s attention? Today, we are turning to technology to find the answer. Algorithms are being used to track every click a person makes. They study what appeals to the person in order to better predict what they might click on in the future. There is no question about it – artificial intelligence and big data are changing our understanding of attention.

How do you measure success? 

If you're like a lot of companies, you focus on the moment when a prospective customer converts to a customer by clicking on the "buy button." 

And while that might provide some insight into your short-term success prospects, it probably isn't going to tell you much about whether or not you are positioned for long-term, sustainable success. 

Maybe you've noticed that consumers have grown impatient, almost to a fault. As a marketer, it can help enormously to know what they're so impatient to find while they work their cell phones into a frenzy.

The dominant search engine in the world, Google, shares some consumer data insights that can help marketers refine their offerings so that “hurry up” consumers can find what they're looking for the second they demand it.

Few people enjoy taking tests, but fewer people object to a no-pressure, “eliminate the least desirable answer” quiz.