Your website is the face of your company. It represents you, your products or services and your customer service. Too often business owners think that any website design will do. It might look horrible, but at least it means that their business has an online presence. I mean, after all it is something that they can look at again once the business is going. However, this is definitely not the case. As a matter of fact, bad website design can do you a lot more harm than good. The chances are that you could miss out on that valuable customer who could bring in the cash that your business needs to keep its doors open.
Here is a useful shortlist to help you set up your website for success.
Perhaps you have spent a lot of time creating great website copy, but what is the point if it is hard or tiring to read? There are many steps you can follow to ensure your text is legible for everyone.
For example, you should try to avoid using any busy background colours or images. Also, do not use more than two different fonts that are suitable for website use like Arial or Helvetica. And, obviously do not make your font too small! Remember that the majority of Internet users will read your content from a smartphone or tablet.
Before you start with your web design, there are a few questions that you should first try to answer. What is the purpose of your website? Are you blogging about your travels, offering photography sessions, selling toys or a service. Which type of consumer will visit your website? Are they older or very young? Are they female or male? Tech-savvy or not? You get the idea. Also, what exactly is your business about? Are you conservative, progressive, creative, or technological?
Answering these questions will give you a good idea of which type of people will see your website and what they will expect there. Having a flashy web design with loads of animations and colours for pensioners merely seeking advice on their retirement plans is perhaps not very suitable.
If you want people to buy your product or to call your business for a consultation; let them know! There is really no need to go about it in a roundabout way. Just have a clear call-to-action button that says “buy now” or “call now” and link it to the section where they need to be to do so.
If consumers want more info on your product, brand or your business, let them find it without much effort. So, be sure to create web design with a clear menu structure that will enable your website visitors to find what they need in as few as possible mouse clicks.
Using imagery to sell your product is vital, but using low-quality images, animation and videos will just make your brand look cheap and untrustworthy.
As the consumer cannot touch the actual product, they need the thing closest to it if you want to seal the deal and have a happy, returning customer. So, be sure to spread the brand love!
Good imagery can do this. Just think about high resolution pics and several images that help to show the product from different angles. Attention to detail will avoid unhappy reviews on your website when the product turns out to be different than your imagery promised it to be.
Of course, you want your customer to know everything there is to know about you and ideally they can see it in one overview, on your home page. Unfortunately, this is rarely the right approach.
We all know the saying “less is more” and that definitely holds true for your home page too! So, stick to one or two messages, some great photography and a clean and neat web design. This will definitely give the reader some time to breathe and rest his or her eyes.
Did you know that over 50% of people visit a website from a mobile device? That is a lot! If your web design is not optimised for mobile browsing you are missing out on a lot of customers! With all the handy tools out there, it is very easy to create a web design that is ready for mobile browsing.
Related Article from a Sydney Website Design Company: “9 Important Features of Every Good Website”
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