Think your web design doesn’t play a major role in your business? Think again. Studies have found that potential customers will abandon your page immediately, just because it isn’t attractive. This is where the right website design tips come in handy.
The good news is, these tips are easy to implement and can be done today without the help of a professional web designer. Read on to learn more.
1. Choose a Relevant Header Image
Many businesses love the look and feel of a strong header. When done properly, this image can be a great first impression for those who visit your site. However, there are some common mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
First of all, you’ll need to make sure that your image is the appropriate size and resolution needed for the space. A highly pixelated image is not the first thing you want someone visiting your site to see. Also, it’s important that your photo is relevant to your business and the products or services you provide. This means children running in fields, shiny lightbulbs, or tango dancers should be avoided unless they have something to do with your business.
You may need to invest some extra funds into the image and design of your web page. If your design budget is an issue we suggest find information about commercial lenders to get the support you need.
2. Know the Goal of Your Website
Your website is a multifaceted platform that can be used for a number of platforms. It can be used to sell products, peak interest in upcoming services, rebrand current services, or simply to give people a better idea of what your business is about.
That being said, you want to focus on one of these areas when designing your website. If your goal is to sell products, focus on that and let the rest of the information be “filler”.
2. Allow Visitors to Keep in Touch
Not every person that visits your site will want to buy a product or service right off the bat, and with today’s short attention spans chances are they may not even spend much time on your site. This is why it’s imperative to keep in touch.
Be sure your site features a well placed “opt-in” form for visitors to sign up for your newsletter. That way you can keep them updated while staying on their radar. After all, email continues to be one of the leading forms of marketing.
3. Incorporate Social Media
Your website is a great source of information, but you want to give your visitor a chance to know more about the brand, what it’s about and it’s character. This is where social media is a valuable resource. By allowing visitors to follow your various social media accounts from your website you’re starting a long term relationship with a potential customer.
Today, many website platforms even allow you to integrate your social media feed directly onto your site so your posts, photos, and updates are all viewable from your home page.
4. Limit Exit Points
As much as links to subscription forms and social media can help increase customer retention, you’ll want to do your best to keep them focused on the site. This means limiting the number of “exit” points on your website.
Often business owners invest time and money through ads and social media platforms attempting to drive traffic to their website. Once their efforts are successful, site visitors are met with dozens of options to leave their website all over again. Kind of defeating the point, don’t you think?
5. Focus on Speed
Nothing is more frustrating than a slow loading website. In fact, most of us tend to quit when a page is taking too long to appear. This is one major pitfall you want to avoid on your own page.
There are multiple factors that can affect the speed of your website. The first is where you choose to host your webpage. if your host doesn’t have the speed or capability to allow your page to load quickly, you may need to look elsewhere. You also want to pay attention to date rich features on your page. This could include large plugins, widgets, or videos that take time to load.
7. Don’t Over Push
So you’re finally gaining some traction to your site. Do yourself a favor and stop yelling at your visitors. This means avoiding ALL CAPS LOCK SALES PITCHES, multiple big red arrows and countdown clocks.
You want a long term relationship with your customers, so sell without being so pushy. Allow your visitor to get a better idea of who you are and why they should buy from you without resulting to cliche sales techniques.
8. Have a Dedicated Sales Page
The best way to avoid coming on too strong is to dedicate one page to selling, which isn’t the homepage. Many businesses save their sales pitches for their “how it works” section or their “services” page. This allows the visitor to enter the sales pitch themselves, eliminating that pressured sales feeling.
This doesn’t mean you can’t drop some breadcrumbs throughout the site making the visitor aware of your product value. It also helps to implement several links throughout the page leading to your sales page.
9. Be Mobile Friendly
Today, the majority of our internet experience takes place on a smartphone or tablet. This can be a problem if your website was designed with only a desktop view in mind. Not only is a messy mobile page off-putting to visitors, but Google now penalizes sites that aren’t “mobile friendly”.
The good news is most site building platforms allow you to take a look at how the mobile version of the site appears before publishing. You can also create a secondary mobile site that automatically loads when your site is visited from a device.
10. Know Your SEO
A beautiful, well-designed site won’t help your business much if no one can find it. So how do you make your site easily accessible through search engines? Your best bet is by implementing some SEO techniques.
In it’s most basic definition, SEO involves using well-placed keywords throughout your site to increase your search ranking. You’ll usually want to use keywords that have a high search rate but low competition rate. Sites like Google keyword Planner are a great place to start your keyword research.
However, when it comes to SEO you’ll want to be sure you know what you’re doing. Overuse or improper use of keywords can actually hurt your Google ranking.
Go Beyond Website Design Tips
Your website is often the first place potential customers will go to learn more about your business. You can’t afford a poor first impression. While these website design tips will get you started on the right foot, the more you know about proper web design the better the results.
If you’re ready for your business to have the website it deserves, dive into our many web design articles to learn more.
