7 Website Design Tips to help Your Business Succeed Online
Having your own business website is important. Even more important is having a business website that works and meets your goals whether it is building your brand, generating leads or selling products.
One of the many important criteria for a website to be a successful resource is how the site looks and what impression it makes on your visitors. Keeping your visitors in mind is critical for a successful website design.
These 7 website design tips will help make your website an important resource for your business success.
Tip 1: Keep your website design Simple
The temptation to have all the bells and whistles on your website is a natural one. But it is important to focus on simplicity.
Benefits
- Your site is more user friendly as distractions are reduced and essential information gains prominence not to mention quicker loading pages.
- Helps you convey your message more effectively as each page is more focussed on presenting essential information.
- Managing and maintaining your website design in the future is less of a hassle.
Tip 2: Reduce unnecessary graphics; use lightweight, optimized website images
Online users of websites have very little patience. They are a click away from leaving the site and a good first impression matters. An attractive but lightweight and quick loading site does just that.
Benefits
- Users are not kept waiting and have quick access to information you want them to see.
- Search engines consider a quick loading website positively in their ranking algorithms.
- Optimum use of images strikes the right balance, attracting attention where essential without becoming a distraction.
Tip 3: Use key business elements in your website
Your business website should represent your business effectively. Some design elements are a must on business websites. These are
- Your Logo
- Business Tagline
- Call to Action
- Unique selling points
- Contact information
- Relevant Images
- Copywrite and Privacy policy
Benefits
- They help build trust for your business.
- Improve your branding
- Help visitors more easily take desired actions.
Tip 4: Better Call to Actions for better Conversions
One of the main goals of any website is to convert visitors into customers. To achieve this, the website needs to have clear call to action elements These may be primary and a secondary call to actions as described below.
- Primary call to action: This focuses on the action you desire your visitor to take e.g buying a product or filling a form. This should be visually prominent and use action verbs like “Contact Us”, “Get a Quote”, “Register Now!”.
- Secondary call to action: This acts as a fall back for getting your potential customers who are not ready to take some other action and give you a second chance e.g.newsletter subscriptions or product info downloads. Keep these relatively subtle compared to your primary call to action.
Benefits
- Improved conversions by helping visitors in the process
- Backup for visitors who have not yet made up their mind
Tip 5: Structure your content for better visibility and readability
On the web, users scan the page for clues to show them the page they are on is relevant. You can help them by having well structured content incorporated into your design. Some basic steps for this are
- Break your content into smaller and simpler sections and use cues like bulleting where appropriate.
- Have clear headings and sub headings for the page and the content sections.
- Use fonts which are optimum for viewing online and well supported. For fancy fonts, use a graceful way to fall back to standard fonts.
Benefits
- People stay on your site longer.
- They find desired information more easily.
- It creates a good impression about your business.
Tip 6: Ensure Browser Compatibility
The number of browsers and their various versions currently being used is a web design challenge. Your visitors may not use the browser you love, so make sure your website looks good in all the important ones across all versions.
Benefits
- Your visitors get a consistent user experience regardless of which browser they visitor your site from.
- You don’t loose potential customers because your site did not display right on their browser.
Tip 7: Design for Multiple Platforms
The growing prominence of smart devices and phones like the iPhone and iPad from Apple or the various Android platforms from Google means your design needs to look good on many different resolutions. Responsive web design is the way forward here.
Benefits
- Visitors can access your website and view it correctly on any device.
- You don’t have to create multiple copies of your website to match different devices.
Keeping these tips in mind you will have a website design that will have an impact on your visitors and help you build your brand and business. Besides this, it will also complement your promotional activities including SEO, Social Media Marketing and others.
This website design tips post brought to you by Dharne & Company, a website design firm based in Orange County and serving businesses in SoCal including the greater Los Angeles area.