Having an online presence is like having a business asset since it could provide with a good ROI for the time that you put into maintaining it, as well as the cost of setting it up, hosting it, etc. However, we cannot say that having a website is enough as you need to drive people to your website and once they are there you have to convert them into real customers.
Some of the ways to convince and convert them is by having a well-designed website with clear ways of finding your products and services. We know that as a business owner, you probably don’t even know what makes for a good design,and hence why you would hire web designers to do that, but at least you should know the basic principles of it, so you can decide which design works best for you.
A Good Web Design Needs to be User Friendly
Nobody wants to operate a complicated thing that is why it is important to create a website that is easy to use. For example, avoid creating certain useless pieces of information especially upfront where the potential customer is not ready for it yet. In the reverse, don’t hide important selling features that make the product stand out, as users will go looking elsewhere. No matter what industry you operate within, you need to make it user friendly as you simply can’t afford to lose potential customers due to basic design and usability issues on your site.
A user friendly website should be easy and intuitive as possible for your potential customers to use. Then, hopefully it will make visitors stay longer on your site and later convert into paying customers.
Have Good Navigation
One of the key elements that make for a good web design is its navigation. Good menu navigation should be at the top of every page, as well as related links or sidebars that may be present, as well as internal links in the body copy. Furthermore, your main navigation menu should only list your sites’ most important pages as placing too many items in the menu will make your navigation look crowded; as a result it will make users harder to find what they want. If you have deeper content, you can put it in sidebars, related links or internal body as a sub-section of your site.
Use A Perfect Layout
Like it or not, layout of your pages has a huge impact on visitors and their experience. Therefore, it is important to make sure that your page is not too busy or cluttered. By having a good layout, users will not only understand what information you are trying to convey but they will be able to quickly locate content most relevant to them.
Therefore, discuss various layout options with your web designers. They may offer some option based on their views and experiences, but don’t be afraid to explore the boundaries. As web designers, we also like customers that have good reference sites that they like, as it is often a very good guideline on what they are thinking about it. So do your homework, and it will make the whole process much more smooth.
Select the Right Colors
Do you know that the colors on your site can massively impact a user’s time there? Usually, business owners base their website’s overall color scheme on their logo or brand colors, but this may not always be a good idea, especially if your brand logo hasn’t had a modern refresh for a while.
Brand identity is often used to fully express the heart, soul and personality of a business; however this shouldn’t dominate the end-to-end on-site experience. It may be the case that your brand identity features a number of bright, enthusiastic colors which look fantastic in your logo and on brand marketing materials. However, the same vibrant color scheme may not be appreciated when used as a text link or background color, or indeed in all of your site’s imagery.
In fact, you need to find a balance between letting your brand identity have a presence in your site’s design and keeping it from being overly intrusive.
Displaying Good Content
Content is where you provide the important details on your website, such as contact details, product information, services, and many more. As such, you should always ensure that your content is well constructed as it’s the once chance you have to highlight the features/benefits and the overall selling proposition. Don’t forget to include contact points regularly throughout your website so as to capture their interest as soon as they are ready to buy.
Device Type
Last but not the least is to make sure that your design is working on every modern device type. You need to ensure that if a mobile-phone user visits your site, they do not have to zoom in and out just to access content or read properly as this will decrease the chance for them to stick around. Therefore, keep an eye on text size, image resizing, button size, as well as the layout of your menu. Try it out on each of the 3 major devices (desktop, tablet and phone) and make sure the user experience is smooth for all 3 of them.
Of course, there are plenty of web design aspects that could be discussed here, but we have prioritized the important points so that it can meet the tight schedule of a busy business owner. If you would like to learn more about web design, feel free to contact our skillful web designers to help you out!