Website Design Best Practices
You could have a beautiful, professional website that’s kicking off or you could just be getting started on your first website, but have you thought about how you can convert your visitors into leads? How can you improve the user experience? Follow some of these standard website design best practices and you’ll be on your way to success.
Website Design Best Practices
Create Strong Call To Actions
A website should attract your target market and tell them what you’re offering, with the final goal being to convert the visitor into a lead or new customer with a strong call to action. A call to action can be to sign up for the newsletter, set up a consultation, and more. It should tell your audience what they should do and motivate them to do it. So much work goes into making a compelling website, the call to action needs to match.
Reduce Loading Time
There are a few ways to reduce loading time and increase your conversion rate. Reduce image size, quality, and type to ensure your pages load efficiently and clearly. Over half of a website’s page weight is generally images. Keep in mind to not lower the quality of the image to an extent where you are compromising the visual design of your website. Evaluate your plugins and if the features they add make sense for your page. Adding too many plugins can increase the work it takes for your page to load. The faster your website loads the more likely visitors will be to stay on the page and convert into leads.
Mobile Friendly
Most users will not interact with a website that doesn’t display properly on their device and most of your viewers will more than likely be viewing your website from their mobile device. You could build the best website but if you didn’t verify that it will look just as professional, organized, and easy to navigate, you’ve done yourself a massive disservice. Double check that your design provider uses responsive design and that your design fits into it prior to launching your website.
Easy Navigation
The less time it takes for your visitor to find what they’re looking for, the better. Optimizing your viewer experience to be the best makes all the difference. Your website should have a search bar and a menu bar in the header with no more than 6 options. Horizontal top-level navigation is a web design standard and a back to top button will make navigating to it that much easier. Contact information should be easily visible on all pages. Finally, include breadcrumbs throughout the visitors experience to allow them to easily navigate back to a page if they would like. If your website isn’t easily navigated, the visitor could leave and not buy into what they had been looking for.
Consistent Branding
Consistent branding is key to a successful website. Brand colors, logo, positioning, and product offerings should be clear. Keep all page design consistent with the brand. Navigating away from this can lead to confusion, causing undue stress to the visitor. They may even have trouble understanding what you’re selling leading to a difficulty in making sales. Tell your story on your website.
In Conclusion…
Designing a successful website goes far beyond the visual design. Your audience is looking for an easily accessible and navigational site where they can jump on, find what they’re looking for, and purchase the product or service. A successfully designed website is really about the user experience. Whether you’re designing your first website or are looking to update your already high-traffic website, look for ways you can improve your user experience through design best practices.