Website Design
This is always the time we all think about fresh starts and making resolutions, turning over a new leaf or trying something new. Rethinking our business strategies and targets, maybe your website design is looking a little tired or outdated? If your website is in need of a makeover for the New Year or even a complete fresh start there are a few website design basics that you’ll need to be considering.
Standing out from the Crowd
We all want a website that’s ‘a bit different’ from the rest, but a flashy new design is not the only thing you should be thinking about. Nice to look at needs to be balanced with content, functionality and visibility.
The look
You need to think hard about the type of people you need to appeal to, when, where and why will they be looking for what you have to offer? Is it business to business, or is it lively and fun; what sort of impression do you need to convey?
The content
With the enormous amount of competition and choice available you have only seconds to deliver your initial message clearly and succinctly. Filling your front page with eye-catching flash images and clutter is only going to distract from your main message. That said, a whole page of unbroken badly written text is unlikely to win friends on their first visit. Content is important, and interesting content will keep your visitors coming back, make all the words count and lead through to more detail once you have them hooked. If your point has caught their eye they will read on.
What additional things can you include to enhance your content? Perhaps your audience would be interested in a regular newsletter, or perhaps a video to showcase your product. Maybe a regular blog is right for you. Get close to your audience if you can, if they are on Facebook or Twitter then maybe you should be too, give them the opportunity to help you with your marketing & SEO.
SEO
You need to make sure your website is found in search engines and your SEO campaign will need to be thought about if it is to succeed. Ranking highly for your chosen keywords or phrases is vitally important for your website success. If you have a lot of competition, you may need to target by location or be more specific with your chosen words to stand a better chance of ranking highly in those ‘all important’ results for your target audience. What words might your prospective visitors use in that little search box to find you and what is it that you have that your competition doesn’t? What can you do to narrow down the field and help you get found? Your carefully considered chosen words and phrases will need to be featured in your titles and headings to succeed.
You can be ruthless. Just because you’d grown attached to the way your website looks, doesn’t mean your customers will miss it too. A dynamic, forward-thinking company doesn’t need a stale website. Fresh eyes and new innovations can go a long way to propelling your website to success in the coming years.
Functionality
In your quest to achieve the perfect website design make sure you pay close attention to navigation, think about how your visitors will move through your website and give them a clear and consistent means of getting around. Pay attention to how you can make your website appealing, yet easy to use from your visitor’s perspective.
You don’t necessarily need to re-invent the wheel to create new interest in your site, techniques and ideas change constantly and a stale site could lose its appeal, so a freshen up may go a long way to improving its success in the future.
