When designing a website, take careful precision to dedicate as much time to every facet as possible. Consider the user, consider the pathways they would take, get fresh eyes on it to ensure it makes sense, make it functional but also make it pleasing to the eye.
‘We eat with our eyes’ as the saying goes and we also judge a business by the website we are eating a brand with our eyes before we even begin a business relationship with a company. To make business boom design is crucial to the effectiveness of a consumer navigating and ultimately transacting with a business. Here are five tips on website design:
- Colors and White Space
When designing your site, consider the underlying message of every text box, every button, and every page. Particular colors can affect a consumer’s buying patterns; for instance, when a call-to-action button is red, it will subconsciously encourage a user to act and ideally click on the button to convert.
However, cooler colors like blue and green have been proven less effective in the same instance. Wordplay a huge part too! Too much copy will overwhelm most viewers and render your page ineffective, too little copy and the message could be misinterpreted.
Think about the amount of time a viewer judges your site:
8 seconds. About 75% of those users judge based on design. If you have a massive text block as a landing page – think again. White space is a good thing to factor in a while laying out your web design too.
A cluttered page isn’t as useful as a clean and open one especially to a first time user, so keep that in mind while developing your online look.
- Video and Animation
Incorporating video into the design generally increases product or service sales. It’s an excellent way to display the effectiveness of your company and display something creatively.
When done well, a video is a beautiful and unique way to present information to viewers. Same goes for animation; any movement is an excellent way to demand the attention of traffic coming to your site and will engage more than photos. A great example of this is found on Marble.com, who’s landing page instantly moves and engages upon opening.
- Short Forms and Ease of Use
These go hand-in-hand as the navigation of the site and the amount of collected information. Short forms when asking viewers for info can be a make or break situation. Most people online like to input as little information while surfing as possible, so cutting fluff from forms while asking your public about themselves is crucial.
Chop it to a name and maybe one or two pieces of contact information to limit time and precious clicks before those consumer’s eyes travel somewhere else.
Ease of use on the site is also tremendous as someone unable to navigate won’t be up-and-coming as a paying customer because they won’t be able to find the checkout! Giving viewers clear and straightforward pathways from point A to point B is an excellent way to do that. Maybe have a friend or associate path test your site before going live if only for a fresh pair of eyes!
- Virtual Chat and Offers
Making it easy for consumers to contact you is a massive win for being a company on a digital platform. If a user has a question or concern by giving them a way to find an answer enables the company to gain trust instantly and hopefully retain that person and convert them into a paying guest.
Think about grocery shopping; if you’re at the store for a particular product and there isn’t anyone to ask if you can’t find it, chances are you’ll leave in search of it somewhere else. This concept is the same as surfing the web and finding a service or product that you can’t get more info on; it’s just limiting.
Having quickly found offers is essential as well! Getting consumers to trust in your brand enough to jump in on the first viewing ultimately comes down to the price in most situations. Circumvent this, if you feel as though the price is an issue, by offering a discount for first-time shoppers or online customers to open up to new markets.
- A/B Testing
No matter what kind of design layout you have while launching, the landscape of online media will always change, and so will consumer’s preferences.
Having an A/B testing method will help you to stay on top of trends and new technology and more importantly, it will show you what is working and what isn’t.
This can make or break a brand because determining if something is worth keeping over another part of the design could be a crucial insight into the flow of a customer on your website. Having the know-how and a schedule in place to be able to test different features and overall performance is a considerable advantage in the ever-changing digital market.
When designing a website, there is a lot to take in. Of course usability, the purpose of the site, and the essential functions need to be there, but these can all be delivered and designed in so many different ways.
Design is such a necessary component to this as stated above; there are so many things to consider when laying out your potential site. Color, white space, video and animation, ease of use, virtual chats, and the ability to A/B test are all facets of design that will help you grow your business online and give users the ability to engage your brand digitally!
Follow these tips and have fun when building your site – the point of growth happens after the launch, you need to have a website to be able to see what works and what doesn’t, don’t be afraid to experiment with color, layout, or even offers because what works for one business might be totally different for your clients!
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