Number Two: Getting Your House in Order

The Basics of a Good-Looking, Functional Website

Once you’ve figured out your strategy for reaching out to your customers, the next step is to get your website in order. Even if you think your website is in great shape, it never hurts to go back and do a little spot-checking. And the most obvious area to start with is your overall website design.

When looking at your site’s design, it’s a good idea to remember the rule, “less is more.” It’s easy to overload your visitors with information, images and flashy animations. All of these used in the correct way are fantastic. They bring life and personality to your site, but you need to make sure the visitor can find what they’re looking for.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Use Flat Design — Flat design has a lot to do with color. Simple and prominent primary colors, laid out in an uncomplicated way, will give your site a sleek look that won’t overwhelm your visitors.

• Prominent CTA — Try to keep your call-to-action high enough on your site that when anybody gets there, it will be one of the first things they’ll see. Once again, this is the number one action you want your visitors to take. Whether that’s to call your business, stop by the store, reserve a table or place an order, don’t make your potential customers search for it.

• Header and Navigation — Often overlooked, your header and navigation are a very important part of your site. Keeping with the idea that simple is best, structure your navigation so that your most prominent pages are visible right away, and all other pages are structured underneath them. This secondary navigation is called the “sub-navigation.” The rest of your header should maintain some very basic information (think your phone number or business’ address) and possibly a small logo.

• Footer — Your footer is a lot like your header, except at the bottom of the page and you can put some more information in there. It’s okay to go a little more text heavy with this part, but it would be unwise to start loading it up with images.

After you’ve decided you’re happy with your site’s layout, it’s time to pick your images and write your text.

The most important thing to remember about images is they need to be relevant to your business. Are you an accountant? If so, a giant image of the sun rising over the Grand Canyon may not be for you. Instead select a nice image of yourself, or even better an image of you interacting with clients. This will give a positive feeling to the viewer and immediately help to build trust. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, so take your time when choosing what images will represent your business to the world. However, it’s important to remember that turning your site into a pure picture book is probably not the best way to go. At some point, you’re going to need to sprinkle some actual text in there too.

If you’re nervous about writing text for your website, don’t be. You don’t have to be a playwright, you just need to ensure that you can communicate clearly, warmly and effectively. Say what you need to — no more, no less.

For example, if you owned an air conditioning repair company in London, UK, you may write a tagline (generally the main text that goes over your site’s header image) for you website that says:

“Keeping London Cool Since 1985.”

This tagline is short, memorable, speaks to what your business, does and builds trust with the audience — all of the things you strive to accomplish with your writing.

And after you’ve written everything you think your site needs, feel free to ask someone else to review your text. Everybody needs an editor.

At this point in the process, you may love how your site looks…on a desktop. But what about how it works on a smartphone or tablet?

In an age when people are completely inseparable from their mobile devices, ensuring they receive a good experience no matter what they’re using to view your site is critical. To become mobile-friendly, you essentially have two options.

• Create a Mobile-Only Website — If you have an existing desktop website, you can quickly and easily create its mobile counterpart. These sites generally have a URL that reads “m.examplesite.com,” and are basically just your normal website reformatted for the small screen.

• Create a Responsive Website — A responsive website is one site that works perfectly on desktop, tablet and mobile. It will automatically reformat itself to deliver an optimal visitor experience, no matter what kind of device your site visitor is using. This is now the preferred choice of most web designers and small business owners, as it future-proofs your website for whatever kind of devices will hit the market down the road.

Besides visitor experience, there are a variety of other reasons why you would want to be mobile-friendly.

First, it lowers the bounce rate, which makes perfect sense. Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your site and immediately abandon it. If a visitor clicks on a link and is taken to a site where they have to pinch and zoom to find what they’re looking for, they’re probably going to move on very quickly. Mobile visitors have notoriously low patience for non-optimized websites.

Second, it improves conversion and engagement. Big, thumb-friendly buttons that allow your visitor to call your business or get directions to your store in just one click are essential for driving customer action.

Third, Google wants you to be mobile-friendly, and if you aren’t there could be consequences. Recently the search engine giant declared that mobile-friendliness is now a ranking factor. This means if you aren’t up to Google’s mobile-friendly standards, you could lose your coveted spot in their smartphone search results. It’s important to note that both mobile-only and responsive websites, will work perfectly in this post-MobileGeddon world and keep you in Google’s good graces.

We are getting there gradually. the third 6 Ways : Preparing Your Website for the Holidays is Just Like Planning a Party is tomorrow now; You will love this one!