3 steps to great Website Design
Your website has great impact on your reputation. It diligently works to improve your company’s presence. It’s your 24/7 sales person.
There are 3 easy steps to consider of your website. They can determine whether or not you end up with a professional looking website.
1. Visual Hierarchy
This element sets up the page for what it’s supposed to be, so it’s important to make sure that your fantastic site stays that way. Guides eyes to where they should go without obvious symbols, remember to use this technique to bring attention to certain elements. Yeah we’re just a tad lazy but at the same time, a lot of us are in hurry to get a phone number or a price quote, if this is the case, they’ll go somewhere else. This means, that if you don’t provide easy navigation with clear headings it can lead to troublesome times, have a look at Connecting With Your Audience for more ideas on designing.
It is important to avoid these following to provide your users with the best experience.
• Make it prominent
What is most important should be what’s most important. Oh don’t get confused on us now, it’s simple, what you want to be the focus make sure it is, there’s shouldn’t be anything else on that level of hierarchy, make it visually understanding, this will help your customers to better understand the goal you want by that certain feature.
• Distractions
Avoid using any fancy images or crazy flash graphics if you intend to place it near a page with loads of text. This will be highly distracting especially when a user is half way down a long paragraph, they become distracted by that flash graphic, they look away-look back and have lost what they’re up to. No it’s not nice at all to spend another 5 minutes finding where you were last. So if possible absolutely avoid moving graphics from pages other than the homepage. Above, there are so many pictures and ads everywhere, it’s hard to focus on what link you want to find.
2. Customer Service
Businesses have to jump on the trend-wagon and explore into all the feedback customers can give, this is important because a running website is useless if the usability with customers is hopeless. While you might find the site easy to navigate, there are plenty of people who don’t seem to grip their finger around it all, those especially being the older audience. We understand that keeping all your customers satisfied is not easy, but there’s no reason why you can’t add some easy-peasy functions like online real life chats for when they need to ask an urgent question, or even keeping your contact information on home page if not on a separate page.
3. Lack of testing/usability
If you don’t provide easy navigation, search functions and purchase paths (if business allocates it) for your audience, then you are not taking into account the online usability experience, which is really essential in determining your website traffic. Sadly enough, the average user will only spend a whopping total of only 30 seconds on one page if they do not find what they want. Website testing is easy, provide the user with a task, e.g. “find the page that states what the business does”, then simply watch as they navigate their way around, being careful to note down any troubles they come across. Oh and don’t forget, don’t guide them in any way, let them do it and you just sit back and watch.
So, it’s time to have a look at your website, and take on the advice we’ve given today and see if it helps, if it doesn’t then fantastic, seems your designer was fabulous. If not, then it’s never too late to have a long hard look at your website and maybe get it tested now, even if you’re website’s been running for 3 years see if anyone at this stage is struggling. Remember to stay away from distractions and provide as much customer service to ensure your audience is left satisfied.
So that’s the end of this weeks tips on developing your website, and once again, never forget to keep making your website looking spicy!
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