Website Design 101

Class is in session. Let’s talk website design with Spicy Broccoli Media!

There are functional websites, and there are pretty websites – at Spicy Broccoli, we think they can be the same thing! We’d rather have both, a pretty and functional website to capture the contact details of likely buyers, and a design that equals the quality of our product and business.

What are a few important points we think a website should have? Read on to find out!

Vital Parts of a Website:

1. The ‘style’ of your website should match your business’s overall branding – Customers should be turned on and attracted by how it looks. Check out our branding tips, here!

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2. Try to avoid using Flash to create your website – Google generally gives these type of websites a lower rating. Also, Flash sites tend to be slow to load, which also cramps Google’s style, moving you down search lists. (Besides, nowadays people only have the attention span of short cat video, so you need your site to load quickly!)

3. Headline – Make it great and memorable, and make sure to keep it ‘above the fold’, as in, what people see first when they visit your site, without having to scroll down.

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4. Tell clients a bit about yourself and your business – People are nosy and love to know juicy deets. Give clients a paragraph about yourself, your life, how you got here, your business start-up story, the time you pretended to be Superman and jumped off your roof –- anything that you think relates to your business and what you’d like perspective clients to learn about and get to know you better.

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5. Testimonials – Videos and written words from past clients, promoting your business and how awesome you are, can be very handy. Try to have them address some of the major objects your business may deal with. Example: You sell very breakable, ceramic, cat coffee creamers (say that 5 times fast); have a few testimonials mention the meticulously bubbled-wrapped package they received, with product perfectly intact – which it of course it honestly will be. It will assure clients they can buy your products with confidence it will arrive in one piece.

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6. Outline of solutions, relating to the headline – Basically, expanding on what your headline has advertised. Such as: ‘Do you need more cat items in your life?!’ as your headline, which is then answered and expanded in your ‘outline’, ‘We’ve got the products for you! Cat shaped household items galore!’

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7. Call to action – Give prospective clients a reason to give you their contact details. Every business has a different product/service, and depending on what that is, each ‘call to action’ will be different, targeting specific possible customers. A service-based company might provide more details on specific services offered, to pinpoint if this company is for you; special sign-up only information or education materials might be another, along with specified quotes. A product-based company might offer a weekly email newsletter that has new product updates, coupons, sale dates, free shipping, etc.

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8. Reason to come back – An informative blog with useful content and resource links can draw people back to your site, to check for updates. (Prompt them to check in by updating social media or sending email updates – like above – when blog content gets updated, or new products go up, for example)

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We hope you use these handy tips to make your website the best it can be to attract and keep prospective customers.

Until next time Spicy readers!