So, you have or need a business website. The idea of what constitutes an effective website design is sometimes overwhelming. There are many elements that you can add, but should probably do without. Finding a web designer, who can write well-formed code, is just the start. That said, fancy coding doesn’t always translate into an effective website.
Once you have yourself a professional web designer, there are some big decisions you will have to make. At the end of the day, while an expert is going to give the best advice, they will always build the website you want. Regardless, there are several characteristics that your website must have to attract visitors, keep their attention, encourage repeat visits, and convert prospects and leads into active customers.
I have learnt a lot from The Digital Swarm and the base of all highly effective website design is a well-defined focus and purpose. Without developing goals and a plan, your website will have no direction. Your website is the centerpiece of your online inbound marketing. In order to be effective, it should guide visitors through every state of the consumer life-cycle. Every decision, from layout to content, must add value to the user experience.
Characteristics of Effective Website Design
1. Logical Roadmap – While you want your website to have a great look, usefulness is just as important. Therefore, the starting point of all good website design is creating a map of how it should work. This step is essential both for user experience and SEO. Your designer should build a wireframe or mockup of the site, which will allow you to work through how the site will work and if it makes sense.
2. Essential Business Information – One of the biggest issues is that many companies build the website they want, rather than the website that their customers need. Ensure your contact information, directions, product images, and more are part of the design. No matter the industry, all businesses has essential information that customers must be able to find easily.
3. Common Sense Navigation – While you may want to try standing out using clever page names and navigation, you are more likely only going to cause visitors to become angry and frustrated. Additionally, your navigation strategy should take into consideration calls-to-action. You want to create predictable outcomes based on the path that a visitor takes, either making a transaction, requesting a quote, signing up for your newsletter, or something else.
4. Social Media Optimization – No matter what your business, social media cannot be ignored. Optimizing your websites for social media is a critical element of your content distribution. So, integrating these social platforms is necessary for improving your online footprint, building an audience, and boosting your SEO with help from the top seo company. Make sure you are promoting your social profiles and have easy to find social share buttons for all product pages and blog content.
5. Become Mobile-Friendly – The typical users will use multiple devices throughout the day to access the internet. Moreover, most search queries are coming from mobile devices. Your customers expect to find a mobile-friendly website. Moreover, they also anticipate that they will receive the same level of functionality on their smartphone as they do on their computer. Today, optimizing for mobile is a reflection of your professionalism.
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