Your website is your face to the world, just like the storefront of a physical store. If your website isn’t appealing to your target audience, you aren’t going to realize the conversions you desire from your website, making it a waste of your time and resources. Whether you hire a company to help you with your website design or you choose to design your own website, focus on these important elements and you will achieve the level of success you desire in your website.
Ease of Use
One of the most important aspects of quality web design is its ease of use. Internet users need to be able to easily move around your website and find what they are looking for. The attention span of these users is quite short. If they can’t find what they are looking for in a few seconds, they are likely to try another website instead. This will cost you customers and conversions. Therefore, you need to focus on placing links in locations that don’t require scrolling and clearly mark everything so users don’t have to over think your website.
Avoid Clutter
A cluttered website isn’t one that is appealing to Internet users. If someone visits a website that is filled with graphics and text that is positioned too close together, he is more likely to visit a different website instead, creating a high bounce rate. To ensure people want to stay on your website, keep your graphics to a minimum and separate any areas of text clearly so your readers can differentiate between the different areas.
Go Mobile
More people are accessing websites through mobile devices instead of on a desktop or laptop. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere you look. As you consider the website design for your business, mobile website development is a necessity. When you offer the ability to access your business through mobile devices, you make the experience easier for your customers. Today, consumers are all about the convenience factor. The more convenient you make things for your customer, the more conversions you will obtain.
Minimize Load Times
Many businesses seem to think more is better and fill their websites with large graphics, videos and even Flash features. While these features can be attractive, they will result in long loading times, which can drive people away from a website. Most people either don’t have the time or the patience to spend waiting for pages to load. When you have many features that take longer to load, it will create delays, even on the fastest connections. Your goal is to make sure people can access the information they seek as quickly as possible.
Include a Call to Action
Calls to action aren’t reserved solely for marketing emails. Make use of this element in your website design to increase the chances of obtaining a conversion and keeping your bounce rate lower. While some people browse websites as a means of obtaining information, others are looking to actually perform an action, such as make a purchase or join a community. However, if your website doesn’t clearly state what you expect people to do after visiting your site, they aren’t as likely to do it. Think about what you want from the people who visit your site and turn that into a call to action. Set this call to action apart with a different color, larger font and a clickable link to make it even more clear.
Your goal with website design will vary from that of other companies. However, it is still important to use the right elements through your design. Making your website easy to use with mobile capabilities, as well as including less clutter, faster load times and a call to action, will increase your conversion rates and decrease bounce rates, turning your website into a successful venture.