Are you new to web design? Have a read of our top 6 tips to get you started and give you a nod in the right direction to a great website.
Web Design Tip #1. Love at First Sight
Your landing page is the first thing a user comes across and you only have around 6 seconds to convince them to stay. Your page needs to be able to show the solution to their problem or their search result straight away.
It is also a gateway to the rest of the site so making it easy to navigate is another key feature. Remember to keep the landing page from being too busy.
A badly designed website that’s hard to use will instantly give users a bad vibe and send them back to their original search page, leaving you with a high bounce rate.
Web Design Tip #2. Copycats
Once you’ve grabbed the user, give them a reason to stay by having engaging copy that’s easy to read.
A website being “easy to read” is defined not just by the style of writing and word-choice but also the font you’ve used for your copy. People don’t want to struggle to read text on a page if it’s too small or written in a colour like yellow. 64% of people have said that they are less likely to trust a business with poor quality copy.
Web Design Tip #3. SEO Cool
You’ve put all the effort into creating the best quality copy; don’t forget to help people to find it, think about your SEO from the start.
H1 and H2 tags contribute to the rank of your website and can increase the rank of your website on search engines and increase organic traffic. To help your ranking, include targeted keywords in your copy.
Web Design Tip #4. Contented
Everyone knows that Content is King; so make sure your page is kept up to date with the latest industry news and trends. This will keep your users actively engaged and give them a reason to keep returning to your site.
Use your latest content as an excuse to drive people to the website through your social media accounts. This appears less sales-y but also gets people looking at your company and website. Make sure you include a strong Call to Action (CTA) such as ‘Like and Share’ or ‘Work with Us’. By actively telling people to take a specific action, they are more likely to do it.
Decide what your goal is for your content – do you want to up your engagement? Reduce your bounce rate? Or increase brand awareness? When you decide, you can then create content and posts around this.
Look at what other companies are doing, they don’t necessarily have to be related to your industry but if you like what they’re doing, you can take inspiration and create something with your own spin.
It has been shown that Video content holds a much higher audience engagement rate than just normal text content; this could be something to look into if you wanted to improve your engagement.
If you feel like your site is becoming a bit crowded try writing the key content of your website on a post-it, if it doesn’t fit start getting rid of some of the less important details.
Web Design Tip #5. So-cially Awesome
With billions of users using social media, it’s important that your company has a presence on Twitter and Facebook at least. Certain platforms will be better for some businesses over others but being present is important. Social media helps your company to establish a brand voice and can create brand advocates from other users who can promote your business and increase awareness of the company.
Again, linking to your website from social media accounts will give a wider audience and more opportunities for potential customers to find your site.
Web Design Tip #6. My T-t-telephone
Another thing to bear in mind is that the majority of Internet browsing is now done on a mobile device, this means you need to keep mobile in mind when developing your site as it could have a big impact on the amount of people who stay on your landing page.
Hopefully you’ve found these tips useful. Remember, if you have any questions don’t be afraid to get in touch through Facebook and Twitter!
