A major step for all business owners is creating a website to showcase their business online. However, many business owners are not web developers, and don’t speak the jargon. Today we’ll break down the most important things any business owner should know about web design. These web design essentials will help you navigate the onslaught of media, promotions, and sales people trying to get your business to choose them.
Web Design Essentials Checklist
- Focus on User Experience
- Let A Pro Handle It
- Content is Key
- Call to Actions
- When and When NOT to Summarize
- Social Proof
- Navigation
- Pages
- Points of Contact
Focus on User Experience
Design for your audience not yourself. A common theme is to design the website to how you like it, even if you’re not your target audience. For example, I enjoy dark colors and cursive fonts, however I know that the most common profile of my audience wouldn’t like that. Similarly, if you’re designing a site for a dog walking company and you actually like cats more you still know to put dogs on the site. If the visitors like your site, they’ll stay longer and maybe even buy your product or services.
Let a Pro Handle It
In the world of web design, it may be tempting to use the “DIY site builders” to cut some corners when making your foothold online. However, this is usually only good temporarily and should be phased out as soon as possible. The reason for this is that the SEO standards are not taken into account within a site builder. You making the font super large (like 72px) in the text editor to make it look like a heading, doesn’t do so in the backend which is what robots and crawlers (like the ones Google use to index your site on their search engine) use to know what the page is about. Professionals will be able to guide your website to look desirable, be search engine and mobile friendly, and serve as a solid foundation in your marketing strategy.
Content is Key
We’ve preached this time and time again, but content is everything when it comes to online presence. Each and every page should be given the care and attention of a newborn baby. These words and images will be the first introduction for many potential clients. Keywords
Calls-To-Actions
Call to action buttons tell the user what the next step is. This is important whether you’re wanting the customer to buy a product on the site, schedule a meeting, or simply call the store. The buttons need to be eye-catching, have enticing language, and lead the customer to the next step in the process.
When and When NOT to Summarize
On the home page you should summarize what is vital to the company: services, about section, products, contact information. On other pages, you should not summarize. The minimum amount of words for a given page is 500. For product descriptions, you should shoot for 350-400 words.
Social Proof
Testimonials, Reviews, Images of customers, events and the like are incredible ways to utilize social proof to build brand trust.
Navigation
Navigation should be very intuitive for the user. Being able to easily find what they’re looking for is a major bonus for your business and increases the likelihood of a conversion.
Pages
For search engines, the more pages the better. This can usually be achieved through a blog, landing pages, and products. A typical website usually has around 5-7 pages: Home, About, Contact, Blog, Shop, Services, and Portfolio. Of course, these can expand as needed to include anything from FAQs, to individual pages for each service, to extra pages to expand on information mentioned throughout the site.
Multiple points of contact:
This includes phone, email, and address typically. However, having chat boxes and chat bots are new rising way to allow clients to get in touch with you. You may have noticed on our site that we have a chat box where you can chat live with us anytime. It’s linked to an app on our phones so that we get notified like a text message. This allows us to bring another level of availability to our clients.
Hopefully this simple list can help you really take charge with your website. If you need a professional, we are a Melbourne, Florida web design company servicing nationwide!
