The success of your business website depends on many factors. It should capture the attention of your audience at once. To do that, you must make your website domain and layout prominent with your offerings. It must be easy to understand, load within seconds and have a low bounce rate.
Together, these things form an image of your business. Therefore, it must be in harmony with the brand personality and let the user navigate and go through the purchase and check-out process seamlessly.
Your website design strategy also depends on the purpose it serves. Do you own an online web fashion store or run a government website? The layout of both will be completely different. A fashion website will be flashier, while a government website must be modest and official.
However, there are some general ways to make any website stand out. Let us delve into some of those.
1. Use Appropriate Images
The images you use on your website must be original to prevent copyright issues and have high quality to prevent the image from pixelating. You can conduct an official photoshoot of your products by using photo editor app and upload them on your website. It works well, especially if you sell products.
Alternatively, you can select the right stock photos that are either free to use or don’t cost a fortune. More importantly, they are of high quality. You can adjust the resolution of the downloaded stock image and crop it to fit on your web page. You will find a variety of categories here, from nature to architecture, abstract art, business, holidays, landscape, construction, animals, and many more.
However, you must choose and display the images on your website wisely. They have to be unique and realistic. Focus on real-life scenarios and candid photos to make them seem legitimate.
2. Make a Plan
Before editing or creating your website, map out a plan. A better approach is to analyze the customer journey from when they log onto your website to when they become your customers. To do this, consider the landing page visitors will see. What content will they read first? Can they browse the product or service categories and read their descriptions easily? Answering these questions will help you map a sales funnel to generate and convert leads.
If you are still determining your customer journey, you can conduct a focus group or interview a sample of your target audience. To make it easy, you can show them different layouts, designs, color schemes, or images and see which ones they prefer most. You can then use the data collected to create an effective strategy for your website. Try to identify the touchpoints or key areas the group finds most interesting. Each of these touchpoints must evoke an emotion, thought process, or opportunity. It will let you understand why the visitor finds it interesting.
3. Eliminate Unnecessary Details
The last thing you need is to detract the visitor from the website due to design flaws. Ensure your website is clean and simple, with few animations and only the necessary details. Anything that you put on your website must serve a purpose.
A better approach is to have consistent brand guidelines detailing font styles, color palettes, logo placement, iconology, imagery, and the overall theme. Stick to these guidelines when designing all the web pages.
Moreover, keep the image-to-text ratio about 2:1. Images capture the audience’s attention quickly and effectively. If you repeat and write lengthy text, the visitor may not get to the intended section. Make the user take action immediately by leading them to the call to action button. It indicates whatever you want the visitor to do. It can be ‘add to cart,’ or ‘book an appointment,’ etc.
Use simple language and make the website copy to the point. It will let the visitors get all the important information they need to take action without spending too much time browsing it.
4. Create a Blog for Your Website
If you need to provide further information to your audience, blogging is the best way to do it. It also markets your brand to the intended audience and spurs consideration during the purchase process. For example, if you run an online sports shoes store, blogging about sports shoes and providing insights into their features and benefits will make the readers visit your website.
It is an excellent way to influence the customer’s purchase decision. It is better to plan an entire year’s content to ensure consistency. Adding a blog to your website has more chances of getting website views than without it.
Moreover, remember to update it regularly and ensure that all blog posts are relevant to your website. You can also promote your blogs using social media profiles to maximize visibility. Lastly, every blog article must provide value and usability to the reader. It may include marketing your offerings, but it must also be genuine and unbiased.
5. Provide In-Built Customer Service
Visitors will often have questions when browsing your website. Simply providing a phone number on the website is not enough anymore. People will rarely have the time to call a support agent. It may even take more time if the caller has to wait. It will make the visitor lose interest and leave your website, costing you a lost lead.
Make things easy for your business and customers by introducing chatbots to the web pages. You can add FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) in the popup bubble. It will automatically take care of frequent queries. Also, add the live chat option if the visitor has infrequent queries. It will introduce a live support agent in the chat who will help solve the query on the spot. It will allow a seamless purchase process with minimal issues.
Conclusion
Your business website has to be more appealing to the audience to convert leads into sales. A well-designed website is one of the major contributors to creating a sales funnel. Therefore, you must analyze your current website and make the required changes.
Make sure you use original images, adopt a customer-centric approach while designing, and only add relevant details. Do not be afraid of leaving blank white spaces. Simple designs make navigation easier. Create a blog to market your website and introduce chatbots for a user-friendly experience.
