Cool Trick When Designing Your Website
Not a website designer, but want to be cost effective and DIY your own website? Check out this post for a few tips on how to design your site with your customer at top of mind.
Not a website designer, but want to be cost effective and DIY your own website? Check out this post for a few tips on how to design your site with your customer at top of mind.
The first item you need to keep in mind is that you are designing a website, learning about SEO, and creating met descriptions for a drunk lazy person! Your user wants to get in and out fast! There is nothing worse than visiting a site with a disorganized or confusing interface so let’s work to get around that!
When a person comes to your website they have a goal in mind. If it’s an e-commerce site they may want to check out your products, if you are a service-based business they may want to schedule an appointment with you, if you have a blog they may want to connect with you. Whatever their reason is for visiting your site, you need to be sure you can provide them a quick and easy solution to get what they want or need.
How can I be sure I accomplish this?
Think of what you would want from a site you are visiting it. For instance, if you are shopping for dog food, you want to be able to go to the site and easily locate where you can find options or type what you need in a search bar and check out efficiently. You want your user to have a similar experience to what you would want when visiting a company’s site – straight forward, organized and easy to navigate.
So, how do I make it easy for my viewers to accomplish this?
Within the first 5 seconds of visiting your page, a viewer should be able to answer what your company does, find your blog, if applicable and know how to contact you. If they can’t you have already lost them from continuing on their journey to shop with you.
You can accomplish all of this by having a plan. Don’t just start designing your DIY site without one. Take time to map out what you want your customers journey to be from the second they visit your site to the moment they are checking out, joining your newsletter list or hitting your call to action button, whatever it might be.
It is also important to either not include or get rid of the following:
E-commerce: Get rid of your shop link with the drop down. Take your categories and put them on in the top navigation on your homepage for customers to easily locate and use.
Service Based Business: Take your top services ONLY and list them in the top navigation on your homepage or have a general services page. Your top navigation should only have your home page, top services, about, and contact pages listed. Keep the entire site simple by including pictures and simple structured text.
All sites: I suggest hiring a professional photographer instead of using stock photos that might look grainy or not convey the message you want them to. Remove any content that takes longer than 10 seconds to digest. If it takes longer than this, you most likely lost a customer.
Don’t be afraid of whitespace! Whitespace is usually essential to any site. It helps to break up the page and increase readability. Don’t stress about trying to fill it with content or imagery that doesn’t make sense or hinders the viewers journey.
Bonus:
When creating your own website be sure to consider the following in addition to the above:
1. How does my page look when a viewer pulls it up on a mobile device? In today’s day in age this is huge. We are all in a rush going from one place to another and sometimes it is just easier to accomplish what we want with our mobile device so keep this in mind when designing your website. Perk; a lot of website developers will give you the option to test this out as you are designing switching from one format to another.
2. How are viewers finding me? Pay attention to your SEO – do not skip this step! It is essential to your design. Research keywords and your competition to ensure you come up in organic searches with them.
3. Do I have analytics set in place? Another step you don’t want to miss. And be sure you are reviewing these analytics to continuously make your site the best that it can be.
4. Make sure the template you are using makes sense for your business and the message you are trying to convey. For instance, if you are a service-based business you probably don’t want to use a similar template to an e-commerce or blog site.
Remember think of your user as a drunk lazy person. Get that user to their destination quickly and easily.
