Websites are a big deal. Since the internet is a huge source of commerce, marketing, and human interaction, it’s not an option anymore for your business to have a digital presence. It’s the fine-tuning of that presence that we’re going to talk about here. Your website cannot be slapped together with information overload on each page. It also can’t be a labyrinth of pages impossible to sift through. Another piece: it needs to be attractive. These are crucial pieces of your web presence puzzle. Let’s dig in a little more.
Squeaky Clean
There is such a thing as too much information. If you have a business that deals in information, you need to present it in a way that isn’t homepage, front and center, information volcano. You will literally melt the eyes of your viewers and they’ll run away. Or click away. Either way, not a good situation for you.
Keep your information streamlined, organized, and easily accessible to whoever needs to find it.
Easy as Pie
Speaking of organization, this should be a heavy hitter in your design process. Make sure your site is easily navigable, simple to find what one needs, and frustration free. When a user gets overwhelmed by a website, they rarely return.
Make it obvious what your company has to offer. Then give precise directions and a call to action on what they need to do to hire you/buy your product/whatever it is you want users to do on your website.
Dressed to the Nines
Last but not least, make sure your website is nice to look at. If yours isn’t, your competitor’s is, so you can take one guess who that customer is going to buy from (hint: it’s not the one with the ugly website).
Your website’s appearance may seem trivial, but trust us on this one: visual appeal is a key factor in marketing. Since your website is the primary home base of your online marketing gig, you’d best keep that looking sharp.
BONUS: Can you hear me now?
Do people actually talk on their cell phones still? That’s a mystery for another day, but we do know that internet surfing is heavily done on mobile devices. Own up to that fact and make sure that your website is mobile responsive. If it’s not, you’re losing a boatload of traffic and discouraging potential customers from checking out your wares.
Wrap it Up
Keep it simple, make it obvious, key in on aesthetics, and play nice with mobile. Stick to these rules and you’ll be well on your way to a user-friendly and design forward website.