Top Tips for Creating the Most Beautiful Website
Are you the owner of a small business or startup and considering having a website built? If you are unfamiliar with this process, the whole project might seem confusing and difficult. But, don’t despair. In the following article, we will take a look at a few of the simple design pointers that can make producing a beautiful website a bit easier.
1. Quality over quantity.
When it comes to designing the first website, there is a tendency among business owners to take the project too far. Many times I hear small business owners listing page after page and feature after feature they would like to see on their site. They are then surprised when they are provided with a five-figure quote that these large operations usually entail.
I always advise business owners to begin small and with the pages and features they absolutely need. This way the costs are smaller and more resources can be used to boosting the quality of each page. You will find that smaller sites with higher-quality pages are far more effective in the long run and they cost less because less of the agency’s time and resources will be needed to produce a small site.
Some places where you can concentrate your resources include
Quick Loading Times –– under 3 seconds is optimal.
Mobile Optimization –– think of all your customers on mobile devices.
Improved customer experience
2. Create a clear call to action
You need to treat your website as a valuable member of your marketing team who will be working tirelessly to provide you with leads. This can only be done if the essential CTA (call to action) is visible and clearly understood. The very best CTAs are those that offer incentives to take the next step and perform the action you’d like them to perform. This could be buying a product, booking an appointment or anything else.
Here are some good examples of Incentive-based CTAs:
“Call us today for a free consultation.”
“New Customers receive a 10% discount on all purchases, contact us right away to claim yours.
“You can save $100 on all purchases over $200 with this special coupon, bring it in to save big.”
If your business can’t use an incentive-based CTA for some reason, there are other options. You will want to make sure that your CTA is clearly visible and provides the user with some way to contact you. You can provide them with a form to fill out, a phone number or even an appointment. To accomplish this you will need to place your CTA somewhere it is clearly visible on your website. Some good options include the floating sidebar, the highlighted bar menu and the centre of the page when it is just loaded.
3. A picture is worth a thousand words.
According to Website Builders for your website to be one of the true greats –– the kind that generates plentiful leads –– it must use both content and media to convey its business message. The content part is usually pretty intuitive and easy to get right the first time. The media, which includes video and images, is just as important, however. A single picture can tell so much about what your products and services are all about.
Consider these examples:
If you are in the restaurant or food industry, pictures are a great way to portray your appetizing products.
Law offices can create trust by having an attractive set of headshots.
If you are a clothing store, your customers would like to see images of the clothes they are buying.
Visuals make an important presentation of your products to your valued customers. Your pictures should be selected for their capacity to attract your customers from whatever your competition is offering.
4. Get inside the head of your customer.
When you are designing your site one of the most important questions to ask yourself is this, “What does my customer expect to see or want to find when they arrive at this site?” Answering this question will be the first step toward building an effective website.
If you aren’t really sure, then do a little investigation. Ask your clients who have visited your website within the past few weeks what information they were looking for. This will help you know something about your client’s expectations.
5. Make sure your website loads fast and is available on mobile devices
When it comes to the technical side of the website, you really don’t have to do much. But you will want to ensure the experts building your website have the skills to make it available on mobile devices and load in under 3 seconds.
Statistics show that mobile viewing is all set to surpass desktop and laptop viewing. While the content they will be accessing may be the same, the mobile device’s smaller format will change the experience in websites that are not properly optimized. A study by Adobe showed that more than 39% of people will stop engaging with a page if it has not been optimized frequently.