Top 5 Website Design Best Practices
Is Your Business’s Website Outdated?
Have you taken a peek at Google Analytics for your business website recently, and then wondered why you aren’t getting any website traffic? Could it possibly be due to the fact that your website looks like it’s at least a five years old? If your site was built in 2009 or earlier, you may be losing business simply because search engines are not crawling your site.
Top 5 Website Design Best Practice Tips
If you aren’t sure that your site is outdated, here are five questions to ask yourself:
-
How Does it Look?
When compared to other websites, does your site look outdated? Is it cluttered with too much text, varying fonts and more than three main of colors? Does your site include WordArt? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, it’s time to update your website.
Up-to-date websites are crisp and clean. They are easy to navigate and do not overload the viewer with text of too many different fonts and colors. When comparing your site to others, the most important comparison is that of your competitors. How does your site look compared to your competitors’ websites? Are there things you can improve on?
-
How Well is Your Brand Represented?
Your company website should accurately portray your brand. Are your logo, mission statement, and vision up-to-date (or even present)? Is your brand identity clear? Does it resonate with your audience?
-
Do You Have a Blog?
Every business website should have a blog that is updated on a weekly basis. A blog isn’t just a place for you to share random information; it is a valuable resource for your customers and clients. A blog is an opportunity to engage your clients and potential clients. And, if built properly and updated strategically, a business blog is a priceless tool when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).
Without a blog, you are missing out on a significant opportunity to improve your business’ rankings with the search engines. When built properly, the search engines view every new blog as a new page to your site map, and every new page is indexed by Google, boosting your search engine rankings. A blog is also an opportunity to get your website to rank for specific keywords. Determine what those keywords are and use them often — in both titles and body of blog articles. Also, if you include photos (and you should), be sure to insert your keywords and URL in the “alternate text” option on every photo.
-
Can Visitors Easily Navigate Your Site?
Think of your website navigation as a compass, telling your audience exactly where to go. Poorly labeled, unorganized and confusing navigation is like a broken compass and will leave your audience lost and frustrated. When built strategically, website visitors should be able to access every page on a site in only one click. If your web visitors cannot access the content they are looking for in less than 30 seconds, they will navigate away. Furthermore, if your site requires breadcrumbs to keep visitors form getting lost, you need a new site ASAP.
-
Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?
If your website isn’t responsive to mobile devices, it needs to be revamped immediately. According to research, at least 88 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone of some kind, and more than half of them use their phones to browse the web. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, you are no doubt missing out on visitors to your site and even potential business. Don’t leave money on the table simply because your customers can’t read your site from their phone.
A well-designed company website is clean, visually engaging, and provides the content your customers are seeking. Too much text will turn your audience away in a flash. Create content that is interesting and engaging and keep your website visitors coming back for more.
One last note — You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t include buttons linking to your social media profiles on your website. If you don’t have any social media profiles set up … well … we’ll save that for another day. In the meantime, please share this blog on your social sites by clicking the social buttons below. (Please and thank you!)
Frozen Fire is a Dallas internet marketing and video production company that helps companies harness the most powerful aspect of modern marketing—the internet—to engage customers in memorable and meaningful ways. Ways that ignite sales and business growth. Contact us to learn how we can help your business.