Don’t you love a website that instantly connects with you? Having an online presence in today’s era is not only applicable for large companies but also for every thriving small business owner. The Global Social Media Statistics Research shows that 424 million new users have come online within the last 12 months. Article here. This means you have more opportunities than ever before to reach a wider audience. As good as it sounds, it can also be intimidating to begin. Therefore, we have summarized the Top 5 things that you should know about Web Design.
WEB DESIGN: 5 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START
- User Experience should be your Focal Point
- Research your Ideal Customers
- Design Consistency is about Building Your Brand
- The website builder you choose should work for your business needs
- Measure Progress
1) User Experience should be your Focal Point
Imagine you walk into a coffee shop and if you don’t know right away what they offer and how you can make your order, would you visit again? I am guessing not. It’s the same experience in the digital world. You want your design and content to show your customers right away the following
a. What is your unique offer you provide that others don’t?
b. How will your service/products benefit the users?
c. How can customers contact you?
Here’s an article from Nielson Norman Group which says that in order to gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.
Unlike a physical store, you don’t get to talk to your customers. Your Website should do that for you. Giving your customers the best visual appeal will keep them longer on your website. Aren’t we all attracted to great pictures and videos? Having an ‘About Us’ will help customers understand your story and a ‘Contact Page’ with an address builds trust.
Your Web Design should provide easy ways for Customers to engage with you right away. This can be incorporated by having action buttons with Strong CTA’s (Call to Action) such as ‘Call Us’, 'Contact Us’,’ Click Here’ etc.
As you gain loyalty with your customers, they refer your service to their friends/colleagues which is crucial for a small business owner. Research shows that it is a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than find a new customer.
You may not achieve the ideal customer experience in the first iteration. That’s okay. As you gather feedback on your design elements, don’t be afraid to iterate and recreate as needed. Keep in mind that Web Design should target your customers no matter how much you love it personally.
2) Research your Ideal Customers
As you build a seamless experience for your customers, it's crucial to know who your ideal customers are. Your service is not for everyone in the world. In Marketing terms it’s called a ‘Key Demographic’. You begin to understand their interests, needs and you build your service around the key pain points you want to solve for your customers.
You can even go a step further and have an ideal customer persona aka a fictional character you create in your head based on your research. It can include data points such as age, gender, location, likes, dislikes, interests, favorite social platforms, income, hobbies etc. Below are a few ideas to get started.
- Interviews from existing customers
- Focus groups
- Feedback forms
Your website content should be curated to the service/product and the location of your service that can help your customers. For Example, if you run a boutique in California, then your content should resonate with the people in California. You can add testimonials from your existing customers to build trust along with great content.
Your brand (more on this in the next section) should resonate with your customers. One of the crucial skills as you build your website is active listening. As you listen to your customer pain points in various forums, you know how to offer better value with your service. Like the user experience, this is not a one step process. The more you know, the better products you can create.
3) Design Consistency is About Building Your Brand
Branding is giving life to your products or services in a business world. It goes from choosing your color palette, fonts, and the content you have on your Website. The most important step while creating a brand is keeping it consistent across your Website and social media platforms. Below are a few ideas while choosing your design:
- Choose Colors based on your Customer Persona and your service. For example, if you have a Health blog, it’s better to stay away from red which gives a sense of alarm
- Videos and Images should resonate with your audience. Leverage the feedback process to gain clarity on what works.
- Fonts should be easy to read.
You can experiment with your design ideas by creating a simple mood board. Add all the elements in one place and iterate to get the best experience for your customers while building your brand. There’s a lot of information as to how colors impact the customers' feelings on a website. Choose them wisely.
Resources
- Pexels –(Images)
- Ready to Use Color Palette
- Canva (Ready to Use Templates)
- Coolors
4) The website builder you choose should work for your business needs
Although this blog post is about Web Design, the foundation of Web Design Elements lies in the Website Builder and its capabilities. With the demand of getting online today, there are multiple tools available to create your website. The quote ‘too many cooks can spoil the broth’ seems very relevant in this use case. Since there are multiple options, choosing a tool that works on your business needs will set the foundation of great Web Design.
Before you choose the tool, do a quick reflection on yourself
a) What are your business needs?
b) What are your strengths?
c) How much time can you commit to build the website?
d) What is your budget?
After you have made the decision, please remember that every tool out there has its own pros and cons. You may have to do a deeper research based on your needs but here’s the must haves for any website builder.
- Ready to use Templates/ Themes
- Easy Integration to another platform
- Easy Addition of Code (if code is needed at all)
- Updated Relevant Tutorials
- Customer Support
- No Hidden fees
- Mobile Responsive Design
- E-commerce functionality if you plan sell services/products online
- Recent and Authentic Customer Reviews
- Feature to set up foundational SEO for your pages
5) Measure Progress
Similar to measuring revenue, Web Design has its metrics that you can track after launch. These are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). KPIs change depending on what your goals are, some common ones include:
- Unique Customer Visits
- Conversation Rates
- How far do the customers scroll through the pages?
- How many clicks did you get from Google Search?
- Bounce Rate
Resources
The metrics you decide on for KPIs will often vary from page to page depending on what your goal is. . For Example, the Home Page Metrics could be how many new customers visited your website whereas the metric for a blog post is how long did the user spend time reading the post with minimal bounce rate.
As you begin to learn the tools and processes, stay patient as you build your ideal customer experience. It may not be easy for you to do it yourself which is why experts in the field can help you get there.
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Written by
Anya Sankar - Content Creator | Blogger
I write about how you can use personal development and productivity hacks to succeed in life.
Website : https://anyasankar.com/
Contact : hello@anyasankar.com
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