Your website is an important part of your business. Without it, you could lose potential customers and revenue. If you are redesigning your current website or creating a brand new website, learn the best practices to make your business website easy to find and effective at increasing online conversions. Before you launch your website, remember to include these top critical elements within your new website design.
1. Contact Information
Number one on our list of things your website needs is your contact information. Potential customers MUST have a way to contact you.
- A phone number to reach you is a must-have for all websites.
- An email form to contact you via email is also helpful for customers to send you detailed information about their inquiries.
- Your mailing address helps those potential customers find you and including a Google Map will help them get directions to your location.
- For small businesses, posting your business hours will help those visitors know when to visit.
Providing easy access to contact information in the header and footer of your website and also a dedicated page for contacting you will help increase your leads.
2. Intuitive Navigation
Decrease the bounce rate of your website by including a clear path to content on your website. Make sure your navigation is at the top of your website and is simple and easy to find what your customers are looking for. Critical pages that every website should include would be an About, Services or Products, and a Contact page.
Larger sites could include a search box to help find information deeper within your website. Breadcrumbs or a breadcrumb trail is a secondary navigation option that larger sites can use to allow the site visitor to keep track of their current location within your website.
3. Headlines
Within 3 seconds of visiting your website, your potential customers should know what you have to offer. Keep your headlines clear and simple on each page of your website. Include subheadings that supplement the main heading. Headings help divide your content to make it easier to read and find what they are looking for.
Each page title should be unique and include a unique description for Googlebot to understand the content on your website. Be sure to include targeted keywords for the products and services you offer within page titles, descriptions, and headings.
4. Responsive Design
With the number of mobile phone users increasing every year and smart technology having increased accessibility on larger devices like TVs, responsive website design is a must. It’s crucial to design your website for all types of devices and screen sizes. Site visitors may leave your website if they cannot easily read the content on your site.
Check whether your website is mobile responsive by utilizing the Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
5. Call to Actions
What do you want your potential customers to do when they visit your website? Should they contact you for a free consultation, subscribe to your newsletter, make an online purchase or donation, or attend an event? This message needs to be clear for guiding the site visitor toward completing this action. Call to Action statements (CTAs) help guide the site visitors to follow your desired outcome.
6. Strong, Professional Branding
From your domain name to your logo design, fonts, and colors, everything that represents your business should be a cohesive reflection of your brand. Be sure to include your logo in your header and link it to your homepage. Fonts and colors used on your website should match other marketing materials to create a consistent image for your business. Strong, professional branding allows you to build relationships with your website visitors, which can help turn them into loyal customers.
7. Helpful Links
Including internal links on your website helps guide your site visitor to content throughout your site. External links direct those visitors to additional information that can be found on other helpful websites. Broken links on your website can be frustrating for your visitors. Be sure the links included on your website guide them to the desired content.
Optimize those links by providing good link text to explain what the link is all about. Instead of saying ‘Click Here’, use relevant text like ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Custom Website Design’. Use a short phrase and be sure to make it easy for the user to distinguish between regular text and the link text. Underlining text and making the link text a different color will help meet ADA (Americans with Disability Act) requirements.
8. Images & Video
Your website design should be visually appealing to attract new customers. Professional photography and videos present your business as credible and trustworthy. Tell your story with creative photos of your team, location, products, or services, and enhance your website with video testimonials or drone videos.
All photos on your website should include alt text to describe the images. This is important as it helps Google understand the image and allows for accessibility screen readers to understand the message to meet ADA guidelines. Optimizing the image file sizes will help increase your website speed. A faster-loading website will keep site visitors from leaving your website and increases your conversion rate.
Adding videos to your website can keep people engaged with your content and keep them on your website longer. Upload videos to YouTube for extended reach and embed those on your website for an enhanced streaming service.
9. Social Media Connection
Links to your social media pages are helpful to include in the header and footer of your website. Gain more followers on these sites by making it easier to find you socially. Social media helps you keep in touch with these visitors so be sure to continue to communicate your message on those sites with social media marketing. If your website includes a blog, include social sharing buttons to make your content easy to share.
10. Analytics Tools
A new website design is a perfect opportunity to learn more about your potential customers and adjust your marketing strategy based on what you discover. Adding Google Analytics to your new website will provide you with access to statistics about your site visitors and what they are looking for. Get insight into how many people visit your site, which pages they visit, how long they spend on your site, and much more.
Feeling overwhelmed? We are here to help!
Whether you need assistance with video production, professional photography, social media marketing, search engine optimization, logo design and branding, website design or copywriting services. The entire team of marketing experts in Quincy, IL at Vervocity can help make your website design outstanding. Contact us today to get started.
