A website facelift can really reignite your business’s online presence and help you connect better with your customers.
One day you might find yourself browsing your company website and you’ll notice that things look outdated and don’t really work the way you think they should. If you are able to pick up on this then your audience, who may be more web savvy than you, have definitely noticed and it’s hurting your sales. The question is whether a website facelift to upgrade your site design will make a difference. Studies have shown over and over that well-designed websites are better at generating traffic and boosting your conversion rates. This way new business can be nurtured and generated almost exponentially. For your business, it is important that any website upgrades be performed professionally to minimize the risk of downtime and to ensure your website facelift is done right. There are many reasons that a well-built website helps your business grow and prosper, so continue reading for the top 5 components to pay attention to when designing your new website.
Fix the Navigation
The navigation component to your website may be the single most important piece of an upgrade. This portion directly affects usability and therefore success and is especially important for websites that feature complex page structures. Typically a navigation bar or label lists differentiate and give access to various sections of your overall website. Make sure these navigations are easy to find, read and make sense of. Every aspect of your design should lead to quick and easy travel through your site. Caution your web designer against getting carried away with fanciful designs and focus on simplified, intuitive and clean designs. Keep it simple to get it right.
Promote your brand
Keeping brand consistency going throughout your website, as well as other areas of your business can be challenging but is absolutely necessary. As an example, your company logo should be utilized across all you business’s documentation, from letterheads to business cards to email templates. The same goes for any colours, imagery and other brand messages. Take it all and incorporate it in your website design so that your audience can easily recognize the brand throughout all communication forms. Visual communication plays a large part in brand awareness and making your audience associate with your business. Keep your message uniform and reap the rewards.
SEO and readability
Most users will read your website the same way they read a book. This means top to bottom and left to right. Your website designer needs to take this into account during the design phase so as not to make your website seem unnatural. A trick is to place your most important information in the upper left hand column of the site to get your message heard effectively. Just like placement is important, so is what content you are displaying. Through SEO or search engine optimization, your web designer will determine related keywords to include in order to drive traffic and where to put those keywords. SEO is a huge part to the success of any website as it is able to increase traffic and attract your audiences attention.
Content is king
Your brand promise and brand position are communicated to your audience through your website’s content. This is a two-part step in that a copywriter will create the written content and a designer adds accompanying visuals, placing everything into your pages ‘space’ correctly. All your messages should be clear and concise so as not to confuse the reader or waste time. Too much text makes a page seem cluttered while too little can hurt your ability to convey information or to rank well in Google searches. Hiring a professional web designer, SEO and copywriter will make sure that your content is engaging and easy to read. A key ranking element for SEO is how long users stay on any given page and content is what keeps them there.
Building trust
Your best customers are the ones that trust your business. Building this trust is critical to your business’s success but wont happen unless you get to know their values. Marketing not only acts as your dialogue with your customers but also serves to give insights into what makes them tick. When redesigning your website, increase your dialogue and you can expect to increase positive trust and sales down the road. Make sure your website is welcoming and appears trustworthy to your audience and your traffic will rise and conversion rates will improve.
It doesn’t matter what type of business you are in, a website that has been designed with your target audience in mind will boost your business success. Sometimes your audience is used to conducting business in person and this is where your website design becomes even more important. Design and manage your website properly and customers will enjoy doing business with your company. Hiring a professional web design firm can help ensure that you are represented by an efficient, well designed websi
