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A lot goes into creating a user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and functional business website. From web design elements such as images and titles, through to the copy itself and the flow of the website pages, every element of the website must work in harmony to present the correct image of the business, to provide the viewer with the information they need and ultimately to convert a browsing viewer into a sale. So what exactly do you need to consider in order to create the winning website formula?
Your Audience
First and foremost before putting pen to paper, or mouse to the computer, you need to consider your target audience. Who will be viewing your website? What problem are you trying to solve for them? At the end of the day, your website needs to contain content and design elements that align with the needs of your audience and so ignoring them during the initial design stage would be counter-intuitive.
Your website usability
We’ve all been on clunky websites that have left us feeling as though we are going round in circles. It’s often said that you have about 3-seconds to grasp a viewer’s attention and if in this time they encounter an annoying pop-up, a button that doesn’t work or can’t see clearly the direction to take next, then you’ll likely lose them and they won’t return. When creating your website usability should always be at the forefront of your mind and with mobile now making up the vast majority of web traffic you need to make sure your website is as user-friendly on a phone as it is on a laptop or PC.
Your information
The average online attention span of an individual is only 5 seconds long, which isn’t a lot of time to capture their interest and keep them reading your information. This means that the first few lines of your website need to be a killer – in short, they need to hook your reader in and make them want to stay past their 5-second attention span. Websites these days use a number of tactics to keep users engaged, one of the most effective is keeping the website copy itself very short and concise and replacing words with images. Visual elements have been proven to keep the reader’s attention for longer and so incorporating videos, infographics and images on your website is a must for getting your message across without losing your reader’s attention.
Your call to action
You could have the best website in the world but if you make it difficult for your viewer to know what to do next then you will still lose the sale. Remember to make your call to actions clear and then provide the viewer with whatever they need to complete the action. For example, the most common call to action is to ‘get in touch’. Don’t then make your reader hunt for your contact information, hand it to them with the call to action and even consider making the email a link so that it saves the opening up a new email window too.
Of course, there are hundreds of other smaller details to consider with your website developer, such as gaining better website traffic through SEO, but, in general, these are the 4 components of a winning business website.
