5 Things to Consider When Revamping Your Website
Great web design is not so much about being bright and trendy as it is about the ability to deliver a positive user experience. What a visitor encounters on your website should answer their questions and send them on their way feeling satisfied.
For most small to mid-sized business owners a website is a way to generate additional leads – if you aren’t getting many leads from your website, it might be time to consider giving it a bit of a makeover!
Revamping your website doesn’t have to be a chore
There are plenty of reasons (SEO primary among them) that you should consider revamping your website as opposed to overhauling it or rebuilding it completely. By simply taking a closer look at your website and tweaking a few things here and there you can see improved performance, and likely spend less getting to that point.
Look at the following elements of your website and see if there is any room for improvement:
- Layout – Does your layout support your content, or does your content support your layout? We’ll give you a hint: it should be the first option! Ideally a visitor should focus on your primary message and supporting statements first and follow these right into your calls to action and conversion points. While your website is partially in existence to showcase your products, services, and mission as a brand, it is also a sales and lead generator, and you need to remember that when dealing with the layout.
- Fonts – How large / small is the text on your website? Are there clear size and style differences between the headers and regular text on your pages? Are you using fonts that work well together visually? All of these questions will help you determine whether or not you have a visually appealing font setup that is also supporting a visual hierarchy of importance via text. You don’t want your message to get lost in the shuffle!
- Colors – Overwhelming colors can easily drive visitors away from your website. No one wants to look at something that is simply too intense for their eyes to withstand for long! If you have a bright logo or a logo with strong colors, those would make excellent accent colors for your website, but they should not be used as the primary colors the site is based on. If at all possible, use a light-colored background for your website; reading much more than a few words on a darker background can be difficult for some readers. Above all, be consistent! Keep your calls to action one color, your headers another color, and so on.
- Images – It can be difficult to find just the right images for use on your website. If you can, do your best to take your own pictures or have them professionally taken for you. Images of your actual employees, offices, and products will be much more authentic than stock imagery. If you do decide to use stock images, make sure that they are relevant and make sense when placed on your pages. Avoid overly common images that seem to be used on multiple un-related websites. Try to use an image that you’ve never seen before!
- Calls to action – In order to have the most impact, calls to action need to be “above the fold” of your website. The more important a call to action is, the larger it should be (within reason!) For example, a “Buy now” button should be larger than a soft-sell button such as a “sign up for our newsletter here” button. Be aware of what your target audience likes and responds to and go from there.
Try a few of these tips on for size and track the changes in traffic and conversions through your website. If something is not working, try to find out why. If something on this list helps your site, let us know! We’re happy to help and would love to hear about your experiences!
