Spring cleaning season has arrived, and if you’re looking for the perfect place to start with your business, we recommend your website. Today we’re talking smart navigation, social media handles, social media integration, fonts and more! Whether you are a new brand or a legacy brand, your website and its ease of use for consumers can mean the difference between landing a lifelong customer and losing a sale. Discover our top website basics tips below.
Keep your target audience in mind. Change your perspective and pretend that you’re visiting your website for the first time as a user. Explore the different pages with fresh eyes to help you create a user-friendly website.
Ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices. According to Orbelo, 55.56% of all web traffic comes through mobile phones. Make sure your website is not only mobile compatible, but optimized to perform on smartphones and tablets. You can check your website here.
Incorporate social media handles. Encourage users to follow your brand on social media by creating highly visible social media icons above the fold. And most importantly, make sure they all actually connect to said network.
Integrate social media. Technically speaking, “social media integration is the act of using social media accounts as an extension of your marketing strategy.” A few of our favorite ways to do so are by adding social sharing links to your blog posts, integrating the actual social feeds onto the website, using email campaigns to remind consumers of social channels and incorporating a branded hashtag to showcase a feed of posts from your followers and fans.
Navigation should be simple to find and use. Due to the fact that navigation has a huge impact on traffic and conversions, it’s crucial to keep it on the same place on every page. Additionally, ensure that everything on your website is easily searchable. Readers shouldn’t have to spend more than a few seconds to find something.
Consider the visual aesthetics:
Layout: When websites are cluttered, the viewer doesn't know where to direct their attention. But when it’s a well-organized layout, your viewer is guided directly where you want them to go. So consider where it is you’d like them to end up and organize your website accordingly.
Color scheme: Colors not only have strong psychological impact, but using too many will make your website design clash. The general design rule of thumb says to not use more than three colors, unless working with a brand palette in which case you might be able to use more.
Text placement: Don’t clutter your design with text. Break up long-form content on the website into readable chunks and don’t be afraid to use spacious design to do so.
Fonts: Just like color, less is more when it comes to fonts. Three is the ideal number which includes one for main headings, another for sub-headings, and the third for body text.
Images: Photos should be used sparingly to make an impact. After all, not only are images essentially unreadable by search engines, but large images can also delay your site’s loading time.
