A poorly built website is one of the reasons why online visitors bail out so quickly.

However, still, there are many websites in cyberspace that are crap with horrible practices.

Just imagine a visitor who presses the “back” button shortly after stumbling upon the horrific scene of your website. Would you allow that to happen? It appears that a warm lead turns cold after that encounter.

To look for clients alone is hard enough so don’t make it even more difficult by having a less-than-stellar website that shoos away potential clients.

In this article, we come to grips with every element that should comprise an effective website – the benchmark of best practices.

Don’t just be another sheep in the herd, take these prime takeaways and some hush-hush things to make your online investment stand out.

USER EXPERIENCE

Website Design

Since your website will be the face of your business, it should stand as appealing as others. However, an excellent website is not only up for pretty designs but rather it is more in the psychology and behavior of the customers. Learning how your target audience behaves is very important. Always put in mind that your goal is to influence the psychological state of mind of your target audience and how you want them to perceive your online business. Make sure that every element of the design will make them take actions and bring you sales. Thus, to make it aesthetically pleasing and psychologically appealing as well, you can follow these guidelines:

Good color combination – the color schemes for your website should only have 2 to 3 color combinations. More than that is too much for the users’ eyes to handle. They should blend well and should set the exact tone for your business.

Text Legibility – give your reader an ease by presenting a better contrast like black text on a white background with low opacity. However, the rules changes when the background is colored and for some certain typography designs. With regards to the font size, it is ideal to use 10 and 12 pts. for paragraph text.

Significant graphics – Graphics is an integral part of a web design. It’s like road signs that guide the readers directly to their point of interest. It also imparts a message or context related to the written content on your website. Without it, having impressive texts would mean nothing and otherwise boring (yawn). However, don’t get them overdone on a single page. Use not more than three to four images.

The use of photos – one dead simple way to add visual appeal is by utilizing high-quality photos which is essential if you are an online retailer.

Digital Branding

Let us keep this information under wraps. Most designers are just assuming. They pretend to know the crucial information until you provide them. It’s really essential for them to know the designs that will reflect your brand identity and will deliver smoothly your marketing message. Thus, it is far better to work with graphic designers that understand your personality and the kind of experience that you want your customers to have when they avail of your services or products. Failing to do this will bring you the wrong target audience and the website will be nothing but just a waste of time, effort, and of course, money.

A Favicon in Place

Many of you must be thinking why on earth does favicon have to exist on a website.

What’s the big deal about it? Favicon can be defined as a morpheme whose form and meaning come from a blend of two words- favorite and icon.

Favicons are often given less attention by website builders, not realizing the extreme importance it has as a part of branding.

Favicons are the icons near the sites name of the favorite lists, before the URL of the address bar and can be found when you bookmarked a website.

Because everyone is having a cluttered place for bookmarks and favorite list, therefore, it is extremely important to have a favicon to differentiate between each website and app. So that if one is sifting through an ocean of bookmarked websites and numerous apps on his home screen,  surely it will be easy for him to recall if you have a favicon for your website. It’s just simple thinking, we all know that visual is more recognizable than just texts.

Mobile Compatibility

By all means, you should create a mobile optimized website. This is now a necessity since statistics say that these devices are multiplying five times than people. Funny but true. which only shows that these handheld technology has established us to be connected in every possible way. thus giving your business a surefire hit because of the possible additional customers that you will acquire.

Also, in case you haven’t known, Google analytics have rolled out an algorithm that will jump-start mobile-friendly websites in mobile search rankings. Besides that, most searches made now are from mobile devices which already exceeds desktop traffic!

Take the first step by checking how your website looks on mobile. You can test how visitors can use your page on mobile devices. Make use of Google mobile site tester to find if your website can be accessed and if not, you should create a mobile version of it.

Browser Compatibility

A good website should be able to work without conflict on different browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and others. It should provide customers with the same experience all through these different web browsers.

Better Website Navigation

Not every site is built well for the user to navigate with ease. It is important for your website to have a navigation system that will let users know where they are, where to proceed, and where they have been.

To include a larger audience, you can test your website accessibility using a screen reader. This allows the blind, low visioned individual like the elderly and disabled to use this program to access the internet.

Actually, there are more things to consider to ensure that your sites navigation system goes beyond your company goals and objectives. Keep yourself apprised of the fundamentals and some popular styles and see the results in short orders.

Relevant Headlines & Page Copy

Creating a headline that can entice readers or web visitors is the hardest part yet the most important one. It is the first thing that will grab their attention and in effect will be your real point of connection with potential customers. Follow these mini points to form a headline that kicks and a content that both Google and customers alike will recognize in full worth.

  • A headline doesn’t always have to be pushy and loud. There are simple headlines that sell like crazy.
  • Pour in some questions that will make your readers think. Also, present some insights or thoughts that will make them ask questions too.
  • Speak in a direct manner in your headline with no other chitchat.
  • Put that extras and add-ons such as awesome visual content and subheadlines that are short and to the point.
  • Craft unique content that has used up to date information.

Conversion Optimized Web Design

Optimization of the conversion rate of your website can be compared to mending a fishing net. It’s not just about putting an email add or phone number in place. The most that you can gain out of it are clients that are already looking out for you. So for every prospect that walks into your website looking for your kind of services, whether they were lured or not, still, they are utterly affirmed by your conversion pages. These include your offer descriptions, the testimonials and reviews that you provide, and the copy that acquaints your offers.

Conversion rate optimization is like catching fishes in the river. You make every way to convert passive visitors of your website to become active users or making them take an action when they are still not certain. Here’s how you can make significant results by following web design principles:

  • The formatting and designs of your lead capture forms should be in the right positioning because it has a big impact on the conversion.
  • In your web design, you should limit the numbers of options that customers have to shorten the time of decision making.
  • The plethora of decisions that your prospects have to make in your website will leave you inundated, finding where to cut back on those choices. But there’s one way to implement one call to action and that is by installing a full-screen welcome gate. This will give your customer a pinch with just a single decision to make.
  • Important elements of the pages should be placed on the intersections (if you follow the rule of thirds of photography) because this is the main focus of the audience. Believe it, it can help you boost conversions.
  • With regards to page loading speed, every second count. According to one study, a single second delay will cost you a decrease of 7% of conversions. Hence, don’t waste time and run your site to some page speed free tools available and then troubleshoot any problems immediately.
  • Use loads of negative space on your homepage to emphasize the call to action button.
  • Take advantage of the F-behavior of the users when browsing the web by placing calls to action from across the f-shape lines. Place the details of your site that you want to have lesser visibility (like cookie policy) at the lower right-hand part of the page.
  • It is wise to be overparticular about contrast because this can also affect the headline, texts, and the call to action button. Make sure they are noticeable and most importantly, readable!
  • Being simple in your designs defines your site instead to be aesthetically pleasing. It converts better and it minimizes the distraction when your prospect is navigating your website.
  • Because people like face images, you can include them in your testimonials, opt-in pages, landing pages, and any part of your articles to increase conversions.
  • Use high-quality photos that are inspiring and imaginative.  A research has found out that you can roughly get a 94% more views if you include weighty images in your content.

On the other side, conversions can also be well optimized by the use of social media. Thus, it is equally important to consider them in your web design. Place the icons and links strategically because it can greatly affect the engagement of the users.

SEO ONLINE VISIBILITY

Search engine optimization of a website is something that is to be taken soberly. It’s not serious enough to build a website that is nice looking and straightforward to use. You also need to have that sweet spot in the search engine ranking to earn traffic. If not done correctly then all of user experience design will be for nothing.

Make sure that you used the right keywords for your content and perfectly align them to the terms that users are really searching on the search engine.  Be well versed with the basics of on-page SEO. To ensure its properly done on your first try, you can bring in a consultant for SEO. They provide extreme benefits for the business and advantages too.

Also, it’s always advisable to hire an SEO expert long before you start to build your website or redesign. You can discuss with them some off page efforts because on-page alone can’t pull it all. You need someone who understands all the technical issues that come around off-page SEO. This includes speeding up page loading time and indexing your website. They should also cover the responsibility of building domain authority as well as social media marketing to upsize your digital marketing footprint.

Be certain that you bring SEO into the fold as soon as possible before your competitors get a huge head start on you and it will take a long time for you to catch up. You don’t want that to happen, do you?

SECURITY

It is all natural for web users nowadays to be wary of websites who do not follow industry standard and guidelines. So it’s vital that you ensure the security of your website by encrypting the passwords of the users if you employ registration features. SSL encryption is also needed to safeguard the data that passes through the web server and browser to make them remain private and integral.

Remember, consumers data is increasingly earning great worth in the web. It fuels the digital world and even the biggest brands become powerless if they break customers’ trust.

Final words. . .

So It really does make sense to hire a professional web design firm. The one that will not break into the effectiveness of your online business and gets your target audience turned on.

Actually, we even barely scratched the surface of what an effective website should be. The range of the topic is too broad to cover here. However, we think this high-level overview will be enough to guide you in an exact direction.

But if you want to go into a deeper dive, why don’t you call us? MJL Design is more than ready to keep your phone ringing off the hook.