There is no doubt about it; website design plays a pivotal role in driving business success in the digital age.
While this may be an accepted fact, however, creating a website that reflects your business and successfully drives sales is far easier said than done.
In this post, we will discuss five key steps towards designing a website that will entice traffic help your business to generate leads.
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Focus on Core Business Objectives and the Customer Journey
Prior to the design process, it is imperative that have a clearly defined value proposition that reflects your businesses core objectives.
These are the primary goals that drive your website, whether you are motivated by building brand awareness or converting leads within a target demographic. These goals should have a direct influence on each design decision that you take, helping you to arrive at viable solutions which deliver a return on your investment.
You should also pay attention to the customer journey, and the precise touch points that consumers interact with on their way to purchasing a product. By defining the journey and simplifying this where possible, you can increase conversion rates and create the foundations for repeat business.
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Create an Engaging Blog
In recent times, blogging has become an increasingly prominent and effective component of website design. This is particularly true when it comes to engaging potential customers through insightful rather than promotional content.
The key is to create a blog that boasts both industrial and topical relevance, as this enables you to effectively target specific customer segments. Longer-form content also tends to perform better against search engine metrics, as this offers the type of depth and insight that adds genuine value to customers.
On a final note, it is crucial that you invest time and effort into researching blog post ideas for your website. You should also look to develop a forward-thinking content creation schedule, so that you can identify viable topics ahead of time and boost the impact of your posts.
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Pay Attention to Page Loading Times
The time it takes landing pages to load is an important metric when design websites, particularly in the digital age. According to surveys, nearly half of all web users expect a website to load within two seconds of being accessed, while 79% of all consumers claim that they will not return to a site that delivers slow loading times.
While you can always test the loading times of individual pages by using independent tools like Pingdom, this can only performed later on during the design process. In order to optimise loading times from the outset, you should decide on a clearly defined layout that minimises large and non-optimised image files, as these elements can clutter pages and impede loading times.
You should definitely keep this in mind when designing your website, as a minimalist and efficient design can serve your business well.
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Create a Design-friendly Culture
The concept of a design-friendly culture can play a key role in optimising website designs, particularly in terms of how decisions are taken and who is accountable for them.
While every business will have a design spend and must invest in a website that delivers a viable ROI, it is ultimately important that core decisions are taken (or at least influenced) by developers. This ensures that key design elements are not compromised purely for the sake of a bottom line budget, which may deliver benefits in the near-term but could ultimately cost your business over time.
If final decision decisions are taken by a CEO or non-design orientated employee, it is imperative that these individuals take on strategic feedback and listen intently to the informed opinion of experts.
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Invest in Mobile-friendly Website Design
We have already touched on the importance of website landing times, and this is also becoming increasingly crucial in the world of mobile design. Google has placed a key emphasis on boosting mobile-friendly websites in recent times, and this is borne out by the fact that mobile pages which load one second faster can drive a 27% increase in your businesses conversion rate.
In this respect, investing in the development of a mobile-friendly website can both satisfy customers and boost your businesses online presence in equal measure, while it also lends itself to a responsive design that adapts to difference devices.
There are a number of metrics that define a mobile-friendly website, and it is important to test each of these to determine the viability of your site. To achieve such an objective, consider using this Google tool and identifying any potential issues before they come to the fore.