Building an effective website is essential for running any type of business; no matter what field you are in. Your company’s website is where customers interact with you most frequently: either through email correspondence or direct contact with the company itself via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
While you may want to prioritize website attractiveness and functionality, it’s critical to also take into account SEO factors that contribute to your site’s visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs). After all, a beautiful website won’t benefit your business if your target customers are unable to find it.
If you’re embarking on a new web development project, read on to learn 6 web development tips you should know to ensure an end-product that is effective and profitable.
Get High-Quality Hosting
Choosing a quality web host is an important decision which could affect the success or failure of your website. The hosting provider you choose plays a great role in ensuring a fast, reliable, and secure online storefront. Outages in this context can include slow page loading times or connection disruptions due to maintenance or server overloads.
Choose a high-quality managed service provider that provides scalable hosting services that ensures availability and security. Some of the best web hosting providers in 2022 include BlueHost, SiteGround, Hostinger, and WPEngine.
For businesses that expect a significant amount of traffic at any moment, it would be wise to avoid shared hosting setups as server resources such as processor and memory are divided among users this way, causing slow and buggy websites.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network or CDN consists of several servers distributed in different locations worldwide. Its function is to shorten the physical distance by serving the content from the nearest server to the user, improving the time it takes to complete requests made through a website.
A few of the most trusted CDNs out today include Azure, Cloudflare, Fastly and Google Cloud. CDN service providers may vary in pricing, so it’s best to take a look at your budget and requirements before choosing one. More servers mean better performance but also higher pricing. If you’re on a budget, or if this is your first time implementing a CDN, you can opt for a service provider with less servers but have good coverage in locations where your customers are mostly located.
Minimize HTTP Requests
The fewer HTTP requests a website has to make, the faster the site can load. HTTP requests are made for elements such as embedded videos, external links, ads, and images. It is best to keep HTTP request density in mind when designing your website as too much of it can cause delays and ultimately turn visitors away.
If you already have a website in place, you can use Google Chrome's Network Panel to check how many HTTP requests each of your website pages make, and what files are taking the longest to load.
Optimize File Sizes
A large volume of unoptimized images is usually the most common reason behind poor website performance. Files are not limited to images – other elements contributing to slow page speeds may include heavy JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code density.
Optimizing file sizes makes sure all devices can access your content while using less memory on their systems or internet browsers. Keeping your files small improves page load times and makes your website more stable. In addition to reducing server load, minifying also makes development easier since you don’t need to watch for technical issues with large scripts.
To ensure your website files are optimized, compress your files before you upload them to your website. You can also hop into your page builder and scale down images to adjust to modern screen resolutions. By combining compression with resizing, you can reduce image file sizes drastically and speed up your website simultaneously.
Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML Files
Minification is the process of minimizing code and markup in your web pages and script files. It’s one of the main methods used to reduce load times and bandwidth usage on websites. Minification dramatically improves site accessibility, directly translating into a better user experience.
To minify JS, CSS and HTML files, comments and extra spaces need to be removed, as well as crunch variable names to minimize code and reduce file size. The minified file version provides the same functionality while reducing the bandwidth of network requests.
Regularly Monitor Website Speed
Page speed is arguably the SEO factor businesses should pay most attention to, because addressing loading times improves your rankings, the user experience you deliver, and ultimately, your conversion rate. A poor conversion rate usually translates to a website that needs improvement in many aspects.
There are various online tools that your business can leverage to see how your website stacks up to SEO standards. While some of them are free, you may also want to invest in paid tools to monitor other factors and stay on top of Google’s ever-changing algorithm.
One free tool to do this is Google PageSpeed Insights, which helps you find and fix issues slowing down your web application. It aggregates your website performance score based on various factors, and the scores are categorized into Good, Needs Improvement, or Poor. You can toggle between the desktop and mobile versions of the report, which is helpful when optimizing the user experience. Any score above 90 is considered good. However, it shouldn’t be the only performance testing tool in your repertoire.
Wrapping Up
NFT is an outsourcing service provider that can help businesses build a website and keep it updated and running. NFT has the expertise to design, develop and maintain websites using the latest technologies and best practices.
If you have an idea to launch a website and you want to get a web design or web development project started, NFT can help. With NFT, you can get the help of experienced developers and designers right away and approach the web development process correctly.
As technology evolves, new business opportunities show up every day. Even though technology simplifies many processes, it can be challenging for businesses to take advantage of opportunities if they lack expertise with the relevant technologies. This is the situation that businesses are in when they don't know much about web design or development. Website development services have changed how businesses work.
The establishment of a strong web presence is absolutely necessary to ensure the continued growth of a business. No matter how active you are on your business’ social media accounts, if people aren't drawn in by your website, all of your digital marketing efforts will be for nought. Future-minded businesses see these opportunities and are boosting their investment in web development to better serve their customers' needs.
We no longer need to ask if website development is necessary since we know it is. The question that needs to be answered is why is your company losing money just because you're not considering web development.
Unprofessional web design loses visitors' trust. People won't trust your site if it has an unprofessional design or appears to be out of date. People may form a negative impression of your business due to your outdated website design.
Consider a customer who wants to make a large purchase from a manufacturer. They're shelling out a lot of cash, so if they don't feel comfortable placing an order on your manufacturing website, they'll go elsewhere.
On the other hand, if your website looks professional, visitors will be more likely to trust you. They will have faith in your company and be willing to explore it further. If you want them to stick around on your site, you need to earn their trust. When people spend more time on your site, you increase your odds of converting them into leads.
A website that looks professional will bring in more customers. This, along with quick page loads and straightforward navigation, is what keeps people coming back. When visitors can access your site in a matter of seconds, you have a better chance of persuading them to give your goods and services a try.
However, if your website is of poor quality, badly designed, or takes too long to load, the visitor may leave before they even see your landing page.
If you need a big reason why web development is important, here's a big one: Your competitors are already utilising it. You need to implement web development if you want to keep up with the competition.
A chance to differentiate your company from the competition is in the design and how your website works. When competing with other businesses, you usually offer the same services and charge about the same prices. To succeed in business, you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Your website's goal should be to attract attention and be remembered. If your website is old, out of date, and of low quality, your competitors' sites will rank higher than yours. Their well-designed website will work better than yours. This implies you’ll lose leads to your competition because their page is more appealing. Therefore, it will bring in more leads.
Your website should be able to give you an advantage over your competitors.
You can highlight your company's strengths and attract new customers with a professionally designed website. Make it clear to your target market why choosing your business is the best option.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an important aspect of website development that should be considered. There are now millions of websites competing for the top spot on search engine results pages.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) increases traffic to your website and streamlines its usability for current visitors. You can do more as a business than just create a website. You can also keep visitors to your website. Your code should be optimised for search engines, which can sound complicated if you're not familiar with web development.
Working with a web design company that includes SEO services as part of their package is the best way to ensure that your website is constructed appropriately and can be found by search engines.
Web development and web design are two methods for moving a website up the results. If you want your website to be at the top of the search results, you'll need to adhere to the search engine's criteria. Load speed, ease of navigation, keywords, picture optimisation, and a variety of other factors are all considered.
As a result, your website will receive more organic traffic.
A well-designed, user-friendly, and mobile-friendly website is essential for any company looking to make an impression in the digital world. All of the material on the website should be simple to read and navigate.
A decent website provides a visitor with more options for simpler navigating. This includes a search box where customers can type in what they want and be taken to the section fast, as well as sticky features like a sticky header or a sticky menu to further simplify and optimise your website's navigation.
To do this, online pages should have lightning-fast loading rates set by the web development process. A website that loads quickly is more responsive and easier to use. This is accomplished through excellent web design and the website building process.
After the website developer has completed the website, it is recommended that they test the web pages on a regular basis to ensure that the ease of navigation is maintained at all times. This aids in the resolution or elimination of bugs that impede web page loading. Increased organic traffic is guaranteed for a website with easy navigation.
Website is one of the most important factors in the success of any online marketing campaign. Building a website that compels visitors to learn more about your company is a significant investment. If you want to see positive results for your business, we, the web development team at Net Fusion Technology, have extensive experience in the field.
Net Fusion Technology is the company to go to if you want to see real results.
If you're ready to get started on your ideal website, you can reach us at +61 2 9089 8875 or use our contact form.
We're excited to be a part of your company's future success!
If you're in the market for a new website, or just thinking about it, you may be wondering what all goes into designing the perfect website. Designing the perfect website is an art form. Just like any other type of design, there are a few key essentials that are needed in order to create an effective and appealing website. In this blog post, we will discuss what those essentials are. Keep in mind that this is not a comprehensive list, but rather a starting point for designing your perfect website.
The process of planning, designing, and ultimately programming a website is referred to as website design. The creation of a user-friendly environment for website visitors is the primary focus of website design. The purpose of designing a website is to simplify the process of locating the information that visitors require as well as navigating the site itself. Website designers employ a wide range of methods, such as layout, font, colour, and imagery, to produce an experience that is user-friendly for website visitors.
Designers are need to take into account a wide range of aspects in order to produce an experience that is user-friendly. Some of these factors include layout, navigation, and general functionality. Users will have an easier time quickly and easily finding what they are looking for on your website if the layout is intuitive, easy to follow, and consistent throughout the entire site. Users should be able to easily navigate between pages, and the navigation should be clear and easy to understand. And as a final point of discussion, website functionality should be evaluated frequently to ensure that all components are operating as intended.
In addition, website designers take into consideration how the website will operate on various devices, such as desktop computers, laptops, and mobile phones, when creating the website. Website designers are able to produce a website that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also simple to navigate if they take into account all of these criteria.
The design of a website may be simplified into three primary components: the layout, the graphics, and the text.
A website's layout refers to the manner in which the many components that make up the site are arranged on the page. A good website layout should be simple to comprehend and work with, with a distinct hierarchy of information and navigation that is constant throughout.
Another essential component of website design is the use of graphics, which can take the form of either photographs or illustrations. However, you should only use them when necessary because an overabundance of images can make a website appear cluttered and make it difficult to navigate.
Last but not least, the content of a website must to be well-written and simple to understand. Additionally, it must to be pertinent to the subject matter that is covered by the website as a whole.
You can design a website that is not only gorgeous but also simple to navigate by taking into account all three of these aspects in the process of website development.
Having said that, the following are some further, more in-depth views into these three components.
The design of websites is essential for a variety of reasons. The most noticeable effect is that it has on the overall design and feel of your website. However, the design of your website also has an effect on how easy it is to navigate. If the navigation on your website is complicated, there is a good risk that prospective customers or clients may leave your site before they get the opportunity to discover more about your company or organisation. As a result of this, it is essential to place equal emphasis on the aesthetics and the functioning of your website. Make sure to utilise descriptive headings and language that is brief while you are constructing your website. Make liberal use of whitespace to assist in breaking up large blocks of text and making your website easier on the eyes. Make sure that it is simple for users to navigate throughout your website. This should be your top priority. You can make sure that your website is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to use by just adhering to these a few simple criteria.
Even though an image is said to be worth a thousand words, that does not mean that it should be included on each and every website. In point of fact, when there are an excessive amount of visuals on a website, it can really be distracting from the message that the website is attempting to convey. The use of graphics should be kept to a minimum, and only done so when they contribute to the value of the site. An excessive amount of graphics might give the impression that a website is congested and make it difficult to navigate. In addition, pages that have big file sizes can load more slowly, which is especially problematic for people who have poorer internet connections. Graphics, on the other hand, can be helpful in highlighting key information and adding visual interest to a website if they are used in an appropriate manner. In the end, striking a balance is vital in order to design a website that is both successful and efficient.
It is crucial to ensure that the material on your website is effectively written and devoid of errors in order to remain competitive in today's increasingly competitive internet economy. This will not only assist to pique the interest of readers, but it will also ensure that your website is placed higher in the results pages of search engines (SERPs). Utilizing various keywords throughout the text of your site is one strategy that can help enhance its ranking. These are the terms or expressions that prospective clients are likely to seek for when they are searching for a company similar to yours. You may contribute to increasing the visibility of your site and attracting more visitors by incorporating these keywords in the text that you are writing. However, it is essential to make infrequent use of keywords and to do so only in settings where their application is warranted. It is important to find the appropriate balance when using keywords, as search engines may punish your website if they feel you have used too many of them. You can easily ensure that the content of your website is both well written and optimised for search engines with just a little bit of effort and attention to detail.
Many times, the initial point of contact between a company and its prospective clients is through the company's website. Because of this, it is extremely important that the first impression people get from your website is a positive one. Working with a skilled professional web designer may assist you in developing a website that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also simple to navigate. In addition to this, they are able to ensure that your website is search engine optimised, which will increase the likelihood that it will appear high in the search results. You may leave a favourable impression on prospective clients and bring in new business with the help of a website that has been thoughtfully created.
In addition, you may construct a website that is not only visually appealing but also effective by employing the services of a professional web designer. A skilled web designer will invest the time necessary to learn about your company or organisation in order to create a bespoke website that caters to your specific requirements. They will also be able to provide you with guidance on how to present your material in the most effective manner, whether it be through the use of text, photographs, videos, or any other form of media. A web designer may also readily make any changes that you require to be made to your site in the future, should you find that you require such changes. Therefore, if you want to establish a website for your company or organisation, you shouldn't do it on your own; instead, you should employ a professional web designer to assist you in creating the ideal website for your needs.
In order to create the best website possible, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the components that are required. You may establish an online destination that caters to the requirements of your clients by first taking into account the requirements of your consumers and then developing an interface that is simple to use. Have you ever built a website utilising these fundamental design concepts? Let us know how it went!
If you have a business and you plan to create your own website or redesign your existing website, keep in mind that the decision should be made strategically. It can be rough, even risky. Especially with many freelance designers out there promising an instant online presence and number one rankings.
Luckily, we are here to help with suggestions on what to look for when you are in the market for an agency.
This is the very first thing that needs to be done when you look for a web design agency. A well established trusted agency has impressive client website designs that you can look at and even browse through. An agency that is proud to share their portfolio shows confidence in their success and ensures that they can complete your website if you choose to go with them for your website.
In today’s digital age there are plenty of good web design agencies out there. However, not all agencies have the skill sets or the expertise to match your business needs and requirements. Set a goal to find an agency that has many expertises in various areas in website design and development, SEO and in digital marketing.
Set an appointment with agencies that you think fits what you are looking for and gauge their levels of expertises on important areas that you think your website needs. Whether it be an online store or just a redesign to make your current website more responsive.
With the world full of businesses competing to grow their own business, checking out a website’s credibility is important. From testimonials, certifications, awards and recognitions is one way of checking out the credibility of a web design company.
Before making the final decision, spend time consulting some of these elements, not being afraid of getting references from their previous clients. You will need to know their experience working with companies like yours, and if their customers are happy with their professional website, providing highly recommended testimonials about their experience.
This is the part where other website design companies fail, as they do not properly explain what their design process is. Ask your desired design company how their design process entails, if they know how to incorporate the design to be a responsive website, and if it is easy to connect it to your social media channels.
One of the things to ask when choosing your website design and development website is how they support and maintain their websites once they have been designed and launched. A website should never be stagnant. They should be able to keep up to date with the different trends in digital marketing, such as making the website responsive for other devices and how they expect to increase the loading time of the website.
Make sure that whatever website design and development agency you decide on, they will help you grow your business and provide any support and maintenance you require.
Lastly, one of the most important factors to consider that all business owners should look out for is the pricing of the website design agency. Take your time comparing website design and web development agencies to see the differences in pricing, inclusions and payment plans that they provide. Some agencies provide 50% down payment while others prefer end of project payment releasing your website only after the payment has been confirmed.
If you are down to your last two agencies and one is cheaper than the other, look at why the price is lower. There is a lot to consider when it comes to selecting the right agency, so you don’t want to make a decision on a rush without all the necessary information. When you take your time and take note of all the factors, including the pricing, you will be able to make an informed decision that is the best for you and your business.
The internet is a galaxy of web pages which are dominated by WordPress sites. Like Coca-Cola, it is a household name in Content Management Sites. Reports claim that WordPress takes up about 60% of the CMS websites and these sites run about 30 percent of the entire internet. While these sites are made to be easy for use, they can slow down as you continue to build and add new content. Real world page speed is an important metric both for usability and SEO so it is critical to routinely make adjustments on your site.
Below is a process that can help you improve your WordPress site page speed:
Get a baseline number
It will be hard for you to track improvement if you do not have a starting point. While You can use the following tools to find that number you will improve on.
https://tools.pingdom.com/
https://gtmetrix.com/
Check your engines
Make sure you have the latest updates on your WP Core and all your plugins. While this is more of a web security task, updates are often created to not only prevent vulnerabilities but to also patch some code issues. Your site will undoubtedly benefit from this activity.
Although unrelated to patching updates, it is likewise important that you install SSL on your sites. Google has started to force sites to use SSL this as a basic security feature. Adding encryption will prevent your site to be tagged “unsafe” by Google.
Serve Small Images
Images are the most common reasons a site slows down. Audit your images and see if you can resize them. Often, image dimensions are larger than needed. If the dimension size is not the issue, sift through your images and review their file sizes. High-quality images often mean larger file sizes, but this can affect load speed. Fortunately, there are a number of tools (Tinypng.com and others) that can still provide you with high-quality images without degrading display quality.
Implement Browser caching
Browser caching is often one of the most recommended items by Google PageSpeed insights. Enabling browser caching will allow you to tell your visitors how long they should keep specific resources on their computers. This will make sites load faster as many of the resources will be simply referenced from their own devices. For example, you can set a limit of cache for 2 weeks for images, and longer periods for other items like style sheets that do not change often. Your developer can do this by setting it up directly on the .htacces filer or via a plugin like W3 Total Cache
Go Mini
Extra lines of code, even blanks, can add bytes to files. These added bytes also add some time to load. Minify your HTML code, CSS style sheets, and JavaScripts to further speed up your site. This is a technical task that competent developers can accomplish easily. It is very important to review all pages after minification to ensure that they are functioning properly.
Some parting notes:
There is a balance between speed and display or functionality. It would be great to have both but if you must choose, in some cases, it is better to sacrifice a bit of page speed for higher quality images and functionality. A simple HTML site will load faster than a sophisticated image-heavy site, but it may not fulfill the needs of the customer.
Our team at NFT provides page speed updates with our website maintenance services. Contact us today to learn more.
Business owners tend to undermine the importance of creating an effective advertisement. In order to create an effective advertisement, you must first understand the basics of a good advertisement content. As every business wants to stand out from the rest, and with the rising competition due to globalisation, promoting your business with proper advertisement techniques is essential. The challenges of creating an effective advertisement correlate with the increase in the amount of media consumption. Online advertisements go beyond just the visuals and the message. It is often is about finding a balance between finding the optimal delivery method, with the right message, for the right customers, at the right time and place.
The following 6 tips can help you gain the results you’re looking for in creating advertisements that are effective. These techniques can also be used for any promotional tool for your business such as brochures, emails, fliers, online advertisement, postcards, and more.
1. KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS
What makes you stand out from the rest? If you can communicate your brand strengths in your advertisements, there's a chance some potential customers will choose you instead of your competitors. For example, the Red Bull "Gives You Wings" Campaign conveys an inspiring message that makes customers feel more capable. The use of “Wings” is unique from other energy drink. It connotes instant "flight" ass though it will help those who drink it will be able to perform at their jobs better.
2. UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Creating an ad with a specific target audience in mind can help increase engagement for your business. If you try to reach everyone all at once, you might have a difficult time reaching anyone. You can target your audience by different characteristics such as:
• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Business Industry/Market segment
• Geographical Area
With a defined audience, you can create marketing messages that will resonate deeper with each potential customer. Likewise, this will also help clarify the vision and mission of your organization and help your business stay focused.
3. HAVE LESS CONTENT
“Less is more” has been a phrase that has been important in the design world and is true for the content as well. As with the Red Bull example, “Red Bull Gives You Wings” is a short phrase but conveys a powerful message by empowering the audience. This phrase creates an emotional connection between the brand and the consumer. This emotionally-inspiring phrase can instrumental in creating brand loyalty with its consumers.
4. MAKE YOUR VISUALS CREATIVE
Mixing the right visuals with the right content make the most effective combination. It’s important to make sure that the visual elements you use do not overpower the message. The visuals should be attractive enough to target audiences but not distracting from the main message.
5. HAVE A CATCHY CALL TO ACTION
Your call to action should include words to encourage your audience to take action by telling them to click on the ad, buy your product, provide an email, etc. It’s important to use exciting words that will draw in potential customers. Make your call to action have a sense of urgency by focusing on action words, focusing on value, creating anticipation, or by showing the product or service benefits.
6. WHAT IS YOUR BUDGET?
No matter how much money your company spends on advertising, all companies must go through a process of determining the budget for the advertisement(s). In order to do this, you must first decide what your goals are from advertising and create an advertisement plan. This will help determine where you want to spend your marketing funds. One advantage of using online advertisement is its ability to set limits of your spendings.
There is no “one size fits all” model for creating the perfect advertisement as each business is different. However, building a strategy with these 6 tips in mind will help create a more effective advertisement and put you on the right track.
Website Analytics like Google Analytics can be very useful. It can tell you many things. Data can tell you where you are failing and give you clues to why you are failing. It can provide you ideas on what your company needs to adjust to grow your site. A deeper understanding of your site’s data can even help you uncover opportunities that can be very profitable for your business.
The importance of actively analyzing your website’s analytics cannot be understated. This is most especially true for small businesses. While your traffic might be small at the onset, the insights that you glean may help you grow your traffic slowly but steadily. As in any business, while overnight success is not guaranteed by studying analytics, steady progress is the key for longevity.
Check out the 5 quick win tips we have on data analytics below:
Check for Pages with High Bounce Rates
What is a bounce rate? In simple terms, it is the rate that users open a web page and after a short view of the page, almost immediately, leave the site. This usually means that there is either something wrong with the page, or the page did not deliver what was promised to the visitor in terms of content. It is in, layman’s terms, when a user “sees a page, pukes and leaves”.
Filter the list oh high bounce rate pages, investigate why and update these pages. Check for issues of slow-loading, HTML-code issues, large images, non-compatibility to mobile devices, or simple UI issues. Each page will have an issue, no matter how small. Fix each of the issues.
Find Referring Traffic Wins
Referring traffic shows where your site gains the most attention. Find out which website provides you the most ‘free’ traffic and try to deepen the relationship with them. You can offer to advertise on their sites or to also provide them free referral traffic by posting a link back to their site. Nurturing this list of sites that support you can be very profitable in the long run.
Popular Search = Content Win
Open up your “Search Keyword” data menu and find out what people are looking for on your site. Popular search terms shows you data on what users need to find or want to find. If you are already providing the content for them, consider creating more content for the popular topics. If they are not yet found on your site, consider building pages for them.
Set-up Goals
Tracking Goals will give you an overall picture on the success of your site. You can create simple goals like visits to the contact us page, download a piece of content or sign-up to a newsletter. If you own an ecommerce site, make sure that you are tracking each successful sale made on your site. It often is the single most important data that you will need to look at to determine the health and progression of your online presence.
Integrate your Google Analytics with your Google Adwords Account
Get a bigger picture of your data by integrating your Google Analytics with your Google Adwords account. While you may not be using this at the moment, linking both Google tools will give you a bigger picture of customer behavior on your site when you start paid advertising on Google. Specifically, you will be able to have insights from analytics to manage Adwords campaigns, and ultimately, optimize the performance of your online business.
You can find out more info on how to link Google Analytics and Google Adwords here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033961?hl=en
Data is not Insight
In Net Fusion Technology, we believe that data is nothing without insight. Small businesses need to take advantage of the power of Google Analytics for their site and their business. If you are unsure on how to go about with this, contact us. Our team has the capability to help you find the nuggets of wisdom from your analytics data.
Designing a landing page that converts effectively is both a science and art. It is simple enough to create one, yet optimizing it for better performance is another story altogether.
Every part of the page, the copy, the images, the layout and even the code, contribute to its performance. Unlike normal pages, landing pages should have a singular goal: converting users into active participants of your business.
If there are some elements out of place or don’t have a distinct purpose on the page, you have failed to give your prospects a seamless landing page experience.
Thus, not all landing pages end with conversions. More often, it is the design that prevents willing users from buying into what your landing pages are offering.
Here are few of the more common errors that hinder your landing page conversion rates.
Slow Loading Pages
Speed is requirement in conversion. “You snooze, you lose” is a rule of thumb when it comes to web design. It is a fact that users are very impatient and fickle-minded. A slight delay in a web page loading can contribute to a small percentage decrease in your conversion rate. While it may not seem significant, 1% lost customers can be a huge blow to your site’s revenue over time.
Pay close attention to the load time of landing pages. Make sure to minify images and compress design codes. Audit your pages at least once a week to see whether or not it is performing as it should. Test load times of your pages frequently. Make sure they are not lagging especially if you often add content to these pages.
Not Mobile-ready
We live in a mobile-obsessed world. It should no longer just be an option to build mobile-ready sites. Needless to say, your landing pages being mobile-friendly should be of highest importance. Your landing pages should display properly on most mobile devices. Moreover, call to actions and conversion buttons should work as well as they do on desktop versions. It can be one thing to have mobile-ready page, and another for the landing page to be mobile-optimized for conversion.
Too many choices
Choice is a double-edged sword. It can either help nudge users to subscribe or you drive people away. When developing a landing page, design it according to the philosophy of minimalism. A single idea and a single action can help people decide easier. The less actions needed on a page, and the less messages, the clearer path of action will be for web users. Likewise, having single action or intent goals on your page will allow you to study conversion data on your landing page easier.
Unclear Call to Actions
Clarity is of high importance when asking people to do a specific action. If they are buying something, make it as simple as “Buy now” or “Purchase now”. If you want them to sign-up for a subscription, “sign-up” or “sign-up now” is good enough. Avoid vague actions like “ I want it!” or phrases like “shut up and take my money”. Vague messaging may sound hip or fun, but more often than not, it contributes to confusion more than clarity. Keep your “Call to Actions” simple and easy to understand.
No Clear Message of Value
Spell it out for them. If you are offering something of value, it is important that it is clearly stated for your users. Maximise your landing pages by highlighting each product feature that will be beneficial to your customers. Make sure this is positioned just right beside your call to action buttons. This will be a quick visual cue for them. This will make it easy for them to convert. They will thank you for it.
Simplify to Optimise
The most important aspect of designing or optimizing a page for conversion falls more into simplification more than over designing. All the elements of the page should be organised in a way that converting your clients is a near-mindless or automatic experience.
It is easy to design landing pages, but it is so easy to mess up as well. Minimizing the friction and the distractions is often the key to a successful landing page. If you want optimise your landing pages, make sure to test different simple layouts with robust content and clear call to actions.
Your company website is more than just an online version of a company paper brochure. Its design and performance can be seen as a measure of your company’s values, efficiency and services. A poorly-designed website will affect not only your reputation but can also affect your sales and revenue in the long run. One can say that your customers will judge your site as a reflection of how your business operates.
With the the popularity mobile devices and the exponential growth of online shopping, a fully-functioning optimised website is no longer just an option but a requirement. If you want to generate quality traffic and to build customer loyalty for your site, avoid the 3 web design mistakes below:
Slow Loading Websites
Users nowadays are generally impatient. A report showed that at least 25% of users ‘bounce’ or exit a site without doing anything if its pages load time exceeds 4 seconds. This lost audience can easily be translated as lost revenue. This is most evident in large ecommerce stores like Amazon where each second can be translated as billions of dollar in loss.
Check the speed of your homepage and other most visited pages of your site. Any page that loads longer than 3 seconds need to optimised. Use tools like Google PageSpeed to find insights to speed up your website. Consider minimizing image sizes and making codes cleaner. You can also consider asking your host provider different solutions that they may have to improve your site’s load speed.
Poor Mobile Site Experience
Nowadays, mobile devices are seemingly extensions of the people’s lives. Whether at work or in everyday lives, people have it with all the time and everywhere. It is always within an arm’s length away from a person. Google recognized this behavior and updated its algorithm to award mobile-optimised sites with better search rankings in order to incentivize companies to make their sites mobile friendly.
Audit your site by browsing it with different mobile devices. Do different tasks like navigating to different pages, downloading items and signing up for newsletters. Take note of sections that made you pause or areas that did not function properly.
Check your site with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. This tool will show you how your site is displayed on different mobile browser sizes and orientations. It will also provide insight on areas of the mobile experience you can improve on.
No In-site Search Functionality
Make it a point to provide easy access to your pages. People need information, and they need it quickly. What better way than providing them with an in-site search bar that allows them to input and browse your site’s page quickly. This is particularly important if you own a site that showcases thousands of different products.
Search functionality helps increase your site’s conversion. The data you will get from these searches will also help provide insight on items or pages that are important for them.
Have a search bar installed above the fold of each page of your website. Making sure this functionality is visible will directly affect both your bounce rate and conversion rate.
Summary
Website design can be quite difficult, but it can be beneficial if you know what to prioritize. Keep page load time fast, design for mobile and have a search function for your site. These basic items will keep your site competitive in the digital space.
Logos can become more than just mere symbols of a company. Nike, Google, and Apple have reached an iconic status that most of everyone in the world recognize what their brands represent. A video from VOX explains what makes logos go from good to great.
They interview Michael Bierut, a well-known graphic designer who explains the 3 different types of logos “ the wordmark, pictorial and abstract iconography. He also introduces a fourth type which is called"logo system". This is the kind of logo that has different versions. One can see this in the ever-changing Google Doodles as well as in the famous MTV logo.
A logo is a face of a company and creating one is imperative even in web design and digital marketing. Quoting the video, Logos allows companies to create conversions beyond its name. Nevertheless, a logo is merely an empty vessel. No matter how big its splash is when it is released; Bieret believes that it is really the company and its performance in the long run that makes a logo's success.
Watch the video here:
