How redesigning your website can boost sales
By Judy Lam
Building online credibility
What are the essential elements to consider when designing or redesigning your website? If you have had the same website presence for the last three years, it could well be time to overhaul it.
After all, it is important to keep engaging your clients, potential clients and also to stay ahead of your competitors. A static website delivers very little to new prospects or the search engines.
Impact of multimedia
With an increasing focus on multimedia online, websites today have to consider a more interactive approach – this can include the use of Flash elements, the ability to play videos or animations, the incorporation of blogs and twitter feeds.
It can be confusing to attempt to do this yourself, and when designing or redesigning your website, getting professional online marketers, designers, developers and copywriters to assist you is crucial in ensuring your website boosts attention, enquiries and sales.
Asking the right questions
An objective, third-party overview will enable you to work out essential functions and capabilities of your website before you invest time or money. Questions such as:
Does the website convey your identity and brand?
Our Consultancy Report service is an excellent starting point, in determining the referral sites, traffic flow, entry points, successful site elements and those which need further inputs. Effectively, a thorough evaluation of your online presence to enable you to secure more quality traffic, leads and sales. For further information on this service, check here.
Redesign elements to consider
Some of the most important things from a design perspective for your website will be:
1. Identity
Identity is crucial in determining the goal of the website, the business purpose and creating engagement with the target audience. Consideration is important in discovering these things before launching into a website redesign.
2. Content
Probably the most important part of a website. Content is what attracts and draws visitors back to a website. Content needs to be unique, genuine, and regularly uploaded. Good content will also convey consistent key marketing messages and deliver search engine marketing benefits at the same time.
3. Appearance & Design
Every website is different depending on a client’s requirements, but one simple rule for appearance and design of a website is this: make it simple, clean and clear. A professionally-designed website should create a strong first impression, and also be a persuasive and engaging business tool which attracts and retains visitors. Design should enhance the content, with typography, colours and graphics being used throughout to help key messages stand out accordingly.
4. Usability
Navigation is crucial to the success of any website design - basically, it’s what visitors use to travel effectively around the site. If a visitor needs to click more than three times to find what they want, the chances are you’ll lose them. Content needs to reflect the needs of the target audience, and effective content within the navigation scheme of a website’s design is important. Another element of usability is that of catering for visitors with disabilities, and ensuring they can access the site too.
5. Calls to action
Getting customers to take the next step is what calls to action are all about. How easy is it on your redesigned website for visitors to get in touch? The calls to action need to be clear and defined. This could be an email address, phone number or hyperlink. The choices are yours, but think like the customer at all times, and save them time and money when implementing calls to action.
Simple strategies
Maintaining an effective website after your redesign is not difficult, but it does take dedication and commitment. Think of it as the same as maintaining a valued client relationship – you get out what you put in.
Simple strategies for continuous improvement include updating the website regularly with fresh content. Ask yourself testing questions, such as How do I keep visitors coming back to the site and Why would a potential client buy from my business, based on what they’ve seen online?
Being able to answer these questions will enable your redesigned website to keep ahead of the competition and to drive further visitors, attention, enquiries and sales.
Integrating your website design with social media tools, such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter, will also add value to your online presence. Again, make sure you do this professionally, and liase with a professional third-party Agency to develop social media integration within your website.
Trust
It seems like a lengthy process to redesign your website, but remember: an effective online presence builds credibility, enhances reputation, generates sales, and develops trust. Trust remains a key factor when visitors make that journey from visitor to enquirer to client and committed supporter.
Is your website design delivering the above experience?
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