A website is more than just a business card. It’s an opportunity to engage with clients and generate interest in your business 24/7. But, is your website ‘good’? Do you know what good looks like?
As a business owner, you don’t need to be able to code or design a site—you just need to know how to gauge success. Here are the three most important factors in determining if your web design is up-to-snuff:
A good website is professional.
Your website design should be clean, contemporary and positions your brand appropriately within your marketplace. Your website should look like it belongs to a professional business, was designed by a professional designer, and is well thought out. It should also look like it has been designed for the kind of business you’re in and the audience you are trying to reach. Your website should be consistent with the brand identity of your company or organization, as well as convey its unique message clearly through its design elements (colors, typography).
Your website design doesn’t need to be bleeding edge, but it should meet current base standards for what your market expects of your brand.
A good website is organized.
Information should be easily accessible and clearly labeled so that visitors to your website know where to find what they’re looking for. If you have a lot of content, it can be helpful to organize your site into sections or subsections. For example, if you have a health blog, you may want to split up your posts into categories like “foods you should eat more of” or “workout tips.” This way, people who are only interested in reading about one specific topic will be able to quickly find the corresponding section on your site without having to scroll through every single post on your blog (which would take forever!).
To make things even easier on visitors—and Google—you might want to include breadcrumb links at the bottom of each page within those sections so they can move back up through any other pages they may have missed while browsing down through all the content available on that page. This way visitors won’t feel lost when navigating between different sections of content within your website.
And that goes for website pages as well. Your website content should be structured in a familiar pattern, again, making it easy for your visitors to navigate through your website.
A good website makes it easy to take the next step.
A good website is easy to navigate, makes it easy for people to take the next step, and clearly states what action you want them to take.
To make sure your website is as effective as possible:
- Clearly state what action you want a visitor to take. Is it making an appointment? Sending an email? Downloading something? Make that clear at the top of your site. Be specific about what you’re asking people to do so they know exactly what you want from them and how they can help with your mission (and no longer feel confused).
- Make sure contact information like phone numbers, email addresses, and addresses are easy-to-find on every page of your website — especially if it’s not obvious where visitors should go next! Your goal is for everyone who finds out about your company through a Google search or social media post (or how ever they found you) be able to quickly get in touch with someone at the company without having any trouble finding their email address or phone number — so make sure those details appear prominently on every page of your site.
- Providing location information if needed is crucial. If you need customers to visit your location, make it easy for them to find you by adding directions and instructions. You might miss out on an opportunity if a potential customer is confused about where you’re located.
Conclusion
A good website is one of the most valuable sales tools your company can have. If a visitor to your site isn’t impressed and doesn’t understand what you do quickly, they will leave and go to a competitor’s website. And that’s bad for business! You want potential customers to understand what you do and why they should buy from you. A well-designed site makes this easy for them by giving them all of the information they need in an attractive package.
The best way to build an effective website is through hiring experienced professionals. A professional website designer can help you avoid costly mistakes when building a website for your business and guide you through the process quicker than doing it on your own.