Today website is a great tool to thrive and exist in the market. Whatever may be your business, the best marketing strategy for promoting your products is going online. Everyone has a website today, be it a News Agency, a Fashion Designer, an Automobile Company or anyone else. But just having a website isn't enough. There are certain questions you should answer before going into the online market :-
- Can a user easily navigate to all the pages of your website?
- Within seconds of landing on your website, can your visitors determine what your company does?
- If you are selling a product then Is your pricing layout easy to understand?
- Do you have a High Bounce Rate?
If the answer to all these questions is 'No' then you should probably think about optimizing your website design. A website can't simply succeed by excelling in sole design. It also needs to have good functionality and also needs to clearly communicate with your audience What you do, Why you do and For Whom you do it. Here are some tips for helping you redesign your website.
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1. Design on Paper first
A good design starts with a good plan. Write down your ideas on paper or on a whiteboard. This will help you iterate your design as you refine it and add details as you move along. Drawing on the whiteboard will allow team members to give inputs. It is also easy to erase on a whiteboard or paper than to make changes in the code again and again. Once you have the final design take a snap of it on your mobile device and start coding it with your team.
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2. Navigation
Navigation is the most important key while designing any website. It is just like a map which tells all the places users can visit on your website. Disorganized or confusing navigation is just like a nightmare for any user and can result in never getting that user again on your website. It is very important that the user find easily what he is looking for whether it is the payment option, contact section or anything else. Always use a Navigation Bar(navbar) for all the different links and make it responsive. If a user can't find what they're looking for, they have no reason to stay on your site and this will eventually result in high bounce rate and also promotion for your competitor.
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3. Use the Slideshow/Carousel carefully
Using an image slideshow/carousel people have got a way to show a lot of information on the home page of your website. The most important thing you should consider is that all the images should be relevant to your website. But if your website is just about one product then I will suggest that you should probably ditch the idea of using a slideshow/carousel.
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4. Use the Right Images
Fortunately, you have a lot of images to choose from on the internet for your website. But still, be careful while using images on your webpage. Don't stock your page with a lot of images that will cause it to load slowly on devices and slow internet connections.
Also, portray genuine images on the webpage of real people that work in your organisation or office. Images will help in bringing more realism to your website and make sure images explain who you are and what your content is about.
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5. Let Visitors Scroll on your Page
Don't worry if your content is slightly longer on the home page. Create about 3 to 5 different sections that help direct the new and recurring users on your website. But what should these sections be?
The list could as big as you can think but here are some most crucial elements:-
- Intro
- Overview
- Product Features
- About Us
- Case Study / Success Story
- Contact Us
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6. Don't worry about White Spaces
White Spaces are an essential element of any webpage. They help to break up pages and increase readability.
Although a lot of white spaces could look superfluous i.e. more than enough. White Spaces are generally used for content prioritization and can play an important role in positioning content at different places or creating sections.
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7. Optimize for Mobile
Most people surf the internet on their mobile devices. So while designing any website keep in mind that design for “Mobile First” and then for large screen devices
You should keep in mind all the screen sizes like mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktops which are classified in portrait or landscape mode. You can use different frameworks available or use media queries to make your website responsive.
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8. Include Social Media Icons
You should always link your social media icons on your webpage. Social Media can help generate a lot of traffic for your website. Instead of using names use the icons of the different social media accounts. These will also eventually help in the promotion.
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9. Use Headings & Text
Written content on a webpage is equally important as the images. Properly place headings and text at different places on your website mixed with images. This will also help you in SEO as in the end we all want a lot of traffic for our website and that is only possible if you rank high in search engine results which is with the help of SEO.
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10. Check Broken Links
Not only webpages but also images, stylesheets and scripts should be linked properly. Always test your website for broken links and most popularly known as Error 404: Resource Not Found.
Nothing frustrates a user more than a 404 page.
Thank You for reading a big blog post on small design hacks. There are a lot of important hacks you could use for designing any webpage and there are still a lot of them.
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