We are at present living in the online age. In this age, it has become an absolute necessity to own a professional website for almost all business ventures and career choices. A great website can play as the most proficient marketing tool where you can easily display your work and skills while also using it as a communication channel and a branding engine. But one thing to keep in mind is to build a website which drives traffic, attracts leads and boosts sales. This is a step-by-step guide to building a great website.
1. Strategize The Brand.
Devising a proper branding strategy is the foremost task to accomplish while building a site. There is no point initiating the creation of website if you have no idea of its main purpose. After you have decided the brand, make sure of the following things:
- Know your target market, who they are and which demographic group they belong to.
- Get a solid idea of what your competitors are doing. Vigilantly researching the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor will give you an upper hand.
- Define your brand and what the vision behind its motivation is.
- Have a polished and professional logo and make sure to link it to your home page. The logo is a crucial part of the brand and thus prominently locating it on your website using a high-resolution image will help the visitor to easily navigate to it.
2. Approach The Design.
The overall design of the website should be modern and simple which instantly attracts the visitors to further navigate your website.
- Website template is the main foundation of the site’s design. The layout and style of the template should be according to the branding strategy.
- Customize your template by adding texts, links, images and more and refine the design in terms of color, shape, and order.
- Make sure to give visitor breathing room by creating sufficient space between the paragraphs and images. When your site has enough space to breathe, the viewer can easily absorb the content and features of your site. Proper white space will allow the visitors to focus on the content and well-controlled user flow.
- Use color combination strategically. The color palette should complement your logo and must match other marketing materials consistently. Usually, a neutral color palette makes your site appear clean and elegant with a modern touch.
- Get rid of clutter and make certain that your site is not overloaded with images. Lots of graphics, animal gifs, and photographs can hinder the viewer’s processing of information. Limit the links and other options in the header and footer to lessen the clutter on landing pages.
3. Prioritize Usability.
The website must always offer a friendly user experience to the web-searchers. Even if your website is stunning but does not function properly, it will fail to drive traffic.
- Use intuitive navigation because confusing navigation layouts may prompt the user to quit the page altogether rather than trying to figure it out. The website must allow the visitors to use main menu or links so that they can easily navigate between all the pages and subpages.
- Clear content strategy is the most crucial aspect towards a clear and well-designed website. In fact, you must design every page as a landing page. Mostly, users don’t land on your home page directly and thus the key information should be on every page wherever the visitor lands.
- The contact form that you are using for a call to action must always be put above the proper fold. CTAs or call to action are the messages that invite the visitors to submit their contact information whilst making a direct action.
- The importance of buttons like ‘submit’ or ‘send’ cannot be overlooked. Make sure whenever the visitor hovers over your buttons, they should become opaque or should change color.
- Invest in professional photographs because a poor-quality image is worse than having no photograph at all. Generic photos will make a bad impression of your company.
4. Prepare For Search Engines.
SEO is the most significant tool to rank your site prominently on search engines. It helps you build a website which attracts leads and boosts sales.
- Thoroughly looks for the keywords that visitors must be using to search for services relevant to your website.
- Ensure a compelling meta-description and well-thought-out title tags that will attract visitors to your site.
This simple-to-follow guide will undoubtedly help you build a website which generates traffic, attracts leads and boosts sales.