They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but your customers are definitely judging your website by its landing page.
If your bounce rate is going through the roof, and you visitors are spending only seconds on your site, something has got to give. Out dated designs, poor navigation, and uninspiring web copy are just some of the reasons why your clients are abandoning your website.
To combat this, you need a refresh. In the fickle online world, looks really do matter. So with that in mind, here are our top five tips for designing a beautiful website:
- Freshen up your design
Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but that’s no excuse for an out-of-date website.Things move quickly on the World Wide Web and a design that was fresh and exciting three years ago, now looks quite outdated. To keep your website eye-catching – and keep it creating conversions – you need to bring it up-to-date.
Sometimes a whole new design isn’t needed. Often changing a few elements can really make an impact; especially on those pages with huge bounce rates. The best way to create a beautiful website is to keep it simple.
Avoid Flash altogether – iPhone and iPad users won’t be able to see your site at all – and steer clear of auto-sound, gifs, and overcrowded pages.
- Make stuff easy to find
Nothing is more off-putting to your prospects than not being able to find anything on your website. To keep them on site longer, giving them more change to convert, you need to make things easy to find.Clean and simple header navigation is a no brainer, but you should also consider including a search bar. This is especially important for ecommerce websites, as it helps customers surf your whole site in an instant.Another top tip is to make sure you’re always linking internally. This means linking blog posts to other pages on your site, including a related products widget on an ecommerce store, and generally pointing your visitors in the direction of a conversion.
- Offer your visitors something valuable
They say that brains can be beautiful too, so make sure you show yours off. Fill your website with engaging copy that draws the reader in and offers them something valuable.Boring copy will only direct customers elsewhere, so lure them in with something unique, funny, interesting, or shocking. Make your site a resource that people will return to, time and time again. This is the fundamental step in creating a website that works, and that converts.
- Don’t fear new trends
Web design trends change all the time, but you shouldn’t fear them. In fact, one of them might be perfect for your business or website.For instance, parallax scrolling websites are huge for 2013, and would work really well for sites with less pages and a strong visual element. You can choose to be as creative or simplistic as you like, but bringing in a few elements like these can really enhance your site.
- Build it to be responsiveIt has been reported that there will be over 5 billion mobile web users by 2015. This means that if your website isn’t responsive, you will be missing out on huge amounts of traffic.
By giving all visitors to your site the same experience – whether they view your site on a desktop, tablet, or smart phone – you will drastically increase your conversion rates. Responsive websites don’t mean you need to scale back on your design either. You can still enjoy a beautiful website, will all the added extras.
Designing a beautiful website doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the mantra “less is more” couldn’t be more perfect. Giving your website a refresh for 2013, will help boost your traffic and increase your conversions.
Superdream is a creative and digital agency, specialising in website design and build. If your website is failing you and could do with a facelift, visit their website today to see how they can get people talking about your brand.