One major aim of your website redesign is to improve your interaction with clients and get them interested in as many of your products and services as possible. By paying attention to three elements during the redesign process, you can achieve this goal.
You might think artwork and graphic design is the most important aspect of your website redesign, but it's more complicated than that. There are three things that you need to "nail," and if you do, you'll be on your way to turning your website into a sales engine.
This article will show you which three elements are most important, and how you can implement them in your site.
1. Customer-Driven Design
The aesthetics, as well as the usability of your site, determine whether visitors choose to stay and browse or leave. To come up with a customer-driven site, you need to:
- Define who your audience is, understand what they are looking for and state it plainly so they can easily understand it.
- Come up with a modern, uncluttered user interface that is easy to understand and navigate.
- Have legible fonts, a color scheme and photography that is relevant and appeals to your audience.
- Create a consistent layout with the important elements marked and clearly visible.
Pro tip: What you write for your customers on each page of your site is very important. Don't chase away potential clients. People scan, not read paragraphs. Knowing your customer enough to talk in their language versus in your company-speak will help your message connect.
2. Relevant Content
For a site redesign to be successful, you need to deliver valuable content to your audience as quickly as possible. Do a content audit on your current site and take stock of what you have and what needs to be added. Then, survey your audience and use web analytics to evaluate which content most visitors are reading, and update that content and use it to get better results.
Pro tip: We've written before about providing content that your customer wants and expects -- more than just "brochureware" on your people, services, and company-focused information. Content comes in various formats. Don't be afraid to try more graphical content like infographics or video-based content. Knowing your ideal customer's habits can clue you in on what types of content they will be willing to consume.
3. Calls to Action
Your website should be aimed at getting your site visitors to perform some kind of action. Thus, it is important that you provide calls to action throughout your website to prompt your visitors to do something specific. Your calls to action should be very obvious and clear, and you can achieve this by:
- Using colors that contrast the background of the site, so that the call to action buttons stand out.
- Making call to action graphics large enough to stand out and place them where they are clearly visible.
- Writing the words in your call to action in a straightforward way, thereby getting visitors to do the specific action you want them to.
- Keep it simple. Make it an easy process for visitors to carry out the action.
Pro tip: Briefly set an expectation of what people can expect when they click. If the call to action is to download your whitepaper, give them a couple bullets of how the whitepaper will benefit them.
There are many things that you should pay attention to during website redesign, but by ensuring that you have a customer-driven site, great content and plenty of calls to action, you will be able to use your website effectively to generate leads and sales.
If you are considering having your website redesigned, download this free guide today to know which other areas you should pay attention to during your redesign project.
