There are many, many ways to improve a website and with the right strategy, design and build your site can be the life and soul of your business. We do see many websites that could do with improvements so we’ve put together a very quick list of six quick things you could do to improve your website:
1. Use professional pictures
Using sites like Shutterstock and iStock, you can get royalty-free professional pictures that you can use on your site, you will have to buy them but imagery is a very important part of your site. Using well coloured and captivating imagery can draw a user to a specific part of your site and give you more of a professional edge than simply using poor captured photos or clipart style graphics.
2. Choose the right font for the right job
When writing copy for your site, what font should you use? Comic Sans? Don’t even think about it! Make sure you choose web fonts that are clean and easy to read. Fonts like Arial & Helvetica are safe bets but also fonts like Trebuchet work well. You can also choose from a selection of ‘webfonts’ that are installed in the users browser, which ensures that they can also see the font you’ve used regardless if it is installed on their computer. By all means use, graphical/artistic fonts for headers and other typography that needs to stand out but steer clear of using that style for standard copy. Other things to consider include font size, paragraph spacing, line height & text alignment.
3. Make your Call To Action stand out
If the main point of the website is for people to book a demo, and your call to action is hyperlinked text at the bottom of the page, chances are a large amount of users will miss it. Coloured buttons with large, clear and short text will grab the users attention. By placing the button in certain areas of your page it is likely to increase your bookings. If you have more than one CTA on a page, try prioritising them and make the most important one stand out more. Experiment with placement, colours, sizes, shapes and wording of your calls to action to try increase their effectiveness.
4. Make the navigation clear and obvious
There is nothing worse than being on a site and having no idea where to go next. You want to make your navigation as clear and easy to use as possible, so aim to keep it along the top of your site and on every page. Name your navigation tabs with words that give the user an idea about what is on that page, things like ‘Home’, ‘Services’, ‘Contact’ and so on. It’s also a good idea to let the user know where they are in the site so identify the page in the navigation with a graphically different tab when clicked on and the use of breadcrumbs.
5. Get the most important information across immediately
You have a limited amount of time with each new visitor, in order to tell them, who you are, what you do and why they should stay. If you can’t do this almost immediately, then the user is likely to use their favourite button – the back button! Make this information stand out instantly by using clear messaging, call to action buttons, imagery and colours. You also need to consider the screen resolution of your users and focus on getting your key information across ‘above the fold’ otherwise it’s likely to get lost.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
6. Use Analytic software
You may be thinking that Analytic data isn’t really ‘improving’ your website because it doesn’t actually alter your site’s look and feel, well yes that part is true, but to identify and monitor how effective changes on your site have been, you need statistical data. There are many programmes that can do this for you but we love Google Analytics. It’s a comprehensive and free platform for you to look at how users interact with your site and it gives you the opportunity to start learning about your vistiors and make changes onsite accordingly. Do not underestimate the power of insight through analytics – if you run a website, analytics should be your best friend.
This is just a quick list to give you a starting point when looking at improving your site. There are three fundamental things you should try to remember and make sure you always answer on your site, and all of the six tips mentioned can be used to help answer those questions; which are:
- Where am I?
- What can I do here?
- Why should I do it?
What other quick tips would you give to improve a website? Leave your suggestions and comments below.