Web design in Melbourne is more than just making your website look good. I mean, it’s a big part of it, but it’s not the only part of a webpage, It’s about easy navigation, about a great user experience, a seamless look and feel that adds to the website experience, instead of standing in its way, and it can also include the reason why Google will favour your site over a competitors. With all this in mind, it could be a good idea to clue up on some great tips and tricks that will change your web design game for the better.
Here are 10 web design tips to change your game.
In the infamous words of lightning McQueen, “Speed. I am speed”, and this quote is something you’ll have to attribute to your website. Number 1 is about making your site speed a priority.
Speed being important is one of the least debated aspects of web design. Research shows that speed of a site influences everything from bounce rate to conversions, and revenue. If you’re hosting a slow website, you can have all the best UI and the best copy, and the best images, but if your site is slow, very few people will be able to stick around. And if you think it stops at people, think again, search engines also do factor your loading speed into their rankings.
Like any movie critic will tell you, the writing is terrible. And this is something that a lot of copywriters, and businesses will skimp on. Words have power and well-constructed sentences will hold attention. Complicated animations and stock images can be fun, but the most important part is to get your message clear. Why are people here? Do they need a mechanic? a Lawyer? Some clothing? Or a new skateboard? Whatever it is, be sure it’s clear. There a tonne of writing techniques out there and fun ways to play with words, but a clear message on your home page is always going to be favoured by your users and google. The best first step to making something clear is having consistent brand guidelines. So the look of the font, the types of images, the logo, and the words, and make sure they all fit with what you’re creating.
Whatever you’re selling, be it buttons, shoes, doorknobs, or plants choices can seem endless. Who do you go to? And what do you get? For you, and for your customers a simpler approach is favoured by all. Think of the phrase “less is more.” A paradoxical collection of words that can leave most perplexed, but let’s break this down. Fewer choices can mean more conversions. A grocery store ran a study where they conducted 2 separate tasting sessions. One session had 24 jams to choose from and the other had 6. The results? 10x the amount of people bought jam on the second tasting session with only 6 choices. In a nutshell, keep your selling simple and clear. If you make the choice limited the buyer is less likely to experience choice paralysis and not buy what you’re selling. Our advice, focus on a maximum of two CTAs and have a goal per page rather than multiple.
A massive study conducted by Google themselves shows that visitors don’t like visual complexity. Meaning get rid of anything that clutters your page, or takes away from the content you’re trying to hero. For instance most websites go for a single column design that keeps things clear and avoids distractions, putting the focus on your carefully prepared content.
Having testimonials on your website is a great way to be recognised instantly as a more trustworthy website, having a social media link to user generated content is also a massive help to the legitimacy and trustworthiness of your business for new users. Having a good social profile is a great way for people to find out favourites of existing customers and any extra capabilities that your business has like doing custom work, going above and beyond to meet a service. Having this not only shows that your business is helpful, but it plants the seed of future engagements with satisfied customers.
Pick a page any page, do you have a call to action (CTA) on there? No? Get one! CTA buttons and CTA announcements are a sure fire way to guide a user to make the right decision on any given page, we’ve given some information, do you wish to contact us? Add a button. We’ve shown you shown you a gallery of our items, want to go to the shop?
Having a CTA informs a user that the next logical pathway from this section is that section, and that by putting the right buttons in the right places, it keeps the website experience smooth and satisfying. This results in a good user experience and a very clean website.
If you think of a phone and your thumb together, the common end point you can find yourself with is the gesture of giving someone a thumbs up. Turns out, after years of conditioning scrolling on our phones have translated to the desktop. Scrolling, when focused on over clicking to get to the next piece of information, can increase conversions by up to 30%. A study by Crazy Egg showed that by changing their sales page from a one pager with multiple links to click, into a page 20 times longer but with all the information that was originally spread across multiple pages in the one section, that their conversions increased by 30%. Apple Inc. is also a company that runs these kinds of product information scroll pages really effectively, and if they do it, why not you.
This is about positioning and using images alongside your text. Spacing text and having a clear field for words on your website is super important. But equally as getting people to look at that is by using the negative space to direct attention to the copy or the desired area of that page. For instance, having a model looking at the block of text, or replacing an image of a person staring straight on to an arrow pointing at the contact form. These simple techniques can be a really helpful way to get people to go where you need them to.
It’s no secret, we as a species are in love with connection, and we connect very strongly with those that look like us. People being present on your website is a very good idea, and a great general rule of thumb when developing your website. Seeing people is a great way to form a connection with the content you’re reading and those that are writing it. One case study by Basecamp saw their website improve their conversion rate by 102.5% by changing from a text based landing page, to a page with one large photo of a person in in the background.
Using lists is great to communicate information effectively and cleanly. With that said it’s important that you have relevant information at the start and at the end. The serial-position effect informs us that people are likely to remember the first and last thing they see on a list and forget more commonly the middle aspects of a list. The learning here? Make your lists simple and impactful by having the most important information at the start and the most impactful at the end.
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