Web Design, Tips from the Experts

By far the best way you can draw in customers is simply by having a high-quality website with content that adds tremendous value to a potential clients life. HAHA!, easier said than done.

First of all, having a high-quality web design can be hard to find and to maintain(as modern designs age quickly). Great custom designs are hard to come by and not cheap. Anyone can slap together a template from WordPress.com or Wix, but these types of sites and designs don’t get the same street cred or internet brownie points as a custom build. And as a business owner you most likely have more experience in business than in marketing or digital design and your website must be built on the principals of these disciplines.

In any case, your website is like the first impression that your business will leave on potential consumers. A slow, lagging website with poor design will be a major turn-off for any potential buyers. Here are a few web design tips and tricks from some of the highest Las Vegas web design experts.

1. Keep it simple

Most websites from highly successful companies – think the Apple website – have a very clean, minimalist design that navigates smoothly.

Navigation is often overlooked. Googles algorithms and crawlers mimic human interaction within a website. So, the cleaner and easier a site is navigate the better the overall customer experience will be. Never forget to make navigation as intuitive as possible!!

You don’t want to clutter the website, even if you think there is important information that you need to share with potential consumers. Keep in mind, stuffing your website – especially your home page – with huge numbers of links, pictures, graphics, and blocks of text is a surefire way to drive traffic away from your website.

That’s why it’s a good idea to organize pages and tabs in a way that is logical for information to be sorted instead of throwing it all on the first homepage and overwhelming website visitors.

Make sure those links or tabs are visible from the homepage, but keep the very first page simple, with your brand logo, a very brief welcome message or description, and maybe some tasteful, relevant images. This way visitors will have a first impression that your website is clean and organized.

2. “Call to action” buttons.

There is a marketing psychology that goes into creating your site. You want to engage your customers without being too “marketee”.

A great way to entice your visitors to get more involved is to use call to action buttons. These are action-based messages for visitors to perform a specific action. “Read more,” “learn more,” “shop now,” “sign up,” and other such verbs are great examples of some calls to action. They must be intuitive(make sense) and be very explicit as to their purpose.

These make it easy for users to decide how involved they want to be with your website. Be sure to give them plenty of options to subscribe (or unsubscribe) for certain emails, so you’re not forcing them to do anything they are not interested in.

That said, make sure your call to action buttons or messages are easily accessible and noticed on your homepage!

3. Update constantly.

These days, going dead is the best way to ensure that nobody visits your website anymore! This is the Golden Age of the Internet, and if you want to stay at the top, you better update your website constantly, especially if your business is still something of a start-up. I personally touch my site everyday in some way. You have to make it like checking emails.

Get in the back end or hire a hosting company to to do small daily modifications to site. Creating a blog is probably the best way to update your site, but we could write a book on that subject..

If you want to keep your audience interested in your services and products, it’s crucial that you update your website, coupled with sending subscribers regular emails to alert them of the updates. If your audience is aware of your new content and products, they’ll be more likely to check back regularly for updates.

4. Use a visual hierarchy.

It’s important that you understand where your consumers are most likely to look on your page. That’s why you want the top of the page to be loaded with headings, page titles, and those call to action buttons we mentioned earlier.

Additionally, if you have links to display, be sure to list them in order of your priority. You shouldn’t have piles and piles of links on your website, but there are some links that you should be sure to have, such as the information in your contact page, a link to your blog, and others.

5. Use easy-to-ready fonts.

Studies show that Sans Serif fonts are quicker and easier to read than fonts with serifs, so take that into account as you post content on your website. You want something legible, and you’ll probably want to use a contrasting font for titles. Don’t stress out over using something specific, just make sure the design is easy to read.

6. Pick a color scheme.

Like I said before there is a psychology behind how your set up your site, and especially the color scheme you use.Chances are your brand has a logo with a certain color scheme, right? A good business move is to incorporate those colors into the design of your website, but researching what certain colors do to peoples perceptions and decision making. This will help your visitors remember your brand and feel more welcomed, encouraging visitors to interact with more aspects of the site. Keep it simple enough that everything is easy to see, but don’t be afraid to have some fun with colors.

7. The most important RESPONSIVENESS

Responsiveness is the ability for your web site to adapt to any screen size. This is very important because these days screens are all different sizes. From the smallest cell phone to the largest screens, your site must look and feel the same all across devices. And must look amazing BTW.

Hopefully now you understand a bit better the different aspects of your website that call user’s attention. When someone visits your websites, chances are they’re doing it for a specific region, rather than simply exploring (although that does happen sometimes). In any case, you want to make sure you can suit the needs of your diverse audience. A website that’s easy to navigate and designed smoothly will attract more viewers and keep them engaged for longer periods of time.