Nowadays, every business is a part of a rat race where putting bells and whistles are put on their website to attract new customers. But, they forget the importance of key elements that provide better user experience to their customers. The basic rule is that the more simple a website is, the more easily new consumers can be gained. Therefore, we have described here a few essential elements that must be considered while designing a modern website:
- Visually Appealing Look
Website look puts the first impression on web visitors. As we all know, the first impression is always the last impression so why does take a chance of losing visitors just because of the look of a website. First of all, utilize the white space in your website properly, and avoid putting images and text everywhere as cluttered website make confuse the visitors and they have to leave the page for finding their desired information. Secondly, the usage of colors and color scheme play a vital role in creating cohesiveness between everything your business puts out. Thus, use different colors such a way that incorporate with your website design and do not distract customers.
- Loud and Clear Call-To-Action
Usually, visitors do not know how to take the next step, call to action work here for you to take the customers into the next step. The example of Call-To-Action are free downloadable eBooks or whitepapers, email subscription forms, shop now, free product forms, free consultations, Call me, sign up, or buy here. Moreover, clear visibility of call to action button helps users to go to the next step after providing a piece of information. It enhances ease for your visitors on your website as well as converts them into customers.
- SEO Optimized
Most of the information and product search is done through the famous search engine like Google and Yahoo. Around 90% of product and services are searched via search engines, thus your website should be seen in the search result in order to gain traffic on your website. For this, your website should be well search engine optimized with title tags, Meta tags, focused keywords, high-quality content and many more. If you are using a WordPress site, you can install the Yoast plugin for better SEO optimization.
- HTTPs Compliance
HTTPs is a protocol that provides security to websites and their users over the internet. Financial transitions are done on most of the shopping sites and that’s why they have become the primary target of hackers. Therefore, SSL certificates are widely installed on most of the websites to protect user’s sensitive information like Credit Card Number or Personal Identification Number. SSL encrypts the data that is transmitted between a web server and a web user so that it can be protected from hackers. Besides its security feature, SSL certificates boost customer’s trust as well as the search engine ranking and conversion rate.
- Mobile-Friendly
Google already has declared in 2017 that all websites must be mobile-friendly, otherwise, they will face SEO consequences. Moreover, 65% of internet surfing and online shopping is done via smartphones. So, besides the utmost security feature and visually appealing design, your website should have a mobile-friendly version so that you can provide better user experience and gain maximum profits.
- Speed Optimization
Your website should not have such content that slows down the time of your website. Recent studies show that the web pages that take more than 3 seconds to load are usually left by the visitors. Therefore, use a contemporary look and small images on your website that boosts the loading time of your website. Besides it, if you are using a WordPress site, you can install Total Cache, Wp Lazy Load, Wp Super Cache and Smush Image Compression plugins for speeding your website loading time.
- High-Quality Images
On online shopping sites, images sell not the text. Great images seek instant attention of users, then why not to use this feature on your website. Try to use a set of high-quality images for showing your products to users. The images should be high-resolution and optimized for page load because the more closely they see the product, the more chances of their buying.
- Easy To Navigate
Navigation always should be easy to identify and use. Moreover, the navigation menus should be less in numbers so that the users do not get confused in using them. You should aim for 5 to 10 menu navigation items on the top of the end on your website with navigation tools that help visitors navigate through your entire site.
- Contact Information
A few recent studies show that almost 65% of web visitors want to see the contact information on the website before proceeding shopping and when the contact information is not available on the website, around 44% web visitors leave the site. So, provide as much contact information as you can such as; your phone number, email address, office address, or a contact form.
Conclusion
Making a website is easy, but making a result oriented website is not everyone’s cup of tea. Many elements are included while designing an effective website, However, the above-mentioned elements are the most crucial that make a difference in your website from others. Moreover, hiring a professional web designer can be expensive for small business, but it can save a lot of time and money investment in the future.