From time to time, you may want to give your website a facelift. Why? Because a poorly designed and unattractive website can actually hurt your business.
Potential customers are more inclined to leave your website and go somewhere else if your website is slow to load, poorly designed, and has no contact information. Every website needs many crucial elements, and a well-planned layout that is aesthetically pleasing is one of them.
Take a look at your current website and see how it makes you feel. If you’re not proud of it or happy with how it looks, we have five tips from CBS-CBS.com on how to revamp your website.
Set a Goal
Why do you want to redesign your website? If you’re unsure of that answer, you should determine that before you begin.
There are various reasons why a company revamps its website. It could be to speed up the loading time, a change in branding, or it’s been a decade, and it looks outdated. Having a reason or a goal for your redesign will help keep you on track, and it will also tell you what to spend the most time on to engage your customers (i.e. Reducing photo sizes to improve load times).
Document Your Current Website
First, you want to ensure you have your current website documented if you need to go back to the original site. Having a website record allows you to reference back to check important information (like pricing and product descriptions). Also, it’s not a bad idea to keep track of your website’s progression over the years. It’s a great way to compare and see how far you’ve come in website development.
Be Consistent With Your Brand
Every company has a brand. Within that brand are specific colors that represent the logo and the company. It’s essential that you use the same branding across every page on your website.
Consistency comes in many aspects of your redesign, including font used, what’s bolded or italicized, and the photos. Keep things similar across all pages.
Follow the Less is More Rule
Have you ever loaded a website that bombards you with popups, paragraphs of information, and pictures everywhere? It’s distracting, annoying, and not very pleasing to the eye. Most users would likely leave.
With a website, you need to go straight to the point. Cut out any fluff (you’re not writing a novel). Our attention span to websites continues to shorten, which means you only have a handful of seconds to hook the reader into staying on your website.
Have a Call to Action
Make your website as easy as possible for the user to maneuver through. Don’t send them on a wild journey just to find the vital information they need. Instead, tell them where you want them to go next in the form of a call to action.
A call to action can be a statement to “click here,” “signup now,” or “join our email list today.” The purpose is to tell the user what you want them to do next. Using a call to action is a simple tactic to help guide the user to your end goal (increased exposure, more signups, higher sales).
Enjoy redesigning your website. When you have fun with the process, it’ll show through with the overall results. Remember, a website is crucial to your business’s success. Ensure it gets the time it deserves.