Web Design More Than Just A Pretty Face

Web Design: More Than Just a Pretty Face

by with No Comment Web Design

Have you ever encountered a website that made such an incredible visual impact on you? The meticulous attention given to beautiful visuals and an intuitive interface made it irresistible for exploration. 

Nonetheless, web design encompasses more than purely aesthetic elements; it includes functionality and user experience considerations. The role played by web design has expanded significantly to allure and engage users effectively while driving business achievements and cultivating favourable user experiences. 

A well-designed website should provide effortless navigation while presenting prospects with the needed information. 

In this article, we shall assess the pivotal aspects of web design beyond its aesthetics. Additionally, we advise businesses on best practices for maintaining a competitive edge by future-proofing their websites in preparation for the times ahead.

The Strategic Role of Web Design

The creative production of websites goes much beyond just aesthetics. Branding entails aligning every visual aspect with a company’s goals, marketing techniques, and target audience. 

By incorporating strategic techniques into web development projects, each individual component on these sites gains relevance as it actively contributes to their eventual success.

The key to creating an effective website lies in understanding one’s target audience and meeting their needs. 

Web designers who develop designs centred around users can significantly enhance their overall experience on the site while encouraging actions such as conversions or purchases.

Moreover, a well-designed website plays a vital role in lead generation. It showcases a brand’s messaging, values, and unique selling propositions (USP), and businesses can establish themselves as trustworthy sources of information.

By setting themselves apart from competitors through thoughtful design choices meant to resonate with users long after they’ve left the site, brands can leave lasting impressions.

Strategic Web Design

Beyond Aesthetics: Functionality and User Experience

Although aesthetics are undoubtedly important, it is essential to understand that web design encompasses much more than visual appeal. Factors such as functionality and user experience play a pivotal role in determining the overall success of a website. 

Therefore, prioritising elements like a user-friendly interface, intuitive navigation, and fast loading times is crucial. These aspects help keep visitors engaged and significantly reduce bounce rates.

Web designers must consider how users interact with the website, discover content,  and engage with the brand. If the layout is illogical, the text is indecipherable, or the images are of low resolution, it can prevent users from leaving the site quickly. 

Therefore, it is crucial to prioritise legibility, strong visuals, and an aesthetically pleasing design to capture and maintain users’ attention. In addition, mobile responsiveness has become a vital aspect of web design. 

With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, websites must adapt to various screen sizes and offer a seamless browsing experience across devices. 

A mobile-friendly design enhances the user experience and improves search engine rankings since search engines prioritise mobile-friendly websites in their results.

Staying Ahead

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, it is imperative for businesses to future-proof their websites so they can withstand any changes that may come along. 

This involves designing websites that have the ability to adapt smoothly to emerging technologies, shifting user behaviours, and evolving industry trends. By staying ahead of the curve, businesses can stay ahead of the competition while ensuring that their websites continue to serve users’ needs effectively. 

One powerful strategy for achieving this is by utilising responsive design techniques with responsive design implemented in place. 

These websites can adjust their layout and content automatically based on the device used. guaranteeing a consistent and optimised experience regardless of the platform.

By embracing this flexibility, businesses can ensure that their website remains accessible and user-friendly as new devices and screen sizes become available.

Staying current with the latest web design trends and technologies is another crucial aspect of future-proofing. This entails staying informed about advancements in user interface design, interactive elements, and emerging design patterns. 

By integrating these trends into their websites, businesses can showcase their dedication to innovation and offer users a contemporary and captivating experience. 

Regularly maintaining and updating websites is also imperative. This includes optimising website performance, addressing bugs, and ensuring compatibility with new browsers and devices. 

Businesses can consistently monitor and improve website performance and deliver a flawless user experience while upholding their online presence.

Beyond visual appeal, web design is essential for drawing in users and keeping them engaged – factors directly impacting business success and user satisfaction. Besides aesthetics, web designers must consider functionality, usability, and optimal performance. 

By creating an optimal user experience while staying ahead of technological developments, businesses can ensure that their websites remain effective and competitive amidst constant digital changes.

© FOME Agency

The Importance Of Mobile Optimisation For Your Website

The Importance of Mobile Optimisation for Your Website

by with No Comment Web Design

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have become essential to our daily lives. Due to these factors, mobile optimisation and responsiveness on websites are now must-haves.

In particular, it has been found that mobile devices generated 58.33 per cent of global website traffic, and it is continuously growing today. You might even be visiting this website on your phone.

Mobile optimisation refers to adjusting the website’s content to ensure it displays well and functions accordingly on mobile devices. It helps achieve a better ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), higher organic traffic, and more.

This article will explore the importance of mobile optimisation for your website and provide actionable strategies to create a mobile-friendly user experience that will drive success in today’s competitive online environment.

Website Mobile Friendly

The Growing Dominance of Mobile Users

When talking about mobile usage statistics, one thing we can’t ignore is the rapidly increasing rate of mobile users. 

In 2021 alone, mobile users rose to 7.1 billion, which is expected to increase as time progresses. This vast number is even projected to grow by 7.49 billion in 2025.

What’s more, smartphones continuously prove their convenience and accessibility to everyone. You can shop, work, and even rest using your mobile phone. It’s even harder to imagine someone saying they have no smartphone than saying they don’t own a computer.

Some popular phone activities are mobile search, listening to news and music, reading books, scrolling through social media, and playing games. In addition, the number of smartphone mobile banking apps and administrative tools has increased, introducing users to convenience.

As a result, mobile users continue to grow, with people transforming their lives with their phones. Mobile phones are constantly being improved, with many exciting features bringing new modes of improvement to our daily lives.

This growing dominance of mobile phone users has also led to many businesses shifting their focus, making mobile users one of their priorities in their ventures. Many companies are now working on optimising their websites and bringing the ultimate mobile experience to their mobile audience.

Critical Aspects of Mobile Optimisation

Optimising your company’s website is one of the most helpful things you can do for the brand. 

Aside from having a lot more audience on mobile phones than on computers, it helps you achieve increased traffic, higher search engine rankings, and higher conversion rates, which are all likely to drive revenue.

To achieve that, we give you some of the fundamental aspects that must be considered in optimising your website:

Visual Availability

Ensure that the images and videos you put on your website are visible on mobile devices. Your visual content should pull in your customers.

However, unresponsive image and video content often make your website’s loading time slower, thus making users exit your page and find another mobile website.

Intuitive Navigation

Consider the interactivity of your website on mobile. There is a difference in buttons for desktop and mobile sites. Ensure you update your website with features that are easy to manoeuvre on a small screen.

You can also add features that simplify navigation by organising content and intuitive gestures like swiping or tapping.

Page Design

Capture lots of attention by improving your page’s design. You can create an efficient mobile landing page with the call-to-action (CTA) shown above the fold. 

An enticing page would hold a prospect’s attention, which can later become an avid customer who will stick with your brand for the long run!

Fast Loading Speed

A page load time on mobile of about 10 seconds increases your bounce rate! A faster loading speed would also bring higher search rankings and satisfied visitors.

Improve your loading time by reducing page content, shrinking or removing unnecessary visuals, or leveraging browser caching.

Mobile Website Speed

Better Performance with Mobile-First Design

A mobile-first design is critical for boosting customer engagement. It derives from an approach in which web designers create mockup designs for mobile devices before others.

Prioritising mobile design allows designers to build important buttons, graphic components, and other crucial aspects. It will also assist them in knowing the website’s intended deliverables and allow them to diagnose potential problems before they arise. 

As a result, businesses can provide a more straightforward, faster, and better consumer experience. It is a very successful brand strategy that can drive revenue growth.

However, managing a business will prove difficult while ensuring the aspects above. FOME is a digital marketing agency that can make these tasks easier and achieve company goals. They offer services, such as mobile website optimisation and brand promotion, to guide you in tackling the difficulties of the digital business landscape.

Final Thoughts

Start to address the growing population of mobile users and create a mobile-friendly user experience to maximise engagement, conversions, and business growth.

By making sure to deliver the critical aspects of mobile optimisation, success is already on your doorstep!

However, it is best to remember that mobile optimisation is challenging. There will be bumps and problems along the way, but business owners should understand that it requires patience and is a continuous process.

Embrace mobile optimisation now and leverage digital marketing with the help of agencies like FOME. Establish a competitive edge and achieve digital marketing goals in a rapidly increasing mobile-centric environment.

Optimise your websites and build a better mobile experience for your customers now.

© FOME

Landing Page That Converts

How to Make a Landing Page That Converts

by with No Comment Web Design

“You only get one chance to create a good first impression.”

Many of us like to spend big bucks on driving traffic to our blog pages or websites. However, even if these destinations are worth every penny, you might be wasting time if customers do not visit them.

The landing page, or LP, is the first thing people see once they click your offer or website link. It becomes the face of your website, the hook for visitors to stick around, subscribe to your newsletter, share your website with friends, and become regular customers. These actions will then translate into higher revenue and increase the growth of your business.

You can use landing pages for anything, whether you want a user to subscribe to newsletters, view a blog post, or order a product. Regardless, an effective landing page should focus on your target audience.

The question is: How do you build a landing page that does all of that?

In this article, we’ll provide you with the best strategies you can use to create an effective landing page.

The Need For High-Converting Landing Pages

Creating a landing page is a great way to drive traffic, boost your SEO, improve conversions, generate leads, and build your brand. Landing pages lead visitors to take action depending on your website’s goal and allow you to create a customer base.

A landing page is an indispensable marketing tool as it gives you a clear perspective on your consumers. Every time a conversion happens on a landing page, valuable information about your customers is revealed, which can help you understand the audience better.

Tracking and analysing the statistics of your landing page also gives you an edge! These metrics will provide insights on creating better marketing strategies or thinking about the next promotions for the coming months.

What Makes an Effective Landing Page?

Landing pages typically start with a goal. What do you want to say to potential customers? Is there a product or service up for sale? Do you want to solve a problem?

After the goal, the call-to-action, or CTA, comes next. What do you want visitors to do after understanding your purpose? Do they need to buy something? Do they need to visit your homepage?

You see. Different campaign objectives and marketing strategies can make you create various kinds of landing pages. Whatever type of landing page you decide to use, there are some main features that you should always include.

Here are the key elements to creating a successful landing page:

Killer Headline

One characteristic you need for your headline: it needs to grab attention. Your headline must capture your audience’s attention, make users take a second glance, and explore your website.

Do this by placing your headline “above the fold” or at the top of the page. Keep it concise and reflective of your website’s campaign.

Digestible Copy

Once captivated by the headline, your audience will want to know more about the campaign, whether it is a service or product. Writing engaging content on your landing page increases your conversion chances.

You can also include testimonials, credentials, and keywords on your copy to pull in readers.

Powerful Call-to-Action

Your call to action is the centrepiece of a landing page. It’s the ultimate tool that converts your visitors into regular customers.

The CTA button should be big and easy to find. It should have a sense of urgency and tell the audience exactly what they need to do. Also, make it personal so your customers will feel they are deciding for themselves.

Engaging Visuals

Studies prove that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than words. Even when we think about it, sometimes it’s easier to remember a picture than a text message.

Use relevant visuals on your landing page to maintain your customer’s focus. Make it large, eye-catching, high-quality, and one that evokes emotion from the reader!

Social Sharing Links

Now that your landing page has successfully converted a visitor to a customer, they will want to keep up with your company’s latest news and updates.

Ensure you include social sharing links or buttons on your landing page for them to click! You can also offer subscriptions to email newsletters.

Social Links Landing Page

Optimising for User Experience and Conversion

Landing pages are a visitor’s first glimpse of what your website looks like. It may be static or your homepage, but it must still be entertaining.

Never make it boring!

Optimise your website and landing pages by paying attention to these aspects:

Content Optimiсation

Optimise and make your content “above the fold”. This term refers to making a portion of your website visible without scrolling, which means it’s the content users will see once they enter your page.

You can also use lead flows, solid CTAs, and visuals to capture your audience’s attention.

Responsiveness

Smartphone users in the United Kingdom can continuously increase by 1.9 million a year, reaching 65.9 million in 2028. This data means you must create websites that mobile phones can access.

Focus on making your website responsive, keeping the elements intact, and giving the best user experience even on a smaller screen.

Speed

The website’s loading speed also affects a prospect’s decision. Users are likelier to exit a landing page if the website takes two seconds to load. That’s a good measure of how short our attention span has become nowadays.

Focusing on this aspect also leads to better SERPs!  

Simple Navigation

Having a clean and concise user interface is sure to attract more users. Displaying multiple buttons and functionalities can be intimidating and overwhelming for the customer.

Keep it light. You don’t need to say everything; you must make it relevant and enticing.

A/B Testing

Try A/B testing and make lots of improvements to your website!

This method refers to creating multiple variants of your landing page and choosing the best one. It may be time-consuming, but it will be worth it in the end, as you get the best performance out of your traffic.

Analytics

Collect user data regularly and learn to use it to your advantage.

Conversion Rate Optimisation is a continuous process, and taking notes on your users’ preferences is essential to improving your website. You can even use this data to remarket visitors through their emails or contact numbers.

A high-converting landing page is the product of your hard work and ongoing work. Monitoring these landing pages and creating new ones for other campaigns will increase leads and revenue in the long run.

Remember to maximise the critical elements of a landing page to create high-converting landing pages. Optimising your website to provide the best user experience for customers also lets you achieve business milestones and better performance.

© FOME

11 Tips To Building A Great Small Business Website

11 tips to building a great small business website

by with No Comment Web Design

Whether you own a small bakery or are a freelance photographer, a great website is essential for your business’s success and growth.

A website allows potential customers to find you in their searches and creates a central location for your contact information, product list, prices, etc. Additionally, a website increases your credibility and allows you to compete with other small businesses and well-established organisations.

So, how do you create a great website for your small business?

Here are 11 tips to get you started:

1. Obtain a good domain name

Your domain name or website address is the first entry point to your site. Therefore, it must make a good first impression both for usability purposes and search engine optimisation. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a domain name:

• It should be easy to spell/ type
• Keep it as short as possible
• Avoid using numbers, symbols, and hyphens
• Use a proper domain extension. Your country code extension or .com are the best options

2. Purchase a good hosting

A web hosting provider offers the technology and services necessary for your website to be viewed on the internet.

Depending on your budget, you can choose between two routes; shared hosting or dedicated hosting. The former is cheaper, but the latter gets you a private server, so you don’t have to compete with other sites that could potentially drag down your speed.

SiteGround offer secure and scalable web hosting and they have one of the highest-rated customer care teams.

3. Make sure your website loads fast

Page speed is a critical component of your website. Websites with faster loading speed have lower bounce rates, higher rankings, and higher conversion rates.

So, how fast should your site load? Ideally, your site should load in under three seconds.

Many factors influence how long a page on your website takes to load, but luckily there are just as many solutions.

Click here for tips on how to speed up your website.

4. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

54% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. Therefore, you’ll be doing your business a disservice by not optimising your website for mobile devices.

Test your site on Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to see how well it’s fairing. It will help you hone in on specific areas that need work and give you useful recommendations.

5. Keep your design simple and user-friendly

Less is more when it comes to web design.

Not only is a simple design cheaper to make and easier to fix, but it also provides a better user experience for your customers. As a result, your business will enjoy more sales and improved customer loyalty.

6. Keep your pages uncluttered

A cluttered site with too many pages and busy design elements can lead to a negative user experience, causing higher bounce rates.

Standard pages for small business websites include a home page, about us, product/service page, blog, and contact page, so remove any page that doesn’t serve a specific purpose.

Next, avoid too many links and images and use more negative space.

7. Make it easy to navigate

A well-designed website with poor navigation is of no use because users won’t be able to find the information they need. So, design an intuitive navigation system that allows users to get the pages they need with little effort. A navigation bar and search bar can help make your website easy to navigate.

8. Place your contact information above the fold

Providing contact information like your physical address, telephone number, email address, and social media pages goes a long in building credibility. But where should you place your contact information? Well, you should always put your contact information above the fold. Above the fold is the visible section of a web page that viewers see before they scroll down. It is prime real estate in web design and is best utilised by adding valuable information such as your contact details.

9. Choose a good website builder

WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world and for a good reason.

It is free, has numerous plugins to extend the functionality of your site, is easy to install and use, and has a large and active support community.

Click here for a detailed guide on how to build a website using WordPress.

10. Include a clear call to action

A call to action acts as a signpost that lets a visitor know what to do next.

You can use CTAs to persuade visitors to fill out submission forms, share your content, sign up for your newsletter, read more of your content, shop your products, or get in touch with you.

When writing a call to action, state a clear benefit and use actionable text such as “buy now” or “sign up.” Your CTA should also be short and hit the nail on the head.

11. Optimise your website for search engines

Search engine optimisation involves implementing different practices to ensure search engines index and rank your site appropriately so it ranks high on search engine results pages.

Here are a few practices you should follow to optimise your site for SEO.

• Pick a responsive website design so that your content works on all devices
• Use appropriate keywords in your pages and content
• Optimise your site for speed
• Ensure your site is secure by installing an SSL certificate
• Include internal and external links throughout your site

If you need help creating a website for your small business, contact us for a free consultation.

Custom Web Design Vs. Templates What You Need To Know

Custom Web Design vs. Templates: What You Need To Know

by with No Comment Web Design

Custom web design or template? This is one of the most frequently asked questions we get. And for good reasons.

For starters, the design you choose can either make or break visitors’ experience, which ultimately affects your conversion rate.

Even more confusing, both options offer certain pros and cons that make it difficult to choose one over the other. Which brings us back to the question – which is the best web design option?

Well, while there is no one answer that fits everyone’s unique needs, check out these 7 important factors:

Uniqueness

Style and aesthetics vary with people. Do you want a design that is specific to your website or a general template that can be found on any other website? If a unique custom-made design is to your taste, we advise you to stick with creating your web design from the ground up because no matter how much you tweak a general web template, it can never be as unique as a custom-made design. But if you are okay with a quick ready-to-use design, you should totally go for a template. Both options are okay depending on the type of business and what you need. For a professional website, you definitely want to look towards custom-made ones. But a template is okay for a personal site.

Scalability

In terms of scalability, rest assured the best web design option are custom-made websites. If you need a website that is easy to manage, fits into your unique business model, and allows you to add as many features as your future needs demand, you should absolutely choose a custom-made website. The scalability is second to none. But a web template will be fine if you are okay with limited features and scalability. Just don’t get your expectations high and you will be fine.

Time

How soon do you need your website to be up and running? A day? A week? A month? Every project comes with a time frame. If time is your focus, you should consider templates. Truth is, a custom web design requires a lot of work to achieve. You do not expect that to be as fast as ready-to-use templates. The bright side is that the duration of a custom design depends on the designer. Two designers working on the same project may finish at different times. So, make sure to discuss with your designer from the start. Don’t be afraid to tell them your expectations and see if they can deliver at the stated time. If your time is reasonable, you will easily find a designer that can work with you. Just don’t expect it in a day or two.

SEO

Search engine optimisation is a vital part of every website today. Your on-page SEO is just as important as your off-page SEO. Therefore, if you care about attracting traffic to your website, you should totally consider having a custom-made web design by an expert. As professionals, they know what your website needs to boost its SEO. The complete search engine optimisation comes with the pricing, hence you are fully covered. Yes, you don’t need to pay separately for the expert to fix your SEO. Everything is covered! Templates, on the other hand, will give you little or no room for SEO tweaks. This is another major reason why templates are best for personal websites where traffic isn’t the primary focus.

Support

In terms of support, it is fair to say either of them can be the best web design option because they both have some edge. On the one hand, hiring an expert means enjoying close mentoring and support for as long as possible. On the other hand, you can get help, even though limited, from template providers. You also have YouTube videos for self-help. Basically, you will get help from both options but if real-time support is what you want, you will do better with an expert on your team.

Expertise

How tech-savvy are you? Some people are very good with tech. They can easily manipulate their way through web design with little or no guidance. If this sounds like you, then you can choose to either create your custom web design from scratch or build on a template. If you are not so tech-savvy, you could also manage to use a template. Web templates are typically easier to design than working from the ground up. However, if you know nothing about web design, your safe bet is to hire a pro, else you risk wasting resources.

Cost

When considering cost, we can all agree that template designs win without a doubt. For as low as £100 or less, you can get any template you want. This makes it a favourable option for people on a tight budget. It is also the reason templates are common among small businesses and personal websites. That said, keep in mind that despite the high cost of custom designs, they offer certain perks that you cannot get from templates. So as you weigh the cost factor, be sure to weigh other factors too. You need to understand which option suits your needs more before considering the cost.

Best Web Design Option: The verdict!

Having considered all 7 factors, you can see why no one can tell you the best web design option for your needs. Our advice to you is to carefully consider all factors and see which option provides the best benefits for you. Still in doubt? Don’t hesitate to contact FOME for help. 

11 Popular Web Design Mistakes Businesses Should Avoid

11 Popular Web Design Mistakes Businesses Should Avoid

by with No Comment Web Design

Want some expert advice? Beware of these web design mistakes!

Websites are invaluable to every business of the 21st century. These mistakes can destroy your marketing effort.

Now that you are ready to create your official business website, you have to choose between hiring a web designer or creating the website on your own. Either option is fine, provided the person handling the task knows the do’s and don’ts.

A lot goes into creating a professional website. It is so much more than a random template from the web. In case you don’t know it yet, you are trying to sell to a tech-savvy generation; which can easily tell apart a poorly designed website and a professional website. That means the nature of your website can either invite visitors in and increase your conversion rate or chase visitors away and destroy your bottom line.

Looking back at all the beginner mistakes we have corrected so far, my team and I decided to compile this article to help you know 11 Popular Web Design Mistakes Businesses You Should Avoid.

Clumsy and Cluttered

Anyone can quickly differentiate between a well-built website and one built by an amateur. How? Well, time has shown that most amateur sites are clumsy and clustered. An amateur would struggle to create a website that is user-intuitive and well arranged. A professional, on the other hand, understands the hierarchical trajectory of the information and just the right amount of information to put out there.

As you take on this DIY project, be sure to use the right structure and easy navigation. Create the site with the users in mind.

Poor image and multimedia quality

This sits at the top of modern-day web design mistakes because everyone thinks a smartphone is all you need. While it is common knowledge that image and multimedia are part of SEO best practices today, only a few marketers understand how to tweak this in their favour. Besides the alt text and SEO jargon, smart marketers understand that a photo can be either inviting or discouraging. The essence of having images is to catch attention, but that goal will be ultimately defeated if the image is of poor quality or totally irrelevant.

A photo that looks perfect on your phone will come out blurry when stretched across a wider screen. Therefore, if you are looking to stand out, you should invest in a good camera or get good stock images from the web. Don’t settle for just anything!

Not Mobile Compatible

Is your website designed for mobile phones? Yes, it is not enough to have a perfect desktop version. Part of the modern-day SEO best practices involves optimising your website for mobile phones. This is no surprise, though, because people have moved on from the desktop age. Today, the majority of organic traffic comes from mobile users. Therefore, you will need to make your website compatible with mobile phones so mobile users can enjoy the same experience as desktop users. This is key if you are looking to leverage this gold mine.

Adverts and pop-ups at the wrong time

True, your website is the best place to strengthen your adverts. Notwithstanding, it must be done perfectly or else it could discourage visitors. As part of the information hierarchy, we advise you to let your visitors get a warm welcome to your site before throwing ads at them.

Multiple Pop-ups

The only thing worse than getting pop-ups at the wrong time is battling with multiple pop-ups. Yet, lots of websites fall into such web design mistakes. Imagine being bombarded with multiple pop-ups as you open a web page. That is enough to discourage your visitors. Most visitors will leave immediately and others may not make it to the end of the page or the next page.

Pop-ups are great advertising tricks, however, they must be deployed properly to meet the goal. Otherwise, this advertising trick might ruin your entire marketing effort. More importantly, it is best to stick with a single pop-up per page. This is best scheduled after visitors have spent some time on your page, not immediately after they open your page.

Poor Navigation

One of the woes of a poorly designed website is poor navigation. When visitors come to your website, they expect to see an aesthetically pleasing and user-intuitive site. Nobody has the time for a complex site. If I need a manual to navigate your website, then I want no part in it.

The rule of thumb here is to go after a minimalist touch. As you explore designs, endeavour to keep the navigation as simple as can be. Your menu should be very clear for everyone to see. Additionally, the links to other pages must be clearly named and placed so visitors understand where to go without any hassle.

Slow page load

How would you deal with a slow page? Close it! That’s the answer of 9 in 10 people. A slow page will chase people off your website irrespective of the relevance of the information or the uniqueness of your product.

Long-form fields

Do you have web forms on your website? Marketers use forms for different reasons. It could be to aid communication, collect data, or facilitate booking/registration. This is very important in some industries. But it could also hamper your marketing effort if not done properly. For example, you may not mind filling out a form but that position could quickly change if the form fields are long. This is not an examination. Best keep your web forms short. Go straight to the point and make it as easy as possible.

Confusing fonts

Confusing fonts is one of the most common web design mistakes because people don’t even realise it is a mistake. It is okay to play around with palettes, images, and the likes. However, it is off-putting to use too many fonts on your website. As a professional site, people expect to see some sort of uniformity and professionalism, not a sketchy board. Whatever you do, please keep your fonts to a maximum of three. Also, note that the three fonts ought to be similar in weight. Don’t go from Calibri to Comic Sans MS.

Non-clickable Phone Numbers

Contact information is an essential part of every website, irrespective of the industry. Besides your physical address and email address, your phone number is the next most important detail in your contact information. These details foster credibility and trust. Your visitors want to know that they can easily reach you should they encounter an issue.

While having your phone number helps your website, it ought to be clickable especially for mobile users. Everyone is looking for the easiest route out. It is more convenient for mobile users to click on your phone number and call right away than write it out and then input it into their phone book.

Broken/Unclear Links

Links are used to join one page of your website to another. Visitors on a particular page can easily navigate to another page of choice by simply clicking on the right link. This enables ease of navigation and promotes a good user experience. To achieve these goals, you must ensure that the links are clearly named and working properly. Your visitors should easily tell where each link leads from the name.

Bonus Tip! Not optimised for SEO

Templates have made it super easy for anyone to create a website. However, a business website is very different from a personal website. It must be SEO-optimised to reach a wider audience. SEO is the fuel that drives content far and wide. Needless to say that poor SEO means little or no distance covered. Consequently, we strongly advise marketers to pay close attention to their website SEO – both front-end and back-end. SEO cuts across everything from the alt characters in the images and multimedia content to the web contents, responsiveness, domain name, and many more.

Expectedly, amateurs jump right into these web design mistakes all the time. Fortunately, you can completely avoid them with the aforementioned tips. Good luck!

Are you making mistakes with your web design?

Are you making mistakes with your web design?

by Web Design

In today’s fast-paced world of business, a responsive and attracted website is something all companies need to ensure they offer. Doing so means they can reach as many prospective customers as possible to showcase their products and tell their story.

However, in recent years there has been a shift in what many people would perceive to be a successful website, as the move towards mobile browsing and slicker, more optimised layouts has led to some websites falling behind the times.

With this in mind, here we offer a short guide to some of the common misconceptions surrounding web design and the pitfalls companies and marketers can face when making key design choices. It pays to understand the bad practices of others, so they can be avoided where possible by the savvy web designer.

Lacking top-quality content

Key to achieving a positive ranking in the latest Google algorithm Penguin 4.0 is the ability of a website to demonstrate it is offering outstanding quality content that is of interest to the reader, relevant to the target audience and is written without errors or with excessive links.

This means focusing on the content of the site as much as its appearance. Make sure every page offers something unique and interesting that your target audience will want to read and get rid of any old pages that may not be up to scratch as we head into 2017.

Poor use of headers, sidebars and footers

Poorly laid out pages will automatically turn off the reader, as people are less likely to stick around and fully engage with a business if their site is cluttered with ill-thought-out headers, sidebars and footers.

It, therefore, pays to make these necessary items as unobtrusive as possible, while also limiting the number of ads and banners that can prove distracting to the eye.

Failing to consider responsiveness

The growth in mobile browsing during recent years has been immense and it is a behaviour that is only likely to become more commonplace in the future. As a result, web designers that fail to optimise their sites for viewing on mobile could be missing out on millions of hits.

Not only that, Google now penalises sites for being unresponsive in mobile searches, meaning maintaining a positive ranking can be more difficult without proper optimisation. Click here to learn more about this update.

Google’s Mobile Friendly Test

Making core information hard to find

Nothing is more frustrating to a visitor to a website than when they are trying to find important information like contact details or links to a particular product or page, and they are unable to do so.

Top tips to avoid this include adding a search bar for easy site navigation and making sure that frequently viewed content like blogs and product descriptions include a sub-menu that enables visitors to easily move to other areas of the site.

Ignoring insight from analytics

With the massive number of hits that a properly optimised site can receive, many businesses may feel they have done enough to capitalise on their efforts when all of the above issues have been addressed. However, one key oversight that many developers make is to ignore the wealth of data that can be discerned through the use of Google Webmaster Tools.

Taking the time to set up these tools effectively can provide a wealth of information to identify everything from poorly-performing pages to analysing conversion flows. It really does pay to know how people are interacting with your website.

So that’s it, creating a site that fulfils the needs of the consumer and showcases your business to the very best is essential. Take the time to address any failings that we’ve listed above and your domain will be fit to keep drawing in those important business leads for years to come.

For further information and advise please get in touch with our team.

© Fast Online Marketing Experts

The importance of good web design

The importance of good web design

by Web Design

When you start a business, one of the first things you’ll think about is developing your website.

If you’re a small company, then one of the main aspects that you’ll consider when choosing a web designer is probably cost. However, you need to also take into consideration the quality of design work that’s necessary.

This isn’t to say that people who offer web design and development at a low cost offer a lower-quality final product, but naturally, a slightly higher cost will most likely mean that your website is more efficient.

Before your website is built, you need to design your branding. You’ll need a logo, as well as an idea of the design theme that you want across not only your website, but all of your marketing materials.

You can discuss this with your web designer, as they will have much more experience in developing brand designs.

When it comes to the design of your website, the layout is extremely important. You want to remember that your audience won’t be spending ages scrolling through your website to find what they want. They’ll look quickly and if they can’t find it they’ll swiftly move on.

Make it easy for consumers to access your product or service

With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure that a clear call to action (CTA) is visible on the homepage. You want to make it easy for consumers to access your product or service.

All other information also needs to be clearly available. If your website is highly responsive, then this should be simple to achieve; a drop-down menu at the top of the page is a popular option to enable this.

Now, you might be thinking that you want your website to be extravagant and eye-catching. Now, really think about this – if you go on to a website and there’s too much going on, you’re immediately put off.

You don’t want it to be boring, but you need to find a balance. Make the branding stand out enough that your brand becomes recognisable and memorable, but keep the website simple enough that everything is clear for users.

A slow website is considered less efficient

While considering how the design looks, you also need to consider how it will affect the usability of your website.

If the site has too many images to download, then it will begin to perform slowly. Not only is this annoying for users, but it also affects how Google ranks you in its searches.

A slow website is considered less efficient, therefore you’ll find yourself missing out on the top spots in Google searches.

It’s unlikely that you’ll have the capabilities to do all of this alone, so by making sure that you have a good web developer you can be confident that they will consider this when building your website.

Google also offers free tools that allow you to test your site and see how well it is performing. If it’s too slow, it will let you know exactly what’s causing this so that you can fix it.

Another very important aspect is making sure your website is fully responsive and mobile-friendly in order to comply with the latest Google update. Click here to learn more about why having a mobile friendly website is a must.

Your website is a lot more than just a few pages on the internet, it’s your brand – so make sure that you’re making it the best that it can be.

 

© Fast Online Marketing Experts

Why having a mobile friendly website is a must

Why having a mobile friendly website is a must

by Web Design

Google was seeing more search activity on mobile compared to desktop. This was announced by none other than Google’s Senior Vice President of Search, Amit Singhal, earlier last year. According to the latest statistics, consumers spend more than 60% of their time on the internet on their mobile devices. Three out of four consumers will search a business that they are trying to patronize on their smartphones. In fact, Google has been a proponent of mobile searches for a long time now. This is the very reason behind their mobile-friendly algorithm update named Mobilegeddon, released on April 21, 2015. This algorithm update boosts mobile-search rankings for mobile friendly websites. Hence, having a mobile friendly website is a must in 2016 and beyond. Here are some of the most important reasons for having a mobile friendly website.

On the whole, mobile searches have increased in leaps and bounds compared to the past. Back in May, 2013, mobile devices resulted in only 15% of all search traffic. Today, the latest reports indicate that more than 55% of all searches are from mobile devices. That is because we are living in the world where search is “always on.” Need to search something? Your phone is always within reach. This is in contrast to the past where a person had to get to wherever his/her computer was. So, the overall mobile searches have grown quite considerably. Google knows how important this traffic is for maintaining their market presence.

There are numerous important benefits of having a mobile optimised website. Improved user experience is one of the main advantages of a mobile-optimized website. Not having such a website will kill the chances of converting a mobile visitor to a customer of your business. If the user is not able to fully browse and read the content on your website, they will leave uninspired. Such a consumer is sure to visit your competitor’s website. You are leaving a lot of money on the table if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website.

Faster website load speed is another important benefit you get when you have a mobile optimized website. A normal website will load very slowly on a mobile device. On the other hand, a mobile ready website will load quickly on your mobile device because the code of the website is structured in such a way. Latest statistics show that a mobile website user will abandon a page if he/she has to wait for more than 7-seconds until the page loads.

The latest Google mobile-friendly algorithm update helps rank mobile optimized websites higher on their search result pages. Your website will rank higher than the websites that have not fulfilled this requirement. This is another important advantage of having a mobile optimized website in 2016 and beyond.

In conclusion, Google has reiterated the importance of having a mobile-optimized website in 2016. It even released an algorithm update named Mobilegeddon for this purpose. The aforementioned article highlights the importance of having a mobile-friendly website.

© Fast Online Marketing Experts