In the digital age, a startup is nothing without its own website. Using social media to attract customers doesn’t count as your business needs a home base to operate from. A good website can be used to interact with customers and attract future customers by displaying products or services your business has to offer. This is where a great web design comes in handy. Here are 7 tips you can use to design a stunning website
Keep things simple
Your website will be the first impression many customers have of your startup. This is why you should go for a sleek, simple and sophisticated web design. Using an ordinary template will make your site look bland and plain. A unique design will showcase your creativity and make your website (and business) really stand out. Use bold colors that complement each other to make the homepage look vibrant, but don’t go overboard with garish colors or flash animations as they might look overwhelming to customers. Make sure your entire website has a single color scheme as this looks more polished. You should also consider getting a professional logo for your site. A unique logo will make your startup appear more credible to future customers, while ones created from a template will look plain and can even raise legal issues because of trademark or copyright laws. In a nutshell, keep your design simple and unique with a focal point, a few lively colors and a professional logo.
Content is everything
The content displayed can make or break a site. Search engines rank websites based on the quality of their content. The more content your site hosts, higher it ranks on search engines. However, this doesn’t mean you should cram your website with unnecessary content. Poor content can make potential customers leave your site. The content of your site should be relevant and interesting, with attractive and engaging headlines. You should also make sure the content is regularly updated as outdated content will make visitors leave your site in a heartbeat. Good websites also use illustrations, graphics, vibrant colors and large fonts to keep visitors interested in their content.
Display your products and services
Your website exists to showcase your products and services to customers. The easiest way to do this is by displaying your product on your homepage. This is your chance to make a great first impression, so make good use of it. Use crisp and professional photos with clear caption and explanation when selling a product online. More importantly, make sure to have your website mobile friendly. This can help customers understand what to expect from your services, even when they are viewing your product or service from mobile devices.
Keep things organized
An organized structure will make it easier for visitors to navigate through your website. Plan the structure of your website beforehand and organize things in a way that is simple and attractive. A menu that links all main pages of the site will show a visitor exactly where they want to go. All information displayed should be bold and clear- avoid large block of text as people rarely read them. Instead, use block letters, bullet points and large fonts to present important information.
Accessibility is key
Your website should be easy for everyone to find and navigate through. People with certain disabilities will need to use your products or services and their needs have to be considered. Again, a mobile-friendly site will be helpful for certain people, especially those with slow internet. A user-friendly website will endear visitors and encourage customer loyalty.
Design and development isn’t the same thing
A website needs both design and development. The skills for the two differ greatly, so you may want to hire different people for each job. An experienced freelance web developer will be skilled in a number of areas, such as web design, information architecture, web content management systems and search engine optimization.
Buffer time
No matter if you’re offering cheap website designs or expensive ones, you must invest your time on improving the loading speed of your website. Visitors to your website can get extremely annoyed if the page takes too long to load. If your site has lots of graphics, make sure you have the bandwidth and infrastructure to support such a design. This is especially important if you have plenty of customers and lots of traffic on your site. You can improve load time by picking a good host. A cheap host might save you money, but it will make your site slow and unreliable. This in turn will make potential customers leave your site in frustration.
A great web design can change the face of your entire startup. It will attract new customers and massively improve your business. To sum it up, an attractive, fast and user-friendly web design will do wonders for your business. Make a few changes and watch your business expand!
