Having a small business website is a convenient way to supplement your current income or make a full-time living online. However, if your web design is sloppy and less than acceptable, consider your online business as virtually invisible on the web.
Bear in mind that site monetization depends, among other factors, on hits and visitors on your website that convert to sales. An uninteresting web page can’t expect to hold its visitor long enough for them to read your unique selling proposition (USP) that can lead them to buy.
With the slew of small business websites dotting the Web today, new visitors can only spend an average of 15 seconds on each website and if your web design can’t hold their interest to for them stay longer, then they move on and you lose a potential sale. Below are some web design tips and tricks to create attention-grabbing business websites.
Visual appeal
Most accustomed web surfers can take in a whole website’s impression at a glance. Their trained eye can instantly discern if a site is well-designed or haphazardly put together. It is in cases like this that a website should make a good impression at first glance in order for visitors to look at it in detail.
A visually-attractive website says that it was designed with its customers in mind. Start by finding a picture that relates to your site’s general keywords and theme. You can use, for example, a photo of a litter of irresistibly cute puppies to illustrate your puppy care products website.
A picture can express a thousand words and if you’re selling Miami beachfront properties, a photo of a bungalow with the ocean as a backdrop will drive your point through without requiring your visitor to read the long descriptive text.
Catchy slogan
To perk up attention, create a slogan that describes your website’s content to your customers in a few words. A catchy slogan can be, for instance, “Affordable Miami Beachfront Dream Homes”. Underneath, you can optionally add a sub-slogan in smaller type that says, “Dream it. Live it.” Slogans are actually made up of just a few words but they can bring the money in if imaginatively conceived.
Shades and color
Color and shades captivate the eye. Use this web design tool, either subtly or prominently, to attract your customer’s interest when you want to emphasize a point.
What’s more, you can employ shading to group certain areas of your website together. If you have a page, for example, which compares your products to other brands, group your product’s features together through background shading to make it prominent.
Proper spacing
The correct use of spaces and margins (right, left, top and bottom) can allow your web pages to “breathe” and make your site look less restrictive. Similarly, a space following every paragraph breaks large and cumbersome blocks of text into smaller, easily assimilate bits of information.
Headings and subheadings
It is important to use headings and subheadings to help your visitors browse through your content and easily locate the topic that interests them. These make your web page appear more organized and likely to be crawled by search engines.
Don’t forget that search engines love content and you should set that as your main concern.
Having a well-designed business website will keep visitors in your site longer and more often. Just be sure to give them a good first impression because, as we all know, first impressions are the ones that last.
