Website Designs We often times speak with potential clients who’s website is usually the main culprit for their pain. I know that design is very subjective and not everyone is going to agree on "good" design but there are certain elements of a website that are always going to be necessary to have in order to achieve success online.
A clean & professional layout will always be important no matter what. Aside from design and colors if your home page looks like it was designed in the 90's, then you are going to scare your audience away.
Let’s take a look at some of the areas that more often than not, at the center of the problem:
- Outdated Design:
If your website is still operating from design dating back from over 5 years ago, you might want to upgrade your design a bit. I don’t care what industry you are in. Nothing from over 5 years ago is going to keep people coming back. It is time to explore some new branding elements for your online presence. A fresh new chapter is always good for a website. Poor web design is not going to help you in the long run. (10 unexpected online user behaviors to look out for)
- Making it hard for people to find stuff:
Difficult to find forms, no phone numbers and hidden shopping sections is a great way to get nowhere fast online. Don’t make your website traffic look for anything. It needs to be right there, clear and visible for them to read at all times in order to get some traction and get them coming back to your website.
Very few and far between websites are pumping away like well oiled machines after not being touched for many years. There are always important elements to have on a website in order to get things moving in the right direction and clean focused website design along with communication elements like forms and phone numbers will help with increased registrations,sales, and conversions over time. (Tips for designing a non profit website for older users)
- Too many Banner Ads:
Is more than half of your home page covered in banner ads? You have to determine the goal of your website early in the stage. Do you want to offer something to the public or do you want to make money from ad space? You can do both but it has to be tastefully done. Blanketing your entire website with banners is not going to appeal to your audience no matter who you are or what you sell. (The 4 website design aesthetic rules)
- Write a better headline:
More and more, people scan headlines and on that basis alone make the decision as to whether or not they'll keep reading. This is why it is essential to craft your headline with care.
Doesn't everyone do this anyway? No, they don't. And the principal reason they don't is that they are paying too much attention to optimizing the headline for the search engines.There is nothing wrong with including keywords in your page headlines, but you need to keep in mind that your audience is ultimately not the Googlebot, but real people.
If you write your headline with the focus on Google, you will likely write something that is not terribly appealing to prospective readers.Keep in mind that people are being exposed to more and more content every day -- through their e-mails, webpages, social media sites, Twitter, and their smart phones. If you don't write your headlines with the primary focus being on securing the attention of your readers, you will be lost in the clutter. (Website content - Getting it right for search engines)
- There's nothing new here:
Readers are hungry to read about what's new, whether it's the news, celebrity gossip, new gadgets, or on the topic of your website.This kind of content doesn't have to be lengthy, it just has to be fresh. And by making a commitment to share what's new with your readers, you are giving them a reason to come back to your website again and again. (The 7 deadly sins of web design)
- No real valuable info or takeaway for me:
Create a resource list. Any kind of list is popular on the web: Top 10 Money Tips, Top 10 Gardening Mistakes, Top 10 Smart Phones, and so on. But resource lists are even more popular: Top 10 Smart Phone Apps, Top 10 Travel Sites, Top 10 Social Media Sites.
With a resource list you are, of course, inviting people to click forward to another site. But it's worth it, all the same.
People like resource lists, because you have done a ton of work for them, and are making their lives easier. They no longer have to research, because you have whittled the list down to just 10. Resource lists are also hugely sharable. Study the most popular tweets on Twitter, and you will find that a significant number point to resources lists. (Is your website a dinosaur?)
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