My website redesign is now complete. While going through this process, I have also discovered some of the best practices for web design. You should also follow these to create a pleasing design for your audience.
1. Strong visual elements
Strong visual elements that are pleasing to the eye are of great importance. These days, people respond better to videos, illustrations and images as compared to text.
Make use of custom images instead of relying on stock photos. A truck driving academy was able to up its conversion rate by 160% just by using the photo of one of the actual students of the academy instead of a stock photo on its home page, along with a slight change in the call-to-action.
2. Personalisation based on brand
It’s good to have the personality of your brand shine through your website. If you think hard about how you communicate with the audience, you will find that it is through the tone and voice of your social media posts or your blog articles.
Use images, fonts and colours reflecting the brand identity for these posts. Make sure your voice is always consistent as it will allow your audience to recognise your content immediately. Check here for more information about brand identity.
3. Make use of contrasting colours
Contrasting colours help your website pop. Therefore, use contrast when redesigning your website. One way to attract visitors to key areas of your website is to use a colour that isn’t used anywhere else on the web page.
One example is the landing page of Todoist for its premium product. They use a salmon pink colour that isn’t used elsewhere and this unique colour attracts visitors to key areas of the landing page such as the call-to-action and the logo.
Take a close look at the page and you’ll find that the size of the call-to-action is bigger than other pink elements on the landing page. This is another way to create contrast.
4. Have a blog
There is a reason experts swear by content marketing. In recent times, it has emerged as one of the most important ways to get targeted audience to your website. Today’s web visitors can identify a sales pitch when they see it.
Max Funding marketing specialists say, “it’s your job to meet the expectations of your target audience otherwise they will simply move to your competitors. One of the cheapest and easiest ways to publish content is through a blog. Start a blog and consistently write about topics that help your audience solve their problems. This will help you get a lot of targeted traffic through social shares and search engines.”
5. Add Highly Converting Landing Pages
You should seriously consider adding new landing pages to your website during a website redesign. Create a specific page for each offer to convert it better.
For example, have a separate page that works as a lead magnet for adding subscribers to your email list. Create another page to highlight the discount on a popular product.
Make use of website optimisation reports to check user behaviour after the redesign. Use the data gathered from these reports to make adjustments to the page, depending on the performance of various elements on the page.
6. SEO optimisation
It’s important to make all the webpages optimised for search engines, including your blog and landing pages. Make use of relevant keywords. Add custom meta description for each page. Make sure your images have an alternate text. Write long articles to make it easy for Google to figure out the purpose of your content.
7. Optimisation for voice search
You should take a look at how people are interacting with their smartphones these days. In most cases, especially when they are on the go, people like to talk to their phones instead of typing out a query when they’re searching for something. You need to make sure that your website is optimised for voice search to allow people to discover your content more easily.
In case your website is focused on local business, you should try to add terms that people use when searching for local businesses. Some of these terms include closest, nearby and near me.
For example, in case you have a business selling bicycles, you should try to rank your website for the term, bicycle shops near me. Another way to optimise is to add a geographic location to keywords.
8. Mobile-first
It doesn’t require too much effort to make sure that your website is mobile-first but it does pay handsomely.
More people, these days, use their mobile devices to search as compared to desktops and laptops which means you can no longer afford to ignore mobile searches.
Your website should look and work great on all devices. The font sizes and images on the website shouldn’t exceed the screen size of a smartphone or other device as it will alienate your visitors.
Another way to improve the mobile experience for visitors is to make use of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and responsive design.
For further information about conversion optimisation, you can check this guide: 119 Conversion Rate Optimisation Best Practices (Grouped By Category)