You can develop a well-researched Digital Marketing strategy, and you can enable your online marketing activities with the best available tools but, without a proper website, all your efforts could go in vain. So, along with working on your digital marketing plan, you must give due attention to the design and development of an effective website.
By itself, web design and development is a vast subject, and there are many components in it that contribute to developing a coherent website. By adopting the right design and development concepts, you give your website a better shot at success. And no matter what your marketing objectives are, your website will be poised to achieve them.
An optimized website is able to engage the traffic better and allows all the online advertising activities to produce optimum results. Here are some simple web design and development tips that can help develop a website that will keep your audience hooked:
- Have clear objectives
Before you start developing a website, you must be sure about its purpose. The nature of your business and what you wish to achieve from a website will play a big role in the shape and structure of your website.
For example, if you want to open an online store, you’ll need to develop a website keeping in mind all the tenets of e-commerce website development.
No matter what your marketing objectives are, be it driving sales, building a brand, driving engagement, or becoming a thought leader, etc, the basic design and architecture of your website must reflect these objectives.
Developing an optimized website needs many different components to be brought together, and having “clarity of objective” makes this process a lot easier.
- Choose simplicity
The traffic on the internet is quite impatient, and people decide in split seconds whether they want to stay on a website or not. One thing, especially, that ticks people off is a cluttered website.
When someone logs on to your website, they should not feel overwhelmed with all the information that they see. On the contrary, they should be able to navigate through the website with ease, and there shouldn’t be any unnecessary elements getting in their way.
There are many things that can be managed to bring simplicity to your website. To begin with, you can give your website the right appearance/aesthetics by choosing light colors (white background websites are a popular choice) and leaving enough open spaces to give it a neat look. You should also improve the user experience on the website by making it easier to navigate.
The content that you put on the website is just as important as the user experience and aesthetics. You should ensure that the content is useful and easy to read.
- Encourage Call-to-action
You can manage many different aspects of your website like the visual aspects, user interface & user experience and the content, etc. But, ultimately all these things have to lead to the ‘purpose’ with which the website was created. And, therefore, call-to-action becomes one of the basic things to integrate into a website’s design.
To encourage ‘call-to-action’ you can tinker with elements like navigation, reading patterns, layout, content, and other similar aspects that can lead a user to take the final call (Sales, subscription, acquisition, etc.)
The one thing imperative to note here is not bombarding the users with call-to-action elements. For example, many websites pop-up a subscription box the moment you start scrolling down on the website/blog page; it is best to stay away from such desperate attempts to get subscribers.
On the contrary, the structure and content on your website should first earn the trust of the user and only then lead them to the end of the funnel where the Call-to-Action element belongs.
- Create a responsive website
Most people access the internet through their mobile these days, and other devices like tablets are also used frequently. Your website should, therefore, be developed keeping in mind all the devices through which it will be accessed.
Mobile-first indexing has become a reality, and the quality of your mobile site can determine how well it will rank on Google. Especially, if the nature of your business is such that people are more likely to visit your mobile site (for example, niche online stores), you should pay that much more attention to developing an optimized mobile site.
To ensure that users get a seamless mobile site experience, you should manage all the elements like aesthetics, UI and UX and content, etc accordingly. WordPress website development is one of the simpler options for you to consider to create a responsive website.
- Improve Load time
Visitors who log on to your website do not have the patience to wait more than a few seconds for the site to load, and, therefore, minimizing the load time becomes imperative.
Your website should be put together in a manner that does not weigh it down, and it can load seamlessly. Generally, it means making compromises with some of the elements that can slow down your website.
If, however, you get your website developed by a top web development company, they’ll have the technical know-how to develop a site that loads quickly without compromising on any essential elements.
- Optimize for SEO
Search engine optimization is one part of digital marketing that has stood the test of time and remains as relevant today as it has ever been. But for leveraging SEO, the content on your website needs to be written and presented accordingly.
If you want your website to be visible on the search engine, many SEO related aspects like content, backlinks, Meta title and description, and the overall content marketing strategy has to be carefully planned.
So, along with a well-designed website, you also need to prepare a comprehensive SEO strategy that will make you visible on the search engine and also drive your marketing objectives.
Also, Read: BLOGGING AND SEO: 7 SIMPLE TIPS TO RANK YOUR BLOG
Conclusion
When it comes to website design and development, there is enough scope for creativity and innovation. Apart from the concepts that we have discussed above, you can also adopt some unique ideas of your own, which will give your website an edge over your competition.
Also, Read: WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT – THE ULTIMATE GUIDE YOU NEED TO KNOW