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Small Business Website Mistakes To Avoid

January 13, 2021 By Richie KS

Small Business Website Mistakes To Avoid

Building a winning website is easy for big-league companies. They have enormous budgets, and with those enormous budgets, they can hire whole teams of experienced web designers with strong track records. Such things are luxuries for start-up or medium-sized businesses, who are often left to either fend for themselves or take a chance of hiring a web developer who doesn’t have the same track record of success. Because of that, there are a lot of small businesses out there with terrible websites – and a terrible website is often worse than not having one at all.

Here’s a fact that might scare you a little if you own a small company and you do your business on the internet. You only have seven seconds to make a positive first impression on first-time visitors to your site. If people don’t get a positive impression of you and your business within those seven seconds, they’ll click the ‘back’ button and go to one of your rivals instead. That means all the thoughtful promotional copy you’ve written and the great content you’ve got on pages other than your landing page will never get read. It may as well not be there. That means it’s a mistake to put your focus on anything other than your landing page – and that’s far from the only web design mistake a small business owner might make.

Fortunately (and, in some cases, unfortunately), we’ve seen it all when it comes to web design mistakes made by small businesses. If there’s an upside to that, it’s the fact that we can list them here in the hope that you might learn from them and avoid making them yourself!

Confusing Navigation

Let’s make no bones about it – badly placed or hidden navigational tools lose visitors, and if you lose visitors, you lose customers. It’s become fashionable in recent years to hide all navigation options behind three-lined menu buttons, but not everybody is familiar with that form of design shorthand. Even if your visitors know what that button means, it’s no good to them if it’s not in an immediately obvious place. People are trained to expect navigation menus to be in the upper corners of websites, and if you move them away from there, you’re likely to run into difficulties. Keep them there, or consider using a side or top menu so long as you can do so without making it cluttered.

Lack of Search Functionality

Some visitors don’t want to find their way around your website by clicking buttons or hunting for menus. They want a nice, easy search function that they can type in and find what they’re looking for that way. This is the most basic indexing tool your website could possibly have, and yet it’s becoming increasingly common for them to be omitted in favor of sleeker, more minimalistic design styles. Don’t make that mistake. The search function should be placed somewhere prominent with a magnifying glass image to make it stand out, and all of your pages should have strong tags to optimize the performance of the search. If people want to get straight to the point by searching for a keyword, they should be able to do so.

No Contact Information

It takes a lot of trusts for people to order goods or services from a company through the internet for the first time. No matter how good looking your website is or how glowing your testimonials are, there will always be a suspicion that you might be operating a scam. People look for contact details as a way to alleviate these concerns. If they can find your phone number and they know where your offices are, they’re more likely to establish that trust and go ahead with their purchase. It might be more convenient for you to have your ‘contact us’ button lead directly to an email form, but customers would be happier with more information. You could even include pictures of yourself and your office to help build that trust.

Too Much Clutter

The landing page of your website should have a solitary purpose. That purpose will generally either be to establish who you are or to sell your products immediately. It shouldn’t try to do both things at the same time, and nor should it attempt to do anything else. You have a limited amount of digital real estate when it comes to landing pages, and so they should be as simple and easy to digest as possible. If you want an example of good practice in action, check out an online slots website like Rose Slots. Nowhere on the landing page of an online slots website will you find a lengthy passage of text explaining who the company is or what their values are, or their back story. You won’t find distracting images, links to affiliates, or other content that might drag your attention elsewhere. All you’ll find is row upon row of online slots. That gives them a sense of immediacy and is part of the reason the industry they operate within makes so much money.

Poorly Placed Adverts

Web hosting can be expensive. Placing adverts on your page is a way of offsetting that expense. That doesn’t mean you should do it, though, and even if you do decide to do it, you shouldn’t accept adverts that work on a ‘pop-out’ or ‘roll over’ basis. We can all think of news websites that load up so much advertising content that the stories we’re trying to read are obscured by them. We’ve all probably clicked away from websites in frustration after that’s happened. People will do the same with your site if your adverts get in the way. From a psychological point of view, the inclusion of adverts also tells your visitors that you’re not making enough money from your business to support yourself. Stay away from them unless you absolutely have to use them, and be extremely selective if you do.

Conclusion

These ought not to be difficult guidelines to work to. It basically amounts to keeping things simple, allowing people to find their way around your site however they like, and making sure there’s an easy way to contact you. It might be a ‘back to basics’ style of building a business website, but without the basics, we’d have nothing at all. Make these the foundations of your next website redesign, and we’re confident you’ll see more business generated.

Design Do’s and Don’ts for Sending the Right Brand Message

January 22, 2019 By Andy Clarke

Branding your business can seem like a daunting task. You need to have a vision, pin down your company values, create a plan for how best to express those values visually, and, of course, show it off to the world – which can be a harsh critic.

In order to properly communicate what your company does, much of your effort is going to be directed towards the design aspects of your brand. How will you make a logo? Which color palette will you choose? What kind of font will send the right message to your potential customers?  

To answer some of these questions and make the branding process easier, there are certain guidelines for you to follow on your branding journey. Here is a list of design do’s and don’ts to help you send the proper brand message.  

Do: Keep it simple.

You want your brand to be unique, but you also want it to be memorable – and sometimes the most simple designs are the ones that stick out in people’s minds. Think about famous company logos: The Twitter bird, the Amazon arrow, the Apple, well, apple – all of these logo designs are straightforward, to the point, and pretty much unforgettable.

Don’t: Make it boring.

Consumers look for new brands that excite them, not brands they view as predictable. So, just because you’re after a simple design doesn’t mean it should be sloppy or closely resemble that of another brand. Don’t be afraid to be interesting; for example, if your logo is text-based, try to use a color palette that pops.

Take some time to plan out your logo design, reasoning how it communicates your company values and making sure that it’s appealing to the average eye. Rule of thumb: If you’re not excited by it, your audience certainly won’t be either!

Do: Combine fonts.

Branding means creating a slew of marketing materials that are consistently designed – among them being business documents with headers and subheaders, blog posts, websites and business cards. Pairing fonts, when done well, can keep the designs of these materials compelling, while also helping to differentiate sections of text. For example, using a serif and sans serif font together will create the kind of contrast that draws the eye and keeps people reading.  

Don’t: Pair fonts with different moods.

Although somewhat subjective, it’s generally pretty clear to the average viewer when two fonts aren’t meant to go together. Like colors, fonts have different overall vibes, and you want the mood of both fonts you use to be consistent with your brand message. A funeral home letterhead would probably not use the same font as an invitation to a wedding, right?

Remember that you want to communicate a specific set of values with the design of your brand, and fonts that imply conflicting sentiments will work against that goal.

Do: Use consistent colors.

Consistency is one of the main elements that determines whether or not a brand is successful. Consumers learn to rely on the designs they’ve come to know, love, and associate with a specific brand; you can create that brand recognition by choosing a specific color palette and sticking with it. Giving your potential audience a color scheme they can depend on will eventually turn them into loyal followers of your brand.  

 

Don’t: Use ALL the colors.

 

In the design world, more is not necessarily better. Designs that use too many colors look cluttered and disorganized. (And, there are very few brands that actually make rainbow work for them, and it’s almost always a temporary thing!)

Before choosing your brand colors, try doing research on the meaning of colors to learn what subtle messages your brand will be putting out into the world. Select a color palette that’s on-message, and do not deviate after that!

 

Over to You

Now that you have a few important design basics down, it’s time to start building your brand! Have a brainstorming session with your team, and pin down the values that underlie your business. From there, the rest is much easier than it seems – follow the above tips, and your brand design will naturally fall into place.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Business Photos

November 2, 2018 By Andy Clarke

Coming up with photos for a business can be tricky, and in many cases it is best to hire a professional photographer. That being said if your budget doesn’t allow for it there’s no reason why you can’t do it yourself – so long as you’re willing to learn.

[Read more…]

People Gravitate Towards Colourful Banners

March 29, 2018 By Hermann Jay

There are a lot of elements in a banner. You should focus on every aspect of the banner. Regardless of your chosen text and images though, make sure the banners have a splash of colour. Studies have revealed that people gravitate more towards exhibition banners that are colourful. This makes them feel interested in finding out more information about the business.

Banners that are plain, dull and boring just drive people away. They will glance at it before they move to the next banner. If your banners are placed next to many other banners, it would be a wasted opportunity. This is true especially if you are attending big events. There are a lot of companies who are joining these events and they are also using banners and display stands. Your goal is to stand out when placed next to them. [Read more…]

Incorporating a Digital Marketing Strategy into Your Web Design

March 16, 2018 By Hermann Jay

Web designers looking to grow their business or increase their value when working in a larger organization know the value of understanding strategy. Hard skills are important, but understanding why things are done a certain way, what’s worked in the past and why, and where things are headed in the future, can help you provide more value to clients and build your business or climb the ranks within a larger organization.

Digital marketing strategy is an important area to focus on when it comes to providing value to clients. Their interest in hiring web designers is to grow their businesses and understanding digital marketing strategies and to communicate them to your clients will help you explain why your work and ideas are important, how they benefit the client, and why they’re worth more. Here are five areas of digital marketing to introduce clients to that will prove your worth. [Read more…]

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