Want to improve your website design this year? There are plenty of tips and tricks that you can use. Creating a clean website will greatly improve your natural traffic and SEO, so you’ll want to learn as much as possible.
In this article, you’ll find five website design tips and tricks to help you convert your site into a positive experience for visitors. Here’s what you need to know!
1. Work on Your First Impression
You’ll want to work on the first impression you leave your visitors. They won’t remember it fondly if your website is too cluttered or outdated. Instead, offer your viewers a clean, easy-to-understand website. They’ll have a much better impression that way.
Visitors form a first impression on your website within 0.2 seconds. Many people won’t stick around if your website can’t open that quickly.
Overall, your first impression is very important. You’ll want to work with a high-quality Atlanta web design agency to get the best results. These pros know exactly what elements to incorporate to make a successful first impression on people.
First, make your design consistent and give it a simple layout. Those two main elements will surely lead to a good first impression.
2. Speed Up Load Times
Another essential trick is to know how to speed up the load times on your website. That way, you can quickly leave an impact and a good first impression on your viewers. Slow websites do the opposite, so you’ll need to know what areas to improve.
Professional web designers use these tips to help speed up the loading times of their sites:
Check On Plugins Often
First, you’ll want to look over your Plugins often when using WordPress. If they need to be updated, they can slow down the loading time of your website. Plus, too many can cause your site to take a long time to load.
Adjust Images
Next, you’ll need to adjust the images on the website. Images that are too large can take a lot of loading time. Instead, you’ll need to ensure you use the correct file format and lower the size of the files.
The best file format for uploading images would have to be JPEG. This format is the standard for web images. However, you’ll want to use PNGs for logos and icons. Adjusting your images and putting them in the correct format can save you time.
Perform Website Speed Tests
Website speed tests allow you to determine how your website performs during the loading phase. Testing it frequently will allow you to know whether the loading speed improves- or gets worse. That way, you can take the required steps to move it back in the right direction.
Many speed tests are free, so there’s a reason not to do them often. You can use WebPageTest, Google PageSpeed, or Google DevTools to check your website’s performance.
Use a CDN
Lastly, you can also use a CDN (content delivery network). CDNs increase the speed of websites by caching (or storing) the content in many locations. CDNs are often closer to your site’s visitors than you, making it easier for the site to load quickly.
3. Create a Personal Experience
You can also create a personal experience for your site’s visitors. Personalization doesn’t need to be complicated, either. You simply want your visitors to feel welcomed when they open the site. Plus, it helps if you can offer relevant pages and products to them.
Many people enjoy a recommendations page because it makes shopping easier. You can also optimize your website for smartphones and other mobile devices and curate a dedicated customer service team to help with any issues that might arise.
4. Include a Call To Action
Next, you’ll need to include a call to action or CTA. Having your CTA at the top of the page comes across as aggressive or pushy, so make sure that you always keep it at the bottom.
A CTA is usually a button, link, or another request that requires user input on a website. For instance, asking a visitor to your site to make an account would qualify as a CTA.
CTAs can also be in your content. For example, telling the user to check out a specific product in a blog post and including a link to the item. You want the CTA to be easy for them to follow through, so always include a hyperlink.
Having CTAs on your website comes with several benefits. It encourages viewers to look around your site more, increases returning visitors, and can help you make more sales on eCommerce websites.
In short, you don’t want to skip out on your calls to action!
5. Use Proper SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is required when creating a website. You can have the best, most efficient website, but it won’t matter if your audience can’t find it. That’s where SEO comes in; it leads viewers to your pages.
Always consider SEO an essential part of your design strategy. If you implement it from the very beginning, it makes it so much easier to keep up with as time goes on. Plus, your pages will attract natural traffic when they rank higher within Google.
However, you need to make sure you use SEO improperly. Many people don’t realize that not using it correctly can lower their rankings in the search engines- which is the last thing you want.
In short, you want to include SEO in everything. Your headlines, images, captions, and URLs can have a huge impact on your SEO when you use them all together.
Trust the Pros
Professional web designers have a lot of experience in working with these tips. A high-quality agency can assist you if you aren’t sure how to use them to benefit your site.
As you increase your site’s efficiency, you’ll see plenty of benefits. In short, try out these tips this year! They can help you make significant leaps with your website.