1. CLEAN
A good website is clean, uncluttered and easy to use. Unless you are promoting something particularly artistic or esoteric you’ll want your visitors to understand immediately what the site is about. If they don’t, will they be inclined to hang around?
2. EFFORTLESS
Ensure visitors are treated to an effortless user experience by standardizing navigation across the whole site. The rule of thumb is ‘the fewer clicks the better’
3. ENGAGING
Make sure that your graphics and content are enticing. You want visitors to explore your whole site. There’s no point having fabulous content and excellent products if nobody can find them
4. ACTION
Exercise plenty of ‘calls to action’. You want your visitors to add products to the shopping basket, contact your about your services, sign up to your mailing list or download your software, so make that clear with bold, explicit prompts
5. SOCIAL
Social media is changing the world. Websites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace represent an increasingly integral part of many companies communication, growth and revenue strategies. How might social media inform the design, content and user base of your website?
6. VISUAL
Video’s are increasingly adopted by websites to explain products and services faster and more attractively than plain text. How might you incorporate them into your design?
7. SHARING
Keep content fresh and keep visitors coming back. If you have a blog, update it. If you have some interesting news, shout about it! Visitors want to see your site evolve. Keep them interested and they’ll come back for more.
8. FUNCTIONAL
It’s important to strike a good balance between design and technology. For example, the use of AJAX and JavaScript techniques can enable your users to browse or enter information without the need for unnecessary page reloads, making for a smoother experience and saving precious seconds. After all, who has time hang around while they wait for your site to load?
9. EXPANDABLE
Your website is a seed and you don’t want to stunt its growth, so invest in a platform that will nurture it. Modern web development is all about making your website flexible. Make sure it is built modularly, so you can easily append, fix, or brighten up any section, any time.
10. EVISUA
OK so there were only 9 tips. What kind of agency would we be without a dash of self-promotion?! Suffice to say we are rather good at the above, and always delighted to discuss the vagaries of web design with inquisitive souls. Why not drop us a line?
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