Website Tips and Lingo
Homepage
Homepage – Your first and primary piece of real estate in the website world. This is where your visitors land first. It has to be good. Remember you have about 3 secs to capture your audience’s attention. That’s it. Boom! three. seconds.
Most people are visual, so give yourself 10 points for adding a short video or some well placed, relevant (and interesting) images to your homepage. Keep the content clear and concise, making sure you show your visitors straight away, who you are, what you’re about and why they should stay and look around.
Website Navigation
Navigation – This is a biggy! Your website should be easy to navigate for all visitors. When someone lands on your site, ask yourself, can they get to where they need to be easily? Is your menu clear and easy to access from a mobile phone, small device right up to a desktop?
A user should never need to ask, “where is the site navigation?”
CTA’s
CTA’s or calls to action – usually in the form of Call Now or Contact Us Today buttons. CTA’s are inviting your visitors to click me, click me and I’ll reward you with information (instant gratification). Well, more like intelligent design. Their main goal is to compel your visitors to engage more deeply in your website, bringing them further down the funnel. Probably 2 to 3 CTA’s above the fold is good. What’s the fold you ask?
Fold
Fold – Hint, it’s what I sometimes do instead of ironing.
Ok, so anything that isn’t immediately visible on your screen is considered “below the fold”. If you must scroll, it’s not “above the fold”. It started in the newspaper industry by using attention-grabbing headlines “above the physical fold” of the paper. This terminology has continued into the digital era. Basically, once again, if you are on the Homepage, “above the fold” is the crème de la crème of your website. Make it count.
SEO and Your Website
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation – is where search engines like google, index your website and give it a ranking on the internet. Depending on how much you put into SEO, is generally how much you will be rewarded. There is much to be said on this subject and it’s worth looking into it, for your own benefit. A good web designer will get you off to a great start with SEO , you may, however, need to pay for more detailed SEO from an expert. A great design may look nice but, it will not help Google find you.
Good SEO is one way of getting your website noticed.
Load Time
Load Time – is the time it takes for a page to fully display content on a page – this is different from site speed. You can check your page speed here at Google’s Page Speed Insights if you have a website.
White Space
White Space – my personal favourite style of websites are designed with uncluttered layouts, plenty of whitespace, minimalist and clean. (yes it’s trending too, that’s handy).
Have you ever landed on a website because you’re looking to shop for a product or looking for information, only to be overwhelmed at the options? Worse still, everything is animated and jumping at you. Your eyes are blinking, you don’t know if you need to look sideways, up or down or click a button to get the heck out of there, only to find the button leads you to more overwhelming overload.
In the past, websites were literally “crammed” with information and very busy, worse than Queen St on a Friday night! Thankfully, all that confusion and sensory overload is disappearing as people get the idea that less is more, even in the design of a website that needs to deliver a message or two. A clever designer will know how to present your information in a way that is attractive, without overwhelming your visitors with too much information at first glance. Sensory overload can definitely be off-putting and confusing to your visitors.
Do I need a website?
Ever wondered if you need a website? Have a look at a couple of important reasons why the answer is a resounding YES.
I hope you have enjoyed this little read…..