All website visitors these days will choose to stay or leave in a very short space of time. Therefore, your website should look its best in terms of design and content. In addition to this, another factor that contributes to the overall first impression is the speed at which your web page loads. Visitors hate waiting for things to load and we are all more impatient than ever.
Website Essentials
headers
A good, yet provocative headline will encourage a visitor to click through to your web page in the search engine so they can read more.
paragraphs
The first paragraph of your page is just as important as the page header. You can summarize what the visitor will find on the page, present your article, it’s up to you. However, it should also be short, to the point, and not a bunch of waffles. Ideally, your sentences should be approximately 20-25 words long. Any text should be divided into paragraphs to avoid large blocks of text. You can also use subheadings and bullet points to further break up the text.
Photos
In addition to using paragraphs, subheadings, etc., you can use images to illustrate your page and further break up the text. You should alt tag your images and use text to describe the image. You shouldn’t fill the alt tag with keywords, but you can use keywords in the image name.
Remember that your images should be saved in the same dimensions as they appear on the page so you don’t spend extra time loading and resizing the image on the page. Remember to use .gifs for most basic images or illustrations, .jpeg for photos, and .png for anything.
Fonts and typefaces
You should use easy-to-read fonts that are accessible to everyone, such as Verdana, Arial, Times New Roman, and Georgia. Avoid custom fonts in the body of the text if possible. It sounds like a good idea, but you have to remember that not everyone will have such a font installed on their computer. Custom fonts are best used in graphics and titles.
color
The use of color is just as important as the choice of font you use. The recent rise of flat web design has shaken the status quo regarding the use of color. However, basic common sense remains. Good examples include using a white background with black text. Bad examples include black backgrounds and white text.
Some of the best ways to use different colors are to design different sections of your website, design section headers, borders, and button links.
Make your website sticky
Making your website sticky means making people want to stay on your website and not just click the back button when they’ve just arrived. To do this, you must give them what they want.
How do you do that? Ask yourself four questions.
Who is your potential visitor or client?
What they want?
What questions and answers do they need?
What do you want to ask me?
With these questions in mind, you should write your text accordingly and set up your website in the same way so that everything is easy to find and can be found quickly. Remember that everyone wants things fast these days.
build trust
Photos of you and your team
You should include photos of you and your team on an about us page. This goes a long way in building trust between you and your visitors because you can see who you will be talking to and dealing with during correspondence.
fresh content
A website that looks fresh and up to date will also help build trust and show visitors that you know your business and what you are doing. If a website looks out of date, the visitor will click the back button in the browser without hesitation. You should update timestamps on blogs or post undated content so that it is ageless. All outdated content must be removed.
Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and Contact Information
You must clearly display a link to a privacy policy, terms of use, and contact information. Contact information is vital information for visitors and shows how they can reach you and where you are.
Content that gives visitors what they want to know
Customers have many questions that need answers every time they are looking to make a purchase. One of the best ways to answer them is to have a FAQ page that shows the most frequently asked questions along with their proper answers.
Buyer’s guides are also good sources of information for visitors, as are relevant video tutorials. Please note that you should never make the videos start automatically. Instead, you should give visitors the option to view the video. For example, using a link called “watch video” or “click here to watch”
Interact with visitors through blogs and social networks.
You must allow visitors to post comments on your blogs and at the bottom of your articles. You must respond to comments in turn. Social media has come a long way in helping visitors share and spread information about people, places, and shopping experiences. You should place social media icons and social badges on your website to encourage sharing the news about you and your website.
