Not often that someone builds a house and then does absolutely nothing to improving their home over the course of the entire time they’re living there. Same thing can be said for a place of business, or the business itself. Nearly every business is in the digital space, and there’s thousands that are doing e-commerce explicitly. In these cases the website may well be the house and home for these business in that space, and the same should apply - your website as it is launched is very likely not a finished product. If you’re pleased with it that’s fine, but it is best to take a critical eye to it. And that’s true a week later or many years later.
It may have been enough to get the project going and begin attracting visitors or customers, but ideally this is only the beginning. Staying relevant often means websites must undergo ongoing re-evaluation and re-design. It may even be necessary to completely change things up if you are having issues with bringing in those visitors. Facilitating the ideal digital environment for any visitor browsing your website is what makes that happen best. Even minor changes can be integral in boosting popularity and traffic.
It has been a long time since we have touched on website design here in our blog, and of course as a leading Canadian web hosting provider taking the initiative to put our customers in the know as much as possible when it comes to their site is always going to be a priority. Not everyone is a webmaster who’ll be in their account’s CP panel often, but if you are and you have the wherewithal of how sites work and rank then you’ll want to know when it’s time to improve your website.
So that’s what we’re going to look at with this week’s entry.
Re-Evaluating
We can start by saying that knowing your product or service is very beneficial. You then take that knowledge and ask yourself if your website’s functionality is delivering that information for customers in a manner that will be conducive to them a) finding what they need in the most straightforward manner, and b) continuing to move further through the site and interacting in it in a way that makes them take the actions you’d prefer them to take.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- How is the website’s loading time
- Is navigating the website and locating ___ without prior knowledge of its structure suitably easy
- Is the design of the website aesthetically pleasing
- Does the site function as intended, and do you feel that the UI / UX is in line with that
- Would adding to the website improve it
- Does the whole of the website represent your vision for if. If not, why
Another idea is to have a friend or professional acquaintance also look over the website while asking them to perform a specific task. If it’s relatively easy for them to be successful with that task then your website is on the right path. You can ask that person the very same questions that we suggest that you ask yourself during personal evaluation.
Redesign Time?
We get that some people need to have greater expectations for their website, while others will do just fine with using a free website builder through their Canadian web hosting provider. For those that need more of a site and are more reliant on it for the profitability of their business, always being open to a functional redesign is the smart way to view your site.
If that’s you, here is a list of potential scenarios where you must take note and address the problem:
- Website has a higher-than-average bounce rate
- More than 3 seconds is needed for initial load time
- New and fresh content is lacking
- Mobile devices experience your website poorly (you need a mobile website)
- Navigating the website’s content and functionality isn’t simple
- Your website’s design doesn’t match the brand
- The website has dead links
Tips & Tricks for Website Design
There are some universally-positive attributes for websites, and if you’re evaluating your website for quality for the first time then it can be very helpful to know what to be looking for.
It is best to establish a clean and simplistic design, and the fastest way to do that is eliminating clutter and modernizing the elements of your website. This way the appeal is both aesthetic and functional. It helps to also understand that scrolling is faster and easier than clicking, so it’s best to avoid tabs and overlapping graphical elements like carousels, accordions, and sliders.
You should also look into whether the font you are using for text on the website is good for readability. There is plenty of information online about research that indicates certain ones being better than others. In addition, having good contrast between your text color and background color is helpful, and of course the way the text is written is important too. Hire a web copywriter if this if analyzing this is beyond the scope of your abilities.
Next, understand that whitespace is your friend. It helps guide your visitor’s attention and showcase what is important. You should also try to have visual cues to direct visitors to your website’s right places and ensure there’s no reason why they would miss the key elements you’d like to present. Visual hierarchies are very helpful too. You can provide polls, infographics, or interactive graphical elements with a content-based value which can help you increase the interest and improve the readability of on-page information.
Importance of Your CRM system
A CRM is your customer relationship management system. They provide a way for online projects to store customer and visitor data, track interactions, and share this information with colleagues. CRMs also let online businesses manage their relationships with customers for the growth and expansion business owners will be looking for. So how you do choose the right CRM for your website if you are retrofitting the website?
The process should be something like this:
- Clearly defining and identifying your goals to figure out what CRM’s functionality would serve your needs best
- Trying demos of CRM services to get an idea of how it would suit your online business
- Reviewing compatibility with your design and software on an ongoing basis
- Determining how well implementation of any one CRM will work
- Evaluating if your team would use it effectively or require additional training to use as needed
