The Overlooked Elements of Web Design
Businesses redesign their websites all the time, and whether it's to refresh your brand, increase traffic or generate more leads, there are a lot of elements that are often overlooked. While a great design concept can make your website look great, this shouldn't come at the expense of some of the other important elements.
Responsive Design
Responsive design is a set of techniques that makes web pages viewable and usable according to the device it’s being accessed on. With mobile browsing soaring in the past few years, and Google's recent algorithm change in April (where websites are penalised for not being mobile-friendly), you really can't afford to overlook this. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to transform your website into a responsive one, and most of the time it means rebuilding from the ground up. You can read more about responsive design, and Google's recent use of mobile-friendliness in ranking websites, in our blog post Responsive Design and Mobile Friendliness.
Compelling Content
One thing that stunts many websites is poor and uninformative copy, and this can lead to fewer conversions if customers or clients are wary of how professional you are. Writing compelling content can be a laborious task, especially if your website has a lot of pages, so don't be afraid to engage a professional copywriter to do it for you. With detailed briefing notes, they can churn out quality content while you focus on other aspects of your redesign.
User Experience
User experience is a set of techniques used to make your website easier to navigate, and touches on several aspects of redesign like page layout, typography, colour schemes, copywriting and navigability. Ultimately the aim is to make it easy for users to engage you, whether that's through an enquiry form or purchasing something.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is crucial for lead generation, in particular on e-commerce sites. Techniques are used both tactically and strategically; tactical presentation of offers or discounts, and strategically creating easy pathways for users to convert conveniently, also known as 'conversion funnels'. CRO shortcomings are a major factor in e-commerce failure, so be sure that the process is easy and intuitive for users.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO nowadays is more than simply adding a few meta keywords to your website's source code. Unless you build SEO techniques into your website from the ground up, or during a major redesign, future campaigns will be less effective. If the world of SEO confuses you, you can always engage an agency who specialise in SEO marketing (we can recommend a pretty decent one). It is worth co-ordinating your copy and SEO closely, as you'll need to strategically place keywords in your content.
Lead Tracking
Lead generation websites, in particular e-commerce ones, need to know where their leads and conversions are coming from, otherwise future marketing strategies will be useless. Your site needs to have the ability to track where leads are coming from, whether it's from a Google Ad, search engine result or somewhere else.
Web Design
Finally, the thing bringing your website together - a great design. The key to good web design is simplicity; no wild animation, no complex design features, just nice, clean, attractive and simple. As well as being pleasing to look at, a well-designed website will also be easier to navigate, and will load faster, something which Google takes into account when ranking your website.
