How To Ensure Your Website Exceeds Expectations

When you come up with an idea for an amazing website, it may seem impossible to convert the concept into the real thing. Especially if you lack experience in the field, building and maintaining your own site can appear to be a humongous task that’s daunting to even start. Hopefully these helpful tips can get you set in the right direction to exceed your expectations and become the most successful website you could ever have imagined.

Choose The Right Name

When coming up with the right name for your website, many different ideas will pop into your head (some much better than others). It should be a fairly simple process, so try not to over complicate things by spending too much time thinking of something unique and outlandish. Stick to a couple of keywords and keep it short so it’s easy for users to remember, and less likely for them to misspell when searching in their browser. Make sure that you search beforehand to check whether the name has already been registered by another owner, and claim it as soon possible if it is available as they generally sell very quickly.

Make It Accessible

Ensuring your website is accessible is a vital aspect of the process, as you must make steps to be inclusive of every type of user. There are a few simple ways that you can make your site usable by every person with any type of disability or impairment, whether this be hearing, vision or motor skills related. When you add any images to your website, attach alt text that explains whatever is happening inside the picture so that anyone with a visual impairment can listen to a description instead. Remember to keep text dark in colour, preferably black or dark blue, and allow it to stand out from the background by opting for a lighter shade such as cream or white to enable it to be easily read. If you can, add the option of resizing the text so each user can alter the page to their own personal preference.

The Perfect Design

There are a few key principles that constitute to an excellently designed website. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the user, and think solely about what they might want or expect from your site. Each of your pages should have a specific purpose, and the design should reflect this. Keep the same colour palette throughout the site, alternating between different shades to make it sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing. Use bright colours exclusively for buttons or small areas, as they can be garish and overpowering when used too heavy handedly. The size of headings and body text should be notably different, and navigation menus should be clear and very easy to use to ensure there’s no unnecessary over complications. Ensure that any design features are translated efficiently when loaded in a mobile browser, as a large amount of your users will be visiting your site from their smartphone or tablet.

Image To Text Ratio

Anyone will admit that scrolling through a site that’s all text and no pictures is a dull and boring experience. Equally however, page after page of photos without any meaningful information can be uninteresting after only a couple of clicks. Finding the right balance between text and images is hard to master, but it will ultimately depend on the purpose of your website when it comes to deciding on which ratio is best. Stick to a few high quality images that depict what you really want to show people, and pair these with some really useful blocks of text that sum up your main points without rambling on for too long.

Add Loyalty Options

A user that visits your site once is a massive plus, but it’s better if you’re aiming to convert each person into a loyal and regular visitor. To do this, you should build a feature into your site that allows users to enter and submit their email address. However, it’s not just as simple as adding a box with the text ‘sign up via email’, as you need to give a lot more in order for your visitors to be able to trust you with their personal data and actually want to receive updates and information. Make it a focal point of the home page, and include it in a smaller size on each of the individual pages on your website. Don’t be too bland with the text, allow your users a little taste of what they will be getting by explaining briefly, such as ‘sign up to receive our weekly newsletter, updates, and more..’. This way you can catch their attention and be informative and convincing in just a short piece of text.

The Importance Of White Space

White space can help to emphasize different aspects of your site, and also add a feel of sleek and modern design to each page. By having a white background behind text, you can allow the user to focus their attention on the words themselves and help to keep information clear and accessible. Trying to fill your page from corner to corner with moving gifs, colourful text and a ton of photos will not only make for an immature design, but will make the user lose trust in the credibility of your website and information. Stick to what you need and keep it classy by emphasizing each section with negative space and restore some peace and harmony within your colour palette. Though it may appear minimalist, it still won’t have the opportunity to feel basic as you can then allow your main assets to catch the visitors attention and shine.

Test It

When you think you have your website close to its final stages, now is the time to consider doing some kind of testing. You should carry out several different experiments across your site to see how easy it is to navigate around, and whether all of the different sections and buttons operate properly. Your website has to fits its intended purpose with its content whilst still providing something extra through its layout and design, so bare both of these aspects in mind when doing any kind of testing. Be sure to include other users in your tests, whether this be colleagues or family and friends, as you need to be able to gain a different viewpoint and perspective that only another human with their own thoughts and feelings can offer.

Generating Traffic

Even if you have the most beautifully designed website that provides the user with the perfect experience, you simply will not get any visitors unless you generate traffic. Becoming a popular site takes a fair amount of time, but optimization is achievable if you think logically. If you can’t figure it all out yourself, does an SEO agency make sense for you? They have the means to force you to work your way up search results in the web to have a much better chance of being noticed and visited. Use some specific keywords in order to be included in the relevant pages, and ensure that none of your links or pages are broken. By being towards the top of a users search engine, you are more likely to be seen as not many people go further than the 2nd or 3rd page of results when online.

Measure Success And React Accordingly

When you release your website onto the internet, you have to put measures in place in order to track visitor statistics. It will be helpful to find out how many users view your page each day, and what those users look at on your website. Being able to monitor how each visitor interacts with your website will allow you to assess whether each page is serving its purpose, and whether there’s anything you might be able to do to improve their experience. When you have gathered this data over a period of a few weeks or months, analyze the positive and negatives and decide upon some changes you will make to allow your website to perform better. By regularly checking your visitor statistics, you can stay always up to date with the changing wants and needs of the user, and help you stay on top of your game.

Hopefully the information above can help you create the most amazing website, that succeeds in every way possible. Consider every aspect of the users wants and needs at each stage of the design and implementation process, as they should be your main focus throughout. Be ready to put in the work and stay on top of maintaining the site after its completion by carrying out regular rigorous testing, and you can ensure that your site makes it to the top and stays there for as long as possible. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy yourself. The web is an amazing place to network with other like minded individuals and show off your skills, so switch on your laptop and get creating.