Building a strong online presence is key to growing your small or medium-sized business. It all starts with launching your website, but it’s important to continue to manage it effectively, generating traffic and growing your audience and client base. Whatever online journey you’re on, we’ve got lots of practical advice on how to set up your online presence this year.
Today we kick off a series of articles on how to create a successful online presence for small businesses. The first post is written by Michelle Schulp, a designer and frontend developer with a passion for UX design. Michelle is also one of SiteGround’s WordPress ambassadors. She has put together some great tips on how to create a great website that you can start applying right away even if you are not a designer.
When it comes to creating a website, the first question most people ask is: how lithuania mobile database can I improve the design? In many cases, hiring a designer is the best solution. With training in visual communication and problem-solving, a designer can bring a good return on investment.
But if you don’t have the budget for a designer, that’s okay. There are many aspects of design that you can learn to apply on your own.
The Power of Why: A Designer's Secret Weapon
Before we get into specific tips, it’s important to understand what design is. One of the biggest myths about design is that it’s about how a site looks. While it’s true that designers often use the “visual” as a tool, design is much more than just decoration. Before focusing on making a site look beautiful, designers focus on identifying and solving problems.
Design adds value by ensuring that all decisions are made with intention. The most important question a designer tries to answer is not how a site should look, but why something is being done. Designers don’t start with “What should this button look like?” but rather “Why do we have a button?” By gaining a clear understanding of the entire problem, they can come up with the right solution, including something creative that wouldn’t be possible if they only focused on superficial details.
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Know Your Goal: Defining Your Purpose and Call to Action
Now that you know the importance of Why in the design process, it's time to translate that knowledge into your site. To provide an ideal user experience for your customers, you need to be able to answer this question: why do people visit my site?
It seems simple, but the question can be tricky. When asked, many people will provide multiple answers: create an account, purchase a product, fill out a contact form, sign up for a newsletter. Yes, customers may have many options when it comes to interacting with your site, but there should always be one primary action that represents the true goal for your business.
For a store it could be purchasing a product, for a service provider it could be being able to contact the user again, for a social network it could be creating an account. This action should be considered as the primary objective and should be aligned with the objectives of your audience.
Of course, you may have multiple channels through which customers interact with you. As a product seller, you may have a forum and a shopping cart. These are considered secondary actions. They can have their own calls to action, but they should not distract from your primary goal. Having many options may seem helpful to give your customers more choice, but too many calls to action make it difficult for your customers to figure out how to interact with you.
Once you know your primary goal, you can start paying attention to calls to action. These can be as simple as an “Add to Cart” button or a “Sign Up Now” form, or they can be as complex as custom landing pages, created to convert different audiences. Be sure to evaluate each of these options to ensure that your primary goal is clear and that your language, content hierarchy, and design patterns will drive your customers to take action.
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