HOMEPAGE WEB DESIGN ADVICE

Home Page Advice

It’s common sense that the home page is the most important page on your web site. Most of your new visitors will enter your site through the home page. Your main priority for the home page is to make sure it gives new visitors a great first impression of your site and business. If you fail with your first impression, a lot of visitors will leave and most likely never to return.

Below are a few tips on how to make a great first impression with your home page.

The First 3 Seconds Count The Most

You only have about three seconds to give your new visitors a great first impression of your site and business. If the visitor is not impressed, they may leave your site forever and not return. Everyone knows first impressions matter. Many studies of human behaviour have shown that we decide if we like or not like something, or someone, in the first few seconds we are presented with it.

Site Identity

Your home page must quickly convey:

• Website name
• What the website is about

Main Navigation

The primary navigational cues on a website are usually the links at the very top of each page. They give a quick overview of the website's content. The links should link to the main categories of the web site and be worded in such a way that they are all self-explanatory.

Many people confuse the primary navigational links with the local navigation links. Local navigation links are links to web site pages within a category and are usually displayed on the left side of sub-pages

Fresh Content

You should offer fresh content on your website at a regular interval as we are in the information age. This will encourage people to return to your website on a regular basis.

New content should always be promoted on the home page and in the blog.

The Importance Of Search

A search engine is one of the most popular functions on any web site, which is why it is so popular to see search functionality on the home page. Your websites search engine should only search your site, not other websites around the Web, unless that is exactly the service you're providing your users.

 Advertising

Websites that rely on advertising to bring in sales need to have prime space set aside for its sponsors. Usually,  the best real estate is usually on the home page and "above-the-fold" (visible without having to scroll down the page).

Even though you may need to show adverts, the home page has to still download quickly.

For more information on web design Melbourne and online marketing, get in touch with Whiteblack Digital on 1300 559 971 or info@whiteblackdigital.com.au. 

GREAT WEB DESIGN TIPS

Design Tips

Easy-to-use Web sites don't just suddenly create themselves over-night. You must focus on its potential users from the start, and checking at each step of the development with its intended users to be sure they will like and be comfortable with the final design.

 

Create a Clear Visual Hierarchy

Organize and prioritize the page contents by using size, prominence and content relationships.

• Size: The more important a headline is, the larger its font size should be. This is often referred to at the H1. Big bold headlines help to grab the user's attention as they scan the Web page for information.
• Prominence: The more important the headline or content, the closer to the top of the page it should be placed. The most important or popular content should always be positioned prominently near the top of the page, so users can view it without having to scroll too far down the web page.
• Content Relationships: Group similar content types by displaying the content in a similar visual style, or in a clearly defined area so users become familiar of what to look for. 

Break Up Pages into Defined Areas

Recent studies have shown that Internet users decide which part of a page are most likely to be of interest to them and ignore the rest.

Experience tells us where advertising banners and buttons are usually positioned on a Web page and we have learned to ignore those parts of the page as though they do not exist.

It is not recommend to include hidden advertisements with content. This may seem like a clever marketing ploy, and it does improve click though rates however users will get frustrated if they constantly end up on an advertiser's Web site, when they thought a link leads to more free information.

 

Use Standard Conventions

It’s always best to try following standard conventions. A convention that has been developed on the Internet over time is having the navigation bar at the top or left side of the page.

It does make more sense to have the main navigational hyperlinks on the right side of the page next to the scroll bar. This way, we wouldn't have to play tennis with our mouse. However, somebody had the bright idea of adding the main navigation links to the left side of the page and then other Web site designers had an even brighter idea of copying it! If you tried to change this convention by placing the main navigational links anywhere else, it could easily confuse most users and look wrong.

Other standard Internet conventions include:

• Blue underlined hyperlinks
• Breadcrumb trails
• Bottom of page navigation text links

For more information on web design Melbourne and online marketing, get in touch with Whiteblack Digital on 1300 559 971 or info@whiteblackdigital.com.au.

IMPROVE YOUR WEB DESIGN

Usability is often defined as ‘a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use.’ There are certain best web design practices that promote ease of use, an excellent retention rate and high end-user satisfaction. Below are five tips to help you with better usability on your website:.Intuitive navigation

There are certain design principles that every designer will follow no matter which company or industry their client is from. Navigation learned behaviour – users want to move from website to website seamlessly and find the information they require very quickly and easily. It is best practice that users only ever have to navigate three levels to find the information they require.

Easy to read content

Writing for the web is different to print media. Generally, people often have more time to read a magazine or a book than view websites. Website content and copy needs to be concise, use plain English and the active voice. Writing for the web best practices to increase readability on a website includes:

• Use of headings.
• Small paragraphs (ideally one idea per paragraph).
• Bullet points
• Writing text in pyramid style (from most important copy to least important).
• Excellent use of white space and visuals to break up text and make it easier to read.
• Internal linking to direct visitors to other pages for more information.
• Using visual information such as a flowchart.

Better quality images

Clear and large images are another way to facilitate usability on your website. A great example is a hotel website may display images of the hotel rooms, the facilities, the foyer and the location. A big part of booking a hotel room is the use of visual imagery to tell a story about a hotel in images as well as words. It is common to add an image gallery to a website.

Good use of white space

When it comes to white space less is definitely more. The use of whitespace often gives your website harmony and allows your visitors to absorb the contents on the page. Depending on the design aesthetic you are trying to achieve and the target market, the use of white space can also add a certain sophistication and elegance to your website.

Faster loader times

Google has long recognised that a faster loading time promotes usability on a website. Google has introduced page speed (how quickly a website responds to web requests) as a new signal in their search ranking algorithms. The Search Engine has done research on page speed and their findings show that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time on the site. There are plenty of ways to increase your site speed such as optimising image sizes.

For more information on web design Melbourne and online marketing, get in touch with Whiteblack Digital on 1300 559 971 or info@whiteblackdigital.com.au.

WEB DESIGN – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

One of the keys to success in any business is knowing who your customers are and how to position your products or services so that they are of interest to them. Fans of the TV show starring Donald Trump - The Apprentice - will recall the product development episode where each team conducts a series of focus groups to find out what their potential clients are looking for.

Focus groups such as ‘user testing’ helps you identify new ways to package your product or service so that it's of interest to your clients and potential clients. They are also a great way of testing your product or service, marketing messages and unique-selling-proposition within a safe group of people representative of your client groups.

When designing your website, knowing your clients and what the unique selling propositions are that will help them make informed purchasing decisions is going to be crucial to the success of your website.  Most businesses find that in identifying their clients they can group them together by interest, location, type, demographic, purchases, age or gender and then target their marketing messages towards these different groups thus increasing their conversion ratios and sales.

When we are working with a client on their website or web design our first questions are always around their clients and what they are looking for. We will often help identify different personas, or types of client, that we can build user stories around as this helps us to design a website that meets the users needs. It also helps us to better understand crucial areas of a website which can have multiple marketing messages and how best to present them so as to maximise the return.

Understanding our clients customers helps us to design the best user journey through the website and ensuring that we're making it as easy as possible for them to make en enquiry, a purchase or download a PDF.

 Be the best at one thing, rather than average at many

It's very easy to get caught into the trap of trying to offer something for everyone. The reality of this strategy is that at best, you will most likely only be average at everything and offer your clients very little in terms of quality. A far better strategy is to use your client research to identify what you are really great at and how best to present this to your clients.

For more information on web design Melbourne, SEO, online marketing, get in touch with Whiteblack Digital on 1300 559 971 or info@whiteblackdigital.com.au.