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7 Web Design Tactics to Connect with Your Audience

For any brand, their website is nothing short of a public face. A good website is effective in creating a great first impression and making your mark virtually, whereas a bad one can just leave clients/visitors high and dry.

It is, therefore, important to create a website that is not just eye-catching but also well-organized and easy to use. Such a website should go a long way in connecting you with existing and potential clients.

An ideal website requires the use of several stunning colours and outstanding templates that attract users to them. Apart from that, users should also be able to navigate it easily. Support it with great content, and you’ve hit a home runs!

As you may already know, websites are a potent marketing tool for business promotion. To make it work optimally, you will need to focus on constantly improving its visual appeal, accessibility, user-friendliness and functionality.

Getting all these factors to work together can be rather difficult. Figuring out the perfect design can leave many website designers perplexed.

Here are a few factors which can help.

1. Plan Better

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This is the stage which calls for you to carefully consider every aspect of the website design in order to enable it to function better. Think about the site maps and the wireframes. At the time of creating a website, you should take into account the flow of the content and the ease with which the user is able to find what he’s looking for.

It is advisable to start developing the sitemap first, as that will help you design the website with a specific purpose and plan the entire content. The wireframe will help you focus on the architecture of your website – one page at a time.

Do make sure your plans related to the website’s framework and placing the content are realistic and have them finalized before getting to the design phase to ensure maximum efficiency.

2. Work with Your Developers

While you will obviously be working closely with your team of web designers, do not ignore your developers and their feedback. Listening to your developers will help you in 2 ways –

i.            It will lead to a better understanding of how your design decisions affect the production process. The better you comprehend the implication of your design on the site’s construction. The superior your designs will be. It will also lead to better utilization of the project’s budget.

ii.            You will be able to fill in the blanks. Whether it is designing the error messages for the various forms, an email template for messages generated through the site, or the numerous links and useful buttons, you won’t miss out on a thing as your developer will look out for these factors.

3. Improve Usability

All the detailed planning and the hours spent with your designers and developers will go to waste if the end result turns out to be something that renders minimal functionality and usability.

Usability is one of the most important aspects of a successful website design. By paying attention to this element, you can ensure that your website is not just visually appealing but also practical and easy to steer through. Don’t be surprised if some of your most creative ideas start to seem irrelevant once you ponder over how the site will be used.

4. Optimize It

Optimizing the website for search engines is an absolute must. However, you may need more than just your website designer’s expertise to do so. Do not hesitate to engage the services of a professional. Some SEO firms provide excellent value for money, and many individuals employ them for outsourcing solutions, so they can focus on more important things.

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is about creating high-quality content which appeals to online readers as well as search engine crawlers, increases the number of citations from reputed websites and popularizes the website, as such. Such activities should lead to a higher rating of the website in search engine results, lending it that much more credibility.

5. Meet the Business Needs

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When working with clients, make sure you hear them out clearly and focus on fulfilling their business needs from the website. Avoid using their projects as your own creative playground.

Realize that your clients have certain business problems that need quick and functional solutions. This will help you create a reputation as someone who uses his creativity to solve real problems and not just someone who makes pretty but defunct designs.

6. Let’s Talk Results

In order to know where you stand, determine the lacunas in your work, and bring about improvement, you need to keep measuring your results. For this, you need to keep one eye on the analytics for the sites you create at all times.

There may be times when you may have been asked to design a website but not be involved in its development and launch phases, and you may not have been given any information related to its performance even after it goes live. It is, therefore, necessary to ask for access to the stats package your firm or your client’s firm uses.

This will enable you to stay abreast of the site analytics, which, in turn, will give you information about it. For example, you’ll get to know if the impressive button you designed for the client’s homepage is working as it is supposed to or not. Stats related to the traffic will let you know the number of people subscribing to the client’s mailing list so that you can act accordingly to improve the response.

Paying close attention to these stats is important if you want to measure the results and work on getting better.

7. Continue with the Improvements

Websites require proper upkeep. So if you thought your role would end with the creation of the website, you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, that is the start of something new. You’ll have to keep your website as relevant and appealing as possible by regularly adding original and high-quality content to it.

Additionally, you will also need to keep refining and improving your website and constantly promote it on social media. Do not make the mistake of sidelining the websites once they become live. Remember, out of sight is out of mind.

Conclusion

Website design plays a crucial role in the success of a website. Apart from attracting traffic, a good design can be instrumental in providing a pleasant experience to the users, keeping them engaged and coming back for more. It is also one of the main factors which will enable you to set your brand apart from the rest.

Author Bio: John Siebert is the President and CEO of Tranquil Blue – A Web Design Tampa Company that focuses on all kinds of website design, mobile app development and search engine marketing.