They say,” don’t judge a book by its cover,” but when we see a bad website, we question that business’s authority, credibility, and professionalism. Keeping your website current, aesthetically pleasing, and up to date will increase website traffic, decrease the bounce rate, and keep people browsing. We want nothing more than for small businesses to impress and thrive, so we’re going to go over some quick tips and DIY tricks to show you how to keep your website trendy.
Keep it Clean & Simple
The viewer should be able to clearly understand what your business is in a matter of seconds. Lengthy paragraphs and multiple areas to click on might make it harder for your audience to digest and remember, so be sure to keep your home page minimalistic and free of clutter. Here are some tips for making your homepage clean, simple, and easy to comprehend:
- Keep important information at the top. People should be able to understand what your business is all about first and foremost.
- Create more space by minimizing content to small phrases and easily-digestible information. Blank or white areas can make the website feel less cluttered.
- Add imagery. A picture says a thousand words, right? As we’ve mentioned earlier, visual communication is powerful. Adding high-quality images can help get your point across quickly, with more emotion (making it even more memorable).
- Include a call-to-action button, but don’t overdo it with multiple choices and options for these actions. Appeal to the viewer’s decreasing attention span and give them emotions that will lead them to where you want them to go.
Maintain the Visual Hierarchy
This is another way you can display your content in a simple and effective aesthetic, and how you lead crumbs for your viewers to follow. Keeping your website current also means keeping it current with your business goals— these visual hierarchies might change quarterly depending on the business and marketing status.
- Size & weight: Highlight your top assets (like your logo, name, etc.) by making them larger, bolder, or more prominent. This is where the eyes will be drawn to.
- Color & contrast: This is the second easiest way to highlight any content you want to emphasize. Playing with contrasting colors will make the content stand out from the rest.
- Typography hierarchy: Just like the size & weight, this helps organize the order of importance with your content. Think title, subheading, body.
- Spacing & Alignment: Space out your content, and keep alignment and proximity consistent to make any content or objects more aesthetically easier to identify.
- Leading lines: Control the viewer’s eye by using marks to connect or direct.
Make it Easy to Navigate
We know there’s so much for you to say, and so many opportunities for your audience to get involved with your CTA’s, but make sure to keep it clean and simple by staying organized with easy navigation. Here are some quick tips that will improve your user experience:
- Have your logo link to the homepage of your website
- Make sure your website menu is easy to find and is structured in order of importance. You may also want to think about a vertical menu so you can offer an easy “jump to this section” option for longer pages.
- Include important information in your footers. Even though it might be the last thing seen on your website, be sure to include that order of importance we talked about earlier, and recap the necessities, like your contact information, social media handles, newsletter sign-up options, or other informative links.
What type of phone do you have? Keeping your website current also means it needs to harmonize with mobile options. Mobile web traffic amounts for 52% of GLOBAL web traffic. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly (takes too long to load, isn’t easy to navigate, etc.), you could have a good chance of doubling your traffic, leads, and sales once you mobilize your website.
Take Action
If you’re not able to make these changes and stay on top of your own website, let Rogue Wave Marketing help clean-up your website and create a successful campaign to drive traffic during your relaunch. If you’re looking for more tips on marketing for your business, let’s connect to see if you’d be interested in marketing coaching.
