Starting a new website can be a daunting process, but at the same time, it’s a great opportunity. You’ve got a blank canvas, and you can do whatever you like with it.
However, there are some key principles you will want to follow, and these can make a big difference to the success of your website.
Keep It Simple
Think of your website from the perspective of the user. They want to be able to find information quickly and easily take their desired action on your page. The more you complicate things, the more difficult this is for your visitors.
It’s often tempting to add all these capabilities to your site, but most often, simplicity is the most effective way to go. When you’re adding things like plugins, ask yourself if they are really necessary, and choose simplicity over complexity.
Mobile Experience
The majority of traffic today comes from mobile devices. This means that if your site doesn’t provide a good mobile experience, then it’s going to alienate a huge chunk of your audience.
Because we tend to build our websites on a desktop, it’s much easier to forget to optimize it for mobile. However, this can seriously damage the ability of your site to connect with its users.
As an internet marketing agency such as Click Intelligence will tell you, Google now uses mobile-first indexing, which means it looks at the mobile version of your page when judging where it should rank. This means that if you want to rank organically, you’ve got to be providing a good mobile experience.
Focus on Speed
Load speeds are vitally important for getting your visitors to engage with your site. Every extra second your page takes to load, your bounce rate will increase, and this means fewer people interacting with your content.
You work hard to bring people to your site, so you don’t want to lose them before they even take a look at your content. If you keep your load speeds fast, then you’ve got a better shot at keeping people’s attention for longer.
Easy to Navigate
You don’t want people to come to your site, look at one page, and then leave. Instead, you want them to spend time exploring the entire website.
To encourage this, your site needs to be easy to navigate. It must be laid out in a logical way, with easy-to-use navigation bars that get people clicking around the site. To help you with this, it’s best to have a clear picture of your site structure from the very beginning and build around that.
Be Consistent
Consistency is key when creating a website.
In many ways, you’re creating a brand, and this needs to look the same throughout the website. A successful website and a successful brand aren’t built overnight; and instead, they take consistency and commitment.
A website is an investment in the future, but you’ve got to be consistent in your efforts if you’re going to receive the rewards.
Banner Illustration by Pawel Olek
