It only takes the average viewer 5 seconds of landing on your website to decide whether or not your website is worth exploring. When a visitor lands on your website, can they immediately tell what it is your company does? Are they able to easily navigate to and from different pages if they need to? If your layout easy to understand and follow? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when determining whether or not your website is functional.
How can you truly optimize your website and make sure your visitors are getting the most out of it? A website needs more than just a pretty landing page. It needs a design that flows, has user-friendly experiences, and of course—is functional and easy-to-navigate.
So what should you do to make sure your website is functional and easy-to-navigate? Here are 5 steps to take when designing your brand’s website, so you can assure your visitors are always coming back for more!
5 Steps to Take When Designing Your Brand’s Website
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Create a plan
Before anything, you have to have a plan. To ensure you are making the most effective website, you must map out what it is that is important to your audience. The experience should be at the forefront from the initial time they are visiting your website, until they decided they’ve seen all they need. Think about the pages you’ll need to include, the content you’ll be creating, and a call-to-action.
One important thing to keep in mind is this: with functionality, it’s all about making sure you answer the right questions in the right order. This will be the initial start of designing a functional and easy-to-navigate website.
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Remove the unnecessary
Don’t be afraid of white space! What does that mean?! Not every part of your website needs to be filled with content and wording. An overload of these kind of elements will distract your viewer from the overall message you are trying to get across. Using complicated gifs and images also contribute to this. You must create a good first impression that will immediately tell the story of your brand to get your audience to truly stick around and browse your website even longer.
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Social share buttons are essential
There’s truly nothing like a business that utilizes social media and makes sure to include it on their website. Not only should you be producing exceptional content, but you should also give your audience the option to share that amazing content. Many functional websites include their social share buttons which in turn helps them generate even more social media traffic.
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Images, images, images!
Images are key, especially since a lot of people tend to view before reading. Find ways to incorporate genuine imagery onto your website. You want to make sure you’re portraying the most realistic message to your audience about your brand. Utilizing lots of stock images won’t portray who or what your brand truly is and may even deter your audience away.
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Make it make sense
If your website doesn’t make sense, then simply stated—it is neither functional or easy-to-navigate. Creating a website is almost like writing a short book or film. You have to start with a story that makes sense from the beginning to the end. This is also true with website design. Making sure your website flows and makes sense to your brand and your audience is essential is creating a functional website.
Designing a functional and easy-to-navigate site takes lots of time and attention to detail. The next time you decide that it’s time for you to spruce up your site and give it some remodeling, make sure to follow these 5 tips on how to design a functional and easy-to-navigate website.
