When we first began our Website Design and Social Media business our biggest struggle was to convince people they didn’t have to tell the world EVERYTHING about their business right there on the home page. Sometimes it’s still difficult for our clients to find a balance between just enough information and information overload.
When you put too many words on the home page, people tend to get overwhelmed and simply move on to the next site. So what should you do? We think it’s important to emphasize key parts of your business upfront. There should also be high-quality images that reflect your business model and let potential clients know what your company is all about.
All the photos used on your website design should also be optimized so they don’t cause your website to open too slowly. If a website takes too long to load, not only does it frustrate people who are looking for your information, it will cause the internet to lower your rankings.
About 79% of web searches are now performed on Tablets or Smart Phones. If your site is not built to resize itself according to fit the dimensions of the viewing screen, it will look terrible and probably once again cause people to go elsewhere.
Please, please, please, don’t use red and black as your website theme. Black accents here and there are fine, but that ’90s thing of building a website with a heavy black background is just simply hard on the eyes. What makes it worse is a site with a black background and RED lettering. Red lettering will tend to strobe on most screens. If you’re only looking to provide an experience rather than to attract new customers, then I guess a black and red theme is fine, otherwise, just don’t do it.
Playing music or a video on the home page is another no-no. Just don’t do it.
What are some things you should do?
The number one thing to do is put your phone number up right on the home page. Do not make people search for a way to get in touch with you.
Next, make it easy for people to find your contact information. And if your move, change the address on your website. That one really makes people angry when they quickly look up your site to get directions and end up at the wrong address.
Update the photos of staff members. If you still have photos of people on your site who actually left the company several years ago, take those down. Put up the photos of the new staff members along with a short bio.
Update your site regularly. Post some content relevant to your business or to businesses you work with. Keep it looking fresh and interesting. Remember, this is a visual medium and if things look old and stale, people will not be attracted.
Make certain that posts and photos are categorized with the keywords people use to find your type of business on the web. Too many amateurs and even professional web designers let their websites default to Uncategorized. I can assure you that absolutely no one is searching for that category.
If you would like us to build you a high-performance, state-of-the-art website, give us a call or message us on Facebook, and we will get you going!
Your Social Cindy Web team
