3 Ground Rules to Creating the Ultimate Professional Website

Have a Minimalistic Layout

We’re living in a social-driven world, and the increasing prominence of social media and the internet is rewiring our brains and adapting the way we think, read and process information. Before, having a website overstuffed with information was fine, this is no longer the case. Now, businesses should incorporate a more minimalistic approach when it comes to designing their website; freeing it from clutter and making it easier to process and understand. Why? Because when Microsoft conducted a study in 2015, it revealed that we now have an attention span of eight seconds (that’s shorter than a goldfish, which has an attention span of nine seconds).

We rarely read every word on a website. Instead, we like bitesize chunks of information, pictures and videos. Content is no longer large blocks of text; instead, information is usually divided into sections with sub-headings. The more manageable your website is, the person perusing your site is more likely to continue reading and navigating through your website, and they’re much more likely to remember what it is you do and/or sell.

Create Easy Navigation

You want your customers to easily navigate from one page to the other. If they cannot easily find what it is they are looking for, then they’ll simply abandon your website and turn to a competitor. Usually, websites will have a single navigation bar at the top of their website, with relevant tabs. For example, if it’s a website for an online retail store, then they would probably have ‘New In,’ ‘Clothing,’ ‘Shoes,’ ‘Bags & Accessories,’ with some added seasonal tabs such as ‘Christmas’ or ‘New Year’s.’ All websites should, however, have a ‘Contact Us’ tab and an ‘About Us.’

To improve the user-friendliness of your website, have simple, readable font and complementary colours. Also experiment with the order of your menu, until it makes the most logical sense. For example, ‘About Us’ is usually first, then ‘Services’ second, and ‘Contact Us’ last.

Produce Easy-to-Read Content

The readability of your website is dependent on your on-site content. You need to carefully select every word, sentence and phrase, and ensure the layout of every section of text makes sense. When your website’s readability is high, then users can scan your site effectively without much effort. Creating high readability, however, is much more than merely creating copy. You need to make sure that the contrast between your text and background is clear and inoffensive to the reader; that all fonts are of a good size (they should be 16pts upwards), and that your font is generally in the Sans Serif family.

When it comes to on-site content, everything article or block of text should add something of value, through clear and concise descriptions and explanations. All copy should be in-depth (Google Panda targeted ‘thin’ content), user-friendly, unique, trustworthy and implement SEO. You’ll need to place relevant and organic keywords into your text, and your website should have a blog where you regularly post copy on relevant topics. By doing so, you are showing that your business is authoritative and reliable.

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