Websites can look like anything, and it’s easy to get inspiration from so many different places. When designing your personal or business website, it’s important to keep the look and feel of your existing social media platforms in mind, especially Facebook and Twitter.
These are the most popular social media platforms out there, and they’re easy to connect with existing audiences on. If you’re looking to expand your social media reach, you can use tools like Growthoid to automatically post to multiple platforms, engaging with your audience and boosting your digital footprint.
The look of your website will depend on many factors, such as your budget and the style of your business. But there are certain guidelines you can follow to achieve a cohesive look across your various platforms.
Here are a few tips for making your website look polished and professional.
Pick a Theme
The look of your website can be streamlined if you use a pre-made theme, which is why you’ll often find big brands using templated website builders like WordPress or Wix to create their online stores. The benefit of using a theme is that you don’t need to worry about the design aspect, as it’s already taken care of. This makes your life as a designer a lot easier, as you don’t need to spend as much time on the minutiae of web design (such as picking out the perfect font, matching the colors, and doing all the little things that make a website look unique and custom-made).
The downside is that you’ll be limited to the choices the theme manufacturer offers, and the chances of having a unique and custom look are slim to none. Fortunately, there are a few ways around this issue. First, you can buy a theme from a reputable company with a good follow-up support team. Second, you can use a tool like Elementor to create a fully custom website, using any pre-made theme you like. The benefit of this is that you have full control over the design and can incorporate your own branding, colors, and images to make it look unique and custom-made.
Use Quality Photos
The images on your website will dramatically affect how your site is received by your visitors, so it’s important to invest in good-quality photos. The best photo quality smartphone cameras make taking high-quality images a snap, and having them automatically organized and stored is also made easy by sophisticated software like Photoshelter.
Pro photographers and graphic designers can also produce amazing imagery for your website, but be sure to work with someone who is confident in designing websites, as well as taking photos. If you’re looking for a company to help put a fresh face on your next conference or event, check out these top event photographers or event graphic designers.
Keep it minimal
The less you have on your website, the better. Visiting a website with too many distracting elements is a pain and can cause you to lose focus on what’s important to you. In general, you shouldn’t put too much text on your website, as it will make it harder for your readers to navigate and absorb the content you’re offering.
The exception to this is if you’re writing a lengthy blog post. In this case, you may want to use some large typefaces to attract more visitors and make the content easier to digest. As a general rule, keep the number of links on your site to a minimum, as too many links can also cause your site to lose its minimalistic look.
Use A/B Testing
Website owners who have a bit of marketing know-how will often run an A/B test, where they split their site traffic into two distinct groups and change a few aspects of the site (such as the copy on the homepage or the design of the contact page) to see which version of the site performs best. It’s always a good idea to do some A/B testing with your website, as this can help you determine the best version of your site, as well as give you some great data to work with.
If you decide to go with option A, you can use Google Analytics to track the results of your experiment, as well as identify the changes that helped improve your site’s performance. You then have the option of incorporating these improvements into your existing site or using them to create a better version of the site for your next experiment.
Make sure your content is relevant
If you’re writing articles for your website, you need to make sure they’re relevant to your target audience. The keyword research phase of content marketing will help you find the best keywords and phrases to incorporate into your content. Once you have your list of keywords, you can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner to find the monthly search volume for each keyword.
The next step is to analyze the competition for each keyword, as this will give you a better understanding of how fierce the competition is for each keyword. You can use free tools like Google Trends to easily get this information, as well as compare these numbers to find the keywords that are currently the most in demand.
Take a look at the competition figures for the keywords “web design,” “web developer,” and “webmaster” to see what I mean. These keywords have extremely high search volumes and are extremely competitive, which means that it’s very likely that your target audience will be searching for information about these topics.
Make sure your CTA is easy to find
A call-to-action (CTA) is an element of a website that encourages the user to take an action (such as making a purchase, subscribing to a mailing list, or signing up for a blog post or webinar).
The goal of a CTA is to draw the user’s attention to the specific action you’re encouraging them to take. You can also use CTAs to lead users to a specific point in your site, which is why they’re often located at the end of a blog post or on a contact page. If you have more than one CTA, make sure that your visitor knows which one is the best choice for them.
Tone of Voice
The tone of your site will depend on the nature of your business. If you have an informal and friendly demeanor, you may want to go with a tongue-in-cheek tone. For example, if you’re a luxury goods company, you may want to have a fun blog post about luxury lifestyle or something along those lines. You could even poke fun at yourself in the blog post, which would make it more relatable and engaging.
If you have an information-based website, you may want to use a more instructional tone. Instructional websites often come in the form of a how-to guide, where you step users through the various parts of a process (such as how to bake a cake or how to write a press release).
To keep your site simple and easy to navigate, you can keep the language straightforward and use concrete language (such as “insert noun here”).
Make sure to update frequently
Your website is a reflection of your company’s current state of affairs. As a result, it should be updated frequently with relevant content. Ideally, you’ll want to put some time aside each week to update your site with new content. If you don’t, you may find that your site starts to look a little bit dull and unappealing to your visitors.
To keep your site interesting, you may want to switch up the content you’re posting on a regular basis. This will help maintain an active interest in your site’s content and make it more relevant to your target audience.
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