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What makes for a good website? If you
answer is “I know it when I see
it”, read on. Website design and development is more than that It’s
more than simple good looks.
Build your
website with UX in top-of-mind
A website isn’t just about words, images,
font selection and layout. It needs to be easy to navigate. A good User
Experience (UX) means visitors can quickly move from page to page and easily find
what they need. Oftentimes, a website with a cleaner, simpler design works
best, even if you’d like layer it with a lot of whiz-bang, fun-to-look-at
stuff. In short, you don’t want to confuse visitors. If your site is hard to
navigate, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll leave and find your
competitor’s.
Get back to
the basics
Make it easy for visitors to get your
contact info, address, directions, et al. And make contact forms simple and
short; otherwise, you can forget about many getting filled out. Also, is the
form easy to understand? Do all the links work? Do the pages load quickly?
These are all-too-common mistakes that aren’t terribly difficult to fix.
Mobile
Friendly
According to a number of research studies
on the topic, searches from mobile phones account for anywhere from 55% to 65%
of online searches. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, you might have
slashed your visitors in half. However, just because you can view your website
on your smart phone doesn’t necessarily mean it’s mobile friendly. You can
quickly check it here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly. Simply plug in your URL and hit
“Analyze”. Google will let you know. Here’s a hint: if you have to use your
fingers to stretch the view, it’s probably not mobile friendly.
Use your
Resources
Ask friends and family to navigate your
website, then provide honest feedback. If you’ve looked at something long
enough, it’s tough to be objective and truly gauge the user experience. Hopefully
friends and family won’t have the same problem. And if mom only compliments
your work, find somebody else to look at it. Again, you want honest feedback.
Here’s your best bet
Talk to professionals who have years of empirical experience designing websites with the user experience in mind. d2 Designs, D/FW’s most innovative digital marketing agency, creates, executes and manages multi-marketing solutions for customers with a focus on brand engagement that optimizes the digital experience through traditional media, social media, lead gen and key analytics, e-commerce and experiential events. Check us out at d2.designs, or email us at info@d2.design. We’d love to hear from you.