Your website can work for or against your mission, whether you’re an entrepreneur with a product to sell or simply looking to build your personal brand. With a mission that is clearly defined and presented throughout your website, you’re sure to find an increase in your website’s effectiveness.
Follow these six tried and true tips to help you in the process of increasing the effectiveness of your website:
1. Know Your Audience
It’s easy to get caught up in customizing the aesthetic details of your website. However, it is imperative to remember that the design is not for your benefit but for those who will be frequenting your site. The best question to ask yourself is “what can this site do for my customer?” Don’t get so caught up in design that you lose the functionality that your audience needs. Determine the demographics and makeup of your audience and plan your site so it becomes an easy and quick place for them to navigate.
2. Answer Common Questions
To further assist you in providing a useful site to your audience, be sure to include answers to the most common problems or questions you receive regarding services or products you provide. This FAQ page should be easily accessible from the home page and should only include those questions which are truly asked often. For help in creating an effective FAQ page, check out this great article by Garrett Moon.
3. Make it Available in Multiple Languages
As the demographics you are trying to reach surely involve many different cultural backgrounds, you’ll want to make sure you can speak to your customers in a language they understand—literally. This means having your site translated. At the very least, if you are based in an area with a heavy concentration of Spanish-speakers, your site should be available in this ever-increasingly popular language. There are numerous translation companies that specialize in website and marketing translations. Be warned: more often than not, no translation is better than a bad translation. Be sure that your translators have experience in your niche.
4. Choose a Defining Color-scheme
Colors speak volumes, so choose wisely. Decide what it is that you want your customers to feel when they come to your site, whether it is security, friendliness or an increased appetite. You’re missing a great opportunity to quickly influence visitors if you ignore the psychology of color. Steer clear of putting out too many colors at once, though, as too much can confuse the customer and drive them away from the site. Think simple, clean and purposeful.
5. Include Actionable Statements
The call to action, or CTA, buttons on your website are one of the most important features speaking to your audience. Call to action buttons include everything from “Donate Now” to “Proceed to Checkout” and serve as a targeted guide for the customer, pointing them in the direction of what they can physically “do” on your site. These buttons use simple, definitive statements and should actually look like buttons. Fahad Muhammad has some great tips for creating effective CTA buttons that will do the work for you.
6. Evaluate
As your website progresses and the updates go live, figure out a way to measure and evaluate the success of the changes you’ve made. You can do this through a variety of measurements, such as the number of clicks your updated CTA buttons are receiving or the number of views that result in clicks and purchases. As you gain more information on what is and is not working for your audience, you’ll be better able to make adjustments accordingly.
Follow these six tips, and you’ll be well on your way to a website that is dynamic, fresh and effective.
Kate Wilson
Kate Wilson is a freelance writer and blogger who focuses on helping others do great work. While her initial career plan may have been writing the next Great American Novel, she finds that improving the dialogue surrounding career development and personal growth makes her just as happy.
Follow Me:
