How does your business deal with change occurring online? We have written several articles about adaptation and change. There has been tremendous change online since the advent of the internet, yes? And the amount of change in this arena and in consumer response, while still in its infancy, continues to accelerate. So it is essential to adapt the online presence of your business to these changes with some sustainable development goals for your website design.
Have you ever wondered what makes a website truly great? So great that traffic is high, people are engaging with demand are off the charts, and many new customer relationships being built. The simple objective … turn marketing into content, not content into marketing.
How often do you find a new website that makes you stop and stare? It screams to you that it is a modern-day masterpiece. The aesthetic and user experience are off the charts. It’s new, innovative, and, frankly makes you wish you could design a web site for your business with all the great features of the one you are looking at.
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Think about what makes it stand out to you? Is it a beautiful, award-winning graphic design? A killer SEO strategy? Its interactive, cutting-edge user experience? Or is it simply tied to the amount of monetary investment? The bigger the budget, the better the website, right?
The heart of most marketing campaigns has been the website. The biggest problem with most websites however is that they are instantly forgettable. They say the same thing as your competitors. You see two possible results from this problem. The first is that most customers will quickly lose interest and click away from the site. The second is that, if they stay, they’ll find no reason to select you, because there’s no discriminating message. They click away with no reason to return.
So what is the magic of creating a potentially eye catching web site? Consider these 9 website design goals to build your marketing strategies around:
Make content a priority
Build your entire website design around your content. No exception. Make it efficient, accessible, and searchable. Make the interface easily adaptable for multiple platforms.
When starting a web project, many think about whom we are, what’s special about us, and how we should communicate our unique selling points.
But our readers aren’t interested in us, our business, and our products
They just want to know what’s in it for them.
Take the time to grab insights of all types from your customers. What keeps them up at night, both professionally and personally? What will they be worrying about at the time of your talk? Maybe they’re more concerned about what to have for lunch?
The center piece of your design should be the element of simplicity. This design goal interacts with most other of the design goals, so a change here will make improvements in other goals.
Sustainable development … clear description
Many websites fail to clearly and easily answer “Who I am,” “What I do,” and/or “What can you (the visitor) do here.”
If you’re a well-known brand or company (i.e. Apple for example) you can probably get away with not having to describe who you are and what you do; but the reality is, many enterprise businesses still need to answer these questions so that each visitor knows they are in the “right place.” If visitors can’t identify what it is you do or where to go to find what they need within seconds, they won’t stick around long.
Sustainable development goals … user centered design
With your design you should always take a user centered point of view. Employ good storytelling. Make the design scalable for easy additions later. And of course the navigation design should be intuitive … little thinking required.
All elements of your design should focus on mobile users, it is where all users are moving. Find a mobile app style and interface to imitate. It will simplify user experience for now and into the future.
Sustainable development … unification
Use consistency in both desktop and mobile design elements. This will reinforce your design simplicity and help make apps the center piece of your design.
Website design goals … responsiveness
User centered web fonts, typography, and icons are becoming widespread. Stick close to these pseudo standards and make your site as responsive as you can.
Embrace lots of new platforms
Experiment with new and different platforms as they are introduced. Make sure your interface design permits compatibility.
Remember … don’t talk about how great you are … tell your customers a story about how what you do well will make them look awesome.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer engagement and relationship building performance and creativity.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your customer service?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
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