I’m going to give you 10 very simple steps. If you’re building your own website, or if you’ve hired a web developer to work on your website, these are very simple 10 steps that you can not bypass.
1. Add a Clear Call to Action
Number one is having a clear call to action on your website. Very simply put when the perfect visitor comes to your website, what do you hope to achieve and make sure that you can achieve that. This is a conversation I have with my web development clients and as simple of a question as it is, sometimes it’s difficult to answer. I want you to choose one major call to action and yes, of course, some services, some websites also have other call to actions, but choose one.
I want that to be front and center. I want that to be a part of your top hero image. I want it to be as clear as day upon the first time I see your website. What is it that you’re offering? Is it a service? Is it a product? Um, simple, easy to understand call to action with a click that sends you to the page that you want to send your user or your visitor to.
2. K.I.S.S
Number two is keep it simple, stupid. I do not need to bring out a calculator to decide which direction or which page I should view in order to find what I’m looking for. So keep it very simple and stupid use terminology and words that people understand. You’re building it for your user. Make it as simple as possible. Uh, very quickly. What do I mean top menu use words like home, about services, blog, shop, contact portfolio gallery.
I have some clients in though, right? Like instead of blog, they’ll put my daily diary of life. As I see it, I said, what, that’s the title of the menu bar it’s ridiculously long.
3. Add Images
And it’s number three is adding personality and stock imagery. I can go to our website right off the bat and say, Oh, stock stock, stock, stock stock. And then the next button I’m going to hit is the close button. I cannot take you seriously as a website, even the beginner website, if every image is stock, and if you’re going to use stock images, don’t let them look like stock images. Don’t cheap out. There’s certain things you can, you know, cut corners on. There’s other things you should not in business. Stock images are not the key. I have some clients that do renovation and they do good renovation. And when I ask them for portfolio pieces, they’ll say we didn’t have a good enough photographer.
So let’s just use stock images like any phone today in 2021 has a high enough quality that you can photograph with no background.
4. Keep it Consistent
Number four is consistency is the key to success. You’re trying to create a brand identity online. It has to be symmetrical fonts on every single page should remain. The same header should all be the same color and the same size buttons. If you have a call to action button, they should remain the same shape, the same color on every single page. Consistency.
5. Ease of Navigation
Number five is easy to navigate. We all liked the menu in the top. We all liked the menu in the footer. Simple, very simple, and we’re not breaking any rules. Uh, clients come into me all the time and say, Whoa, I like that new menu. With the three lines us, we call it a hamburger menu that is specifically for mobile devices.
You do not want that on a desktop. You want that on a mobile device. You’re trying to dumb down the number of clicks in order to find your contact and find your navigation and find your menu. So why would you want a hamburger there that they have to click on in order to see the navigation? Let the navigation sit where it’s supposed to sit at all times, make the navigation throughout your website. Very easy. So, I mean, if you have a picture, a text in a little button that links to a service page that you’re offering make the whole area linkable, not just the little button link, the picture, link the text, like the button, easy to navigate, easy for your user to find what they are looking for.
6. Use Keywords
Number six is used keywords throughout the site. Where do keywords come from? What the hell are words? Um, please look into it.
7. Contact Information
Number seven is easy to find contact information you need absolutely all the time. You need a contact page in the top right side of your menu. Not the left, not the middle top, right? That’s where everybody looks when looking for contact top right top right top, right? This should be no different contact. Information is vital for most companies. If you’re looking to generate leads and you want phone calls and you want people calling for price quotes, or you want to sell a product, guess what? Your users, your visitors, your potential clients are looking for your contact information.
8. 3 Click Maximum
Number eight is limit the number of clicks. Very simply put you want to dumb this down. Once again, you can build your website and now count the number of clicks it takes to let’s say, find your number one service, or to find your contact page. Meaning do I have to jump through hoops, run through fire, swim through an ocean full of sharks in order to find the page I’m looking for? Or can I simply look in the navigation one, click on your contact page because I’m in the web development business. I hear this all the time. Why I want to build a five-step process for checkout. Why the hell do you want to build a five-step process for checkout? Everyone else is doing it is doing it in three steps. Why do you want five? Why make this more difficult for your user? Big companies like Amazon?
You can very easily look at their checkout process, reverse engineer. It, you know, what’s working for them. They’re proven leaders in the industry. I’m sure there’s no doubt to that. Why do you want to do something more difficult than Amazon? Three step processes? The key to success, dumbed down the number of clicks that are required for your user to find what they’re looking for to purchase a product, to check out or to contact you or to find anything on your website.
9. Build Websites for your Customers – Not for You
Number nine has stopped building websites for yourself. Stop it. This website is not for you. You’re the owner. You’re the founder. You’re the creator. You’re the mastermind behind the business. I’ll give you all the credits that you deserve, but when it comes down to building the website, build it for your user. Don’t do not. Over-complicate your website. I don’t care if your favorite animal is a unicorn and your favorite colors are pink and purple polka dots with zebra, Stripe tiger. I do not want to see that on your website.
10. Use Statistics
Number 10 is follow your statistics. How do you know what’s working? And what’s not. If you’re not looking at statistics. So you’ve gone through this whole process. Either you build the website yourself, or you hired a developer to do it, or any combination of both, the website is live. You’re so happy. You built the website. This is the website of your dreams. You love it. You think it looks perfect. And now what? You just let it sit and hope that people are gonna find you. They’re not hiring you for your service or purchasing your product. Now what, well, guess what? You don’t have to start from scratch. Simply look at the statistics, install Google analytics, and understand the very basics of statistics. Follow stats, make improvements based on the stats that you see, and you’ll only get better. You’ll always get better. Don’t you want to get better? The answer is yes.