Marketing, sales, customer experience, business development—and there it is, at the center of it all—your website. Your website is the point where people come, learn about what you have to offer, and decide whether to stay and give you business or move on. That’s why it’s so important that your site is GOOD.
What makes for a good, effective website?
A website needs to do all the things you need it to do and it needs to do it well. That includes function, content, user experience, and visual design all wrapped into a solid, sound strategy.
Function
The function of your website is what can be done with it. Does the user find everything she expects to find on your website? Does she have the ability to learn more about your company, join your email list, or search for something? Do the functions on your website support your key goals as a business? Do your users do what you need them to do on your site?
Content
A website is only as good as its content. Think of a website as a book, and content as the book pages. A book without the pages is just a book cover. When we work with businesses, we like to establish what kind of content is needed as soon as possible, which gives us more time to work on that content. The questions that typically need to be answered here are: what are we trying to say/show? How do we want to come off as? What’s the best possible way to get to the point of what the user needs to do on the website? We like to think all of it through and create content that speaks the language of the audience.
User Experience
When we talk about user experience, we’re stepping in the shoes of the user and see what it’s like for her to use your website. Does she have trouble finding specific information about your services or products? Is the site difficult to use and does it leave her feeling frustrated or does it delight her and make her happy just thinking about how easy it was to find that one thing she was looking for? User experience is the equivalent of a customer’s experience when walking into a place of business. Do they have to walk around and jump over things that shouldn’t be there? Is there a leak on the ceiling and the floor is so creaky that they have trouble hearing their thoughts? Is there a person at the door greeting them or is he being shouted at by the clerk? All of these things can be translated into digital user experience. Make it simple to find, easy to use and a delight to experience.
Visual Design
The visual design of your website and brand is informed by who your target customer is and is there to translate information into bite-sized, easy-to-digest, nice to look at, bits of information. It’s how we communicate with our audience and how we show them what we want them to see. The visual elements that make up the look and feel of the website are colors, fonts, photos, illustrations, and even spacing and layout. In this case, branding and website design are interconnected in the way the visual language is made up, which is one of the reasons we like to work with companies from the very beginning—designing branding and then moving on to the website. It’s a more holistic approach that ensures an organic visual flow from branding to the website.
To summarize
A good website is the sum of its parts. Function, content, user experience, and visual design all influence how effective a site is at doing its job. When all of these aspects align, the website can support the efforts in all areas of the business.
