Good Website Design
Website design determines user experience, hence, is significant. Bad user experience will eat into traffic.
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- Load time – The layout, the visuals and design elements have a major say in how fast your website loads. Slow-loading websites are a major put off. Studies show that people wait for only 3-5 seconds for a page to load. If it doesn’t, they switch.
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- Layout – Very busy and complex layouts complicate the eye. How you structure your content also affects your ability to built trust. Important content should be visible at a glance; place it front and center. Having to click through repeatedly can get very annoying. Keep everything easily accessible.
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- Visuals, font and color schemes – It is advised that you do not use stock photography. Also, do not use too many visuals on page; it gives a cluttered look. Avoid premade templates; work with a designer to craft a design that reflects the motto and practices of your business. Small and excessively cursive font styles are hard to read. The color scheme you choose should not be too jarring and neither to dull. Keep the look and feel consistent throughout. Use colors strategically across your website with bolder colors for headlines.
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- Mobile optimization – Given the multi-functionality of smartphones, we use it for making phone calls, texting, chatting, checking emails and web browsing as well. Hence, responsiveness to mobile platforms is the watchword. Otherwise, you will have to setup and maintain two sites and it can get quite overwhelming.
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- Pop-up advertisements – Although you are looking to monetize your website with all those ads, it’s distracting if one suddenly pops up while you were engrossed in reading. If you must include ads, keep them in prominent places but not where they would interfere with other activity.
When designing your website, opt for design trends that will stand the test of time; those you won’t have to keep upgrading.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes care of the content aspect of your website. It is the SEO practices that get you exposure on search engines.
To start with, create rich content, that’s informative, easy to understand, authentic and reliable.
Instead of saying everything on one page, plan a particular topic for each page. Target a specific keyword for every page. This strategy helps because the search engine bots crawl from one page to the next when indexing websites.
Look up the list of high ranking keywords for your respective niche and include them in post-content and meta-tags. It should also be included in the title and Meta description. Keywords help your content to be found.
Break up your content so that it is easier to read. Use bullets and numbering. Use subheadings so that website visitors can choose what they want to read rather than having to read everything. Divide the content into paragraphs.