A website can be one of the most useful and valuable components of your business. It can attract clients, educate them about your services, encourage them to sign up with you, increase efficiency in your workflow or even help you hire new gun employees. But here’s the thing – all these results can only be achieved if you put some strategy and intention into the creation of your site.
For example…
According to Google’s 2023 data, users will form an opinion on your website and business in 0.05 seconds!
That’s barely a glance! So although you’ve put your heart and soul into writing paragraphs of information that describe your business values and services, odds on this is not what will leave a first impression. It will be things like your banner image, logo, colours & overall design that will give your audience a feel for your vibe. Trying to come across as fun and engaging? Use bright colours, friendly fonts & make sure your branding is engaging & warm. Trying to seem professional and established? Make sure your website is slick and polished, professionally designed and use fonts that portray a level of legitimacy. This is why branding is also incredibly important to make sure your users understand your business and resonate with what you do quickly. I recently helped an audiology clinic to achieve this with branding that instantly tells the user ‘this isn’t just another hearing clinic’. Will strategic colours & fonts and images that are vastly differentiated from the usual hearing clinic ‘old person stock photo’ we manage to grab the user’s interest in a minimal amount of time.
Most people won’t read all the text on your site.
I know, you’ve spent so long crafting this copy, you really nail what you’re about in the 5th paragraph down. But majority of users won’t read this. Forbes revealed that website users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at written content on a site. Instead of long paragraphs, you want to use a clear typography hierarchy to get your message across. A large statement on your banner should tell viewers in one line (or in 0.05 seconds) why what you do is important to them. Then subsequent sections should have large headings that quickly describe your business in a snapshot. Then, for those who are about to buy, you go into more detail in paragraphs as they’re probably the only ones who will read that small body copy.
You can also use engaging images and strong call to action buttons or quotes to try and engage those viewers you know will only be on your site for a few seconds. Take this website I recently designed for example, in the header section we do the following at a glance:
- Identify the ideal client by using an image of their age group (30+, probably married, probably dreaming of the time they can walk freely in a field with their spouse)
- The banner text states what they do and their approach (clarity alluding to cutting through the jargon and making investment terms clearer for you)
- The branding shows they’re professional and established and ‘guide the way’ like a constellation would if you were lost
- The phone number and call to action use the ‘serial position effect’ which is the proven psychological tendency to remember the first and last thing you see in a menu navigation
- The next steps of the process are instantly recognisable in a call to action button that invites users to download an info pack
And we’ve achieved all of this in one glance, maybe not all in 0.05 seconds but in at least 3 (which when users generally move on from a site if they’re not convinced it’s useful to them).
All of these things may seem simple, but you’d be surprised how many websites out there are missing out on this opportunity and hence, losing valuable clients and watching money go out the door. A little bit of user experience knowledge can go a long way in web design!
40% of users will leave a site if take more than three seconds to load
That’s a huge amount of people leaving your site almost instantly if it’s slow to load. By getting your website professionally built by someone who knows what they’re doing, you can make sure your website loads within this time, making sure your viewers actually see all the things we listed above. To have a super speedy website you need the following things:
- A well-built site with clean code and good UX
- Minified code (including javascripT & CSS) that won’t bloat the site
- Optimised images to under 100KB at the very biggest
- SVGs for icons instead of other larger image formats such as PNG or JPEG
- A Content Delivery Network to add extra caching (caching is when your browser remembers the last time you visited a site and will automatically load unchanged assets to make browsing quicker)
- Strategic layout that allows a browser to recognise the most important assets to load first
There are many more items that add up to a fast website load. The crux of it is you want to make sure you’re making the most of your site by meeting the above criteria and ensure you’re not losing people simply due to a slow load.
Website users spend an average of 6.44 seconds focused on the main navigation menu
Now this is a biggie – that’s quite a few seconds! A lot of business owners might not necessarily thing it’s worth spending a lot of time deciphering their site map according to strategy. But users will deduce a lot of information simply by looking at the navigation. So if we go back to the serial position effect mentioned above, I always design my headers so the information we want users to remember is first and last on the menu. This is usually the logo (so they remember the business name) and a call to action that also names a step ‘Enquire now’ or ‘Download info pack’ so the viewer remembers what they need to do to take action.
You also might think about separating out your services in your navigation if it’s important for users to understand what you do without clicking through dropdowns etc.
And finally, with all my sites, I make sure the navigation menu constantly stays on the screen. You can see what I mean on this site if you go to it, scroll down and keep your eye on the navigation: https://functionalfocustherapy.com.au/ The navigation shrinks a little so it’s not in the way, but it stays with you, so you know where to go next and you’re only ever one click away from enquiring. This is an example of good user experience and makes a huge difference, given the data shows that users spend more than 6 seconds viewing this very important navigation menu!
88% of online users won’t return to a site after a bad experience
This is a good one to finish off with. The data is clear – if your website sucks, you’re losing potential clients. If you have a website that is engaging, fast, easy to read and navigate, those viewers who are in the ‘I’m not quite ready to enquire, but I’m interested’ camp, will come back to your site and become ‘I’m ready to sign up!’ clients.
So there you have it – the data doesn’t lie. Make sure you’re not losing clients and watching money walk out of the digital door because of a poor website experience. Investing in a professionally designed website will not only engage your potential client, but keep them coming back for more until they ARE your client.
If you’re ready to step up with a website that actually works hard for you, take a look at my custom website packages or feel free to get in touch.
