Ranking high on various search engines is an important goal for any brand who wants to become relevant to its audience. And the more relevant you become, the better your rankings are, creating an upward spiral that propels you to success.
But how can you do that? You can only rank high if people actually spend time on your website. How can you get there? Continue reading…
Easy to Read
Yes, SEO has a lot to do with fresh content that addresses the needs of your audience in a unique way. However, visitors should actually read that content in order to improve your rankings. That means your texts should first and foremost be readable. With the right fonts, sizes and colors, you ensure that your visitors keep on reading. Choosing the right contrast that doesn’t hurt people’s eyes is a true art.
Colors and Emotions
Most of our everyday decisions are based on the subconscious. What’s truly interesting is how our emotions are affected by the colors we’re exposed to, especially online. Choosing the right colors for your web design keeps visitors on your page, gets them to engage with your content and finally brings more conversions.
As such it’s important to grasp the principles of web design and color psychology, because that way you can set the mood and drive behavior.
Strategic Calls to Action
Of course you want to bring more conversions to the table, and calls to action are great for doing that. However, too many pop-ups will quickly become irksome because they remind visitors that your purpose is to sell your product, not solve their needs.
The calls to action you’re using must blend in with the content. You should avoid irrelevant calls to action that don’t solve any needs or that aren’t timely. Consequently, it’s best not to bombard visitors with questions or buy buttons right from the start. It’s wise to ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, but allow them the time to at least browse a bit first.
Structure
Visitors tend to spend more time on your website if they are offered a good hierarchical structure they can use to browse. Making a list of headlines and titles and using heading tags help visitors get to a certain page faster. If people find it difficult to navigate through your web design, they will definitely leave.
Visibility
We all know how printed newspapers place the essential news in the first half of the front page. That’s the same principle you need to use for web design: place the navigation bar, call to action and logo right at the top.
Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll down to see any important info. And once they do, anchor links are great to make sure they still see essential buttons like the menu.
Minimalism
The important influence that user behavior has on web design can’t be underestimated. You need to know which links visitors click on and which topics grab their attention. That way you can declutter your web design and build a minimalist layout which emphasizes the most poignant elements on your website.
The strategic use of negative space is very important to direct attention and grab interest. Although you might want to squeeze in as much info as possible, great web designers only use elements that are absolutely necessary.
Internal Links
Good web design has internal links that send visitors to other web pages of the same website. When people spend more time on your website, search engines understand that your web design is user-friendly and relevant. The anchors used should be descriptive enough for people to want to click on those links. Using a specific keyword for the anchor means that web page will rank higher in online searches.
Go Mobile
More than half of online visitors use their mobiles to access websites, so websites should be mobile-friendly in order to keep their visitors. If people can’t see the menu or if the loading speed is too slow, they will leave without ever coming back. In the opinion of web design Adelaide company Magicdust, you should check the analytics on a regular basis to double-check that your pages load in a matter of seconds. Make sure your content is easy to read even on smaller screens. Optimizing images is a great way to improve your website’s speed.
If you’re here, you understand how important it is to keep your visitors happy, and it all boils down to making it easy for them with the help of relevant web design!
