When your business is ready to update or make a new website, there are a few specific things to keep in mind from a design perspective that can be the difference between having a successful website, or one that doesn’t perform at all. Even if your business doesn’t have a large budget, making it user-friendly is key for maximum engagement with current and prospective customers.

5 Tips for Creating User-Friendly Business Websites:

Tip #1:
Your business website needs to be optimized to load in 3 seconds or less. For example, have you ever tried to view a website on your laptop or phone to find it takes 10 seconds or more to load? It’s likely that you didn’t stick around to see that website before going to a more reliable website. The first few seconds are extremely important in terms of the attention span of your visitors. During those first few seconds your site needs to load and for the visitor to be able to “understand” what your site is all about. If it takes more than 3 or 4 seconds, your visitors will run out of patience and leave. But what’s the root cause of the slow website? Is it bad or bloated code that takes forever to load? Do you have too many over-sized images that should be optimized? Is it a poor webhost who isn’t able to deliver the speed your site deserves? These and other issues could be the root cause of your website being slow, but qualified web experts should be able to diagnose the issue for you with a path to resolution. Also a reminder that site loading speed is a Google ranking factor, since they won’t rank websites that cause a “poor experience” due to slow speeds.

Tip #2:
Limit the menu options to 5 or less links. To ensure the website performs best, it should be singular in purpose and focused on it’s appearance and usability, especially now on mobile devices. The simplicity and purpose of your website design should also be aligned with the menu and navigation options you offer your visitors. A “Home” button isn’t always necessary, as most developers make the logo clickable to “Home” and users have adapted to that. Depending on the type of your business, other links could include “Services”, “Blog”, “Contact”, etc. If you think your site needs more than 5 top navigation links in the menu, it’s wise to create “sub-menus” or “child pages” that appear under the main page’s link in the navigational menu. 

Tip #3:
Call to Actions being visible on your website are more important than ever as users need to be prompted. Think about shopping at a store like IKEA with their layout that isn’t traditional and allows for you to browse all items while being directed on a path from one section to another until you reach the cash registers and enticing food options. This is a good example of how you should consider setting up the pages and overall flow of your business website. It’s imperative that you make it clear to the visitors what you want them to do (e.g. what “action” you want them to take). For example if want them to contact you you need to have a clear path for visitors to reach you. Is your contact page easy to find? Do you have a phone number with a clickable link for mobile users to easily contact you? Whether that’s your objective or something else, having a defined call to action with a path to enable to user to make that connection can be a powerful setup if done correctly. 

Tip #4:
Help options with easy access have many benefits. First, you don’t want to lose any sales or leads because you didn’t have options on the website to ask questions. But how can you have a customer service people engaging in live chats all hours of the day? Sure it may drive some sales, but in addition to the human expense to cover most hours, it also just not practical. The good news is that technology has evolved and can now handle tasks that couldn’t be automated until now. If you haven’t heard of Chatbots, you need to become familiar with them as they will be used by nearly all businesses in the future. A well designed Chatbot leverages good flow design along with artificial intelligence to be able to answer complex questions while it continues to learn and improve, how cool is that! Consumers are already familiar with Chatbots and will be happy to interact regularly with your automated bot if its built in a smart, user-friendly way. 

Tip #5:
Having design consistency across all design elements on the website is very important. How your website is received by the visitor is ultimately just a combination of all the individual components. When updating your site or making a new one pay attention to the little details that matter including: defined color scheme, colors, graphics, and font size. The messaging needs to be readable and make sense. The images should be sharp and high enough resolution to avoid any pixelation (Note: Vector graphics are your starting point for high-quality company graphics are always best).

Whether you’re re-designing your own site or hiring a professional website designer, focus on these items and you will have a winning site for your business.