The 3 Pillars of a Successful Website
Feeling overwhelmed? Start here.
There are a million amazing resources out there that delve into the minute details of building a great brand. If you’re just getting started and are a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of info out there, you’re totally not alone! When I started my first business in 2016, I felt like a deer in the headlights while trying to design my website.
The truth is, a lot of small business owners think that if their site is beautiful, it will be successful. If only it were that simple! There is a lot more behind the strategy of a website that helps you build brand loyalty and convert browsers to buyers.
With so many tiny details and important aspects to focus on - where should you even start? With these three touch points.
The Visual
Okay, so the pretty factor does matter. Humans are basically just anxious, distracted monkeys. Meaning, your online presence has to be sparkly and shiny amongst all of the other sparkly shiny things that are pulling your clients’ short attention spans in a million directions. Your visual brand should reflect your brand identity, and be designed with your ideal customer in mind.
If given 15 minutes to consume content, two-thirds of people would rather read something beautifully designed than something plain.
Given the popularity of visual content platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, this one is a bit of a no-brainer. What does it mean for your website? Use a lot of beautiful photography, consistent colors and fonts, and break up big blocks of text into bite-sized pieces that are quick and easy to read.
A good rule of thumb: if your logo, color palette, and font combinations don’t make you feel intrigued, excited, or - in Marie Kondo’s words - “spark joy”, then they won’t do those things for strangers on the internet, either.
The Verbal
Beauty will draw people in, but your words will make or break a sale. Your site earning a spot on someone’s “Pretty Design” Pinterest board is great! Your site creating sales for you is much, much better. So often when we talk about branding, the full scope of the term isn’t really understood. Your brand is not just a logo, color palette, fonts, business cards, and custom email signature. It’s also the phrases you choose for the header text on your website, the syntax you use in your sales pages, the adjectives that fill your product descriptions, and the tidbits that you share on your about page. This is what we call your Brand Voice.
On average, site visitors will only consume 20% of the content on a page.
This makes headlines extremely important. They have to be crystal clear and do the heavy lifting for your copywriting so that readers will continue to consume the rest of the text on your page. Think about how you’re reading this blog post - if you’re like most, your eyes have probably jumped directly to the headlines and you’ve skimmed the small text unless one of the headlines caught your attention.
It’s a competitive market, so what you say and how you say it is going to make the difference between your ideal customer clicking your “purchase” button... or clicking over to the next tab — to the other business that is offering the same type of product as you.
You can learn more about effective website copywriting here.
The Flow
So you have beautiful branding design and kickass copywriting. Awesome! But it’s tough for prospective clients to find things on your site, and the content on your pages don’t flow smoothly and intuitively. This is a huge roadblock when you’re trying to convert browsers to buyers. Your website needs to be organized so that your audience can quickly and intuitively find what they’re looking for and understand your offerings.
People are less likely to engage with a site that is too complex, busy, or lacks navigation aids.
It’s important to understand how people interact with websites and the media that they consume.
When people are skimming to gather information, they read in “F” patterns. This means that their eyes are naturally drawn to the left, so prioritize your most important content and CTAs for display on the left throughout your site.
Readers like clear direction — it’s what keeps them on a site. Include a CTA (Call to Action) above the fold on your homepage, meaning that your audience does not have to scroll down to see it.
Browsers are less likely to return to a site that is poorly designed. Make sure that your header navigation menu includes the most important pages on your site, use clear, easy-to-understand page names (i.e. “blog” instead of “journal”), and think mindfully about how you can make the flow of your site as easy and intuitive as possible.
Sitemapping and wireframing are a must to help you map out where all of your text, visuals, and Call To Action prompts should go, to create an optimal user experience through your site.
If you always come back to these three key components, your online brand presence will connect with shoppers and work for you to create revenue.
