Are you designing a new website for your business or hobby-turned-side-job? Then you should probably take these tips in. Whether you are starting a new blog, created a website for your business, or creating an online portfolio, there are a few things that you absolutely must have on your website.
Easy Navigation
30 Fantastic Examples of Fixed Navigation Menus in Web Design
User friendliness is kind of the big thing now. Now that it anyone can make a website, part of the algorithm Google uses to crawl, index, and rank your website in the search engines is based on user engagement and how friendly it is to the user.
One thing that will be super helpful to you in creating your new website is creating a sitemap. A sitemap is basically exactly what it sounds like – it’s a map of your website. Just like you wouldn’t build a house without blueprints, you shouldn’t build a website without a sitemap.
Your sitemap will guide you in the organization and directional hierarchy of your website. Start by planning out each of the main pages that your homepage will link to – like about us pages, contact page, services, etc. – and then you can add subpages that branch out from each of those, and so on.
If you have some clear organization set up on your website, it will be much friendlier to the user, which will allow more opportunity for user engagement, potentially increasing your rankings in the search engines.
Relevant Information
The Nine Ingredients That Make Great Content
Have you ever done a Google search, clicked on a website, and had no idea what that had to do with your query? Welcome to the club. Google is getting better at this now (it’s part of creating a good user experience), so you want to make sure that your website has relevant information and value for the user.
Right on the home page, a user should be able to tell what your website is about, what kind of business you have, etc. If you want your website to succeed, provide your viewers with relevant and valuable information.
Mobile Version
Responsive Web Design: 50 Examples and Best Practices
How often are you on the internet on your phone versus an actual computer? I’m willing to bet that outside of work hours you are more frequently using your phone or other mobile device for internet searches than a desktop computer. Most of the rest of the living world is too, so you should take that into consideration when building your website.
Make sure your website is either 1) mobile-friendly, or 2) has a mobile-friendly version. Again, it all comes down to the user experience. If you don’t optimize your website for mobile viewers, you could be losing a lot of potential customers or followers. People aren’t likely to stay on a website long if it’s taking forever to load on their mobile device.
If you are looking for an affordable web design solution that will provide all of these essential features, you should checkout Smartly Done Websites. They have a variety of unique website designs that you can purchase, and you can even meet with their designer to customize the content, colors, and images on the website to fit your needs.