When it comes to your website, has your mindset been to set it and forget it? When was the last time your site received a redesign or structural change? If it hasn’t gotten a little TLC since 2020 or earlier, then it’s definitely time for a refresh.
Websites that are not regularly maintained or updated become stale in just two or three years. Each site’s needs are different; some may only need plug-in and coding fixes on the backend, while other times a complete overhaul is the most effective solution. In this blog, we outline the most basic steps to building a new website.
Conduct Research & Competitive Analysis
It’s easy to neglect the appearance of your website; that’s why it always pays to take a critical look at your site and see what can be improved. Reviewing and assessing it will help you restructure for optimal user experience. By utilizing Google analytics and conducting user surveys, you’ll be able to answer these questions:
- What pages are most valuable or receive the most traffic?
- Who is coming to your website?
- What current features do visitors like or dislike?
It’s always a good idea to put together a list of competitors’ websites to review, too. By studying your competitors, you can identify elements you like for your own site and see what you might be missing. It is important to also look outside of your industry for inspiration/ideas.
Build Consistency Through Design Elements
Select a simple framework or template that will work best for your needs. If you are an ecommerce brand, you’ll need to look for something that displays the information a consumer will use to make an informed purchase, such as a product photo, description, price, colors or styles available, etc.
Develop a color palette or scheme to use consistently throughout the website background structure, callouts, headlines, and imagery. The most successful websites typically use between three and five colors. These could be monochromatic schemes, vibrant hues, warm earth tones, or selections of complementary colors. There are many resources available online to help you curate a palette that fits your brand, so don’t be afraid to explore.
Select and use two or three fonts at most. Too many fonts can make a site seem unprofessional and busy, so it’s always better to keep your site’s fonts simple and consistent. Choose web-safe typefaces that have a variety of weights and styles (i.e., regular, bold, italic, etc.). You may use a script font if it makes sense for your brand, but fonts of that nature should be reserved for design elements. These would be single words or short phrases that enhance the overall design by speaking to the brand or consumer.
Choose your visuals wisely. Website imagery consists of a mix of photos, icons, and illustrations. However, it’s important for your site’s continuity and branding that you use a consistent style for all of your site’s visuals. This might mean using all black and white photography, photos with similar color overlays, or consistent formatting across graphics.
Use Visual Breaks
While it might not feel right to have blank areas on your site, white space is essential for modern minimalist design. White space doesn’t have to be white, necessarily – these spaces can be other colors depending on your color scheme.
To make the website easier to navigate and more interesting, alternate color blocks of information. Start by placing only necessary information/elements on the site and build as you go. These color blocks could have monotone photos or illustrations in the backgrounds for added depth. However, use this sparingly, prioritizing solid color blocks first. Also, make sure any overlaying text is still readable.
Incorporate Interactive Content
Interactive content encourages the user to engage with the site and your brand. Some popular examples of this content include scrolling animations, rollovers, and eye-catching calls to action. Others include:
- Social media buttons and links
- Internal hyperlinks to other content or pages of the website
- Rotating customer testimonials with a button asking for reviews
- Videos or animations that bring life to your brand’s story
- Quizzes, surveys, and polls
- Interactive timelines or accordion boxes
- 360° videos
- Chat widgets
- Interactive maps
The things discussed in this blog aren’t necessarily everything you have to keep in mind when redesigning your site, but they certainly are a great place to start.
We know website design can be time consuming and complicated – so if you need assistance, get in touch with the agency that can lead your website to greatness! Contact Baer Performance Marketing and learn about the difference we can make for your brand!
