In an increasingly digital world, it’s becoming more and more important for brands to craft online experiences which stand out to the end user. Although having a beautifully designed website does a lot to help this, there are also a lot of other considerations to allow for the most accessible, easy to use product by both your internal team and your audience. This means taking in a lot of different contextual factors when crafting your new website. This can range from ‘who’s going to be viewing your content?’, ‘what do you want to nudge them towards?’, to ‘how will my team be implementing changes to the site?’, amongst a whole host of other considerations! Below, we’ve complied some of our top tips to help you ensure your website is as best placed to reach your goals as possible.
1. Your brand should always come first
Sometimes, a company believes that a new website will give business a boost, but what it truly needs is to take a step back and consider a brand refresh. Creating a new website is great and can often help create results, but a poor brand will hinder this massively. Before going out and looking at simple website design companies, take a look at what your brand outlook is. If it’s tired, dated, or just not working for you, perhaps a brand project is what should be undertaken before a new website design. This way, your whole organisation can feel the benefits, and your new website won’t be built on poor foundations or doomed to fail before it even goes live.
2. Consider the user journey
Websites can have a lot of different goals. In these different cases, the user journey needs to be considered as it is often varied and can be hard to get your head around. If you’re planning a large, complicated website, prior planning is essential before diving straight in to the design.
Creating a sitemap and wireframing can help plan out the UX before applying any visuals. This helps to focus on audience interaction per page and to ensure their experience is as smooth as possible. Through testing, it can then be flagged early on if there are any issues with the user journey, meaning these can be resolved before the overall look and feel is applied. Think of it as creating the blueprint of a house before actually building it; an important phase which is essential to a successful project.
3. Content is key
Though a beautiful website is important, the information set within that design is of equal significance. Consider your audience and why they came to your site. Creating a succinct navigation can help with this massively, but your copy is also an important factor. Ensure your key points are always gotten across concisely and fit in with your brand tone of voice.
Furthermore, proofing your copy for grammatical or spelling mistakes is paramount. Although one or two are forgivable (and luckily easily fixed in this digital age), a site that is poorly written reflects badly on your organisation and can make you seem unprofessional.
4. Be realistic about what you can provide
Though it’s always tempting to include posts, consider your own limitations on content creation. Keeping up to date on news posts or regularly posting items such as case studies can be time consuming. Though it can have many benefits, a neglected site can conversely make the company look out of date.
Therefore, consider whether your internal team have the time to upkeep such pages when in the planning phase. This can even apply to other parts of your website, such as images and icons, which are not always easily accessible. This should all be taken into account when discussing your content needs with your design team to ensure your final outcome is simple to upkeep and maintain.
If you’re considering a brand refresh or new website, get in touch with the team here at Frost. We can help advise on the best route for your business to take and ensure that you’re not wasting valuable assets on a digital presence which won’t give you the results you need.
Beth.