The importance of designing effective websites is becoming more and more prominent each day. You know that the websites you design for your clients need to serve a purpose, but sometimes it’s hard to get started.
Today we’ll cover three quick tips for designing an effective website.
Research Effective Websites
To start, it’s important to know what pieces of a website are effective. If you don’t know which areas of the website get more views or which features convert better, you can’t create a design that’s more effective than the average one. There are a couple ways I recommend going about finding what works and what doesn’t.
First, research the big dogs. When I started out, I spent a lot of time analyzing the websites of people like Pat Flynn and Marie Forleo. While your clients won’t have the same goals as the people you research, you’ll be able to take notes on how things are laid out and placed strategically around the website.
Next, do some experimenting on your own site. In the past, I’ve done things like placing different opt-ins in different areas of my site to see what ones converted best. I’ve had websites with and without sidebars, and I’ve had sales pages in a whole lot of different formats. You’ll learn a lot by playing around with your own websites and taking note of the results.
Technology and Design Trends
Next, stay up to date on new technology and design trends. While we don’t want to necessarily design based on trends, there are things you’ll notice have an effect right away. But again, these are things you might want to experiment with on your own before putting them into play on client sites.
And as far as new technology goes, stay on the lookout for tricks and tools that will make things easier on your client, both in terms of managing their site and landing new clients and customers.
Understand Your Client’s Goals
Lastly, be sure you have a solid understanding of what each and every client wants. Every client you work with will have different goals, even if they’re targeting the same audience or do the same thing. A website can have a 100% conversion rate for email opt-ins, but if those opt-ins aren’t what your client wants, the website you’ve created isn’t effective.
Be sure to ask the right questions at the beginning of a project and keep your client’s goals in mind for every decision you make.
Learning to create effective websites does take work up front and small bits of continued research as you go. However, the improved results you’ll get for your clients will be more than worth the extra effort.
If you want some extra tips to keep handy, grab my checklist for designing strategic and effective websites for your clients.
10 Steps To Designing A Strategic And Effective Website For Your Clients
