1. Appearance
Creating a beautiful website is the first step to earning new customers.
The appearance of your website tells visitors more about your company than your words. A site that incorporates modern design elements, optimized images, and other multimedia is much better at converting customers than a website that looks like it’s from 1996.
As a result, the appearance of your website plays a huge role in its success!
This factor also includes incorporating responsive design into your site.
Responsive design is the technique of making your website re-size itself to fit on the screen of any device. So, whether someone’s looking at your site through an iPhone or a 27-inch desktop monitor, they’ll still get a great, easy-to-use experience.
That experience — often called user experience — is the first step in getting a new customer. When users see you have a sleek and attractive website, it’s easy to keep them on your site. But a good-looking website is just the beginning. You also need clear navigation.
2. Navigation
Navigation is the part of your website that lets people find what they want.
Modern websites have simplified navigation to work on desktops and mobile devices. One of the most popular and effective navigation elements is the breadcrumb. For an example of a breadcrumb, check out the image below.
Breadcrumb navigation got its name because it links to every page a person views as they move through your site — kind of like when Hansel and Gretel left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow in their fairy tale.
With breadcrumb navigation, your website’s users can jump back to any page they’ve previously seen. So, if you’re an ecommerce site, you can let someone go from a product page to a category page with one click.
If you profit through lead generation, you can use breadcrumbs to get users from information pages to index pages, so they can read and learn more about the same topic.
For example, a manufacturing website design may feature a breadcrumb menu that guides users from general to specific services, like coating services and then coating services for specific materials. This breadcrumb menu makes it easy for users to go back to the general service and find the service they need.
Breadcrumbs are just the beginning, though. You can also use mega menus like the one we have in our header. These menus feature big text, links to information centers, and additional links to specific topics.