Whether you plan to do so or not, everything your business does will reflect on your brand. Therefore, you need to have a proper strategy that will take all the individual elements of your company and make sure they are working as a cohesive unit. One of the most important pieces of that puzzle is your website. It represents the most common way customers will interact with your company. To online customers, your website pretty much is your company. Keeping that in mind, let’s find out how to design a website that empowers your brand.
Keep your values front and centre
Use your company values as a guiding design principle. This is a good piece of advice that will often come in handy, not just when designing your website. It would be best if you were going through a constant loop of re-evaluation:
- Your business has certain values, usually expressed in your mission and vision statement.
- The brand you have chosen should be an expression of those values.
- Most of your customers will interact with you through your website – which needs to prop up your brand and its values.
To design a website that empowers your brand, you might need to take a step back and rethink your mission and vision statement. Times change, and you need to adapt to the demands of the market.
Once you have managed to nail down what your company stands for, you should use that as a defining design principle. Make those values your guiding light. Keep them integral to your brand, and by reflection, your website. Your values need to stand out as something your customers will be able to recognise from the moment they reach your website’s landing page. Let’s be realistic; even small businesses can’t survive without a website in today’s world. Make sure your online presence feels unique and, at the same time, true to what you stand for.
Have engaging content on your website
You’ll need to have a way to engage visitors if you want them to stick around your website. If you offer visitors content they find interesting; they will probably stay longer. The more time they spend on your site, the better they will get to know you and your brand. Not to mention that you’ll also have more opportunities to offer them a sales pitch for your products and services. Interesting and engaging content offers value to your visitors, enticing them to visit your website. It also serves a second purpose of boosting your SEO, making you easier to find. Search engines favour pages they think have content users want to see. Going for two birds with one stone is always a good strategy.
Here is which content users find the most engaging:
- Blog articles. Have written explanations of services you offer. Go into details about how things work, and you’ll need to spend less time explaining your product to customers. If you structure your keywords correctly, search engines will constantly point users your way.
- Images and infographics. The right choice of images can make your website really pop. Avoid images with plenty of text, and try to use expressive photos instead. You might be tempted to use infographics to dump a bunch of text into one picture, but we would still recommend some restraint. Use charts and visual cues whenever possible.
- Videos and tutorials. It’s getting easier and easier to produce video material. Film your manufacturing process or office space and add some cheerful royalty-free music. You can use subtitles and text to offer explanations on how customers can purchase and use your services. Video material can be uploaded to multiple platforms and shared on social networks, and it’s a great way to engage users.
Pay attention to design elements
If you want to know how to design a website that empowers your brand, the answer is to make all the design elements work in harmony. If you own an online store, you should approach e-commerce website design carefully and with a thought-out plan. However, you shouldn’t just be chasing current trends. Regardless of what fancy features you want your website to have, it’s essential never to lose track of one core concept – harmony. Don’t make your website a mish-mash of poorly thought out themes and concepts just because they happen to be the flavour of the month.
Inform visitors of your products and services
Sometimes it can be easy to get so caught up in designing a website that empowers your brand that you forget the site’s main purpose. Your website is an integral part of your sales funnel that you need to use to create customers from visitors.
It’s OK if the website serves multiple purposes. Users can find engaging content and get a lot of value from just interacting with the pages. On the other hand, you are there to make a sale. To get the best of both worlds, you can display your entire offer on your website with the help of a service section, as it also benefits the users. They can find detailed information that can help them make a purchase.
Offer testimonials from previous clients
Having testimonials on your page is excellent since it can build up customer confidence. Testimonials also help in promoting your website, because by their nature, they require user interaction. Embrace social media marketing and allow users to post reviews and comments from their personal accounts. If you work your social marketing skills correctly, you will turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors.
Websites have become the primary way businesses interact with customers. Any business worth it is salt will tell you it’s important to know how to design a website that empowers your brand. You have very little time to form a good first impression. In today’s world, the way to do it is by having an interesting and engaging website.
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