What to consider when planning a new website

If you are planning a new website or a rebrand, where do you start?  Whether you are thinking about this on your own or will be chatting to your website designer about it, here are some very important things you will need to focus on:

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SEO

What do you think your users will type in to search engines to find you? Focus on these keywords and make sure they are in your meta data as well as the text and titles on the page. Don’t just repeat the same phrase, mix it up and vary the words (use synonyms).

Goals

Consider carefully what you want users to achieve and add some calls to action to help them get to the end point as easily as possible, calls to actions could be nice bright buttons to ‘buy now’, ‘book appointment’, ‘message’ , ‘Call us’ … etc

Visuals

Gets some great visuals…. and get some great video. Attention spans are short. Video creates better engagement so keeps people on your page longer and the majority of people would rather watch a short video than read lots of text.

Audience

Who is your ideal client?  What are their problems and their pain points? What problems do they want to solve? Tailor the text and images to create client centric content that speaks to them and aims to solve their issues.

Branding

Branding covers a lot of aspects including the obvious one; your logo. But branding but also includes your choice of colours, images and words that give a cohesive feel to your business. Branding also helps to retain clients and keeps the existing ones loyal.

Make it easy – if in doubt keep it simple

• make it easy for visitors to find their way around your site. Have clear navigation – if it is a big site add a search tool
• make it easy to contact you with a question – use a chat box, show opening hours, provide all your contact details 
• make it easy to buy from you – provide all the info needed so buyers do not have to ask questions first; especially returns and delivery info. Show your physical address so they trust who and where you are.

If you would like a chat about how I can help you plan your next website, please contact me.