Tips for Creating a Successful Website – Part 2

There are so many components to consider when building a website for your brand, from SEO to content to which platform to use. Sometimes the decisions seem endless. I’m not a web designer or an SEO expert, by any means. My expertise with regard to website creation comes from a visitor experience/customer service perspective. In a technical sense, this would be part of the UX (User Experience) or UI (User Interface) aspects of design. UX and UI designers are paid a lot of money to ensure these aspects of design are optimal. I’m not a UX or UI designer, but I am a consumer and I’ve spent a great deal of time auditing client websites and analytics to know what will kill a site – and conversely, what will make it successful – from a user experience perspective.

Whatever your industry these tips will keep visitors on your site longer and keep them coming back to you rather than moving on to your competitor.

Remember that your site – and total digital presence – is your business’ digital storefront. You have less than a minute to make a good impression. Whatever impression your site or social media properties make in the first few seconds a customer/client/fan visits can very well be a lasting one and can be the difference between gaining a customer or helping your competitor gain a customer.

You can read Part 1 of this series here: 8 Tips for Creating a Successful Website

Tips for Creating an Excellent User Experience on Your Website

• Keep it simple: Don’t put so much information on the homepage (or any page, for that matter) that becomes confusing or creates information overload for your visitors. Clutter on a website is not a good thing!

• Easy to navigate: Navigating your site should be intuitive for visitors. Your navigation bar labels should be clear and easy to understand. Every click is a decision point for visitors. If I’m looking for your blog posts, but have to click through three pages to get there, I may decide after click two to look to one of your competitors.

• Navigation bar visible on every page: If a visitor clicks a link on your homepage, but doesn’t find the information they want on the second page, it should be obvious how to return to the original page. Believe it or not, many people aren’t aware that they can click the Back button on their browser to return to the previous page. If they don’t know this and your navigation bar isn’t visible on each page, you may have just lost a customer to frustration.

• Links open in new browser window: This is most important when a link leads to an external site (a site other than your own). Let’s say that your company partners with other companies (i.e. ticket sellers or other 3^rd-party vendors) and you have a link to that site on your site. If that link opens in the same browser window, you’ve just lost your site visitor. They are now on the other site and may not know how to return to your site. You always want your site to be the final touch point for visitors. If you have a link in a blog post that leads to an article on another site, if your links open in the same window, just as in the scenario above, you’ve lost your site visitor. They may or may not try to return to your site.

• Avoid redundancy: By this I mean don’t send your visitors in a circular cycle where page links are named differently on various pages so that visitors think they’re being taken to a new page with new information only to end up on a page they’ve already visited. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have links to pages listed on more than one page, just ensure that all links that lead to that page are labeled the same.

• No autoplay music or videos!: Let’s face it, no one wants to be bombarded by a song or a video as soon as the page loads. They want to decide when – or if – they listen or watch. If you absolutely must include an autoplay song or video, be sure to make the pause or mute button easily visible.

• No flash player sites!: Aside from the fact that flash sites can’t be indexed by search engines (BIG no no!), they often take a long time to load on some browsers and platforms. This can cause a visitor to get bored or frustrated and move on to your competitor’s site. They may look pretty but if no one sticks around long enough to see it, you’ve wasted your money – and lost customers.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Reasons I Recommend WordPress Websites

For musicians, check out this post from the super fab Electric Kiwi: Essential WordPress Plugins for Musicians

Is there anything you’d add to the list? Let me know in the comments below!

Carole Billingsley (@YouSeekSocial) is a social media consultant and trainer. Combining her social media expertise with her decades of experience in entertainment and education, Carole founded Seek Social Media in 2011. She is known for her ability to make technical and social media topics easy to understand for even the least tech-savvy business owner. Specialty areas: social media, customer experience, digital presence, crisis management.