Whether you’re a baker, graphic designer, hairdresser or architect, a website is essential if you want to find new customers. But how can you create a winning brand image for your company? How can you get customers make an online purchase or come to your store? The secret is, you need to follow the 5 simple rules!
Rule #1 Choose Good Quality Images
Your choice of visuals for your website is of utmost importance. For your website visitors and potential customers, they reflect your company’s image. This means that quality is paramount. You don’t want to post anything you might regret later.
If you photograph your products yourself, pay attention to
- Lighting (go for natural lighting whenever possible)
- Focus (invest in a tripod)
- Background
And if you use stock images, be sure to respect copyright laws. At creativecommons.com, visuals are free but there are some you are not allowed to use for commercial use. Sites like gettyimages.com, fotolia.fr or shutterstock.com are not free but offer an extensive catalogue where you can pick and choose the images you want.
Handy Tips
- As far as resolution goes, opt for 72 and 96 dpi.
- For format, choose JPEG over TIPP which is more cumbersome to process and therefore takes longer to display
Rule #2 Make Your Important Information Stand Out
Children love to play “Where’s Waldo,” a game within a picture book where readers try to find Waldo hiding somewhere amidst pictures filled with random people and objects. But your website visitors might not enjoy this game quite so much. They want to be able to find the information they’re looking for as quickly as possible. This means you should put your address, phone number and schedule in a logical place. More and more business owners are including this info on every page of their website.
Rule #3 Keep It Simple
They say that “better is the enemy of good.” They could just as easily say the same thing about clutter. It’s better to present a simple and even minimalist design than it is to cram your site with images, animation and fashy colours that could make your visitors go elsewhere. Your website reflects the image of your company. That’s why it’s important that your design is in line with your content (products and services) as well as your customers.
Rule #4: Switch to Responsive Design
More and more Internet users are surfing the web on their Smartphones and tablets. If your website is not adapted to fit their screens, visitors are likely to leave your page before it even loads. Not to mention that Google has been penalizing sites that aren’t responsive since April of 2015. So if your site isn’t already responsive design, it’s time to get moving!
- Optimize the web and tablet versions of your site. (Flash Player video content automatically cannot be read on mobile devices so avoid this)
- Get rid of pages that take too long to load.
- Bid farewell to PDF documents. They display badly on smaller screens.
Rule # 5 Work Your Local SEO
When you optimize your company’s local SEO, you will increase your chances of reaching the ever-growing number of nearby clients who are looking for a product or service (e.g. Hairdresser or mechanic) in a specific location (Montreal or Winnipeg). Create a Google My Business Page and list all your information (contact info, business activity, hours, etc.). It’s also a good idea to register in specialized directories (yellowpages.com, annuaire.com, dismoiou.fr, etc.).
Key Points to Remember:
- When we’re talking digital, the more simple, the better.
- It is crucial for your website to have excellent local SEO.
- You website needs to be able to adapt to Smartphone screens.
