In today’s economic state, it has become increasingly difficult to find a cost effective way to promote small to mid-sized businesses. We know that, and our team here at Fat Guy Media wants to help. One of the most efficient ways to overcome this obstacle is to employ an online marketing strategy. It all begins with your company website redesign. Many businesses may have questions regarding their website redesign. They might have sites that are outdated or slow. They may be unsure about which direction to go in, how to start, or what things to look out for. That’s where we come in. We know you’re hungry for business, we are too, but luckily you don’t have to eat alone. Here are our top seven things to consider when doing a website redesign. For your benefit, check out what’s on the menu:
Fat Guy Media’s Website Redesign Menu
Appetizers
- STAY IN TOUCH Nothing could be worse for your company than failing to provide up to date and accurate contact information. Phone numbers, addresses, directions, and e-mail information must all be current, and a link to it should be visible on each page of your website. If a customer is on your website he or she is interested in your product; By providing many avenues for communication, you increase the chances of making a sale, right then and there.
- NAVIGATION AND SITE MAPS You want your customers to feel right at home when they log into your site. Navigation bars should be large and clearly labeled. The location of each menu item should be the same across the entire website. Always include a home button on each page. It’s a great thing to design a website that distinguishes you from your competitors, but it can be taken too far. Keep the design simple, with functionality in mind. Otherwise you might end up with what we, here at Fat Guy, refer to as “mystery meat navigation.”
Main Course
- FONTS AND COLORS Your website redesign should have a consistent color scheme that isn’t tough on the eyes. Beware of poorly contrasting colors, and schemes that are too dark or too light. You want your site to be vibrant, but not distracting. As for a font, choose something readable. If you decide on using something that strays from the norm, it may not display properly on your customers devices and the design will suffer because of it.
- PROVIDE QUALITY CONTENT Engage your visitors! They are on your site for a reason, so keep things fresh in order to continually draw in traffic. Update your site often with relevant information. If you’re an IT firm, you might consider offering Tech Tips on a weekly basis. By supplying quality original content, you can jump up in Google rankings and search pages.
- NO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION OR BAD SEO Using specific keywords that pertain to your industry and location is a great way to jump up in rankings within each of the popular search engines. You want to make sure that the keywords that you use flow naturally within the text otherwise Google will penalize you for it. Target words with low cost and high visibility to increase the return on your investment.
Dessert
- USING IMAGES You want your site to be visual in order to engage all your visitors but be wary. If too much website information is contained within graphics, Search Engine bots such as Google and Bing cannot read the text in the images. If you have your contact info placed within an image, as opposed to inline text, your customers may have a hard time finding you on the web.
- DISTRACTING ELEMENTS Be sure to avoid scrolling text, animated GIFs, and audio or video that loads automatically. These elements can be useful in certain circumstances, but for the most part, they are distracting for your visitors and often times drive people away.
We hope you keep these things in mind when considering your website redesign. For a more in depth look at the topics we covered, fill out the box below and we would be happy to forward it to you. Hope you’re hunger for web redesign info is satisfied, if you’d like to leave a comment, the team here at Fat Guy Media would love to hear it. – Fat Guy Media Team
