Never underestimate the importance of a visually attractive website. With the attention span of internet users growing shorter and shorter, you need every possible advantage for maintaining their interest. The first step to making this happen is to engage them with a website that is both appealing to the eyes and contains useful and informative content.
If you follow these important steps for making your website more engaging to visitors, they can be of great service to the development of your internet brand.
Stick With a Modern Website Design
It’s hard to overemphasize just how important it is to have a professional looking website that is both modern and visually appealing. Your site should look as different from this monstrosity as possible.
A professional website often gives the visitor different images to look at, but everything is organized and serves a purpose.
To illustrate, observe this concrete company’s website. The High Concrete website is very organized while offering a great deal of content. All relevant information such as what the company’s product is and how to learn more information is readily available. There’s nothing confusing about navigation and the website has a modern appeal.
The best way to get a more professional and modern design is to get professional consultation and if necessary, to hire a company or individual that specializes with building company websites.
Use Images Sensibly
It’s true that images are one of the easiest ways to attract the attention of visitors, however it’s easy to abuse the use of images by misusing them.
You must be careful to ensure that images do not overwhelm the visitor. For an example of how to do this well, see the Cleveland Brothers construction equipment website.
The image slider automatically changes the main image every several seconds to communicate different information. There are image text links as well as images that give the visitor a clear understanding of what products and services are available.
It’s not enough to simply add a single main image and hope the visitor understands what you’re trying to say. If your images do not clearly communicate what your brand is about, they serve no purpose and will actually detract from your website.
Make Good Use of Color
If your company has a logo featuring colors other than black and white, there is no logical reason to use a color scheme that differs from those colors already associated with your company.
It’s fine to add a few accent colors for variety but make sure you stick to the main colors of your logo and brand. Those logo colors are what visitors will associate with your company.
Break Up Text into Sections and Paragraphs
See this link for a great example of a “wall of text” versus the decision to break up textual information.
No matter how important your product is or the information you wish to share might be, the average visitor will simply not elect to read through a “wall of text” to get to the information. Individuals are most likely to glean information by skimming over bolded section headings and words in order to come away with the gist of the points made.
As such you want to use section headings that concisely state what the point of that particular section of text is. You want to bold any information you want visitors to read, and even links can help break up visual monotony.
Try to keep paragraphs short, no longer than a few sentences. And if you have a great deal of information to share about a particular product or idea, consider giving that section its own page on your website.
Here’s another picture of Cleveland Brother’s website of how to break up text correctly.
Make Sure Your Website Is “Social Media Friendly” And Shareable
It’s not enough to have an email and phone number in the 21st century. Your company should be “likeable” on Facebook. Your website should be something visitors can tweet to others. You may even benefit from having a Pinterest page.
In other words, you should magnify the visibility and reach of your website through participation in social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This can be great for “word of mouth” advertising and helping customers feel that they have a wider variety of options for communicating with your company directly.
Creating an engaging website ultimately comes down to effort and a willingness to pay attention to ongoing web design trends. While content over visual appeal may have been the standard at one point, this is no longer the case. No matter how useful or needed your product or service, a website that is poorly designed, features walls of text and an unappealing color scheme will simply fail to attract and maintain visitor attention. It’s a waste of time and energy to create website if you aren’t doing everything possible to make it stand out. This includes an active presence on social media websites. Taking these five tips into consideration will help ensure you have a website that engages visitors and encourages them to pass along your webpage link to other interested parties.