How To Make Your Website Look Like a Million Bucks

One of the keys to a business's overall success is to have a website that balances both beauty and functionality. If your  website provides people with the perfect user experience and appeals to them visually, they'll be far more likely to purchase your products and services and trust your business. It's not enough to have high-quality, engaging ads—your website is your business's online hub and core representative. It can mean the difference between attracting loyal customers and driving prospects away before they even enter the sales funnel.

It takes around 10 seconds for people to form an opinion regarding your business based on your website, at which time they may decide to either stay or leave. If you want people to stay, you need to make sure your website is aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly. If you want to know more about optimizing a website, the following are some tips to help you put together or redesign a website for optimal performance.

Themes

One integral design element that's important to consider first is the theme of your website. Make sure you customize your theme and templates to make your website instantly recognizable as your brand's. You'll also want to ensure that the theme is consistent across all devices, including computers, tablets, and smartphones.

According to experts in the web design industry, color is one of the most important aspects of a website's theme. Certain primary colors perform better than others, with green increasing website traffic by 3% and blue increasing it by 2%, while red decreases traffic by 1.35%.

Fonts

When it comes to font, try to avoid using any text that's hard to read, and don't use flashy backgrounds that detract from the text. Your text content should be consistently readable and look professional. While other aesthetics of your website can be unique and speak to your brand, the substance of your content is more integral than the font.

Choose a font that's easy on the eyes but matches the overall look of your business. Often, something simple and classic like Arial or Helvetica is perfectly appropriate, as long as the language of your content is recognizable as yours. 

Pages

To help people find the information they need and want on your website, you need to add pages. There are several types of pages that a well-designed website will have, many of which are easily accessible through the main navigation menu at the top of the page. In some cases, you may have dropdown menus that list other pages, such as those detailing products and services.

Some pages to include on your website may include:

• About Us — This page lets people know more about who's behind your business. You can use your About page to detail your brand's origins, mission, and the team of people who comprise the "face" of your business. You can even embed an explainer video that further engages and informs visitors. As people understand your brand, they'll be more likely to trust you, and an About page can go a long way in building that trust.
• Blog - Every business should have an industry-relevant blog that establishes them as a knowledgeable authority and resource for information. A blog can be used for everything from covering general topics that leads might research to providing your existing customers with updates about your business. Blogs are not only ideal for building an audience that trusts you, but they can also help boost your website's SEO as you rank for more keywords.
• Contact Us — To encourage people to contact you, you should also have a Contact page that features some call to action. Whether you allow people to request a quote for a product or service or complete a contact form for additional info, this page is crucial for conversions.
• Services/Products — To ensure people know about your service or product offerings, create individual service and product pages. These will help educate people about the solutions to their problems, and they may also help supplement your SEO efforts.
• Locations/Areas Served — If you're a local business that serves target customers in specific areas, you should build out location pages. Having a unique page for each location can help make sure that people in all service areas find you, and they can also detail differences that might exist between locations. For example, a restaurant's menu in one location may differ from another, or service hours may vary.

Content

To get the most from a good web design and increase trust among your audiences, hard-hitting, compelling content is necessary. Try to make your content original and of consistent quality across your entire website. With custom content, businesses can win the trust of 82% of visitors. Be informative, engaging, and ultimately persuasive in getting people to perform the desired call to action, whether it's to contact your business or purchase your products directly.

Keep in mind that video content is often ideal to include, as it's not only great for engaging visitors, but it's also 53 times more likely to earn your page the top spot in Google search results.

Imagery

Every good website also features plenty of images that further engage users. Make sure all images you use are high-resolution and relevant. From stock photos to photos of your products, services, teams, and office, imagery can effectively complement your content and web design.

Add relevant images to as many pages as possible, but don't clutter the page; try to maintain an even balance of content and imagery. You can also go back and update your old blog posts with images, along with other content, as this has been shown to help increase traffic by as much as 111%.

SEO

Search engine optimization is also important to consider if you want your website to remain visible.

To optimize your site for good SEO, you can:

• Naturally incorporate several high-volume keywords throughout your content on relevant pages, but avoid stuffing your content with too many keywords.
• Optimize image alt text to supplement other on-page SEO efforts and enable people to find your website through Google Images.
• Maintain an even balance of quantity and quality when it comes to text content.
• Incorporate an interlinking strategy that links pages to others within your website.
• Obtain backlinks on other authoritative sites for various pages to improve their authority in search engines.
• Make sure Google can properly index your pages.

Don't underestimate the power of mobile responsiveness, either. According to HubSpot, optimizing mobile performance is the top technical tactic that marketers use to improve site performance with SEO.

Taking all of these website tips into consideration can help you design a site that looks like a million bucks. In turn, that site could be the key to helping you reach that figure in sales as part of a complete brand strategy. However, you shouldn't go it alone when it comes to designing and optimizing your website. To get the best possible results from your efforts, consider working with a media partner who can optimize your website and give your business a boost.