Are you creating a website or do you have a website? Are you looking for some inspiration to help you establish your website as a brand?
A website plays a vital role in building a brand, and brand building helps you to attract and keep customers. No matter the size of your business, even a personal website can help you to build a strong brand.
Let’s do an exercise: what comes to mind when you think of Amazon? I bet you thought of the company’s image on its website.
You might say, “Okay, I get the point, but how can I achieve the same result with my new website?” First, pat yourself on the back because you’re asking the right question. In this article, you’ll discover 8 website design basics that will help you to build a successful brand.
1. Establish Your Strategy
Anyone can build a website or even promote it. But if you don’t know how it will work or what you want to achieve from it, it’s not going to be successful. It will just be another website on the Internet.
That’s why you need to have a strategy. Ask yourself, “Where do I want to go and how do I get there from here?” Then you can figure out what you need to do to get you there. Determine:
- Why you’re building a website
- What you want from your website
- How you’ll achieve your results
Research your niche, develop a strategy, and measure your strategy’s effectiveness.
2. Make a Good First Impression
According to Nielsen Norman Group, the “first 10 seconds of the page visit are critical for users’ decision to stay or leave.”
That’s why your website must make a great first impression on users. A bad user experience can hurt your site and affect your brand value.
Your website is the face of your brand. It should appeal to the emotions of your visitors.Click To TweetKeep in mind three principles when you’re creating a website:
- Tell stories. Doing so will help to convey your message more clearly, and users are more likely to engage with your products or service.
- Fonts and color palette are key in branding. Think five times before picking the color scheme, theme, and font for your website.
- Your logo should represent your brand style and personality. Don’t use too much color in the logo. I recommend that you hire a graphic designer to create an interactive logo.
See the homepage design of Ellevest:
Why I find it brilliant:
- The design is simple and straight to the point.
- Their headline, “Invest Like a Woman: Because Money is Power” appeals to visitors’ emotions (both women and someone interested in making smart financial choices).
- An image shows that they’re with you no matter what device you’re using.
3. Create an Interesting “About Us” Page
The About Us page of your website provides you an opportunity to talk about your identity and values. But don’t make the page boring.
The tone of your writing should be interactive and show your brand’s personality. This page is one of the most important pages of your website, so you should make it stand out!
Yellow Leaf Hammocks tell us a story on their About Us page.
Do you have a great story? Your About Us page is the place to put it. People like stories and are more likely to connect with you if you utilize them.
What does your About Us page say?
4. Improve Page Load Speed
Page loading time is crucial for a better user experience. It’s also an important factor when it comes to getting a good search engine ranking, according to Google. Every second counts!
Forty percent of people abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Does your website take more than three to four seconds to load? If yes, then you need to fix this problem NOW!
Are you wondering how can you improve your page speed? Here are six things you can do right away:
- Reduce server response time
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
- Optimize image size and format
- Optimize CSS
- Reduce the number of plugins you’re using
- Fix all the broken links
A high performing website can help you to build a strong brand presence. Use the tool GTmetrix to check your site’s loading speed.
5. Make Your Website Customer-Centric
What’s the first and foremost purpose of your website? You want to drive sales and conversions, right? Create informative content that is easy to navigate. Tutorials and videos are great ways to guide your users.
Do some research in order to know your target audience members and what keywords they use. Make sure your website works on mobile devices and includes clear and actionable calls-to-action (CTA).
Your website should provide a solution to your users. For example, Pack is one of the best websites for every dog lover.
Is your website customer-centric?
6. Build an Email List from Day One
You must start building your email list the day your website goes live. Your email list is one of your biggest assets. It will help you to improve your sales dramatically.
Email is the best way to build a strong relationship with your subscribers and provide value to them. It’s a great way to become an authority in your niche. But how can you get your visitor’s contact information?
A website is the best place to collect email addresses. According to MarketingSherpa, “77% of marketers use website registration pages to build email lists.”
Let your visitors know what they will get or what they should expect. Content upgrades or free trials can make great conversions for you.
Nathan Ellering, Content Marketing Lead at CoSchedule shares his take on content upgrades here:
I’ve tried lots of different approaches to solving that problem, and the absolute best way is to provide some highly relevant, actionable, and valuable free content on each blog post in exchange for an email address. This bonus content has been called lead magnets and content upgrades, and when done well, they can convert up to 20% of all visitors to a blog post…it’s the absolute best way to build an email list of active subscribers, just like how we’ve built a list of more than 100,000 subscribers at CoSchedule.
Start building your community of subscribers now!
7. Place Testimonials on Your Website
If you want to build authority, you first need to create a pattern of trust with your users. Social proofs, such as testimonials, are a great way to build trust.
People are more likely to buy from a site that has customer testimonials and user reviews. So place customer testimonials on your website and let people know that you are a credible authority.
eWedding is a platform for creating a custom wedding website. They display numbers in their headline: “Over 800,000 wedding websites built!” This is a great social proof!
Basecamp features its customers’ quotes:
8. Create a Clear Mission Statement
Outstanding brands have one thing in common: a clear mission! Craft a message that shows what you are passionate about. Show your customers what value you are providing to them.
See how NIKE did a great job. Their mission statement is to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
They take this statement a step further by saying, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.”
What’s your mission?
Website Design Basics Wrap-up!
No matter the size of your company, building a strong brand presence is important. But it’s not an easy task; it takes a lot of effort. Creating an interactive and beautiful website can help you with this process.
Now it’s your turn. What techniques are you using for building a successful brand?
Kunjal Panchal
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Thank you so much for writing such a detailed and informative post. You have explained all the major points in a very elaborate manner. Looking forward to more of your content.
Thanks for this mate, much appreciated. I’ve always wondered how effective testimonials are, i mean anyone could write anything. Its literally typed text so how much value do these actually offer? I guess it all comes down to user trust. Anyway gonna share this with the team on monday! Cheers
Yes, that is the trick. Testimonials definitely do work, but I would think recognizable people well-known in your niche work best. Those sites with a first name last initial fake testimonials are pretty obvious to me; however, the average internet user probably doesn’t know they’re fake.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..What are In Vehicle Monitoring Systems (IVMS)?
Make sure your website has a good load speed. Websites that take more than 3 seconds to load has a bounce rate of 38 percent .
Thanks for providing such an amazing tutorial about web design. All points in this post are helpful and informative.
Thanks for providing such amazing tutorial for website design. I really like your post, Thanks a lot for sharing, this is so useful.
Hi..
Well said, right strategy is the key factor for any business whether it is designing a website or promoting your brand.
This is really informative.
Thanks for sharing this post.
Today, more and more consumers use the internet to search for the products or services they need. Your small business will gain credibility by having a website. Without one, potential customers will go to your competitors that do. thanks for sharing useful tips for web design.
I agree to all of this. As a simple consumer, the look of the site the moment it loads is important. The second they realize it doesn’t give the vibe that they want, they close it immediately. Great points by the way!
Mandy Yanga would love you to read ..Your Do’s and Don’ts Checklist to Running a YouTube Campaign
This is a huge huge useful post for us !
To rank a website quickly in google , page load speed is a major fact i think. If Page loading speed is more than 4 seconds then that page will not good for Google SERPs rule.
Thanks a lot for sharing this helpful post! Will visit continue for more update tips from you. 🙂
Awesome !! What a informative post @!!! Thanks for share with us . As beginner now i am inspired about my work , i think every web designer or graphics designer need to read your article . I have now everything cleared .
Thanks and Regard
Teresa
Awesome !! What a informative post @!!! Thanks for share with us . As beginner now i am inspired about my work , i think every web designer or graphics designer need read your article . I have now everything cleared .
Thanks and Regard
Teresa
Hey Kunjal, Actually I’m an aspiring web designer and I’ve learnt a lot from your article. Your creative writing and the way you pass along information has encouraged me to come here again. Thanks for this useful information.
Anurag would love you to read ..How to beat anxiety in 14 step
Hi there
Great Article, every point is very easy to understand and follow. Also didn’t know that page load makes that much difference in search engine rankings and thanks to GTmetrix tool checking website performance and improving it is so easy now.
Thanks again for great article and hope to see more that great like this one.
Regards,
Kristof
Today I learned many things from here . Extraordinary Article to me ,Really informative . One thing i have learn and have been cleared that in the case of a very important website keep the strategy rights . It was not my head . I think this post seems to be written for me ..
Thanks and Regard
Teresa B
Teresa B. Schaefer would love you to read ..Hello world!
Testimonials and emails are the top priority according to me. And yes the first impression is the last impression so making the first move with creativity is equally important.
I want to add here that “Storytelling” is one of the best way to tell “audience about us”. Thanks for the great share.
Regards,
Rose Carter
Well said, Planning a strategy, First impressions and about us are important points which communicate indirectly with the viewers of our website. Hence we must know how to explain about us which can attract users.
Regards,
Joseph Symons
Joseph Symons would love you to read ..4 Trends in the Digital Marketing Sphere that will help you Generate More Sales
placing testimonial are the great method for build a brand…..I have used this technique in past and it worked for me…I would love to use other methods as well…great share..thanks…!!
hi,
All points are very beautifully written in this post , some are very informative for us ,
thanks for this and making me informative ,
regards ,
mansi desai