Short simple copy
NO more boring copy. No industry jargon only you understand. Think of your ideal customer/visitor. What will turn them on?
Don’t bore people. Don’t sell just “things” and what you do.
Sell dreams
Yes you’re awesome. But what’s more awesome is selling people what they want and desire and knowing why they want to buy. How it makes them feel. What pain points you are addressing.
Sell benefits, sell the dream and you will see an increase in engagement that will lead to more sales.
Improve typography
Typography is what people read, learn from and get the most of your message. Pick the right typefaces, color and spacing in order to ensure that website works in harmony with all the other elements.
- Contrast. Make sure that your copy is darker than the background or other way around.
- Line-height. Set line-height from 1.5 to 1.75 to ensure that lines have enough space to breathe and are perceived as a clean layout.
- Hierarchy. Systemize your copy, so people can scan it. Noticeable headlines, sub-headlines, bullet points.
- Typeface pairing. As a general rule you should not be using too many typefaces on your website. Two typefaces is perfect.
Review with AIDA
A – Attention. Appealing graphics or photos can grab visitors’ attention. Design everything important “above the fold”>
I – Interest. Now make the user stick around and learn more. Not features but benefits and advantages help engage people. To make your website more user-friendly avoid paragraphs and take advantage of using chunks of information, steps, lists, bullet points and icons, accordians, sign posts and other functionality to segment info. Let the user decide how much info to see NOT YOU!
D – Desire. simple persuasion techniques – recommendations, endorsements, brand alignments, positive testimonials by customers, press, stamps of credibility (awards), run a customer survey and publish the real results (also good for PR)
A – Action. Make it aasy and obvious for the user to take the action you want. Have “grey” responses (not “sales”) and make your site “sticky” by using lots of engagement and action tools, everywhere. Noone can predict when they are ready to say yes. Make it easy everywhere.
Make sure to use stunning imagery
Avoid cheesy looking stock photos. Visuals are perceived in milliseconds and form a general opinion and emotion about your website. Don’t use stereotypical and unnatural looking stock photos. If you are using your own look at the detail, use a professional AND a stylist to dress your product or place. D3 are experts at photoshoots!
Back your decisions with data
Assumptions will not take you far in web design, make sure to listen to your users and use data to back your design decisions. Research and use science! Look at your competitors also and do better. Check your analytics. Look at the visitor journey. Create the journey you WANT them to go on!
Design for performance
Good performance is good design. Website speed matters. Mobile responsiveness might matter.
Tell a story
Make use of whitespace
Employ whitespace or space in general to give more room for your main elements of the website so they can be perceived clearly and if needed emphasised easily. Many websites try to put as much information as possible but it simply creates a big visual mess. Consider having more of space and you will notice how lighter and cleaner your website looks like.
Get navigation right
Websites with terrible navigation are a disaster. Look at your analytics. Simplify options don’t paralyse people with choice. Use user-friendly simple wording they understand for navigation elements. Place main navigation at the top. Use icons to break up the words (buttons).
