Your website is often the first place your customers go to see how good you are. Great, you have a site – but as we know, there’s usually room to improve your website! As the saying goes, the first impression really is the last impression, and it’s totally up to you to decide how this impression goes.
The 1–2–3 to Improve Your Website
Luckily, it isn’t overly difficult to improve that first impression. Using the following action steps, you can make your website stand out from the rest of the sites on the internet!
1. Add Call to Action Text
So, you want your audience to perform certain tasks? Let them know you want them to do that. And let them know about it in such a way that they feel it’s a rewarding task.
One of the best ways of doing this is by using a Call to Action, or CTA. Mostly, a CTA is text which says in plain words what you want your audience to do. For example, if you’re a mobile app development company and want people to send special requests to you, you could create a pop-up asking them if they have an unmet need. This would enable them to reach out to you easily with the specifics.
Be cautious when making CTAs, since more often than not, people end up filling their websites with more calls-to-action than what is considered acceptable by the user. I have been to many sites where there were full-page pop-ups which asked me to fill in my email ID to subscribe to their newsletter. The worst part was that these websites never gave me an option to close the pop-up!
It’s always advisable to make your CTAs in such a way that users can choose to not act on it. While it might sound counterintuitive, your users would totally love the experience. And those who need what you’re offering would go ahead and ask for your services anyway!
2. Embrace White Space
While they might not look like best pals, good performing websites and white space go hand-in-hand. White space helps your content stand out so that users can focus more on elements around the text. In fact, when used around text and titles, white space can increase user attention by 20%.
White space makes your website look fresh and open, and even “modern” if you’re doing it right. If your branding is in sync with this, then you can communicate to your users better with the help of white space. The only drawback you’ll face with white space is that it does take up space. What I mean by that is that you can’t put any text or image in the space where you intend to have white space, so yes, white space covers up space!
3. Speed Things Up
If I have to wait for it, I would become Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. On a serious note, if I have to wait for a long time for your website to load, I would probably Google similar sites and visit one of those instead. Unless of course, yours is the only website that does what it does.
Because of this, my suggestion is to speed up your website as much as possible. There are multiple ways to do it. A few of the simplest ways include:
- reducing server response time
- enabling compression
- minimizing HTTP requests
- enabling browser caching
These are just some of the ways to speed up your website. A simple Google search would give you thousands of ways of speeding things up. So go ahead – put your website on the Autobahn!
Improve Your Website – Site Visitors Will Thank You!
As you read through these simple (yet often overlooked) 1-2-3 tips, did you consider your own experience as a consumer or user? You’ve probably benefited from the skillful use of white space on well-designed sites, for example, but didn’t think critically about it at the time.
So get your CTAs right, speed things up, and use that white space – now that you understand why white space is your friend! Remember, make that first impression a positive and your user – and your brand – both come out ahead.
Can you think of a great first impression that really stands out? Or perhaps an unfortunate one that’s stuck in your memory? Share your thoughts in the comments!
