Richardson Web Design Company
Best Practices to Consider When Choosing a Richardson Web Design Company
When searching for a Richardson web design company it is helpful to understand the best practices for web design. There are standard practices that are universally accepted and other practices which are good to follow.
The best practice standards for websites are like the basic driving standards that are understood by all Americans. While it may be the rule to drive on the left side of the road in the UK; this is not the standard in America. In America, the cars drive on the right and we naturally look up and to the left to see cars coming from the other direction. This may explain why the standard for just about every web page is to have a clickable logo located on the upper top left corner of the home page.
There are other basic standards of excellent website design that should be followed by a Richardson web design company. These standards were identified by industry research that took a close look at the web design elements for the top 50 marketing websites in America according to their web traffic rankings on Alexa under the business – marketing and advertising category.
Top Placement
Brand awareness is important. Placing a brand or a company logo in the top left corner of the homepage is a universal standard. In the top 50 websites, this placement was found to be 100%. Make this a clickable logo. When a web visitor visits a home page and then clicks on the logo it should do something special. A preferred use of this logo placement is to link to a promotional piece about the company or the brand, not just simply link the logo back to the home page. Opening up a promotional video is a great way to deliver something interesting when someone clicks on the logo.
About 44% of the top 50 websites have a contact button on the top right corner of their homepage. While this is not a standard, it does have usefulness for companies that want web visitors to make a contact. Giving a web visitor a choice from alternative methods of contact is a very good idea. These include offering live chat, email, and telephone customer service. Also, it should be easy to sign up for an email newsletter.
Navigation Bar and Search Field
Almost nine out of ten of the top 50 websites have a horizontal navigation bar in the header. This header appears on the home page and in the same place on all other pages of a good website. This should be followed for any websites made by a Richardson web design company to make it easier for web visitors to navigate a website.
In addition to having a navigation bar in the same place on each web page at the top, about 54% of the top websites have a search field in this position as well. When a web visitor already knows what they are looking for on a website, it is good to help them find it easily and quickly. Many websites do this well simply through a navigation bar without needing a search feature. On the other hand, having a search feature is helpful for a complex website.
While it may be tempting to use the free Google search tool for a website, it is important to know that the Google search results shown may include competitor’s offerings. To avoid this problem, it is better to make searches on a website only go directly to other pages of the same website by limiting the search results. Moreover, if the search results do not come up with anything helpful, instead of stating “no results found,” there should be an easy-to-use way to ask for additional help, such as by live chat or email.
Capturing Attention
The website homepage is an important chance for a company to make a good first impression. The value proposition needs to be clearly stated with a compelling reason for web visitors to investigate further.
The best placement for a value proposition is high enough on the home page so that most website visitors do not need to scroll down to see it. About 80% of the top websites use this strategy.
Testing of on-page viewing times shows that bad websites lose visitors within a few seconds. The best websites encourage readers to view pages for a very long time. The progress of the web visitors through a website should be tracked. Understanding the progress of visitors through a website and the average time spent on each web page are critical components that help improve website design.
Ask for the Business
About 78% of the top websites have a call-to-action on the homepage. The effectiveness of this strategy is measured by determining a conversion rate. A conversion rate is calculated by comparing the number of website visitors with the number of them that take a certain desired action. These desired actions may be signing up for a newsletter, asking for information, or purchasing something. Businesses that prominently motivate customer behavior with a call-to-action on their home page have higher conversion rates.
Newsletter Sign-Up
This is a feature that needs to be handled delicately. About 24% of the top websites have a place in the footer of the home page for website visitors to use to sign up for an email newsletter.
In general, website visitors find it very annoying for an email sign-up form to appear as a pop-up that blocks the view of the home page. This might be acceptable for the first time it is seen. However, when a web visitor comes back to a website and sees this email sign-up form blocking their view; it is very annoying.
An alternative to a view-blocking email sign-up form is to have a form that slides in from the right side without blocking much of the web page view.
Email sign-ups increase if there is a valuable reward offered. The reward can be a discount or some interesting, useful digital content. Email marketing campaigns are much more effective when those who join the newsletter service get valuable content information instead of only receiving sales promotions.
Footer Information
Web visitors expect to see certain general information in the footer of each web page on a site. This includes a privacy statement, terms of use, copyright information, a site map, and contact information (or a link to it). The contact information is usually placed in either the center of the footer or on the right side.
Other things that frequently appear in the footer are the icons to link out to social media. About 72% of the top websites put these social media icons in the footer. There is a dramatic increase in the usage of these social media buttons if they are placed in the header instead of in the footer. However, only about 26% of the top websites put social media icons in the header because this activity may not be totally beneficial.
Webmasters need to exercise caution about where these social media icons are placed. Clicking on these links takes a visitor away from the website to the social media system. This increases the bounce rate and reduces web traffic, which hurts website performance metrics.
Mobile Access
The popularity of smartphones and tablets means that over 60% of web visitors now access online content by using mobile devices. Of the top websites, 68% of them are viewable with a mobile device because they use responsive website programming. This web development style allows the website to display properly on any type of device and any screen size.
Responsive website programming is superior to having a website that fails to display properly on mobile devices. At first, this sounds like a good solution; however, it is not optimal.
When choosing a Richardson web design company it is better to work with web designers that make a specific website for mobile users instead of trying to make a standard website that displays on every device using responsive website programming
The reason for this is that mobile website users have different needs than regular website users. This means that getting the attention of mobile users requires different design parameters. Mobile users frequently access online services by using applications that are specifically designed for mobile use. These applications are more feature rich and easier for mobile users to navigate than traditional websites.
Results Matter
All the best graphics and website design are of little value if the website does not deliver results. A lesson from Internet history, with a comparison between Yahoo and Google, makes this same point today.
There was a time when the Yahoo search page was the dominant way to find things on the Internet. The Yahoo website was similar to the way it is now. It is chocked full of various things that are attractive and make compelling choices to click on. Yahoo was the clear leader before Google existed and for quite a time was the first choice when a web user was looking for something
Then, along came Google with its game-changing search engine design. The simplicity of the Google search engine web page was shocking when compared to the Yahoo home page. The Google web page was minimalism taken to the extreme. There are no ads on the home page and very little else. The Google web page still has one cool ever-changing logo of the word Google and a search box with a couple of buttons.
There are big differences between Yahoo and Google. Google results from the searches are more relevant and Google found a better way to monetize the search results by first using text links with Good Adwords and then showing ads in the search results. Yahoo used graphics. Google used relevance.
This is a good lesson to learn. For a website to be effective, it must deliver an engaging, useful experience. To be compelling does not necessarily mean having attractive graphics on a website. A great website does more than just have pretty graphics. It is very useful.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a group of techniques that make it easier for search engines to find a website. By using advanced SEO techniques, web developers try their best to improve the position of a web page when displayed on a search engine results page (SERP). This position is determined by the search engines based on relevant keyword and phrases.
Websites need to be designed with SEO in mind because having a top position on the SERP for important keywords and phrases makes web traffic go up from non-paid searches. It is critical for a website to be designed with advanced SEO.
Conclusion
By keeping these best practices in mind, it is possible to have terrific results when engaging a Richardson web design company to create or redesign a website.