While there is an in-depth, useful and insightful piece of material, what is the point if nobody reads it? Your concept is so important here. Most of us don’t actively understand it, but according to researchers in Canada (Source: Go Nature), we should assess the website by “the first twentieth of a second.”
The five-second test is a little better understood and offers a good foundation for the qualitative results. It involves just five seconds of showing the user a screenshot of your website and asking questions about what they saw and how they felt. This is a successful strategy, as you will quickly find that many of the participants will have strong views about your site in such a short time. This goes on to stress the importance of design in establishing this initial impression.
While we can think of design as a whole, it is beneficial to divide it into four key elements:
Accessibility
You could theoretically make your most significant pages redundant without considering accessibility. It doesn’t matter how good the content is, after all, if the audience can’t find it.
As web designers, we take great care to apply the best navigation practise. In the last decade, conventional navigation has gradually been replaced by drop-down menus. Why? Why? But it’s much easier to navigate to a page when you can select it directly as opposed to scrolling through several pages. The drive for Hamburger menus has been rising in recent years, and navigation is heading towards a simplified format.
Content-heavy websites may also be subject to accessibility problems. It’s important to be able to communicate all the knowledge you need about your brand, but it’s more important to understand the customer. Nobody really wants to have to read through the paragraphs of bulk text and then click the button and go to another page and then follow a link to yet another page.
The method is as unappealing as the sentence. That’s why it’s suggested to clarify the important details on the list. If you have more knowledge, than you believe your readers will benefit from, then make it into a blog post.
Appearance
As has already been said, the website will be evaluated in the first few seconds. If the layout isn’t good, the user is likely to leave and try somewhere else. It is what determines brand awareness in the first place.
Your material will be judged on the basis of professionalism. The same applies to any services you sell. For example: if you’re a web developer and your website looks like it was built in 2001, the chances are that users won’t choose to build theirs with you.
Your design is expected to create confidence. It needs to be engaging, it needs to remind the audience who you are, what you are offering, and it needs to accurately represent your brand. It requires your principles and your mission statement.
When your website looks visually unappealing or out of date, your customers would be unwilling to find you a trustworthy and reliable service. Most types of content allow the consumer to trust and to believe that the advice you offer is the right one for them. The failure to build this confidence would have an effect on the overall quality of your content. Ensure that your design is up-to-date, professional and built to represent who you are as a brand.
Readability
The overall look of your webpage is important for the first judgement, but what happens when you start reading your content? Make sure your text is consistent, eye-catching and, most importantly, easy to read. There is nothing worse than trying to read a post which has a variety of font options and sizes. Most of the time, a unique font can be used across the site.
It might be tempting to change the font on your blog, or you might want to change your name to a different font from anyone else. It could split the text in principle, but in reality, it makes the website look unprofessional and, in some cases, daunting.
Your font is sometimes dictated by other resources which you have on your site. You should match the font of your site to that used by your logo or other online services. Font colour should never match the background, which means no blue text on the blue header. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many websites still have such errors. Text sizes should differ where appropriate but should be readable at all times. Typically speaking, the headers will be wider in order to draw interest.
The body copy also needs to be clean and big enough to make it easy to read, whether you have 300 or 3000 words. Don not be tempted to decrease your font size so as to restrict the scroll of the page. Users are more likely to quit immediately if they need to manually zoom in to read your content. Although some of these seem to be small and trivial, they have a major influence on how successful the content and plan is.
Visuals
Visuals are still going to be King. In the past few years, video content has started to take over the online space. Forbes predicted that Online video traffic would account for more than 80 per cent of all user internet traffic in 4 years. How are the visuals so powerful? Many people are visual learners: use images, photographs and videos to fully understand subjects and new understanding. Infographics are a good example of that. Users can learn all the details they ‘re going to get from a blog through a simple, visually appealing graphic.
It ‘s important to use this kind of media for your content. Most often than not, they will complement each other. The most common type of this is a page header. Those are the photos on the top of the web pages that are intended to address a query. There may be questions you haven’t asked yet. They make it possible for users to understand who you are, what you do and how you do it. This helps you to influence their view of your brand.
Visuals should work well with the layout of your site from a design point of view. You should not try to use a piece of visual content for the sake of having it on your website. Users should be able to click through your website without thinking like they are being bombarded with additional content. Around the same time, they should be able to communicate with images and videos where appropriate.
How Do You Design a Content Friendly Website?
Web design includes several different elements that play an important role in content marketing. That being said, the site should always be built with the users in mind. Whether or not your website is heavy content, ensuring that your visitors can read everything and navigate easily should be your priority.
You’ll begin to see even better results when your visitors can engage with your content effortlessly and obtain the value they’re looking for. If they have to think about each move, your visitors are likely to turn to the competitor.
If you care about the appearance of your website, it would be beneficial for you to have it designed by a professional. Web developers will not only understand industry practises better but will also be able to transform your idea to an easily navigable website and also have the added benefit of having a professional, uniquely designed website.
