All businesses strive to be as modern as possible. Even companies that like to appear traditional, such as a stylish tailor or shoemaker that was established over a century ago, have social media presences and websites you can find online.
Without a digital presence, you’ll struggle to optimise your online visibility and maximise business opportunities. Any clients brought in by word of mouth and networking should be considered a bonus, while the bulk of enquiries should be coming from visitors to your website.
However, since this is the goal for 99% of businesses, finding an advantage can be tricky. A modern, well-constructed website with the latest user trends could give you the edge you need. We’re experts in all things web design and are going to explain to you what a modern approach to web design is and why it works.
Web Design that Sells your Brand
Your brand is your business message; it’s what influences and sells your company to prospective clients/customers and retains the ones you’ve already worked hard to entice. This isn’t just visuals, although your logo, typeface, and colour scheme, and imagery all support your brand, it is more about how you present yourself through written content as well as photography and business videos.
Often, we see websites that have a strong brand in some ways but contradict themselves in others. For example, they may have a fairly informal tone with their written content, that sells the human side of the business well. This is very effective, it appeals more to visitors and removes a certain ‘stuffiness’ from brands. However, if on your ‘About’ page, your meet the team section has a series of photos of your team looking very formal, it doesn’t reinforce the message you’re trying to promote.
Establishing your brand message is very important. In order to target specific demographics or stand out within your industry, you need to ensure that you’re putting out the right message to people who need your products/services. Over time, a company evolves, and the branding message might not suit as well as it used to. If this is the case, a rebrand could be needed, or at least a chat with a professional marketing team about how you can get things back on track.
If you’re a company whose brand is a cutting-edge provider that is always innovating, your website needs to represent that.
Implementing Modern Web Design
So how do you make a website modern? This is a tricky question, one we’re asked a lot. Some business owners fall into the trap of installing too many plugins that add a lot of features to each page, such as pop-ups, chat bots, and sections that change appearance when you hover over them. These can work brilliantly for some, but if you’re just installing them for the sake of it, they’ll likely do more harm than good. Page speed is incredibly important, both for SEO and overall visitor satisfaction. If your website is lagging or refuses to load, people will get frustrated and look elsewhere – having to close unnecessary pop-ups has the same effect.
Being ‘modern’ often involves following the principle of less is more. By keeping things simple you improve readability, and your visitors can find everything they need without needing to do much. You want them to be enticed and find what they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible, so have drop down menus and easy navigation so that they don’t ever feel lost or frustrated.
We always recommend that you keep tried and tested principles whilst adopting to new user habits and expectations without following fads. These principles will still result in a modern site but mean you won’t have to completely redesign your website every few years. If you’re trying to follow trends, copying the big names whenever they make a change, you’re not only being inconsistent, you’re costing yourself a lot of money unnecessarily. You can learn a lot from looking at your rivals and how they approach their web design. However, you should only take the best parts and improve on these, don’t just copy their lead just because it looks nice, it needs to enhance your site not imitate theirs.
If you haven’t updated the structure of your website in a while, there will be things that make it look outdated. For example, contact forms that ask people to enter their name, email, and a message. These were very common 5-10 years ago, but now in our era of chat bots, WhatsApp connection, and fast responses over the phone, you will put some people off if that’s your main form of contact.
When to Update your Website
Knowing that your website needs an update is one thing, knowing when to update it is another.
You should be adding or changing content at least once per month if you want Google and its peers to continue indexing your website. Stale content can also be misleading, keeping things fresh ensures people will come back to your site time after time. A new page, blog, or article each month is more than enough, and don’t be afraid to do more if it’s sustainable. Consistency is key!
If you have a lot of products on your site, you need to keep these up to date too. Having a page for something you no longer sell, or not having one for new products, will affect your growth. You should also have new images that are relevant to each product, as well as accurate descriptions and correct specifications. This sounds obvious, but unless you’re keeping a close eye on your product pages, there will be some you miss.
For the overall web design, we recommend at least a small update every 12 months. Our designs and structure will look great for longer than this, but small tweaks to pages will freshen things up a little.
Web Design Experts in Macclesfield
We know that every business is different, with a unique brand message that they want to put out into the world. This deserves a website that suits you and your business perfectly, not a pre-built solution that is frustrating to deal with.
We’ll work with you to establish your exact needs and build a customised website for you, guiding you through the process every step of the way. If you’re somewhat satisfied with your current site, we can also help with a rebrand or redesign, so you can keep what works and fix what doesn’t.
To find out more about our web design service, or any of the other marketing solutions we provide, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.