In 2021, it’s not enough to just have a website for your business. Your website needs to stand out from the crowd and make potential customers take notice. Every moment counts when someone navigates to your site. On average, a user spends 15 seconds on a website before deciding whether to stay or navigate off the site. Those seconds are crucial, and it’s not just about having a visually appealing website. Your website should have accessibility and quick load times as well. Because there are so many components to making your website one to remember, it’s best to use a developer and design team that understands front end and back end needs. Here are some things you should focus on when crafting your website:
Accessibility is for everyone
When you hear “accessibility,” you probably think of a wheelchair ramp or some other kind of assistance that caters to diverse abilities. This also applies when it comes to website accessibility. When designing a website, it is imperative to consider colors, fonts, images, or other types of visual elements that are incorporated. Having dark green text on a black header bar or tiny font sizes on your footer will leave users frustrated, and they might miss important pieces of information. It’s especially a nightmare for users who are colorblind. For users with visual impairments, utilizing the alt text function for images and graphics ensure they are able to interact with the media on your pages. Alt text is embedded within the HTML code of an image or graphic and should state explicitly what is being shown. If it’s a picture of an orange cat, the alt text should read “orange cat.” Leave out any other language such as “this is a picture of” or anything like that which would clutter the alt text.
Keep your load times competitive
Remember how we mentioned the average user only spends 15 seconds on a page before deciding whether or not to navigate away? Well, imagine if those entire 15 seconds were spent waiting for a page to load. That’s one user you’re probably never going to see again. Slow website speeds don’t only affect the user experience, they also affect site traffic and SEO rankings. Optimizing your site for fast load times can also lead to more conversions. The better a user experience is on a website equates to more chances that someone will contact you or complete a transaction. One way to improve your page speed is to optimize files, images, or videos by reducing the file size. If a page is too “heavy,” the page can load slowly thus affecting the user experience. We like to use https://tools.pingdom.com/ for testing the site speed and seeing what areas we can improve.
Everyone is on their mobile device
As of February 2021, over 55% of global web traffic takes place on a mobile device. That staggering statistic has exploded over the last decade thanks to improvements in smartphone technology, and it’s fair to assume that number will continue to grow. This means if you want your website to compete, it needs to be well equipped for mobile. Viewing a website on a mobile device delivers a few challenges when it comes to design, accessibility, and loading speeds. Design-wise, you’ll want to ensure your site is optimized for a much smaller screen and consider you’re dealing with a touchscreen instead of a mouse or trackpad. The size of images, headers, footers, fonts, etc. are all things to make mobile friendly. While there are many platforms that claim to deliver drag and drop websites that are mobile friendly, it’s best to use a developer who is trained to seek out common hiccups that arise with optimizing for mobile.
