''IS YOUR WEBSITE S-L-I-C-K?’'
- James Hopkins
- Jul 29
- 2 min read
James from DBS Digital shares his 5 Tips to make your website the best experience for your customers
Speed: Make it Fast
There is nothing more frustrating than using a website that takes ages to load. A lot of people won't be willing to wait -they will just abandon it and head to a competitor. Image and video size can easily cause delays to load speed, as can inefficient website hosting, broken links and more. Carry out a page speed test to know what you are dealing with and get fixing!
Language: Talk the Right Talk
Always use clear language that you know your users will understand. Not everyone looking at your website will be specialists in your area and too much technical jargon can simply be off putting. Speak in a natural language that makes you approachable and more importantly fits with the overall tone of voice of your business.
Also, avoid large blocks of text. People don't need to be reading essays, and large paragraphs are difficult to skim read. Break up the text into smaller, more manageable chunks and use pictures where appropriate. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Identify Purpose
Take your time to have a true understanding of who your customers are and what they actually want from your website. Give every page a purpose and use Call To Actions (CTAs) e.g. buttons to guide a user in the direction you want to take them. All graphics, wording and CTAs need to have a specific purpose and help a user find the information they want - they should NOT be a distraction or there simply to fill a gap on the page.
Consistency is Key
Your style and tone of voice should be consistent throughout. Your entire website should represent your brand and sound the same, no matter who wrote the content. Use the same font, styling, brand colours and terminology throughout. In order to do this successfully, you need to establish what your brand voice is and what you are trying to convey to the customer. Once you understand this, document it in brand guidelines so that everyone in the company is on the same page.
Keep it Simple
Advances in technology make it easy to get carried away with fancy website designs, animation, videos and impressive graphics. However, you can have the fanciest looking website but if it doesn't explain what your business does or is simply too distracting, it will be a complete waste of effort. Contemplate the colours you use carefully. They need to match your brand but look great and be easy for customers to read (so avoid those neon yellows!). Every element of the design and where you place wording, buttons and pictures is vital; even if you think it doesn’t make a huge difference, it really does. Once you make a design change - test it and test again.
Continuous testing will help you learn which elements resonate with your customers and where on the website they get stuck.
Remember, it only takes 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website.
What impression does your website give?
Photography: Headshot Toby
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