1. User Interviews 

Go straight to the source. If you can have a one-on-one conversation with participants of your target market, then you find out directly what they want and need. While it is best to do this in person, this can also be done via virtual meeting or phone call. Pay attention to their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences. Start will simple questions, then based on their answer go deep into the subject. If needed, have a list of pre-planned question ready, but make sure you are not too focused those questions that you don’t listen to the client. 

2. Surveys

Sometimes you only need info on a specific topic, or you need reactions after the purchase and use of your product or service. This is when you send out a survey to a large amount of your customers’ email. Make sure your email subject is clean simple and avoid all caps, you don’t want clients making the mistake of thinking your survey is a scam or spam. Keep the survey short, users are less likely to complete a long survey. If you want to provide an extra incentive by offering a discount to your store if they complete the survey. 

3. Focus Groups 

Gather a small sample group of your target market to discuss your product, service, or experience. Let them share their perspectives amongst themselves in a guided setting. This allows you to gain insights into the nuances and different types of views as individuals. This is especially useful when tailoring products, services, and experiences for individual clients, not just a whole demographic. Include a moderator so that they stay on topic and that they don’t influence each other too much. 

4. A/B Testing 

If you have 2 designs for your project, you can test them against each other. You can use live users or use A/B testing tools that can analyze your design and determine which your target market will gravitate to more. This is useful for designs that are similar but have a minor difference or the information is presented in a different order. If results come back overwhelming to 1 version, you can scrap the other. If your results are nearly even, you can chalk it up to personal preference and merge the two or provide personalized settings for the end user to allow them more control. 

5. Card Sorting 

This method can help determine items like website architecture. You break your products or services into categories. Using virtual or physical cards, assign each card an individual product or service. Provide them to the user and ask them to sort the cards into groups. The groups can be based on criteria based on user preference for example color, size, etc. This helps you identify patterns in what user views, which indicates what a user will like search when looking for a product or service like yours. You can then organize your website based on the results leading to the exact user experience your target market wants. 

6. Tree Test

Findability and usability of website content can be tested with the tree test method. This can be used as a follow up from the card sorting method or it can be used when you have large amounts of content, have multiple navigation options, or are updating your existing website. The tree test method involves asking participants to find specific items starting from the home page to the contact page. You give no indication of what the internal navigation or call-to-action buttons are but are allowed a few hints. This helps understand how users find and interact with your web content. 

Start a user-researched web project today? Call 248.528.3600

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Logo

Your company logo is needed so that visitors know that it is your company website that they are on. Make sure your logo is visible at a small size and that the colors are in RGB (digital colors). If you have an old logo, it may be time for a re-design by a professional design agency. If you have an illustrative one or one with a lot of detail, you may need to simplify or have your logo visible embedded in your top image. Be aware that if you have it embedded in your top image it could mean for future images your logo must be visible or you will have to forgo sliders or videos where the logo isn’t there. Logos in the header are often hyperlinked to take the user back to the home page. 

Navigation Menu 

Whether you have individual links to each page, a mega menu, or a hamburger menu, you need to have a way for users to navigate your website. Usually access to a navigation menu is at the top. There are some exceptions to the rule like side menus, but those are usually reserved for apps where users will swipe to access the navigation. Before designing your website, it is ideal to have a sitemap where you can figure out how many pages you need and how they will be maneuvered. This will inform what type of navigation to use. 

Call To Action 

You want to encourage users to take the next step in the sale process. CTAs that are usually at the top-right of your webpage are:

• Company phone number
• Email Us Icon/Link
• Contact Us Page
• Request a Quote Page
• Support Link

Search Bar 

A search bar is needed if you have a large website with a lot of products, services, or information. Distributor websites will have a search bar at the top of their website so users can type in the brand they want, and it will directly pop up. The users will not have to go into layers of webpages to hunt down what they want. This will prevent clients from giving up on your website and bouncing out. A simple search bar can improve click-through-rates and improve the user experience of your website. 

Ecommerce Icons 

 If your business is ecommerce, then you need icons your user can use to complete the purchase and continue for future purchases. These icons are: 

• Login/My Account icon
• Add to Cart icon 
• Add to Wish List icon
• A Like/Favorite icon
• A Share icon 

Need help fixing your web design? Call 248.528.3600.

The post Items Your Website Header Needs  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

Reward Customer After They Complete a Task 

Offer a discount code or free shipping to customers that sign up for the first time or spend X amount of dollars. This creates a positive experience and rewards customers for giving up their personal information to your business. Customers will feel they are gain a bonus in addition to the product. Create trust and build a relationship between your company’s brand and the client. Building on that trust will help increase revenue and purchase conversion in the long run because your company will be helping the client make a valuable choice. 

 Add a “Last Item Left” Label 

Exclusivity and scarcity motivate customers to decide quicker on whether to make the purchase. If an item is never coming back or not coming back for a long time, they may want to purchase the item right away, so they feel like they own something rare and unique. Most CMS websites such as WordPress call it a “Ribbon” feature that you add to your product, and it will show up at the top corner of your product image. Say something like “1 left” or “gone Oct 15”. 

Send a “Item Left in Cart” Email    

Sometimes clients like to gather products but purchase them later. This can lead them to forget what they have in their cart. Send a reminder email 2-3 days later, notifying them that they have items in their cart. A lot of email campaign plugins on websites allow you to automate this task, it is called a trigger workflow. Depending on the type of plugin, it might ask something like this: send abandon cart email every _______ days. It will also allow your business to track your web visitors’ actions. This is helpful info for when coming up with a marketing strategy to keep user retention. 

 Partner with an Influencer 

An influencer isn’t just a young famous rich person, it can also be anyone with knowledge authority. Take a local boutique shop for example. If a travel blogger gives a raving review about how much they admire your hiking boots, reach out to see it they would like a free pair in exchange that they wright an article exclusively about those boots and send to their readers. This can help increase web traffic and brand awareness. Keep in mind a lot of followers doesn’t mean those followers have purchase power. Develop a social media marketing plan to include market research and specifically target potential clients that would be interested in your product and are able to purchase it. 

 Offer Free Trial Periods 

This tip is more for software or subscription-based services. Some products clients like to try before they buy. Keep generic tools free but provide one advanced feature that make your product special and different from the competition. Don’t make too difficult to cancel. Have turn-off auto-renewal payment available in their settings. Some companies make the mistake of putting cancelation too deep in the app or website account settings and this ends up frustrating the client leaving them never to return. In addition, have a survey that you send to gain feedback on how you can improve your product. This will encourage brand loyalty and make them feel included in the creation process. 

Update your E-Commerce Website with these features. Call 248.528.360

The post E-commerce Techniques to Get Customers to Complete the Purchase appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Half-Page Graphic 

Most commonly used for landing pages these elements are pretty simple and allows you to create contrast. Play with layers and give the illusion of depth to help your main product or service photo pop. 

https://www.straightfromyard.co.uk

2. A Framed Viewpoint 

This element can help you present CTAs (call-to-actions) in fancy ways. Limit the scrolling area in a frame and create empty space at the top and left or right areas. These layouts are often seen on architecture, museum, corporate, and other formal websites. 

https://korsel.bold-themes.com/main-demo/home-5/

3. Horizontal Scrolling  

Think of this element like you are flipping through a book or magazine. This element is best if you have a portfolio of items to show off. For example, you are company sells luxury wine. You can showcase you top sellers on your home page and users can “flip” through to view your brand’s story and products. A word of caution for this element, it can be glitchy on mobile so you may have to deactivate it for phone viewing. 

https://scepterandsword.com

4. Translucent Skewed-Shape Layout 

Use an abstract shape and dim the opacity a little to partially obscure your product or service shot. It acts as a little sneak peek and gives a feeling curiosity to your website. Brands that also want to covey speed, strength, and boldness usually adopt this layout.  

http://www.themestarz.net/html/lovely/index-parallax.html#nav-home

5. Dynamic 3D Renderings

Pre-rendered video or 3D scenes as backgrounds can create a unique look to your product or service. There are free assets available on websites like Canva.com, Pixabay.com, Shutterstock.com, and Adobe.com. 

https://www.drpepper.ca/en/

6. Line Design

Lines are an underrated way to clean up you design. Strategically place lines to break up important info. This will also come in handy if your website is copy heavy and has only a few pictures. 

https://www.display.care

7. Arrow Links

Point to where you want users to go to. Where they are bold or thin, arrows are a universal symbol of direction. Place them in areas you want potential clients to interact with. They can act as a sales trail for visitor.

https://consulting.stylemixthemes.com/barcelona/

8. Marquee

Use keywords as decorative elements for momentum-scrolling websites. Brands that use short action words should incorporate this element either at the top or the bottom of your home page. This will give you website movement and encourage the user to stay on your page longer. This great if you want to gain a higher-clickthrough rate. 

https://chriscarruthers.co.uk/home

9. Chaotic Centered Hero Piece

This is when a horizontally centered product or service has used different fonts, typefaces, and misaligned images that create abstract look. Be careful with this technique. Avoid putting any important in hard-to-read layouts. This look is mostly for snappy headlines and images that do not show off the product or service directly. 

https://www.therailpark.org

10. Gravestone Images

Gravestone images refer to an image with top border-radiuses edited to make the full composition look like half circle shape or a gravestone. Perfume, Shampoo, Vitamin, and other Wellness or Beauty website adopt this layout to look cleaner and more high-end. 

https://dt-aia.myshopify.com

11.  Misaligned Card

These kinds of cards have the text floating partially outside the background creating a nice depth effect for your product or service shot. This is best used both in informal and elegant styles. Make sure the drop shadow isn’t too intense otherwise it will look dated. 

https://theartoffinance.biz

12. Add a Hamburger Menu

In lieu of a traditional navigation where you see all the page names, try a hamburger menu. It appears as 3 lines at the top right corner of your website. Mobile is becoming the first device most people will see your website in, and the hamburger menu is more mobile-friendly than traditional menus. 

https://www.atumobile.com

13. Use Bauhaus Shapes

These shapes are generally made with rectangles with maximized border-radius on 1 or 2 corners. Bright colors are also incorporated. Bauhaus design has a rich history, and more people are starting to appreciate it in web design, not just print or architecture.

https://yourleadershipbridge.com

14. Rotated Text

Vertical text for headlines is a great element to create if you want to encourage users to scroll down. Like the marquee style, avoid using for important info, but use for headlines that are easy to read or well known to your audience. 

https://avantt.displaay.net

15. Animated Cursor

This element is underutilized by most. Not only is it fun, but it can act as a call to action. Have you mouse cursor come up as a circle that says “click” will encourage more people to interact with your website. User will stay on your website longer if they something to engage with. 

https://www.lecantiche.com

Let our team create a website with 1 or more of these elements for you. Call 248.528.360

The post 15 Graphic Elements to Improve Your Business’s Website  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Collect Detailed Demographic Data

Ask “Do customers even want this project?” or “How does my product/service meet my customers’ expectations? After that, do market research on who might need your product or service. Discover their daily habits and compare them to your product or service. Think about in what way will it help improve their lives. UX focuses on getting to know a specific demographic and building a product/service that will enrich and engage those users. The goal should be to get them to purchase initially and continually engage with your business. Use Google Analytics and keep track of who is already visiting your website pages to start. Look for their location (do get more local engagement or distant engagement?), age, gender (including non-conforming), profession, and lifestyle (what other items or brands do they purchase from).  

2. Build Strong Customer Relationships 

UX incorporates extensive knowledge of the customers to gain an understanding of why they use the products or services they do. This helps you build what customers need, as well as what they want. Getting to know the habits and expectations of your target audience means you can speak to them more easily. Hit specific messaging points that will bring them into harmony with your company’s mission. Social media and information sharing define consumer tastes. So, if you get stuck don’t be afraid to ask directly through email surveys or social media polls or questions. These two effective marketing avenues could be considered a successful user experience in themselves. 

3. Create an In-Depth Competitive Analysis

Examine the landscape of products and services that users may choose to use instead of yours. It is vital for creating the right set of features that will make your business different from similar brands or services. You want to fill in the gap that your industry has yet to solve. This type of analysis helps your marketing team recognize what features resonate with potential consumers, and therefore should be emphasized in your marketing material. Start with a framework to guide your assessment. Frameworks usually include these items:

• Mission
• Elevator pitch
• Products offered
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Brand differentiators

After establishing a framework, select targets based on what other options your customers have. Prioritize which competing businesses you want to keep a close eye on and those that currently offer a product or service most like yours. You want to monitor them in the long term. Also be on the lookout for partnership opportunities with your competitors. Sometimes your strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. 

4. Make Sure There is Adherence to a Core Idea 

Your product or service must serve its central goal. Every feature and interface element needs to serve the core of the product/service. Follow good UX practices, like staying true to your core messaging at all your company’s brand touch points. From your website and offline to social media, your marketing material must look like it belongs to your company while simultaneously relating to you target viewers. Regularly audit your marketing material to make sure every piece has purpose and is fulfilling the mission of your company. If you are busy, start with hiring a digital marketing agency once a year to consult and discuss your marketing material. They can help with one area of your marketing that you are neglecting, or they can simply provide thoughtful questions to help you improve your client’s experience. 

Let us help include thoughtful UX into your business’s marketing strategy! Call 248.528.360

The post 4 Necessary Elements of UX Design for Your Marketing Plans  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

First, start off your web design by design for everyone, in other words, make sure your design is based on the basic principles of UX/UI design. Resist assuming older adults need increased font sizes or that they will be viewing your design on the iPad only. Some maybe near-sighted or far-sighted, some maybe on a laptop, phone, or desktop. Research what goes on in their daily lives and how they use their devices. This will help when you come up with a design with the goal that will direct them to your product or service. 

Secondly, for brand elements, imagery, and headlines avoid labeling everything as “Senior” and using cliché photos or illustrations. Not all old adults are bed ridden or on death’s door. Most are self-sufficient and may need a little help here or there in certain tasks. Use imagery that has them active, doing daily tasks, or using your product or service. Also avoid photos with washed out, hazy lighting. For some reason certain photographers think it portrays the “golden years’, but in reality, it looks messy and out of touch. The same can be said of chalky or pastel sketchy illustrations as well. These were fine when the newspaper was the medium but looks dated on digital devices. 

Tech illiteracy of older generations is a fallacy and myth that still proceeds, and it is annoying. People 50 and over were the first generations to adopt tech. They bought the first cell phones, played Pong, used the first Mac and Microsoft computers. They didn’t grow up touch screen natives, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t grow up exposed to certain user interfaces. Think about design that trains and builds habits of modern use. For example, the “hamburger menu” seen on mobile website is second nature to younger generations, but old generations may not know the purpose. Instead viewing is as incompetence think of way to meet them halfway. Try labeling the “hamburger menu” as simply “menu” near the graphic. This will let them know where the navigation is as well as make them remember for future websites. 

Lastly, while it would be best to hire a digital marketing team with the target audience included in the web design team, that isn’t always possible, or you are not able to tell who is on the team. However, it is possible of testing to be done by the target demographic. LinkedIn, Reddit, local outreach, job boards, email surveys, and more are all available ways to create a testing group for your web design. Take notes on what they found easy or hard. Take these notes to the design and development team to make improvements based on productive feedback. 

Ready to create an Age friendly website? Call 248.528.360

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1. What is the core flow of your user’s experiences?

How easy or hard is the experience suppose to be? Is it a website with games where tension is exciting, and friction is expected or it an ecommerce site that needs to be simply navigated to make the end-user happy? If you integrate a new feature, does it help or hinder this process? If unsure continue testing, if everything is working fine, launch!

2. Is the user’s ability to do a particular action going to determine the success of the launch?

In ecommerce, if a client completes a purchase by clicking a cart button that means the launch was successful. For a service-based company, a contact form was successfully filled out and sent to the correct email, it means the launch is successful. These processes should work smoothly. At least one test should be conducted on different browsers and devices to make sure everything if functionally correctly. If the buttons aren’t working notify the developer, and test again until it works. Once everything is working, launch! 

3.  Is this an area where we anticipate users could have difficulty?

Identify any pain-points a user may have. This may include the user interface design. Is the design accessibility-friendly? Is the design suitable for the target audience? Check if designs work on both on mobile and desktop. Are there any important instructional elements running off the page? Does one feature work on mobile, but not desktop? If possible, have someone from your target market or a group for your target market test at least once, identify any issues, and fix any problems in the front-end or back-end until 99% successful. 

4. Does this change the way current customers are accomplishing their tasks? 

Is this going to impact what customers are currently doing? Newer is not always better. Sometimes people can go too far into innovation that no one knows how to navigate your website. Make sure the basic principles of design are being followed. If a feature proves cumbersome for existing users to adapt to, it may be worth another look. You may need to replace it with an easier or more commonly used feature. Testing will also let you know if you need to invest in an onboarding experience to transition users accustomed to the previous version. This will come in handy for updates being made and whether you need to invest in instructional usage. For example, when we upgrade a php website to WordPress we send an instructional video or pdf for the use to refence for when they make updates. 

5. Is there already an industry best practice? 

For example, do you know that a green button signals success and a red button stops users from continuing? This does not need to be tested. If a feature is common knowledge and you already checked it functionality it does not need to be tested further. You should be ready to launch right away. 

6. Is what you are looking to test a matter of user preference?

Light mode vs dark mode is a good example of how certain users prefer different set ups but isn’t explicitly impactful on the overall project. If is your first test has a split percentage of reactions, it may be a simple user preference that you don’t need to spend too much time focused on. Your focus should be elements that focus on the main goal that will bring success. If unsure test one more time and if the percentage is still split move on or launch anyway.   

7. How much effort is this test going to take? 

Do you have the timeline necessary to undertake this effort? Always have due date for the project to be done, especially if you already spent money on it! Limit the number of tests that can be done. If the project is failing discuss a pause to the project and see it there is a way to exit the project or re-organize the timeline. This should be rarity if you discussed the timeline in the first initial discussion, but chaos happens and it wise to develop a web strategy with testing at the beginning of the project to avoid time wasting. 

Develop a web UX design with us! Call 248.528.360 

The post 7 Questions to Ask Before You Test Your UX Design appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

What Affects Click-Through Rate?

• Relevancy 

Your content should be relevant to the channel and landing page. Any ad, email, or campaign should contain the same message as its landing page to avoid confusion for the user. This is important for CRTs, bounce rate, and conversion. 

• Ad Rank 

PPC click-through rate will be affected by where your ad will show on a results page. This can be at the top on mobile or desktop or the right column on desktop. Ad rank depends on your quality score, relevance, and the amount you’re willing to bid (CPC budget). 

• Device

According to Web Marketing Pros, mobile CTRs are higher than on desktop. Filter your target audience by device, especially if your budget is limited. If you are not limited by budget, create content that works for both devices and monitor the CTRs for both. The more clicks you have the higher chance that user becomes a customer. 

What is Good CTR? How Do You Improve It?

While there is no set number that indicates a good CTR, organic click-through rate in position 1 averages are typically around 30%. According to Wordstream, a good PPC search ad hovers around 1.91% and for display 0.35%. Average email click-through rate stops around 2.5%. There are many factors that can influence the CTR of each marketing channel. Focus on using your click-through rate to determine which content your users consider relevant and important.

If your rates are not where they need to be, here are several ways you can improve your CTRs: 

1. Use Ad Extensions 

For PPC campaigns, Google has announced using ad extensions can lead to an increase in your CTR. Ad extensions can include reviews, locations, sitelinks, and call buttons. Ad extensions cover more space on the SERP, so you will increase the chance to catch more views.

2. Use Symbols 

Symbols or emojis in an ad title or email subject line can bring attention to your campaign. Special characters in your content make copy easier to read and breakdown. A word for caution, make sure you apply strategically and do not go overboard, otherwise your ad may be view as spam or a scam.  

3. Use CTAs

CTA, or call-to-action, tells users what steps they need to take next. Add a verb and a sense of urgency to these actions, then link the CTA to the matching landing page. For example, you want the user to learn more about your services. A CTA you might use is “Learn More Now” and link it you your company’s services page on its website. 

4. Understand Your Audience 

You may think you now you user, but maybe you are missing some key info. To help with ad targeting, do as much research as possible. What platform has the most engagement and what style draws in more views. Use the Organic Traffic Insights tool to view your most important data from your Google Analytics & Google Search Console data to help you as well. organic traffic can tell you about how your current audience finds and interacts with your website, which you can use to develop better ads similar to the appeal of your website. 

5. A/B Test

Test every step of the user journey, including the copy and landing pages you use.

To make A/B testing easier, try an A/B testing tool. Look for one designed specifically for SEO professionals or hire an agency that provides these services. This will help you quickly determine which optimizations increase organic growth. 

6. Do Keyword Research

Do keyword research before you create a PPC or paid social ad. The correct keywords to target can save time and money. For PPC campaigns, use a PPC Keyword Tool to organize your target keywords for Google Ads. Plan out ad groups and automatically generate cross-group negative keywords for your campaigns. Then export the plan to a file for future integration with Google Ads. Keyword CPC and search volume on a local level for a specific city or region can also help businesses who have a certain audience in a town they want to target.  

Need help with your click-through rates? Call 248.528.360 

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Understanding Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool

There is a difference between PageSpeed vs. Load Time. PageSpeed is a score given by Google by its PageSpeed Insights tool. It takes raw performance metrics and converts them into a score between 1 and 100. The goal is to get as close to 100 as possible. Keep in mind that it’ll offer opportunities and diagnostics reports as part of its report, those do not directly contribute towards the performance score. This means that PageSpeed, on its own, is not actually a true indicator of the loading time of a site. Use Load Time in addition to PageSpeed. It’s the average time it takes for a page to load for a user but does not calculate a score. The actual time a page takes to load is measured in seconds or milliseconds (between starting and finishing the page load). These separately will not give you an insight into what’s causing speed issues or how to fix them, you will need to use several indicators to identify and resolve issues. 

How Does it Work? 

Google PagesSpeed Insights tool is powered by Lighthouse and provides both ‘lab data’ and ‘field data’ for a page. ‘Lab data’ is collected in a controlled environment when scanning a page. This is a great way to help you identify performance issues and find solutions for fixing these. ‘Field data’, alternatively, is collected from real-world performance data when users load your page. Curtain problems and apparent bottlenecks that make it harder for your real visitors to convert can show up here.

The performance metric results used to calculate this are not weighted equally. Instead, things like ‘first contentful paint’ (the first time something a user can see shows up) have a larger effect.

• 3x – first contentful paint.
• 1x – first meaningful paint.
• 2x – first CPU idle.
• 5x – time to interactive.
• 4x – speed index.
• 0x – estimated input latency.

You won’t see any of that. What you will see a reported performance score and a color that depends on which score bucket it falls into. It is reported as:

• Red (poor score): 0-49
• Orange (average): 50-89
• Green (good): 90-100

How to Use the Tool

1. Go to the PageSpeed Insights tool

2. Enter the URL of a web page. After the tool calculates the scores and recommendations, you will see the following:

3. You are served performance scores for mobile, as default. Switch to desktop with the tab at the top left of the page

How to Improve Your Score:

If your score is too low, here are some common issues you may not know you need to improve:

• Optimize Images
  • Image Size 
  • Display Size
  • Content Delivery Network 
    • WordPress handles this automatically by creating multiple versions of an image when uploaded.
  • Defer Offscreen Images
  • Use Next-gen Image Formats (WebP)

• Improve Server Response Time
  • Minification of CSS and JS files
  • Browser Caching 
  • Clear Up Redirects 

Need help interpreting the data or improving your score? Call 248.528.360 

The post Improve the Speed of Your Website appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Lack of Proper Research 

It is important to understand the needs, experiences, and behavior of your target users. Not only is your product or service solving their problem, but your website is too. You need to know their likes, dislikes, bad experiences, good experiences, and more. Create user personas that embody your target audience. This will make it easier to focus on the most likely person to buy your product or services and not stray into accommodating people that don’t need what you are selling. Research successful competitors and create a swot analysis of the strengths and weakness you have compared to them. 

2. Missing Key UI Fundamentals 

Contrast, color, size, alignment, intuitive calls-to-action, typography, mobile responsiveness, and much more are some of the core fundamental principles of UI design. Missing any of these key elements can hurt client interaction with your website and in the extreme circumstances, make your business look like a scam and turn off the client completely. Take the time to at least learn about the basics, there are free YouTube videos or low-cost course online, but if your time is finite, go straight to hiring professionals. They have years of experience to where these fundamentals are already baked into their design plans and processes. 

3. Prioritizing Trends Over Usability 

Design trends can be fun, but if compromise the usability of your website ignore them. If you look at some of the most successful platforms and products on the market, you’ll notice that “trendy” designs are rarely used. That is because they fade and change quickly. Trends should be used more for social media marketing or to upgrade non-essential imagery. Trends are attention grabbers, but if you want a user to stay on your website longer, than you need to create design that can last. The previous point should help with that. 

4. Forgetting Accessibility 

Blind, color blind, and visually impaired individuals need to be able to use your website as well as individuals without these barriers. Start with designing in black and white, then pick a color pallet that has high contrast, then use this link to check to see if colorblind individuals can see your colors: https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ .  Those hard on hearing also need to be considered. E-readers for computers scan alt tags and meta descriptions of images and read back what is going on. Label your photos with short and accurate descriptions. This will also help your website SEO, considering Google, Bing, and other search engines are prioritizing accessibility. 

5. Not Seeking & Applying Feedback

Listen to professionals, co-workers, and most importantly your audience. If possible, have beta-testers check the design and functionality of your website to see if it accomplishes your goal. Listen to feedback and suggestions. You don’t have to adhere to all of them, but any of them that are useful to improve the quality of the client relationship, implement them. This might unfortunately come in the form of a complaint. Resist the urge to ignore or dismiss the negative commenter as a “hater”. Ask questions for details on why their experience is bad. If you can fix it, do so. If it something you think they are confusing you with, you may need to fix the marketing copywrite or design of your product, service, or website. 

Let us help you with correcting these mistakes or avoiding them all together.  Call 248.528.360 

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