Crocus Communications

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5 Basic Principles of Effective Web Design

These days, only the most remote and old-fashioned businesses remain ignorant of the necessity of having a website; but unfortunately that doesn’t mean that we all know what we’re doing. Clunky websites that are slow to load or impossible to read on mobile phones are surprisingly common.

But you don’t need to spend big budgets on big agencies to get an effective website for your business. Whether you go it alone on a platform like WordPress or you brief a designer to create a bespoke site, there are some basic principles of effective web design to bear in mind…

1. Start with your business objective

What is the purpose of your website? What action do you want your visitors to take? Do you want them to read your blog posts? Sign up for your newsletter? Buy your product? Clarity on your number one objective will help you to focus on the most crucial information ‘above the fold’ (i.e. within the first part of the website that is visible without scrolling), with a clear call to action (a green button has been shown to work well!). This focus will also mean that you can get rid of all that clutter that doesn’t really contribute to your objective; white space can be very effective.

2. Make the navigation simple and intuitive

You may think you’re being creative with some never-before-seen design but all you’re doing is creating barriers between you and your potential customer, and the likely outcome is that they will simply give up and leave. People tend to read from left to right, they’re used to horizontal menus at the top or vertical menus down the left, and they’re impatient and will drop off if they have to go through too many steps or clicks. Bear this in mind and follow the basic conventions so that people feel immediately comfortable and can get straight to work with finding the information they’re looking for.

3. Make sure it’s mobile friendly

A lot of small business websites still don’t take into account the large and ever-increasing number of visitors that are using a tablet or a mobile. Depending on the nature of your business, the proportion of mobile users can be larger than desktop – so what’s the point in having some fancy design that simply doesn’t work for half your customers? Making your website mobile responsive (so that it adapts to the screen size of the device) doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg – many WordPress themes are mobile responsive as default, while if you’re working with an agency or designer you should specify this as a mandatory criterion of the site.

4. Keep the writing short and crisp

Don’t try to sound clever or get too creative with your writing, whether we’re talking about menu labels, call-to-action buttons, or the main body text on the site. Instead, make sure you’re using consumer language and avoiding jargon, highlight important words and phrases using bold and italics, break up long text with bullets and short paragraphs. Again, people are impatient and will be scanning the site for the information they’re after – confuse them or take too long to get to the point and they’ll get frustrated and go elsewhere.

5. Content, content, content!

Create content for your site that sits in the sweet spot between your business objective and your customers’ needs. Understanding who your visitors are and where they are coming from will help you to create relevant content that answers their most burning questions and keeps them coming back to your site. This content will help to build your credibility as experts in your field, build relationships with your customers and, of course, build your search rankings to get even more traffic to your site. Don’t forget to make the content sharable, so that your customers can spread the word for you; once you’ve created this content, you can also push it out yourselves in other ways, whether via email newsletters or via social media such as on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Next time you’re on a website – perhaps you’ll be doing your online banking, or booking a hotel, or trying to find a local restaurant – we suggest you spend some time thinking about how easy it is to find the information you’re looking for, whether the design of the site helps or hinders you, and what you might learn from their mistakes. Never forget that you’re a consumer, a human being in fact, as well as a business owner or a marketer!

We’d love for you to share examples of websites that you’ve found to be particularly good, or shockingly bad, in the comments below!

 

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Winners on the content marketing battlefield

In our last post, we looked at the arrival of content marketing onto the scene along with the proliferation of content that has come with that concept. From individuals to organisations, from small businesses to big brands, everyone is getting in on the act in the constant drive to stay relevant in the digital age.

Today, when you’re trying to attract new customers and get your message across, you’re not just contending with your traditional competitors within your own industry. You’re competing for attention against a whole array of marketing and other messages with which consumers are being bombarded on a daily basis.

So who are the winners in this world of information overload? Here are some of the brands that are managing to get their message through…

1. Dove: a mission that matters

One of our favourites, the Real Beauty campaign from Dove, has gone through several iterations in its ten years, from Evolution in 2006 to Real Beauty Sketches last year and the most recent and on-trend Selfie. The message is consistent and one that resonates with many women around the world. The Real Beauty Sketches video had more than 60 million views, but engagement goes beyond YouTube to use the hashtag #wearebeautiful across Facebook, Twitter, and various blog posts and forums. The Dove brand now has a clear mission and a powerful emotional benefit for women, that of feeling beautiful and confident in their own skin.

2. Red Bull: beyond the product

It’s impossible to talk about content marketing without mentioning Red Bull. From selling an energy drink with a funny cartoon ad to building a media empire, Red Bull has taken its brand far beyond the sugary water that is its actual product. Today, the brand stands for extreme sports and adventure, a rich and varied subject matter that can hold an adrenaline junkie’s attention far longer than a product-centric website about a caffeine drink. Instead of trying to market its product to consumers, Red Bull creates and broadcasts content that its target audience will love. Felix Baumgartner’s jump from space broke not just the record for the highest free fall but also viewing figures for live streaming of the event. As well as the website and YouTube channel, Red Bull has a magazine, an app, and even a record company.

 3. GoPro: created by customers

Speaking of Felix Baumgartner, GoPro (who had seven HERO2 cameras documenting the jump) is another adrenaline junkie brand that wins on engaging content. In GoPro’s case, the product is at the centre of its marketing plan, which is built largely out of content from its users using the camera itself. Fans are inspired by other users, and become even greater advocates for their brand as their own content is curated.

4. Louis Vuitton: selling a lifestyle

In the luxury world, LVMH’s editorially independent Nowness has found a way to recreate the exclusive brand experience online, immersing consumers in a world of not just fashion and beauty but also culture, music, sports, travel… Here, the brand is almost entirely absent. Most of the content is curated from other sources, with an occasion film created in partnership with Louis Vuitton. The site has won awards and has played a key part in building aspiration and establishing the brand’s positioning in Asia. The platform, which also spans across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, is a community of fans who will happily share its content, all the while maintaining the cachet of the luxury brand.

 5. Marks & Spencer’s: content for commerce

M&S is taking a more commercial approach with its new content-focused website that includes a prominent lifestyle section called Style & Living. This content gives consumers a reason to come back to the site, but also has a direct link to sales. The head of online and digital marketing explains that “Content is like a shop assistant sitting at your site and guiding you through the shopping experience. We know that 24 per cent of customers are more likely to shop when they’ve been through content.”

What are your favourite examples of content marketing? Which brands do you engage with regularly as a consumer and why?

Next time, we’ll look at how we can learn from these examples and how we can compete on content with smaller teams and smaller budgets.

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Content is king – or is he a dictator?

Content is king, it’s all about content, content first, content, content, CONTENT!

Yes, content is king, but as more companies, and individuals, realise this, the internet is being flooded with content that purports to add value to the user, with the ultimate aim of making a sale.

“Content is king” was the title of a 1996 article by Bill Gates in which he predicted:

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting. […] the broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment. No company is too small to participate.”

No company is too small to participate, indeed, which is why the internet is full of bloggers, would-be experts, businesses, brands, who are pumping information out into the world. Quantity over quality?

Google Trends: "content marketing"
Content marketing as a concept has exploded onto our radar in the last few years

As individuals, we are bombarded with stimuli from all sides. At work, we receive hundreds of emails every day, we have long conference calls and go to back-to-back meetings; we read business reports, analyse share data, run consumer research, look at what competition is doing, study best practices. Privately, we’re on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr. We’re watching YouTube clips, browsing news sites, checking the weather, reading reviews on TripAdvisor, exploring Amazon’s recommendations, playing Words with Friends or Candy Crush Saga.

It’s no wonder that we start to feel overwhelmed, we get easily distracted, we struggle with making decisions.

Google Trends: "How to focus"
Searches for “how to focus” have been on a steady increase since 2007 as we try to find ways to deal with information overload…

So we develop coping mechanisms. We choose to skip video advertising that is preventing us from getting at the content we actually want to watch, we ignore banners that try to distract us from the article we’re reading, we scroll past promotional messages appearing in our news feed.

As humans – and yes, we are humans, though we may represent brands and businesses – we now have an average attention span of 8 seconds. (A goldfish, by the way, narrowly beats us at 9 seconds.) This is the window you have for catching, and holding, someone’s attention.

And you’re competing against everyone else who’s screaming for attention. You’re competing with Red Bull’s Felix Baumgartner jumping from space. With Series 4 of Game of Thrones. With Justin Bieber.

There are even businesses springing up to help us consume content more efficiently. Vine limits each video to just six seconds. Snapchat allows up to 10 seconds but then deletes it. Twitter restricts our messages to 140 characters. Circa breaks down news stories into bite-sized chunks.

It’s simply not enough to talk about your product. It’s not enough to hire a big celebrity. It’s not enough to add some hashtags.

What is it about your content that makes someone pay attention for long enough to absorb your key message? Why should they listen, why should they engage?

Next time, we’ll look at examples of how different brands have tried to address those questions in the content marketing battle for attention.

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