First impressions count
The first thing you’re going to notice about a website isn’t the way it looks. It’s how long you had to wait for it to load. In an ideal world, it takes less than a second. If it takes longer than 3 seconds, you’ve lost 40% of your website visitors. And it doesn’t end there. When it comes to parting with money, 82% of people remember slow loading times and think twice.
So what can you do? Some things are easy to control. Don’t overload your page with too many images and videos. If you’ve added lots of complicated functions to your website using plug-ins (e.g. chatbots or links to 3rd-party review sites), that will also slow it down.
Unless you’re building your website from scratch, other factors will be the responsibility of your web designer. The website should be hosted by a reputable provider, and your web team should follow best practices to keep that load speed lightning fast.
Mobile optimisation
A lot of people browse websites from their phones. If you haven’t asked your web designer to optimise your website for mobile, it may become completely unreadable. Common issues include the entire webpage shrinking to just a few inches in size or the formatting going wonky. Some people might take the time to open your website on their computer – if they remember – but ideally your website should be easy to view and accessible from any device.
Clear signposting
Don’t make visitors work to understand your website. It should be obvious where to go to find information. To start, your web address should match your company name to help make your website easy to find.
Make sure your pages are clearly labelled on the main navigation and in the main header of each page. Include a home page button so visitors can go back if they want to, and put calls-to-action or hyperlinks where they fit naturally.
A call to action is a button that encourages the reader to do something. “Request a call back”, or, “Read our blog” for example, and you might hyperlink the word ‘dementia care’ on your homepage to provide a shortcut to people wanting to click through to your dementia care page. Buttons can also be optimised for mobile e.g. a phone icon they can tap to make a call.
Clear language
The website copy should be clear and easy to understand. Use everyday language when you’re talking to potential clients. If your target audience is local authorities or the CQC rather than private clients, it’s ok to use slightly more formal language and terms they’ll be familiar with.
Don’t overload people with too much information. If you want to optimise a page to rank on Google for a specific keyword (SEO optimisation) keep the copy closely connected to your keywords, and otherwise, keep it short and to the point.
Make it pretty
To make your website attractive, break up chunks of copy with icons, images, or testimonials. Stick to your brand colours and follow your brand guidelines to keep a consistent look and feel for images (if you don’t have a brand guide yet, check out our blog explaining what that is and why it matters).
Authentic imagery is perfect if you can get permission to use photographs of your carers or clients. If not, you can use stock imagery.
Your digital shopfront
Your website is essentially your digital shopfront. When you’re walking down the street, you should be able to tell what a shop sells from its name and window display. Once inside, you can see what they sell, but they don’t overload you with lots of unnecessary information – if you want to know how that vase was made, there should be a clerk available to tell you.
So, in website terms, your visitors want to:
- know who you are in less than 30 seconds
- load your website quickly from any device
- find the information they’re looking for easily
- learn more about your services on the inner pages
- be able to click to call or contact you from any page
- click through to your socials or external reviews.
Get in touch
If you need help building a great website get in touch. We keep up with the latest trends and best practices so you can just focus on serving your communities.
