Tips for an Engaging Website

These days, everyone has a website. Given our current internet culture, this makes a lot of sense. But how do you distinguish your website form the crowd? What makes for a good website?

• Readability - this seems obvious, but many websites fall into the trap of having a solid wall of small sized text, that the eye naturally skips over. Or alternatively, they have an overwhelming image or images that distract from and sometimes actively prevent you from clearly seeing the text. On this vein, your font is important - stick to simple sans serif fonts - fancy custom fonts distract the eye and can look unprofessional. 

• Strong Visuals- While you shouldn't let your images overwhelm your content, having attractive graphics or pictures can help visually market your website. In many cases, having an image contain content - simple, readbale diagrams and charts - is the best way to marry the two. It's also important to have a compact, relatively simple logo that can be used to brand your site across social media platforms.

• Don't be afraid of substance - It can be tempting to underestimate your audience, to treat your website like a larger, more intense advertisement. Your website, while it advertises your company by definition, should not be an adverstisment in and of itself. The job of a website is to give your customers and potential customers concrete facts. Assume that your advertising has done it's job and led people to your website - they have a vague idea of what your company does. Now, show them the actual products and/or services you want them to buy.

 For some examples of well designed websites (at least, we think so) go to UnimarDesign. 

And as always, if you have any additional tips or suggestions, things that worked or didn't work for you, let us know in the comments, or by contacting us on twitter and facebook.