New Albany Magic needed a new website for their local magic shop and intimate magic show theater. We were excited to work with Brent and his team to capture the fun they create at the theater and distill it into an exciting, inviting and unforgettable website experience and marketing tool for their retail magic shop.
About J & B Magic Shop and Theater at New Albany Magic: J & B Theater is a 30 seat immersive, close-up magic theater in New Albany, IN. It is 10 Minutes from downtown Louisville. The J&B Magic Theater gives the opportunity to see some of the best performers in the world up close for a night you will never forget.
St Bernard Catholic School needed a custom website to market their private school to the local community.
About St. Bernard Catholic School: Saint Bernard Catholic School applauds diversity in teaching styles and holds that effective teaching and learning rests upon the recognition of the unique talents and learning styles of each individual. Our goal is to place each student in the learning environment best suited to his or her learning capability.
We worked with attorney Lora Holman to put together a great site that would work for her law office. The site includes a large list of services she offers, with a detail page to increase specific SEO on the site for those particular services and keyword phrases. We also created a back end of the site for easy editing, addition, and removal of posts, pages, and other content.
Have you landed on a website and just felt it perfectly embraced the purpose and personality of a brand? Finding just the right combination of emotional points and features isn’t easy. You must first figure out who you are as a brand. At the same time, learn who your audience is.
According to Internet Live Stats, there are approximately 3.5 billion Google searches every day. The number varies, but you’ll find ample opportunities to reach your target audience with your website.
Does Your Website Design Matter?
Once you get the traffic to your page, does your design resonate with users? You have just a few milliseconds to make a first impression, so making sure you hit every point is vital.
Many people begin their searches for a business, even a local one, via search engines. When they land on your page, do they fully understand the purpose? Is the design aesthetically pleasing? Does the layout guide the user to the next stage of the buyer’s journey?
One of the best ways to learn how to design a site that speaks volumes is studying what others have done. Here are four websites we think just make sense and match the purpose of the business or personality of the brand.
1. Use Brand Color Palette
Is your brand already well-established? If people are familiar with your logo or company colors, it’s smart to use the same look in your web design. While it might be tempting to throw in some unique looks to show you’re up on the latest trends, try to stay away from anything too trend.
It’s best to stick with what your audience recognizes. You can, of course, add in a pop of color for a CTA or slightly adjust the hues to better contrast on electronic screens.
Century 21 uses a large hero image of a modern room to grab interest. They use a semi-transparent bar to share facts such as how many homes, agents and offices are available in your area. Note how the shades are brown and gold with a bit of neutral mixed in.
The company is well known and their logo and color palette recognizable offline. Using similar shades taps into the comfort and familiarity most people already feel with this company. The design works perfectly to get across their message.
2. Highlight Your Tagline
What is your brand’s tagline? You may be able to utilize it in some of the imagery and design of your page. The more you can make all the elements work together to elicit emotion in the user, the more likely they’ll convert into a lead.
For example, if you’re known as a fun brand, you would use happy colors and images. Think about the emotions you’d like to evoke in your customers and center your design around them. Even the shades you choose tap into feelings. Understand buyer reactions to different colors, even if you have to survey them to find out.
MRCOOL uses the heading “Never Stop Dreaming” just above their name logo. To tap into this idea, they show a little girl in a superhero cape, looking across to the city skyline as though she’s ready to rescue the world.
The soft sunset colors make one think of dreaming and something a bit surreal. At the same time, if you click on the video, you get testimonials from those who love the product and want others to know how well it works. It’s the perfect mix of dream and reality to grab user attention in an unexpected way.
3. Have Fun
Don’t be afraid to show off your personality and what’s unique about your business. It might not be obvious to you at first what makes your brand unique. Spend time studying the competition so you can see what unique value proposition (UVP) each touts.
Once you understand the competition’s UVPs, come up with your own. You want something different than your competitors but also true. What do you thrive at? What makes you stand out? It’s okay to hone in on something others may not pay attention to as long as you stack up in other areas.
The Ugly Company sells dried fruit and healthy snacks. Their name is “ugly” and their goal is to reduce their carbon footprint while upcycling snacks. So, they choose colors that are a bit garish. When you first glance at the page, you note how ugly the yellow is there. It isn’t a color you see often in web design.
However, on second look it matches the overall tone and look of the brand. The fact that some of the elements fall into the category many consider unattractive coincides with the brand’s name and persona. The product packaging would also stand out on store shelves as these aren’t colors typically used on dried fruit bags.
4. Highlight Your Benefits
Leave room in your design to show off the benefits of doing business with your brand. Highlight what makes you special on your home page. Limit the number of options so users see clearly where to go next, whether to a shopping section, additional information or to a form that converts them into a lead.
Eliminate any clutter and focus only on what customers most want to know about your brand. You can ascertain the information they want by looking at questions they’ve asked your sales team or surveying them for input. You can also check heatmaps for your site to see where people head once landing there.
Case goes with a very simple layout to bring the products you most want to know about within a click or two after landing on their page. They start by showcasing one of their popular products in the image. They then share the benefits of choosing their furniture, such as great reviews, 14-day returns and delivery or pickup.
How to Meet User Expectations
Your number one goal for your website should be to meet user expectations. Why do people seek a site such as yours in the first place? Are they looking for information? Do they need to buy something? Make the overall process as easy and possible. Creating an excellent customer experience is the most significant thing you can do to keep your users happy and create a design that makes sense.
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
Design Web was able to provide Access Veterinary Services with a great website redesign that helped them reach more clients and deliver information in a more navigable way.
A business to many (B2M) website must serve multiple functions and reach two distinct audience types. Juggling the different users and meeting their needs isn’t easy, but it can be done quite effectively with a little forethought and tweaking.
According to Internet Live Stats, there are 1.87 billion websites in the world. While they aren’t all active at the same time, and some simply park on top of other domains, you’re still competing for customer attention with a ton of other pages. Spending a little time on site renovations will pay off with more sales.
However, what works for one business model may not work for the next. The needs of your buyer personas are unique to your industry and perhaps even your company. How can you ensure your B2M website is effective for your users?
1. Find Common Elements
What are some of the needs and values your business and consumer customers share? Perhaps they both like quality products that stand the test of time. Maybe they have a need for speed. Perhaps you solve a similar pain point for both, but on different scales? Look for the similarities and showcase them on the main pages of your site. Think about the values all your customers care about.
When you land on the Chase.com website, you’ll see an option for personal or business options. As you browse through different offers, such as checking or savings, you’ll see a comparison of different types of banking accounts. Since many B2B clients might also want a personal account, shifting back and forth between the options is a matter of clicking a tab at the top of the page.
2. Segment Your Audience
How well does your navigation work to get your users to the section related to their needs? When serving both consumers and other businesses, it requires a smart and streamlined navigation to get the user from Point A to Point B without any detours.
Consider separating your site into two parts or more. When people land on your home page, do you direct them to the next step or do they feel lost? If you aren’t sure, hire some testers to go through your site and point out any weaknesses.
3. Choose Relevant Images
Be cautious not to focus on photos of only one type of work you do. If you serve consumers and businesses, your images should reflect how you help both. If you direct someone to a page specifically for companies, you would focus on pictures to relate your ability. However, if the page serves both B2C and B2B, you must mix things up.
Note how ADCO Garage Doors highlight images of modern homes, traditional homes and commercial spaces. By varying the photographs, they show they’re capable of a wide range of styles and options. The landing page speaks both to homeowners and business owners.
4. Check Your Headlines
The first impression a user has of your site is often via the headings. When they do a search, they’ll see your heading in the SERPs. They’ll also see it when they click and land on your page.
Do your headlines effectively pull in both consumers and businesses? How can you tweak them to make them work better for all your buyer personas? If you separate your site into pages for both B2C and B2B, then you should have varied headlines for each.
5. Revamp Your CTAs
Does your CTA make sense for both segments of your buying audience? If not, either separate out the landing pages further or tweak your CTAs. Run the words, color, placement and size of button through the filer of your buyer personas.
You may need to adjust the language or colors to better meet the psychographic profile of each customer type. Don’t be afraid to segment your pages even more if it means you can create a more personalized experience for your users.
Lamps Plus serves both commercial spaces and homes. Rather than trying to come up with separate CTAs for the landing page, they create a bright box to highlight a current sale and invite all users to “Shop Sale.”
Business owners and consumers want to save money on shipping and costs, so the CTA works for all segments of their audience. They get a bit more specific on product pages, depending on the offer.
6. Study Heat Maps and Traffic Patterns
What do users do when they actually land on your page? You can track the journey of a business owner as they stop by your home page, click on the business section and move through your site. Where do they linger? Is there a point where the majority bounce away? What can you improve?
Once you know where users linger and convert into customers, it’s easier to repeat those elements and delete clutter that isn’t serving your needs.
Experiment and Test
Every effective B2M website has some of the components above, but what works best for your site is dependent on your individual customers. Try different tactics and test each one via A/B or multivariate testing to see what performs for your business.
Try different colors, segments, language and images. Offer incentives to entice people to sign up for your mailing list. Experiment and see what works best. Once you have an idea, it’s much easier to repeat those efforts and grow your business into a B2M powerhouse.
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
A hero image should grab the attention of site visitors instantly. However, it’s easy to get so caught up in using beautiful images and grabbing attention you forget to make sure the photos are user-focused. Each hero shot should serve a specific purpose and meet customers’ needs.
According to Netcraft, the number of websites is constantly in flux. The billions of domain names don’t truly reflect how many live websites there are at any given moment. For example, the internet gained 6.28 million sites in May 2021, but also lost 4.87 million domains.
If you want to be certain your hero image hits on all the points needed for a potential customer landing on your website, follow the tips below to ensure you’re selecting the right layout and options for your users.
1. Show the Product
One of the top ways to focus on users is by using your hero image to highlight the product site visitors want to see. If you’re an e-commerce store, you’ll need to choose a category or share new arrivals.
On the other hand, if you sell a service, you can show the product in action or offer a before and after side-by-side. Think about what you’d most want to see if you were the customer. Put yourself in the user’s shoes.
Ditto Residential is a real estate firm with a focus on revamping and creating healthy, beautiful spaces. To show some of what they offer, they use a hero shot of one of their luxury living spaces. The photo helps people see their overall design concept and get a feel for the light airy look to their style.
Another advantage to the placement of their hero image is they can swap out the look for one of their other properties. If they notice a sudden uptick in consumers looking for larger homes, they might highlight an airy space, for example.
2. Choose Stellar Typography
Your hero image should capture the user’s imagination, but you also need to think through the headlines and other details on your page. To enhance the user experience (UX), choose a color and font size that stands out from the background.
Choose the hero image that allows your text to show up. You may want to overlay a solid transparent color over the entire photograph or choose a different picture with some darker or lighter areas where text will pop.
3. Gain User Trust
Your hero image can go a long way toward showing you’re knowledgeable and trustworthy. Choose an image if your technicians in the field or some other expert insight no one else provides. When people think about your product or service, you want to be seen as the go-to authority.
D.E. Gemmill chose an image of their traffic control marking experts hard at work. The employees look capable and the photo also highlights the brand’s equipment. The truck moves off to the left of the screen, creating a sense of motion and work ethic.
4. Choose High Quality Images
You may know the exact photograph you’d like to use, but when you blow it up to full screen width, it’s a bit fuzzy. Always choose sharp, high-quality photos over anything else. You may need to reshoot the photo in a higher resolution, or go with a completely different selection.
At the same time, you must optimize pictures so your site loads as quickly as possible. Use a high resolution, but compress the image. Test your pages load times to ensure your speed is up to par.
5. Add a Video
A still shot grabs interest, but a video hero image tells an entire story. You can share moments of action, inspire users with what they might gain from a product and set a unique tone for your site.
As with any image you choose, make sure the footage is relevant to your industry and your business in particular. Ideally, you’ll hire a videographer to shoot and edit a clip to use in the background of your website’s header.
Ag America offers lending to farmers. They take a moment to highlight some of the hard work farmers do in a day, showing tractors, a farmer walking the field and a close look at crops. Their target audience will see they understand the business at hand and be much more likely to trust the company with their business.
6. Remember the CTA
Your call to action button (CTA) must stand out against the hero image. You can choose the most interesting photograph in the world but if you don’t ask users to take the next step, you risk losing them to the competition.
First, your CTA button should be a color varying from the rest of your color palette. Many companies use a vivid orange, red, blue or green for their CTAs. Second, you should tweak the size, position and language on your button to see what performs best with your target audience.
Test and Retest
Try different images, headlines and CTAs on your website. Conduct split testing to see what performs best with your audience. Even a change of the wording on your CTA can make a difference in your conversion rates.
Try different options and test after each change. Over time, you’ll find the perfect selection for your users. If you want your site visitors to respond with action, you must tweak every tiny aspect of your page, starting with your hero image and moving on to what sits atop it.
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
5 Tips on Online Marketing with Web Design for Small Businesses
Author: David Anderson
There are billions of searches that search engines like Google and Bing get on a daily basis from consumers across the world. According to research, around 97 percent of consumers research their required products or services online to find local options or to check reviews. As a small business owner, you should know that your website is likely one of the first things that most consumers will notice about it.
On the basis of its design and features, a lot of people will form opinions and decide whether to make a purchase or leave. Think of your web page as a promotional tool or platform through which you can create brand awareness and experience growth.
If you want to achieve the desired results with online marketing, you need to focus on the web design and invest in it. Here are some tips that could be useful for increasing the reach of your small business.
Reduce Loading Time and Friction
When you are involved in the designing process of the website, it is important to keep in mind that visitors judge your brand through your website. Make sure you have your logo plastered on every page, which you can easily get from a professional logo design website.
Moreover, the loading speed of your website should be within seconds. Large image files, lots of videos or animations and flashy design elements can slow down the web page and take longer to appear. This could result in visitors closing it and moving away to a competitor.
Your website only needs to have relevant content and visuals which include your brand logo, portfolio of work or product images, and interactive call-to-actions. This way, there is minimal clutter and you can reduce any friction which can prevent consumers from navigating to another link or category. The audience today has many options and an attention span that lasts about 8 seconds.
In order to make sure that they remain on your page and market your products or services to them, you should optimize the website for less loading time. It is also crucial to get rid of elements which cause friction so it’s easier for people to interact and take the required action.
Use Clear and Original Images
The product catalog and imagery on your website is one of the most critical factors in web design. As a small business owner, you need to attract the attention of the visitors with the images on your website. It’s how you can market what you have to offer effectively and convince people of your authenticity as well.
One of the best ways that you can make the most of your web page is by using clear and original pictures of products or your work. While there is nothing wrong with picking stock images and using them, original photos go a long way in online marketing. They can set your business apart from the others and highlight its unique factor to the audiences.
With stock pictures, you may end up appearing similar to the others as another website might have the same one. To avoid this, you can use a small part of your marketing budget to hire a professional photographer and use those images for the catalog or the main page.
Add Home Page Scrolling
While you want to keep all the information compact and make it easier for the website to load faster, you can still create an interactive home page. Previously, WordPress expert designers and brand owners paid a lot of attention to engaging consumers above the fold. Now, it is actually considered good web design when people can easily scroll down and find relevant information and options beyond the first two folds of the web page.
By adding home page scrolling to your website, you can include more CTAs (call-to-actions), images and contact information to help visitors find what they want. There are a lot of websites of small businesses such as Birchbox which have an attractive home page design going below the fold.
Incorporate Social Sharing Buttons
This is actually very important and can boost the credibility of a website and create awareness as well. Incorporating the share link or blog feature on social media networks such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook is always a good idea for online marketing. This way, you can make it easier for people to post your blog or promote a particular product to their followers or friends.
If you take the example of Soko Glam, you will see how the Korean Skincare brand has used this to their advantage. In their web design, the company has included an option to share their blogs in ‘The Klog’ section and within their product listings as well.
Have an FAQ Section
There are a number of people who go through the FAQ section of a website before sending in queries or contacting the company. By including the section in your web design, you can provide a good user experience to the consumers and give them the answer to the basic questions related to pricing, shipping or brands.
Nowadays, almost all big and small websites feature an FAQ section in the menu bar or within the footer. This helps people find it quickly and go through the relevant information.
To Sum Up
These are some of the tips for online marketing with web design that could help take your small business to the next level. If you apply them and make improvements in your website, you could generate higher traffic and boost conversions as well. While designing a web page, it is a good idea to keep a few of these in mind so that your website can compete with bigger brands in the digital world.
Author Profile
David Anderson is a business graduate with a marketing major. He specializes in communication design and has helped many brands achieve their goals in marketing communication. Now he writes for freelance clients on topics related to brand design, visual communication, and marketing.
We made the original Van Hooser site a while ago and it was time for a redesign. We were happy to create a website with a modern design and incorporated all the updated SEO needs that have been added over the years since we built the first site.
