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Building a Memorable Web Experience

Published

April 2, 2020

Author

Jono Cook

Read time

#
 minutes
Design Ideation on iPad

Your website might be your customers' first impression of your business. Here's how we make it memorable using Webflow.

A website can make or break a business, even more so as the standards and expectations of consumers and online shoppers continue to rise. To put it simply, for the sake of business success, your website needs to be memorable. As an official Webflow partner, we believe Webflow is the most powerful tool we can use to make this happen. So, from our Webflow designers to you, here are the must-haves for building a memorable web experience.

01. Maintain Consistency of User Flow

To have a website journey that ‘flows’, is to develop a user experience with seamless continuity and clear direction. With this overall consistency, your web experience will establish a natural feel and be easy for visitors to use.

Enhancing consistency across your website is best done by breaking down the journey into steps. Assess its most popular points of entry (typically the homepage or a blog post), then walk yourself through possible journeys a user might take. One of the reasons we love being a Webflow agency is because of its intuitive nature–'flow' is in the name, after all–which helps us create a seamless experience for your customers.

While enhancing ‘flow’, keep in mind your conversion goal. The place where users’ needs and your service/product meets. Be it to subscribe, purchase, or contact, ensure the point of conversion is presented at an appropriate time in the journey. 

A user needs to have gained enough interest/value from your content, but the proposal should also be easy for them to find/use.

After nailing the user flow, it is time to put this into action through a strong and consistent design pattern. Consistency is key. Have an extensive brand guideline created that covers all components of the user interface along with clear usage rules. When conceptualising the user interface, consider the colours, style, layout, padding, margins, and more.

We recommend building your brand guideline digitally, as multiple out of date PDF guidelines won’t help anyone stay consistent.

02. Don’t Be Afraid of White Space

The content that will enhance your web experience without costing a thing. White space, the minimalist approach that has been globally adopted by leading websites. 

No, it is not boring. But yes, it is empty space. 

What it does is act as a buffer between content. Without paragraphs and images chasing the next, white space encourages a user to take their time-consuming information and offers space to digest afterward.

On the grand layout scheme of things, white space will create a cleaner and more professional web page. A refreshment to your colour scheme and pleasurable break for users’ eyes, white space is a priceless element you can’t afford to miss. 

03. Strong Call to Actions

You’ve seen them before, the buttons or links that encourage you to “learn more,” “buy now,” or “get started.” It makes one of many web essentials as a key way of guiding users through your buyer journey. Though as simple as they appear, nailing them is much harder. 

The trick to creating CTAs that are successful and contribute to a memorable web experience is to continuously test what works best. Key factors to change and trial; size, colour schemes, button style, and website placement.

We recommend using the A/B testing methodology to fairly test which of your CTA’s drives the best results. But don’t stop after one test. If you believe another concept might improve conversions or stand closer to your brand's tone of voice, then please, continue to iterate and improve.

04. Straightforward Navigation

Inclusive to a website’s structure are the links that connect users to various web pages. If these points of navigation are at all confusing, you risk losing business credibility and website traffic.  

To ensure this navigation aspect is as enjoyable to use as possible, the rule is to keep it simple. For example, don’t call the touch point that links to your list of services “Secret Sauce”. Call it what it is. Call it “Services”.

It may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s much easier than you think to let your inner creative genius take over when brainstorming website ideas. To refrain from making your website navigation a series of abstract metaphors, make a conscious effort to keep the clever copy in your content.

05. Mobile Optimisation

The majority of internet surfers and dawdlers travel from billions of mobile devices. However, as convenient it sounds, inconsistency between desktop and mobile devices has created a common issue of poor website performance on mobile devices.

Why this matters - because mobile users make the majority of your audience, it’s now essential that your website is not only mobile-friendly but also provides an outstanding user experience. 

And we’re not just talking about a dumbed down version of your desktop site. In fact, we recommend taking a mobile-first approach to website design and development to build an experience as, if not more, engaging than the desktop alternative.

Is That All?

We’ve merely scratched the surface of building a memorable web experience. Each of the above fundamentals of course runs deeper, but those details are for experienced Webflow developers and designers to worry about.

Your website often leaves the first impression of your business on potential customers, so it is essential to invest in your website and make a memorable web experience that drives results. Even more so as standards and expectations of consumers and online shoppers continue to rise. 

Dated designs, slow page loading, low search presence, and poorly written copy simply won’t do it anymore.

Jono Cook

By 

Jono Cook

Founder / Developer

N4®

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