First impressions can make or break your business. Unfortunately, you only get one chance to make that good first impression. With the competition amongst websites online, making a good first impression is vital. If you don’t impress visitors to your website in the first few seconds, they are likely to go to the competition.
Experts say that you have less than 7 seconds within which to impress an online visitor. Most internet users decide whether to continue exploring your website or continue elsewhere. Therefore, your landing pages need to make an impact as quickly as possible.
Improving first impressions
Most people will jump right into creating a design that is cool and sure to make an impact with their target audience. This is a great place to start. However, this is not the be-all and end-all of making a great first impression on readers. Unfortunately, this is where most businesses will choose to stop, which causes them to, miss out on great opportunities to maximize the potential of their websites.
Here’s how you can maximize those seven seconds and make a great first impression.
- Speed
Before visitors can get on your website, it has to load on their browsers. The first impression, therefore, starts even before the visitor has entered your website. The loading speed of your site plays an important role in making a good first impression.
The few seconds you have to make a good impression start the moment the user clicks on the link to your website. Ensure that your landing pages don’t take more than 3 seconds to load. This will leave you more time to make a good impression on-site. However, you may have to revisit your website’s design to achieve this.
- Be mobile friendly
Making a first impression online is important also on mobile devices. The Mobilegeddon update to Google’s algorithm has meant that mobile optimization is no longer a choice for websites but a necessity for survival. Businesses that do not have mobile friendly websites have lost search traffic as a result. More people are using their mobile devices to access the internet and research before making purchasing decisions. If you want to make a good impression with mobile users, ensure that you have a responsive website.
- Design for scrolling
The behavior of mobile users has changed a lot with the prevalent use of mobile devices and social media. These platforms encourage infinite scrolling for users. Searchers, therefore, naturally scroll down when they visit a website even on a PC. Therefore, it is a good idea to design for scrolling. Keep information such as testimonials, case studies, images and special offers below the fold. Ensure that the content is flowing to keep visitors scrolling for more.
- Make use of white space
Graphics and content are important in drawing the attention of a visitor. However, too much of anything is detrimental. Avoid overloading visitors with too many graphics or too much content. Make use of white space instead to help guide the visitor’s attention to the right parts of the page. White space ensures that vital information is easily identified.
- Research your pages with heat map tools
Heat map tools tell you what visitors are looking at when they are on your website. This helps you identify content that is effective. Heat maps will help you when updating content as you’ll know what interests your visitors most.
Author Bio
Wynn is the creator of Novage.com.sg- a respected web site design company in Singapore. She focuses primarily on SEO and is in love with making use of her skills to help local clients. She’s successfully create baby web store in Singapore.