Create High-Quality Branding for Your Website

Did you know that you have 3-7 seconds to attract a client or customers attention when you direct them to your website?

We are in a world of instant gratification and information. If you can’t learn about something at the snap of your finger or the drop of a hat, it’s too long.

The first element on your website, whether it be a photograph, tagline or graphic needs to be clear and striking from the moment a visitor lands on your page. What we are talking about here are the visual elements on your page: the colors, the pictures, the ease, the “feeling” and how these relate to your website visitor.

The branding on your website should tell a story and attract your ideal client. Playing into their emotions is an effective way to capture visitors attention and draw them in. Think about the things that attract you to someone’s website? You really need to put yourself in your audience’s shoes in order to capture your branding and their attention.

There are certain branding elements that will help to capture the attention of a website visitor:

1. WEBSITE COLORS: Keep the color variety to 3 maximum. A primary color for CTA’s and buttons. The accent color for backgrounds of alternating sections to break up the sections as the user scrolls. And a third color to complement the other two and add a little flavor. Your colors will be typically be pulled directly from your logo. (If you have a million colors on your website but they look absolutely fantastic, keep them! This is just a standard for many websites.)
   • Website background should be white
   • Text should be black or a dark gray
2. WEBSITE IMAGES: Photos and graphics on your website should immediately relate the service or product you sell. Website visitors will immediately be drawn to graphics first and then if they are interested, they will read the accompanying text. You should have a variety of photos and icons on the page. The photos on your website should speak to your ideal buyer and they should be represented in and relate to the photos found on the website. There are so many ways to identify who you serve and find the perfect graphics that will speak directly to them!
   • PRO TIP: My favorite websites for finding the perfect free stock image are unsplash.com and pexels.com.
3. CONSISTENCY: The images throughout the website should relate to each other. The best way to confirm that your graphics are all working together is to create a mood board and upload all the graphics. How do they look when they are all next to each other? Do they have a common thread that ties them all together?
4. TEXT: Your copy is another key factor in your branding. If you don’t have clear, concise copy that accompanies the graphics and photos you won’t convert visitors into customers. You want to keep the website text to a few paragraphs. You want to be able to give them an idea of your business but not have them reading a novel, especially on the home page. Creating catchy headers is another good way to attract attention and have them continue reading the meat and potatoes of your post.
5. NAVIGATION: Having easy-to-use navigation will go a long way with your visitor as well. Having each page listed where they can easily toggle through them and go to exactly what they want, when they want. If you have a drop-down menu with different pages and dropdown menus on those pages it can get clunky and difficult to navigate. Less is more!

Remember, the first impression your website makes on a new visitor is visual. Your website has to be visually pleasing in order to capture the attention of a new visitor and to draw them into the site content. If your site is disorganized, ugly or complicated, the user will simply click away and select the next website in their Google search.