5 Mega Important Factors When Building Your Website #ClickBait

Welcome to an exciting blog post by the fantastic, talented, good lucking, awe-inspiring... no one.

I don't actually think I'm any of that, just your everyday standard online randomer practicing engaging copy in the hope it will encourage people to click on my posts. Did it work? Leave a comment and let me know how I can improve this.

My background is in web design and development, I've gone from graphic design to video production to email marketing and finally found something I actually enjoy doing which is web development.

Over the past few years, I've noticed some really big issues with clients websites web developers had built for them in the past. Everything about their sites screamed "WHY LORD WHY??!" but getting a new website is exciting so you don't always realise damaging things.

Okay. Onto the real reason, you clicked my article.

Hopefully what I list below may or may not help you when building your website.

Let's do this.

#1) Image Optimisation

Image optimization is a HUGE thing you need to pay attention to especially if you use Wordpress to build a site. Wordpress is kinda heavy dutyish, adding plugins and special themes just add to the weight.

This isn't that much of a problem until you start adding lots of posts, pages and of course, images.

One of my clients the other day asked me to add 29 images into his site. I thought, no problem. I opened the images and inspected the size, each one was 10mb+ in size! That's 290mb in just images alone!

Adding these images to my client's website would have drastically slowed it down. Most images you want to aim for under 300kb in size.

If you have taken the WA course, in the building a website course they already have a plugin installed called "ewwwww Image Optimizer" which will automatically size and compress your images as you upload them.

If your website is running slow, there is a large chance it's because of the image size. Give your images a quick check.

#2) Layout - Less Is More

I've seen so many people trying to manipulate websites to look "out of the box", "one of a kind", "crazy different" but by doing this it can become distracting and if you're not tech savvy or experienced, the personal accomplishment of solving an issue you've been stuck doing can sometimes make you forget about what your viewers see and experience.

If you look at the biggest organizations in the world like google, apple, Amazon, eBay, Liveleak, BBC etc... their design is actually pretty simple.

Simple works. Humans don't like feeling overwhelmed, they want clear, concise and easy navigation all the time, every time and if you cannot provide it we are gone.

A shameful example is me. I've recently reached one of my milestones of getting a new car. I've been trying to get my business to the point where this is possible and last month it finally happened. YAY ME. (my core business not SEO etc...)

I found my car online and thought screw it, let's go for an automatic, selected automatic from the previously selected manual and all of a sudden I was covered in options. I had no idea what any of those meant and I just wanted my car FFS. Switched back to my manual selection and proceeded with checkout. That firm lost £80 extra per month.

I'm not a car person. I know nothing about them. If they kept it simple somehow, I would have invested that extra £80 per month.

Moral of this story. Keep it simple.

Let me know if you agree with this point or if you have ever rebuilt a site or done something like this and the results you've had in the comments.

#3) Chill on the popups...

One of my pet hates is visiting a site to be bombarded with a subscribe popup, then 2 seconds later, a chat popup and then see on the sidebar a big ass subscribe button.

Yes, collecting peoples information is important. Once we have their information we can bring them back by contacting them but what if you provided such outstanding content that they remember you and come back without you contacting them?

I find too many people focus on the popups instead of the value side of things. People are not stupid, the internet has trained people to spot information collecting hungry people and people who are real and want to provide value.

If you are going to add a subscribe box or a popup box, adjust the settings for these things to happen after 1 minute of them exploring your site.
Give them time to see who you are, what your site is about before hassling them for information.

Would you agree? Leave a comment below and let me know - I feel some people may disagree haha that's okay. I want to hear why.

#3) Question it.

It's hard to question personal achievements and designs. For me, setting up a website is no big deal anymore, I can have a fully functional, nicely designed, mobile-friendly website up and running within an hour or so.

For others, it can take days, weeks and months to get up and running. That's fine.

Often, we build something and because we understand what we went through to build it, we instantly think it's really good! But... not everyone will agree and sometimes they are right.

Readers don't care or appreciate consciously about how much time we put into building a website, they only care about getting the information they want. If it ain't good, they won't respond, if they are responding then you no something ain't good.

The best way to question your self is to go to your website and honestly ask your self "would I click on this" or "is this easy to use". Be open-minded because developing your site further only improves your skills and your success.

Is it clear?
Is it concise?
Did I find this easily?
Is the text blending with the background making it hard to read?
Is there too much spacing?
Is there not enough spacing?

When my clients say "Im so happy we are live and finished". I say your 50% correct. The site is live but the website will never be finished, you can always improve, always add and adjust.

My personal belief is, if you think your website is finished, you have the wrong mindset.

How do you question your self when building a site? Leave a comment below.

#5) Keep Calm and Try Again.

This one is short and simple.

Tech always = problems. Give yourself time to learn the ropes, don't rush and sometimes take a step back and try again in an hour.

Things are always changing, plugins, themes and core software are always being updated and tweaked which can cause issues.

Relax. Sometimes it's out of your hands, other times its not.

Contact the developers of the software.
Ask the WA Community.

Whatever you do, do not EVER give up.

Keep pushing. Keep learning. Keep thriving.

Thanks for reading my blog and please leave a comment below of your thoughts.

Good luck with your website
M