DIY Design Novice Do It Yourself with Shirley Rodgers

DIY Design Novice?

by Shirley Rodgers

DIY used to be a term reserved only for those ardent home ‘doer-upperers’ over long bank holiday weekends, but now?

Think DIY, think web design. With the economic climate taking its toll on business, many of them are turning to DIY-ing their websites. If your business has a DIY website, you need to ask yourself 2 questions:

• Does it look professional? • Does it guide your visitors to book in with you or make a sale?

If the answer to these questions is “No!” then read on!

DIY-ing your website is no easy feat by any means and has driven many business owners to either pull their hair out, or be one computer down due to throwing it out of the window.

There’s so much that needs to go into a good, functional, clear and high converting website, and if you don’t really know what you’re doing, you might just need a helping hand. Here are the 6 top mistakes I see countless people make when DIY-ing their websites and the action steps you can take to fix this.

ONE: It’s all about you. Some websites are so business focussed, that the client is actually overlooked. The transformation that you offer your clients should be the focus of your website. You’re there to help them along the way. Doublecheck your website—is it all about you, or is it about your client? Even the stuff about you should be there to build your brand and point back to your ideal client. Think: Client pain-point; solution you offer; transformational result.

TWO: Way too much content. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you need to squash every. little. thing. into the website, as it’s all relevant, right? Wrong. You have between 3 - 7 seconds to grab someone's attention, so:

• Keep things short, sweet and to the point.

• Break up information with enticing titles and headlines: people read the headlines, skim the rest.

• Shorten lines of text to make it easier to digest, that way your visitors are more likely to stick around and read what you have to say.

THREE: Poor quality images Images can make or break the success of your website. If you can use your own images, great, but they must be high quality, if they’re not, just don’t use them.

There are some excellent, ‘non-cheesy’ stock photography sites online that offer high quality, royalty free images for both personal and professional use. Using high quality images will not only increase engagement, but immediately up level the perception of your brand. FOUR: SEO not considered You need to make sure that you think about your SEO at the beginning of the design process and write your website copy with that in mind. Include keywords in your headings, content and page titles, as well as in your page descriptions.

FIVE: Not designing for mobile Need I say much here? It’s 2022. You must design for mobile. Apart from being super annoying to the visitor, Google actively penalise sites that do not work responsively.

SIX: No CTA’s What do you want people to do exactly? People need direction when visiting a website, and expect it. Make sure that you have clear and easy to find calls to action for your visitor to take, because if you don’t, they will leave. The easier it is for your customer to do what you want them to do, the more conversions you will see.

If you’re a struggling DIY-er and would like a few more tips about designing the perfect website, come on over and download the free ‘DIY Like A Pro’ checklist: thesmartwebsitecompany.co.uk/diy-websitechecklist