Website Design – How to Tell Your Story in 10 Seconds (and how not to!)

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Website Design

• How to Tell Your Story in 10 Seconds (and how not
  to!)

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• When online, you dont have all the time in the
  world to tell someone who you are, what you do
  and why they should be interested in you. People
  have a very short attention span and it is
  important that you act on this advice to improve
  your conversion from the website.

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Brace Yourself

• Microsoft published a research study highlighting
  that you have 10 seconds at your disposal to grab
  your visitors attention, but to be honest, if you
  were a visitor, you wouldnt take more than 5-6
  seconds to decide whether to leave a website or
  browse it further. Others are no exception. So
  now its more about telling your story in less
  than 10 seconds.

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Be Attention Hungry

• Think of yourself as a 6-year old boy suffering
  from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). You would
  crave for attention, right? Your website design
  should reflect that, period. Use enticing
  visuals, colour schemes that catch the visitors
  fancy and anything and everything that helps you
  tell your story. But again, the visitors want to
  know more about you, your business and for this,
  you need an attention-grabbing sentence. Call it
  a tagline, if you may, but make sure you include
  it in the design.

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Dos and Donts

• Dos

• Do Your Homework

• Its your website. You need to find out who your
  target audience is. This is the most important
  consideration you should have when designing your
  website. Understand what your target audience
  wants and how they feel. Then design the website
  in such a way that it enhances the visitor
  experience. The visitor should be like Wow. They
  know what I want to find out, why I am here.You
  do feel that you should speak to every visitor,
  but the idea looks good on paper unless you are
  willing to go that extra mile to find a way and
  actually communicate.

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• Do Create A Lasting Impression (The Very First
  Time!)

• If face is the index of mind, then home page is
  the index of your website, simple. Design an
  impressive website that had a good recall value.
  Heres how to go about it
• Highlight yourself or rather your expertise
• Remember, you have less than 10 seconds
• Customer reviews or testimonials can prove to be
  beneficial
• Ensure that the visitors know what theyd miss on
  if they dont buy your products or services

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• Keep it simple, stupid! (KISS)Try including long
  sentences and watch the visitors go away
• If you think they may have some questions in
  mind, answer them proactively
• Let the visitors use your design to their
  advantage
• Must be able to easily navigate to supportive
  information 
• Make the most of list building
• Devise a relevant strategy
• Implement it wherever possible, homepage included

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• Give some space to social media
• Mention about the social media channels on your
  homepage
• You may also incorporate a widget, if the need be
• Dont consider SEO dead
• It is pretty much alive
• Do optimise the content on your homepage
• A picture is worth a thousand words
• Do not include too many images though
• Give the visitors a reason to engage with your
  business
• Also focus on blog posts and articles
• If you update them regularly, cash in on them
• These give a better idea of who you are

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• Do Strike a Balance

• While designing the site, give equal weightage to
  ads and content (if majority of your revenue is
  generated through ads for a serious business
  website, ads are a no no). If the visitors are
  listening (read reading) to what you have to
  say, they wont wait for the ads to load, despite
  the fact that to you, advertisements money.
  Yes, you cant do without them, but dont make
  them a priority.

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• Do Include the Key Information

• Lets say you offer flowers, balloons and candles
  and also make arrangements for venue decoration.
  Would you only want your visitors to know that
  you offer balloons? Shouldnt they know that you
  are also a service provider? More importantly, if
  you offer international shipping, shouldnt they
  be informed of this in those 10 seconds that they
  are likely to be on your site for? Think about it
  they may be based elsewhere. If they dont know
  you can indeed ship over the order to their area,
  would they even think for a second before closing
  the browser?

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• Do Give Attention to Detail 

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• Do Think Of the Alignment

• Ever visited a site that seemed to be going left
  for no apparent reason? What were they trying to
  do? Make you read an essay or something? Well,
  you are smart dont do what they did. Place or
  align the text centrally. See, its simple you
  have 10 seconds you can either make the
  visitors wonder whats wrong with your site or
  encourage them to read whats written. The ball
  is in your court.

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• Do Use Simple Language

• You are telling your story to laymen. For them,
  technical jargon would mean that you are making
  fun of them. Should they really need to use
  Google or a dictionary for that matter for every
  other word mentioned on your site? You know the
  answer.

• Do Respect the Visitors

They have come to your website and wish to know
what you have in store for them. You want to take
them to a page that has a big ad on it? Forget
about the 10-second rule, they wont be there
even for a single moment. Be careful.
Interstitials are not a great way of showing
disrespect to your visitors. Popups, even one,
can be a big turn-off.
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• Do Leave Some Scent Trails

• If you do manage to catch the visitors fancy,
  they may be interested in obtaining more
  information. But how would they come to know
  where to find it? You need to tell them. It goes
  without saying that they should be able to access
  the information with ease.

• Do Stick To Originality

Imagine, if the visitors spend 5 out of 10
seconds thinking that they have seen a similar
website elsewhere, what kind of an impression
that would create? Create a design thats unique
and only then the visitors would be interested in
your story. Else, they would simply compare, even
if they dont want to thats what all humans do.
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• Do Update the Blog

• Yes, a mention of your blog posts is a must, but
  only when you actually update the section. Say,
  if someone visits the section and finds a blog
  that dates back to January 2010, chances are that
  they would rather visit another website.

• Do Take the Browser Issues into Account

The visitors are likely to use diverse range of
browsers (and their versions) as most of them are
available for free. But then, is your website fit
for all the options available? Can you handle the
issues, if any? Do stringent testing to ensure
that the visitors are able to open your site
first, leave alone reading your story.
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Dos and Donts

• Donts

• Dont Be Biased

• If the homepage is your blue-eyed boy, you are
  yet to get a hang of what an effective web design
  is. That said, every page of your website is
  equally important treat all of them at par.
  Design every page with the 10-second window in
  mind. Put a tagline on every page, if possible.
  Other things of importance
• Call to action
• Downloads, wherever complex content is involved

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• Dont Act Cheap

• Just because you dont have enough time to tell
  the visitors who you are, doesnt mean you should
  resort to something as cheap as pagination.
  Dont. Yes, it may increase the page impressions,
  but then, the visitors wont think highly of you
  if they need to load 10 different pages.

• Dont Restrict Yourself

Its all about telling your story, remember?
Well, you cant assume that only desktop users
may be interested in knowing who you are and what
you do. There may be some smartphone tablet
users who are all ears. Speak to them. But does
that mean you need a mobile version of your
website? Not really. You can benefit from what
they call a responsive web design.
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• Dont Be Desperate

• Yes, in the end, you want just one thing
  conversion. However, if you are introducing
  yourself, you cant really tell the visitors that
  you dont give two hoots about who they are and
  what they are looking for. If you are desperate,
  only you should know it, dont make it obvious.

• Dont Annoy the Visitors

Flashy banners are big no-no. So is auto-sound.
The visitors arent attending some rock concert.
They dont want to be bombarded with unwanted,
unpleasant graphics and sound. They can read. Let
them. Even if you incorporate some of the videos
in the design, make sure they do not play on
their own. Give the visitors the choice to decide
whether they want to watch the videos or not.
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