Free tips for successful feminine,website design.
a strong start
A clear opening home page tells the visitor immediately the products or services on offer. The more clear, legible, stylish and and chic your first page, the more likely your potential female customer is to click through to other pages in your boutique. Also, the more content on that first page, the more that those search engines can read about your stylish and feminine website. While opening splash pages can be pretty, you need to weigh up the need for SEO factors versus being pretty. Think of it like the front window of a store or a reception area of an office. If people don't know what is in the store or office why would they open the door?
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Domain Names and hosting
If you run a female oriented business, your domain name is something that you add to business cards, brochures, posters, banners and other collateral. If you choose a memorable domain name it makes you easier to find through Google or the other search engines. A good domain name creates the impression your are an established business and can create trust. The longer a domain name is, the easier it is to get wrong or forget. Try to keep it snappy, short to medium in length and stick with a well known space (eg .com .com.au etc). Also selecting a reputable registry is vital.
Choosing your hosting provider is something that is really important. Security is vital, as is a proactive and up to date host server. There are companies that take advantage of weak hosting provider software and can get into your site through the "back door", and can actually hack into your site and undermine the integrity of your site. If your hosting is cheap, there is a reason. In all things remember, you get what you pay for, and security on your website is not the place to cut corners.
Reach out to your visitor
dividerAn inspiring "call to action"/contact icon on each page is vital (note our postcard icon on the top right of the masthead). Clear icons can be really effective. Make sure your contact page is clear, and all your contact methods are listed. Also provide clients with as much information as possible. Google Maps can actually be embedded into your site showing your customer how to find you.
Content is queen
While design is vital, the actual text content is one of the most important features to your website’s success. Grammar, spelling and well organised information is probably the most important factor in your feminine website design. Give people a reason to stay in your online boutique. Offer clear concise facts about your girly product or service, and keep it up to date.
Search engine optimisation
A much thrown about term, Search Engine Optimisation refers to the way a site is structured, submitted as well as the content within the site, that makes it relevant in internet searches. Great, relevant content is vital to the highly competitive areas of marketing for the feminine consumer.
Most search engines base their criteria for results on about a million factors, and so getting to the top in the rankings can be a complicated process, but there are some things you can do.
Keywords and metadata
The objective is to ensure that your site comes up in the first page of search engine results for your main keywords.Your keywords not only have to be in the head section of your site, but much also be found in the actual content of the site, and in this case repetition is the key.
For example, if your website is for a natural cosmetic range, your metadata might include terms such as 'make up', 'makeup', 'cosmetics', 'lipstick', 'gloss', 'natural', 'organic', 'mineral' or any other terms that best describe your range.
To lift your position in search engines' results you also need to ensure your title tag is descriptive and you use your keywords in the body of your document as well as in your metadata.
Designing with SEO In Mind
A website's structure (the relationships between its content) needs to be mindful of SEO issues. From a client's perspective, it is more cost effective to incorporate Search Engine Optimisation when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it. At Blossom we design proactively so a site incorporates SEO factors.
It is always more reliable for long lasting search engine results to conform to the search engines' guidelines with no deception. Ensure that your create your content for users, not for the search engines, and make the content easy to access. Trying to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose is called Black Hat SEO or Spamdexing, using link farms and keyword stuffing. This degrades both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Many Search engines are wise to this and look for sites that employ these techniques and ultimately remove them from the index.
INVEST IN PROFESSIONAL IMAGES
Invest in professional photography if you are selling products online. We are affiliated with michaelkennedyphotography.com so feel free to enquire about the costs of photography. The more professional your product looks the more upscale your brand looks.
Remember, your customer can't touch, taste or smell your products, in the same way that you can when in a physical store, so photography and diagrams are a must. Sharp, well retouched and colour balanced product images may mean the difference between a confirmed customer and a passing visitor.
Don't try to save money on your images. The advantage you have over a retail store is very low rent, but one of the major disadvantages if that the potential customer can't see the item. Allow them to do this through clean, colour matched, well lit, professional images. Images taken with your phone or happy snap camera simply don't cut it, and will drive your customers away. It's well worth the investment.
(K.I.S.S.) Keep it simple Sweetie
There is enough visual polution online. If there is too much going on the visitor will be overwhelmed and leave. Avoid the temptation to use all the bells and whistles available to web designers (eg flash). Search engine prefer that topics are separated onto separate pages, so if you have one long page with many topics, you may not rank high in Google.
Keep your colour palette SIMPLE
The most professional sites tend to use only 2 – 4 colours across the site. Use colour for a reason. Create a mood, to highlight important points or to enhance a product with colour. A fabulous site for inspirational colour usage is colourlovers.com
Don't write a ransom note
Keep your font use fairly minimal and clean. Make it legible, but not chunky. Use contemporary css styling to maintain styles throughout the website and keep it clean.
Inspire customers
girl inspiredPut yourself in your customer's shoes. Think about what they want to see and feel about your product. Make them feel good, give them a positive experience at all levels of the purchasing experience including the sale. Have a gorgeous yet effective checkout once they buy, send attractive emails after the sale thanking them. Women tend to appreciate the little things more than men, so take this into consideration with your site design at all levels.
To Flash or not to Flash
Flash has a place in but a complete flash site may not impress all of you visitors, especially if it is slow to load or generally “takes over”. Flash and other non-HTML formats can be problematic for search engines, so ensure your or your web designer takes the appropriate steps to optimise the content. There are many people that hate waiting for a flash site to load. Respect your visitor, and give them an option to skip a flash intro. Question whether it is necessary or if you are just satisfying the ego of the web designer.
Navigate with ease
Your site must be easy to get around. Navigation should be simple and consistent. If your menus are logical, intuitive (but still innovative) and easy to follow you visitor can find what they are looking for easily and quickly.
Keep in touch
E newsletters are a cost effective and environmentally friendly way to keep in touch with clients and attract new ones. It’s simple to implement and really does make a difference if the content of the newsletter offers the reader insights, special offers or tips. Note: Make sure if you do collect data from customers and visitors, have a privacy policy to ensure your subscribers that you will be respectful of their information.clock
Respect your visitor’s time
Keep your site load time to a minimum, with optimised graphics and reasonable sizes. If you have a graphic heavy site (let's face it, sometimes they look better), optimise and compress the files so they load faster. If it's not essential to the sites function or overall aesthetic, can you do without it? You don't need to put every bell and whistle in your designer's tool box. Keep your images optimised and a consistent size.
Know your visitor
Keep the needs and wants of you visitor in mind when you write or design your site. Women approach web sites in very differently to how a site is designed. Most visitors skim the content rather than read, making quick choices not really evaluating. It's an emotional experience a lot of the time.
The female visitor is generally goal driven and can be impatient. Simple clear information is vital, either in photography, text information or navigation. A designer creating sites for a feminine target market must have clear insight into those goals. Your designer needs to be able think like your potential customer, and generally if you target market is female, it makes sense that your designer female (or at least in touch with their feminine side).
When writing your content or choosing your imagery, think about where, how and when the end user will want to see it, in what context. Think about what the customer wants to hear about the products and which key factors will encourage the visitor to stay in your online boutique, website or store.
Keep track of your links
Make sure that all in the links in your site are functional. “Dead” links can be off-putting to potential customers and may drive them away.
AVOID HYPE
Do not ever use more than one exclamation mark. It looks cheesy and cheap!!!!! The biggest mistake of website owners is to over hype their site with anything to attract attention. With feminine, elegant products, let's just say, woman can be more refined. Unless it is part of the typographic style (as above) don't put everything in caps. Please avoid saying general and unsubstantiated claims like "AUSTRALIA'S NO.1 WIDGET COMPANY " or "THE BEST WIZZ FIZZ MAKERS IN THE WORLD!!!", unless of curse you can qualify this.
I've found that companies and people who say they are number one without some kind of measure or award, are generally far from it.
a menu on every page
It might be obvious, but ...popping a simple menu on the left or the top of each page will make life a lot simpler for most visitors. (For instance at the top or sides). Putting navigation links only at the bottom of page means that your visitor will have to scroll down to the bottom to get to them (unless your pages are short and "above the fold").