A good website is crucial for small businesses. But when money is tight and time is short, how can you make your website look top-notch without hiring experts?
For context, users take just about 50 milliseconds, barely a moment, to decide if they like your site. That quick judgment can mean the difference between a new customer or a lost opportunity.
So, with such a brief window to impress, how can you ensure your website stands out and looks professional? More importantly, how can you elevate your website's look without breaking the bank or spending hours you don't have?
This guide delves into practical strategies to help give your website the professional touch it needs.
It’s Time to Use AI to Create a Professional Looking Website
You've probably come across countless articles online about creating a professional website.
Most of this advice is geared towards those with deep pockets or advanced technical know-how. That's not the everyday small business owner. You need solutions that are practical and impactful.
But Durable, a powerful website builder that uses AI, builds an entire website for you in 30 seconds.
Instead of giving you a list of tasks, Durable does it for you with the power of AI. From design templates to curated written content, our AI technology crafts websites that look good and speak to your target audience, regardless of your industry.
But there’s more that goes into creating a good site apart from the design. A visually appealing website is great, but its content and user experience make it memorable. That’s where most businesses slip up. They focus so much on aesthetics that they neglect the core message and ease of navigation.
We’ll lay out eight actionable steps to elevate your website's professionalism. Every single tip we provide can be implemented using Durable.
How to Make Your Website Look More Professional
Here are some key steps to elevate the look and feel of your website, all achievable through Durable:
- Choose the Right Template
- Edit the AI-generated Copy to Match Your Brand
- Prioritize Mobile Experience
- Use High-Quality Visuals
- Ensure Consistency in Branding
- Structure Your Site With Clear Menus
- Implement Clear and Compelling CTAs
- Create Contact Forms for Easy User Interactions
1. Choose the Right Template
The decision to select a particular template for your website isn't about aesthetics or layout. It's about sending a message, communicating your brand, and creating a lasting impression on visitors.
The right template is the ambassador for your brand, representing your business’s ethos, values, and goals.
- Your website is an extension of your brand. The template should reflect your business's colors, typography, and overall vibe. This consistency in branding helps build trust and recognition among visitors.
- A good template should intuitively guide visitors through your content. Navigation, readability, and layout drastically affect a user's journey, determining whether they stay, engage, or leave.
- The layout influences actions on your site. Whether purchasing, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting you, the right template steers users toward desired outcomes.
When thinking of a professional template, ask yourself these questions:
- Does this look show what my business is about?
- Can visitors quickly find what they need?
- If I want to add videos or pictures later, will this design work?
- How does the website look on a phone screen?
Now, while understanding the importance of templates is essential, Durable makes the work easier for you.
One, Durable offers free AI website templates with examples to build the right online presence tailored to your business. These templates serve as a launchpad, offering you a taste of what's possible.
But let’s say you didn’t find a template you like and want to step out of the box a little. You can simply use our AI-driven website builder to build a website from scratch.
By inputting your business type, location, and name, our AI crafts a website tailored to your industry.
For example, if you're in the restaurant business and input that into Durable's AI-driven tool, here's what you can expect:
- A captivating image of a signature dish creates an immediate connection with your potential customers and invites them to explore further.
- An interactive menu with images of dishes and descriptions. A special section could be dedicated to the chef’s recommendations, daily specials, and seasonal offerings.
- A segment that showcases testimonials from satisfied customers, sharing their dining stories and favorite dishes, adding credibility to your establishment.
- An easy-to-find section providing clear details about your restaurant’s location, operating hours, and contact information.
2. Edit the AI-generated Copy to Match Your Brand
Having the right words on your website is like having a friendly chat with your visitors. It lets them know who you are, what you do, and why they should choose you. While Durable AI is smart and creates content for your site, it's important to add a touch that's uniquely you.
Here’s how and why:
- Your business is one of a kind. The words on your site should sound like you and not like every other site.
- People want to feel connected. They're more likely to trust and engage with your business when they read something genuine.
- AI is smart but doesn't know every little detail about your business. It can’t capture the core essence of your business and what makes it tick. Check and change the content to make sure everything is right.
Durable offers a strong starting point with its AI-generated content, but our platform is designed to be flexible. You can easily go into the content and make edits.
Click on a section you want to change the copy and click “Edit.”
Think about how you talk to your customers in real life. Try to sound the same online.
Also, keep it simple. Websites are for quick reading. Use short sentences and simple words. Avoid jargon unless it's common in your industry.
Finally, use a friendly tone. Make visitors feel welcome. Think of your website as your online home and greet guests with warmth.
3. Prioritize Mobile Experience
More and more people are accessing websites from their smartphones and tablets. Over half of internet traffic is from mobile devices.
Many visitors might never see your desktop site. If they have a bad experience on mobile, they might not return.
Also, search engines, like Google, factor in mobile-friendliness when ranking sites. A mobile-optimized site helps improve your search engine rankings, driving more organic traffic.
All Durable sites come pre-configured to be mobile-friendly. To review how your site appears across different devices:
- Open the website editor.
- Locate the desktop icon on the top right-hand side.
- Click to toggle and view your site as it appears on mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Here are some additional tips to enhance your mobile experience:
- Large images can slow down mobile load times. Ensure your images are compressed, and don't sacrifice speed for quality.
- Always test new changes on different devices. What looks good on one screen size might not be on another.
- Encourage feedback from mobile users and make necessary tweaks. Real-world insights can be incredibly valuable.
4. Use High-Quality Visuals
Incorporating high-quality visuals makes your site more attractive and reinforces the professionalism and credibility of your brand.
Grainy or low-res images can immediately drop the credibility of your site.
Durable gives you high-resolution and professional images. With access to these millions of high-quality photos, you’re never short of options to elevate your site's visual appeal.
- Navigate to the section whose image you'd like to modify.
- Click on the 'edit' option.
- Opt for the 'regenerate' function to get a new image.
You can regenerate images as often as you want until you find the perfect fit.
We have a vast library of photos, which is incredibly beneficial. However, we can't stress enough the impact of using brand photos.
Brand photos showcase the real essence of your business. These pictures tell an authentic story, making your brand more relatable and trustworthy.
Stock photos, while professional, can be generic. Custom brand photos are unique to your business and help make your brand more recognizable and memorable.
Instead of generic coffee cup images, showcase your baristas in action, a busy morning at your café, or even customers enjoying a quiet moment with their coffee.
5. Ensure Consistency in Branding
Branding is the unique characteristics, values, and visuals that distinguish your brand from others.
When visitors interact with various elements of your website, from colors and fonts to tone of voice and images, they should instantly recognize and feel your brand.
Uniform elements and predictable layouts enhance user navigation and experience, making your site more user-friendly.
For example, mismatched colors create visual chaos, turning away potential customers.
But choosing the right color combination is not easy. Blues evoke a sense of calm and trustworthiness; reds inspire excitement or urgency. So which ones do you go with?
The Durable color palette feature under “themes” eliminates this guesswork. With a curated set of four colors that seamlessly complement each other, we equip you with a foundational design tool that ensures your website is visually cohesive, emotionally resonant, and primed for visitor engagement.
Another crucial design element where color plays a pivotal role is the Call to Action (CTA) buttons.
These buttons, like "Buy Now," "Sign Up," or "Learn More," are gateways to user engagement and conversion. Hence, they need to stand out.
Durable is conscious of the role color contrast plays in drawing attention. We ensure that CTA buttons effectively use color contrasts, making them immediately pop from the page, drawing the visitor's eye.
6. Structure Your Site With Clear Menus
A website navigation menu directs your visitors, helps them understand what you offer, and ensures they can easily find what they want.
A well-structured menu delivers a smooth user experience and ensures visitors stay longer on your site.
Visitors don't want to play detective on your website. They want to find what they're looking for without hassle.
Search engines also appreciate organized content. Clear navigation structures can aid search engine crawlers in understanding and indexing your site content better, potentially leading to better rankings.
When creating your site, Durable AI-driven platform ensures that the generated website comes with an intuitive and user-friendly menu structure right out of the box. Menus are organized based on industry best practices, ensuring your content is accessible and well-segmented.
If you want more control, Durable editor allows for easy customization. You can add, remove, or reorganize menu items, ensuring the navigation aligns perfectly with your brand and offerings.
7. Implement Clear and Compelling CTAs
CTAs, or Call to Action buttons, are arguably some of the most pivotal elements on a website. They are signposts guiding your visitors toward desired actions.
The effectiveness of a CTA isn't just in its message but also in its design, positioning, and clarity.
Before crafting a CTA, be clear about the desired outcome. Are you aiming for more newsletter sign-ups, product purchases, or webinar attendees? The CTA should also align with the surrounding content. If you've written about a new product, the CTA should ideally lead the user towards purchasing or learning more about that product.
Avoid ambiguity. Your users should instantly understand what they're expected to do. "Download Now," "Get Started," and "Learn More" are direct and to the point.
Durable understands the weight CTAs carry in the user experience and conversion journey. Here's how we aid in creating effective CTAs:
- AI Optimization: Durable AI platform analyzes your website content and places the most relevant CTAs, ensuring they align with your site's objectives and content.
- Customizable Designs: Beyond just the message, Durable allows you to customize the design of your CTA buttons. Choose colors that pop, shapes that stand out, and sizes that are clearly visible.
To customize the CTAs in Durable, click “Edit” on the section with the CTA button. On the edit panel on the right-hand side, click “Style,” and then click Change on the “Button style.”
Durable will have done most of the work for you, so you only need to tweak the CTA buttons a bit.
8. Create Contact Forms for Easy User Interactions
One of the most straightforward ways to facilitate interaction is through contact forms. These forms serve as a bridge, allowing visitors to reach out to you, ask questions, request services, or provide feedback without the hurdles of phone calls or direct emails.
Unlike direct emails, you can structure contact forms to capture specific information. This ensures that you receive all the necessary details in an organized manner, which can expedite response times and improve service quality.
Also, publishing your email address directly on your website can attract spammers. Contact forms filter out unnecessary or automated submissions, especially those with a captcha or other verification methods.
Durable allows you to add contact forms to your website. On the section you want to add the contact form, click “Add section.” In the pop-up menu, select “Contact form.”
You can decide the fields you want, the alignment of the form, and where it should be placed on your site.
All forms created using Durable are mobile-friendly, ensuring that users on all devices can easily fill them out.
Can I Move My Existing Domain to Durable?
Yes, you can. Migrating to Durable doesn’t equate to starting from ground zero.
We facilitate a hassle-free domain transfer, ensuring your hard-earned SEO efforts and brand identity remain intact.
Having your custom domain and website under the same platform simplifies management—no need to juggle multiple accounts or passwords.
A Professional-Looking Website Can Be Yours in Under 30 Seconds
Your website is often people's first impression of your business or brand.
However, you don't need months of planning, huge budgets, or expert design skills to have a polished, professional website.
Creating a professional online presence with Durable is as quick as making your morning coffee.
Generate your website with Durable. It's Free, fast, efficient, and tailored just for you.
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