There is more to websites than just creating the structure. There is also making sure it is both functional and effective and optimizing it to be more attractive. But as it turns out, most website owners don’t know how to make their website more attractive. It’s no wonder most people stop interacting with a website after some time.
And the truth is that it’s hard if not impossible to keep your audience interested if your website is not attractive. Sure you can easily create a good enough website. But if your website is not optimized to attract customers, you will push people away.
One of the things you will realize is that your website is the digital storefront of your business.
Why?
Because it is the first thing that your audiences come across. And if you get it right, you will get more conversions and make more sales as a result.
The proof?
48% of people determine the credibility of your business by its website design. If they deem your website to be credible, they might consider making a purchase.
- Visual complexity impacts the appeal of a site within 17 milliseconds. This means that the audience judges your website solely on how it appears before even getting to read your content. So if your website isn’t attractive, you will lose them before 17 milliseconds elapse.
- Furthermore, 94% of first impressions are based on design.
That being said, today I’m going to walk you through how to make your WordPress website attractive with better designs resources. I’ve broken it down to make it simpler including only the important bits.
Ready? Keep reading.
How to Make Your WordPress Website Attractive
Tip no. 1:
1. Use Images and Videos to Engage Users
What you need to understand is that 65% of your audience are visual learners. They don’t want to read, and neither do they have the time to read long pieces of text.
They want to be able to understand information quickly and easily. By using images, you get an opportunity to provide more information and keep the readers engaged for longer.
There are plenty of ways of doing it with WordPress. Here are a couple image and video galleries which you can use on your website.
2. Compress Images
Large images hurt your website. Period!
They clutter up the website and decrease load times resulting in slower speeds. And with just about 3 seconds to make an impression, the last thing you need is a slow loading website.
A good rule of the thumb is to compress large images to smaller and more manageable ones, thus, to optimize images for web. I recommend you the Wp Smush plugin which will actually compress images on the fly.
3. Use Color and Contrast
The colors and contrasts used on the website are critical factors for enhancing your website. This is because colors have been found to increase brand recognition by about 80%.
So for instance, if you are a regular Coca Cola user, you will associate Coca Cola with red color. Similarly, KFC is associated with red and white and McDonald’s with red and yellow.
But, there are a variety of things that could affect color preference. These include culture, nationality gender and shopping aspects of the shopper. So you will need to pick your colors carefully.
4. Break Content Up with Subheaders
With decreasing attention spans and with readers becoming more and more fussy with what they read, it has become a lot harder to get readers to stick around.
So how do you attract them to your website?
Break up your content with subheaders. Generally, sub headers give a little more perspective on your headline and act as a catalyst to increase the reader’s interest and desire to read on.
Also, subheadings break up your content and draw the reader’s attention to the important bits. So, in essence, you are making it easier for scanners and skimmers also to read your content.
5. Incorporate Human Faces
One of the best ways to make your website attractive is by incorporating human faces. Remember, human beings are programmed to be social. Regardless of whether we are seeing someone in a photo or in person, a human face elicits emotional responses and influences how we feel about something.
So if you want to make your website more attractive, you will need to include human faces on the website.
6. Leave Plenty of White Spaces between Elements
According to the NN Group, most of your site visitors will only read 20% of the content. To maximize the number of people spending time on your website, you have to make it easier for them to understand what the site is all about.
And one of the best ways to do this is by making use of white spaces.
In website design, white space is blank space between elements. It can be any color from white, red, blue and black and is often used to provide breathing room in your design.
White spaces also draw attention to the important parts and make it easy to scan through the content.
7. Keep the Layout Simple
As I said earlier, people only read 20% of your content. 58% will simply skim over the content, and the rest won’t even bother. What does this mean?
For you to attract more people to your website, you will need to keep your website layout simple and straight to the point. You will need to remove any unnecessary elements that distract the reader and use white spaces to make it easier for them to understand.
Reasons Why You Should Keep Your Website Layout Simple:
- A simple design is timeless and therefore is not bound by new trends and time.
- Simple design loads at blazingly fast speeds.
- A simple design is easier to remember.
- A simple design is easier to understand and thus earn the visitors trust more easily.
- Simple design looks more professional.
- Simple design causes fewer distractions and hence it directs attention to the content.
8. Incorporate Fewer Attractive But Easy to Read Fonts
Fonts are one of the most important design resources when it comes to creating an attractive website. And it makes sense since it’s a lot harder to read things on a computer screen compared to print.
So if the font you are using isn’t legible, the reader might find it difficult to stick around your website longer.
But you can leverage the use of fewer attractive and easy to read fonts to attract more readers and evoke the right emotions in your target audience.
Conclusion
In addition to using the above design resources and tips, there is a bazillion of other things you can do to make your WordPress website more attractive. Or could get a professional to help you out if you can afford it.
But, I believe that these tips will not only help you boost conversions but will also help you attract more people to your website.