First impressions count – but did you really know how much? It takes only 1/10th of a second to form a first impression about a person. Websites are no different. According to the findings of three separate studies, it takes about 50 milliseconds (ms) (that's 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they'll stay or leave.

Your website is your brand’s first impression – so make it count. When you have a clear and effective website, you are setting your business (and yourself) up for success. With the dawn of the new year, now is the perfect time to refresh your website, and set the foundation to scale your business.

To help get us started, branding expert, Joanne Tapodi, shared some tips to give your website a fresh look and feel during her ‘New Year, New Website’ Talk presented by Squarespace at the recent Future You digital festival. A Squarespace website designer, Authorized Trainer and Circle member with over 15 years of experience in graphic design, Joanne has designed over 70 Squarespace websites and developed over 100 brand identities for small business owners. She’s also trained countless people on managing their own websites.

Combining her branding skills and Squarespace knowledge, Joanne creates Squarespace websites that are brand-specific and meaningful. Read on for her tips to get your website looking on-point for 2021, and also for some insight into key trends in website design for the year ahead.

Tips for an Effective Website

When your ideal customer visits your website, we want to lead them on a journey through your site. Imagine your website as your house, and each page on your website represents a different room; you want to welcome guests in and then take them through the different rooms of the house to show them what you're all about. This is called the user journey. Here are some tips to help you design an effective user journey throughout your website.

Tip #1 – Keep your homepage simple

Your homepage should share a bit about your business and/or a bit about what you do and who you are. It provides the most important information upfront that you want the user to know, so that they can then take this information through to the other pages on your website.

Tip #2 – Use call to actions (CTA’s) to lead the user where you want them to go

Don't give away too much information on your homepage. You want to keep the user engaged throughout each page of the journey. Have at least one CTA on every page of your website to keep that journey going.

Tip #3 – Never miss an opportunity to let the user complete a purchase, book an appointment, or contact you.

Use a few CTA’s on your homepage that lead towards your largest areas of interest; this could be your services, online shop, about page, etc. Include multiple opportunities for the user to engage with your largest area of interest not just on the homepage – but on each page of your website.

Tip #4 – The journey will ultimately end at the page where you would like the user to take action; this could be a contact page to book, submit an enquiry, or purchase page.

It’s important to have a lot of connection points on your website so that people feel like they're going through the website and learning more about you more about your business. As they move through your website, the brand journey becomes quite clear to them, and they can really connect with who you are and what you’re about. Talking about connection will lead me into my next tip:

Tip #5 – Connecting with your audience in your own unique and authentic way will be what sets you apart from your competitors.

In today’s digital age, connection is more important than ever. You have a very minimal amount of time to connect with your audience and you have to establish that connection as quickly as possible. So, how do we make sure you are achieving the touchpoints to connection on your website?

Establish brand consistency across all areas – tone of voice, image content and brand colors
Nurture your connection with your audience whilst building your audience by…
- Sharing informative content through different channels
- Blogging
- Setting up a mailing list and sending e-newsletters. Squarespace has email campaigns built straight in to the program, which is one of my favorite features
- Connecting your social media accounts to your website. Squarespace also allows for easy social integration

Web Trend Forecast

Trend #1 – ’Editorial’ Web Design

Website viewership on desktop vs mobile is still roughly equal, meaning you need to cater your website for both types of viewers.

In terms of design for desktop, web page layouts are moving more towards an ‘editorial’ look and feel to engage visitors. This means lots of ‘white’ space between elements and positioning your content blocks in different ways to create unique layouts. Big text is great for headlines, which we see a lot of in editorial design, when we really want to draw people's attention with typographic and font use.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and create lots of space on the web page, whilst also being mindful of how the design will translate from desktop to mobile.

Trend #2 – Bold Colors

I see brands becoming more adventurous by using bold colors. For the last few years, minimal Scandi style with lots of white and monotone hues have been on trend, as well as pastel pinks and earthy tones. I predict we will see a lot of websites using darker backgrounds. Don’t be afraid to use color in expressive ways that suit your brand personality.

Trend #3 – Online Offerings

The shift towards businesses boosting their offering online (in light of the global pandemic) will see an even larger focus on online shopping and online course / workshop content creation in 2021, particularly for businesses that are service based and are used to communicating with customers face-to-face. How can we use our websites to sell?