Having a website alone for your business isn’t enough. It has to deliver what your business is supposed to deliver to its target market. Your website is the online representation of your business; and when it comes to representation, a variety of factors matter. User experience, navigation, functionality, SEO, appearance – you name it. And how to get it all right? Simple! You start from the basic 7 Cs of an effective website design.
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What are the 7 Cs of an Effective Website Design?
If you are looking forward to developing a website for your business, you must follow the 7 Cs to get the best out of your website. Let’s understand what they are about.
1. Context
What defines and improves the visitor’s retention rate on your website is the Context. This is all about how your website looks. To provide a great user experience, your website should look pleasant and well-organised. This also includes the visuals and layouts of your website. Make your website easy to read and navigate; the content should be uncluttered, and make sure you use the ‘white space’ to separate content around your website. Remember, white space actually contributes to a great user experience.
2. Commerce
If you are an online retail shop, then this section is especially for you. It is important that your website should flawlessly carry out all the transactions without putting its customers’ data at risk. Also, you should put up clear instructions on your website stating the steps necessary to carry out a transaction. Also, for the sake of protecting privacy, you also should get the SSL certificate as it encrypts the data so that the hackers will not be able to hijack it.
Note: If it is a website purely for informational purposes, then you may not need this step at all. Regardless, if you are asking for sensitive data from your visitors, you should definitely get an SSL certificate.
Related: Do you need an SSL Certificate for Your Website?
3. Connection
Connection talks about inbound and outbound links. Everyone who studies SEO knows how important this is for your website as linking improves SEO strength. This is why you should always consider getting backlinks and do proper internal linking on your website.
4. Communication
This refers to the active engagement your website (and your company) has with your visitors and customers. It includes site-to-user, user-to-user, and other methods of two-way communications.
- Site-to-User: This includes how your website conversates the information to its visitors. Providing general information about your company, or exciting offers about your products are some examples of site-to-user communication. These usually aim at getting a productive response from the user.
- User-to-User: Communication between two users on your website. For example, take any social media website with a chat application implemented on it, such as Facebook.
- Two-Way Communications: The Internet and your website are not the only to communicate with your visitors and customers. You can leave details of your contact, or email address, or even postal address to make users communicate with your business through other means.
5. Content:
“Content is King!”. Ah, such a classic quote on the internet, yet so true. Your content is what your visitors will consume, so your content should definitely provide some value if you want them to stay. The content consists of text, videos, images, animations, arts and so on. Your content is at the centre of defining your company’s image on the internet, so give it some love!
6. Community
This aspect is about how your website handles user-to-user communication. If your website encourages social interactions between visitors, make sure they are able to communicate with each other properly and effortlessly. Good examples here would be the Live chat or message boards (forums).
7. Customisation
Customisations allow visitors to make certain changes to the website to make it appear more appealing and unique for them. You can set up customisation options like changing the website’s appearance, language, or profile customisations. If the visitors are required to sign up on your website, make sure they have good control over customising their profile, make it personalised according to their wants and needs, and so on.
Conclusion
These are the 7 Cs of an effective website design. However, as a website designer, you may not have to imply all 7 Cs. But it is important that you should keep them all in check. These are good practices if you want a website to be great. Consider these 7Cs as basic guidelines in how to design your website well.
If you require a website designer in Cape Town, South Africa, give us a call. Digital Lime Green provides high-quality and cost-effective website designs for all types of businesses. Take a look at our website design service.
Related: Website Design and Development
Note: This article has been solely written for informational purposes. All the data has been sourced from this. Please follow the link for more information on the same.
