How Does Transparency Affect Confidence?

Businesses rely on designers to help them build the perfect relationship with visitors.

After all, as much as companies may wish it wasn’t true, many consumers still judge a book by its cover. A website that fails to prioritize concepts like trust and transparency could instantly lose the confidence of its target audience.

As a designer, it can be tempting to focus on figuring out ways of convincing an audience to convert or give up their money instantly. However, while design experts know how to enhance conversions, they also understand how important it is to make sure that customers feel confident in a website.

Here’s what you need to know about cultivating confidence in user experiences.

How Does Transparency Affect Confidence?

In a survey conducted in 2016, 94% of consumers stated that they would happily be loyal to a fully transparent brand. As customers continue to search for more honest and reliable companies, the demand for transparency in UX will likely continue.

As a web designer, you can’t force a company to share all vital information with its clients. However, you can use your design knowledge to help the honesty of a company stand out.

Here are some other strategies that designers can use to build transparency for their clients.

Create an Eye-Catching “About” Page

One of the first things that today’s businesses need to be honest about if they want to delight their customers is their people.

For instance, creating a page where your client can highlight the nature of the products that they sell is an excellent first start. Maurele has a beautifully designed “About” page to tell its customers everything they need to know about the business.

At the same time, drawing attention to the footer where customers can check things like the terms and policies of the website or FAQs that answer their most common questions is another fantastic way to build transparency.

Giving a brand a human face makes it easier for that company to establish lasting connections. That’s why designers should always prioritize using real, authentic images over stock photos where possible. For example, a large feature image on an “About” page that addresses the company’s unique nature makes it easier to connect with a target audience.

Make sure that there’s plenty of space on the “About” page to introduce significant members of staff that can give a face and personality to both the website and the brand. For instance, Mociun.com uses a fantastic hero image of a person with her cat.

Add Space for Testimonials and Customers

While you don’t need to post a customer’s entire consumer list online to prove that they’re a reputable company, it is worth highlighting some of their clients. No one wants to be the first person online to trust a new website. Testimonials and reviews from other people are how you add instant confidence to any experience.

For designers, social proof can come in a lot of different formats. For instance, if you’re building a website for a company that sells directly to other businesses, you could add pictures of the logos of the brands that the company has worked with. Alternatively, for a B2C brand, basic reviews and quotes will often work wonders. For instance, there’s a list of great reviews included on the product pages of the PlaySuperlative.com website.

Unless customers leave comments directly on the web page themselves, remind your customer that they need to get permission from the client to use their quotes on any web page.

Additionally, remember that adding pictures and names to testimonials where possible can sometimes make them more believable.

Tell Your Client’s Story

When building a website for a client, there are many different things that you’ll need to think about. For instance, you need to focus on the company’s USP or whatever makes them unique. You’ll also need to ensure that clients have all the information they need to make purchases easily.

At the same time, it’s important not to go over the top with too many features. Simplicity is often the key to good UX.

Where possible, however, if you want to boost confidence for your client, it’s a good idea to highlight their unique motives and vision as a business. Ask the company that you’re designing for what their mission is. Do they want to transform the way people communicate and collaborate like Trello? Do they want to fill the world with information, like Google?

Focusing on the unique ambitions of the business, beyond the desire to make money, makes them seem more three-dimensional and real.

Highlight Security

Use your skills to ensure that certain aspects of safety and security stand out for your client. For instance, notice how Fetching Fields instantly pulls attention to the fact that they’re using certified and organic, human-grade wellness solutions.

Other steps you can take include making sure there’s an SSL certificate installed to cement the website’s safety. Additionally, if your customer has any badges or certifications that can highlight their security strategies, it may be a good idea to include those too.

If your customer takes payments online, you can use several secure website seals to boost confidence. For instance, showing that you’re “Verified by Visa” or using Mastercard Secure Code is a wonderful choice.

Make Sure Visitors Can Find Contact Information

As a website designer, one of the best things you can do for your customer is making sure that they have excellent navigation, complete with easy-to-find information.

On any website, innovative navigation ensures that an audience can find the pages they need to make sure that they feel as comfortable as possible, making their purchases.

Make it easy for visitors on a website to track down useful insights about the products they want to buy or the kind of services available from the company in question. Additionally, if your client has any FAQ pages or additional resources, make sure that customers will have no trouble tracking those down.

The example above from Petersham Nurseries makes it easy for clients to find everything they need on the website, thanks to a convenient vertical navigation bar.

Remember, one piece of information that should always be as easy as possible to find for your customers should be the contact page. A contact page shows that the business is willing to answer any questions a client might have via many channels.

List a physical street address and phone number for the website where possible, or at the very least include an email address where people can get in touch.

Make Sure Pricing is Clear

Finally, if you want to ensure that visitors can trust your client’s website, you need to avoid hiding any critical information with fine print or content hidden in the website’s footer. When designing product pages or service information, make sure that you’re as transparent as possible about the company’s pricing.

You don’t want a customer to wait until they click through into the checkout page to discover that they have to spend a fortune on postage and packaging. And, no one purchasing a service wants to wait until they’ve got their credit card out to discover that they’re going to be paying extra for things like set-up fees.

According to Jakob Nielsen, one of the top mistakes anyone can make on a website is not listing their pricing as clearly as possible.

As tempting as it may be to hide certain expenses and send customers through to the checkout page faster, avoid any opportunity to hide information about costs.

Designing for Confidence

Ultimately, many different things can make a website stand out today.

Designers can experiment with unique strategies like dynamic loading and video-based backgrounds. You might even decide to explore new styles with the right company or adapt certain pages to take advantage of things like 5G and new connectivity options.

However, before you can begin exploring new opportunities on any website, one of the most important things you can do is ensure that you get the foundations of the website’s credibility right. Take an approach to design that focuses on transparency and trust first, and the rest will naturally fall into place.

In a world where consumers are less trusting of brands than ever before, people who design for transparency will be sure to stand out from the crowd. Don’t underestimate the power of embracing trust for your clients in 2020.

The post Cultivating Customer Confidence with UX first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

4 août 2021/par Service comm.

4 Perspectives When Selecting a Conversational AI Platform

Businesses are quickly acknowledging the importance of Conversational AI (CAI) to increase their customer engagement and revenues. The question is no longer whether to deploy CAI, but rather which platform to use and how to leverage its capabilities.

In this series, see some insight on important aspects of a conversational AI platform that buyers often overlook. For example, what does language support really mean? What is localization? How do different deployment models impact the TCO? And maybe most importantly – How can the CAI platform not only help me during the first development sprints – but across the entire bot lifecycle?

Source de l’article sur DZONE

2 août 2021/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: July 26 2021 – August 1, 2021

Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.

The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

Amazon Has Ruined Search And Google Is In On It

7 Commandments of Good UI Design

The Paris 2024 Olympic Logo is Still Being Mocked Online

5 Challenges All Web Designers Face + How to Fix Them

Are UI Tips the New Clickbait for Designers?

How To Master Layout Design

10 Worst Design Failures of All Time

20 Best New Websites, July 2021

9 Design Thinking Tools for Turning a Creative Vision into a Usable Interface

Web Features That May Not Work As You’d Expect

1 août 2021/par Service comm.

16 Free Websites for Learning to Code in 2021

The best free online coding websites for beginners are hubs of education and insight, designed to take your knowledge and career to the next level.

For years, technical careers have been gaining more attention among innovative individuals. In a digital world, people capable of speaking computer language often have the widest selection of job opportunities. However, before you can start leveraging the blossoming job market, you need to hone your skills. That’s where free coding websites come in.

A free online coding website is an environment where you can develop your understanding of various kinds of code, update your programming prowess, and even earn certifications. Today, we’re going to be looking at some of the most impressive coding websites on the market.

Coding Careers: Opportunities in 2021 and Beyond

Before we leap into our overview of the best free coding websites, let’s examine why it’s so important to invest in your coding role. Looking at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, we see that coders earn an average of $89,190 per year.

Elsewhere, CompTIA notes that technology hiring has accelerated since the end of 2020, with up to 391,000 new positions opening in the US during December.

Though coding careers have been popular for some time now, they have particularly high value following the pandemic, as companies worldwide adapt to the changes associated with remote workforces, digital customer service, and ecommerce. The pandemic has made us more reliant on technology than ever before, as a result:

Coding skills are in high demand: Coding skills are essential for the newly digital world. Studies find that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by around 7 years. Companies need coding professionals to stay ahead of the curve.
Coding knowledge is becoming more versatile: Companies are looking for coding skills in more than just programmers. They want their data analysts, IT workers, artists, designers, and other professionals to have these talents too.
People with coding talent can earn more: Jobs requiring coding skills tend to pay more than those that don’t. This reveals the growing need for coding knowledge in the digital ecosystem.

Coding skills provide an avenue to tech professionals for higher-income jobs, and these careers are growing faster on average than other job opportunities.

The Best Websites for Learning to Code

Learning to code or developing your existing coding skills can help you to unlock a host of new opportunities. Today, you can learn coding online for free, just by visiting the right websites.

Even a basic knowledge of coding can drive a range of results, such as helping to support the better management of websites, reducing reliance on outside developers, and opening the door to app development. So whether you want to start a new career or upgrade your existing knowledge, these sites will help:

BitDegree

BitDegree is a wonderful website for anyone interested in web development, coding, data science, and programming. There are various courses to choose from, depending on the career path you want to take. For instance, you can learn about the AWS cloud or start your journey into gaming development. For coding, BitDegree covers languages like:

CSS
HTML
PHP
SQL
JavaScript
jQuery

The best thing about BitDegree is how it makes learning so fun. There are gamified courses and sections where you can really dive into the essentials of coding. In addition, the online coding course collection often features hundreds of discounted options for people on a budget.

CodeAcademy

One of the most popular sites for learning how to code for free, CodeAcademy is home to over 24 million students who have built their skills. The interactive learning approach lets you apply what you’ve learned immediately. Over 300 million hours of free coding content are available to check out at your leisure. Like most coding platforms, you can learn languages such as:

CSS
JavaScript
HTML
PHP
jQuery
Python
PHP
Ruby

CodeAcademy is particularly effective for beginners because you get instant feedback after submitting your coding efforts. When you make mistakes, you’ll find out exactly where you went wrong, allowing you to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Codewars

Codewars by Qualified is definitely one of the most versatile free platforms for learning how to code. There are dozens of languages you can learn – too many to list right here. Options range from C++ and C# to Ruby, Python, Lean, Java, PHP, Scala, and countless others.

Codewars teaches you your programming language in-depth by selecting challenges designed to put your mind to the test. The goal for each challenge is to help you sharpen your knowledge over time, with tasks that get progressively more difficult over time.

The cool thing about Codewars is it allows you to see how you respond to challenges compared to how other coders have tackled the same issues.

Code.Org

Designed for a younger community of would-be coders, Code.org is an engaging and highly accessible introduction to coding. With around 60 million students worldwide, the Code.org platform gives you access to a wide range of different learning opportunities intended to suit different needs and learning levels.

The Code.org environment is built on a desire to bring coding into the standard curriculum. You can dive into full one-hour tutorials, or you can experiment with a more structured approach to learning, which is ideal for people with different learning styles. There’s also a huge catalog of courses extending from basic coding for younger kids all the way to University-level education.

Free Code Camp

A diverse option in our free coding website list, Free Code Camp is all about developing your coding knowledge while simultaneously networking with other like-minded people in the industry. The solution allows you to learn coding by participating in challenges – which is ideal if you want to put your skills to the test as soon as possible.

To help you jump in, you’ll have access to a range of courses and tutorials designed to help you understand and overcome each challenge. You can even code for non-profits on the platform and build tradeable projects in languages like:

HTML5
Javascript
Node.JS
CSS3
React.JS
Databases
Git

If you’re a little nervous about the concept of coding alone, you’ll have a full community to work within the Free Code Camp. You might even meet someone you can work with in the years ahead.

Code Conquest

Code Conquest is less of a course website and more of a comprehensive guide for beginners diving into the world of code. This amazing platform will help you understand all of the basics of coding in no time – even if you’re brand-new to the landscape. You can find out what coding is all about, learn which languages are best to learn for your needs, and more.

The website is full of resources for all kinds of coders, including comprehensive tutorials, reviews, a knowledge center, training packs, and more. You can even choose from a range of languages like:

CSS
HTML
PHP
jQuery
Ruby
JavaScript
Python
MySQL

To help you figure out where you should get started, the Code Conquest website also gives you recommendations on which tutorials to take next.

W3Schools

One of the better-known free websites for coding on the market today, W3Schools is an environment packed full of example codes, resources, tutorials, exercises, and libraries to help you learn how to code. The site is one of the largest in the world for developers.

To begin coding with W3 Schools, you’ll need to choose the programming language that’s right for you, then either jump into the program immediately or select from a range of learning options. The site comes with a handy quiz to help you define your knowledge level.

Languages range from CSS to SQL, JavaScript, HTML, Python, Java, C++, and many more.

Code Avengers

Code Avengers offers a fun and interactive approach to learning how to program and code. There are various course options to teach you how to create everything from games and apps to entire websites. The good thing about the Code Avengers website is you don’t need a lot of spare time to start learning. Each course takes around 12 hours to complete.

You can choose from languages like HTML, CSS, Python, jQuery, JavaScript, and more, and connect with a wide selection of similar coding enthusiasts, just like you. The biggest downside is that the free trial only lasts for seven days before you’ll need to pay to use the full program.

The Code Player

A simple and effective website for learning how to code and building your existing skills. There are tons of videos and demos to walk you through the process of learning how to code from scratch. All you need to do is click on one of the things you want to learn how to do, like creating a simple web page, and the site will give you a video walkthrough.

Though a little simple compared to other coding resources, the Code Player still has a lot of great video guidance to help beginners jump into various languages. For example, you can learn about CSS and HTML or check out various tools to help you make a more effective website.

CodeGym

If you’re particularly interested in learning about Java, the CodeGym is probably the website for you. This online Java programming course teaches you the basics of Java by allowing you to dive into various tasks. You can get involved with various exercises depending on your existing skill level and play around with games designed to teach you more about the coding landscape.

This website is fantastic for people in all stages of the coding journey. Whenever you suggest a solution to a challenge, the website will give you immediate feedback to learn from. There are more than 500 hours of Java coding exercises and educational resources to explore.

The Odin Project

One of the better-known free coding websites on the market, the Odin Project aims to take the headaches and frustration out of learning web development. If you’re a beginner looking to develop a career in coding, then the Odin Project will give you all the pieces of the puzzle required to decide exactly where you want to go and build the appropriate skills.

This site offers a full-stack curriculum of coding education options, with tons of challenges, tasks, and exercises to help you put your newly gained knowledge to the test. You’ll learn how to program in languages like CSS and HTML, explore the basics of JavaScript and Ruby, and even get tips on how to get hired when your skills are maxed out.

Plural Sight

Previously known as Code School, Plural Sight is a fantastic online learning platform that allows you to build your knowledge through a range of paid and free courses. The comprehensive platform is organized into a wide selection of different learning paths. You can choose how you want to develop your skills based on your chosen language and your existing skillset.

You choose an education path created by professional instructors to achieve specific outcomes, and Plural Sight gives you all the material you need. You can also practice what you’ve learned during the course in your browser and get immediate feedback on what you need to work on. There’s even a gamification aspect that allows you to earn points for every course level you complete.

MIT Open Courseware

Imagine how amazing it would be to get accepted to MIT to learn your new coding skills? What if you didn’t have to go through the headache of an official application. If you have a computer and internet access, you can explore MIT’s course material easily through the MIT Open Courseware website. This dedicated website gives you an insight into all of the courses and materials learned by students at MIT.

You can browse through all the courses available in the programming landscape and filter through results based on things like course features. For instance, you might specifically look for courses with their own online textbook, lecture notes, and videos. It’s a great way to get an insight into how one of the most reputable universities in the world offers coding education.

Web Fundamentals

We’ve already looked at a website offering coding resources specifically for Java, now let’s take a look at one designed for HTML5. Launched about 11 years ago as HTML5 Rocks, the Web Fundamentals website is packed full of tutorials, resources, and insights into the most recent updates to HTML5. This open-source environment allows developers and programmers to really get active with their skills.

You can play around with some of the code already available on the website, and explore tutorials authored by a range of amazing individuals. Although these courses are very comprehensive, it’s worth noting that they might not be the perfect choice for true beginners, as the tutorials can be more complex than most.

Dash General Assembly

If you’re keen to learn the essentials of coding in some of the most popular languages, like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, then Dash General Assembly is the site for you. This website offers fun and free courses which will guide you through the basics of web development. You even get interactive tasks and challenges you can leverage within your browser, with no downloads required.

Users learn how to do a range of amazing things with this website, including how to code HTML5, build a beautiful website, and balance your layouts for aesthetic appeal and usability. You can even design dynamic interfaces where you can add aminations and effects. Dash General Assembly is a fantastic tool for anyone keen to get started in the world of coding.

Codeasy.net

Finally, Codeasy.net promises beginners a fast and simple way to start learning how to code, while having plenty of fun. This exciting website immerses you within a digital story which takes you on an adventure through the basics of coding. You’ll need to learn real-life coding skills to navigate your way through the rest of the story, which means you can develop your C# knowledge as you go.

This is one of the more unique tools for learning how to code that we’ve found so far. It’s a great way to discover the basics of C# without being bogged down in boring lectures. Remember, though, this website is intended for complete beginners, so you might find it a little basic if you already know some of the coding essentials.

Free Websites for Learning to Code

Free coding websites are an excellent way to develop your skills and unlock new opportunities in the world of coding. If you’re keen to jump into a new career as a programmer or coding developer, make sure you check out some of the options above. There’s no doubt you’ll find a site capable of giving you the boost you need.

Featured image via Unsplash.

The post 16 Free Websites for Learning to Code in 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

29 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: July 19 2021 – July 25, 2021

The Best Olympic Logos of all Time

16 CSS Backdrop-Filter Examples

9 Must-Install Craft CMS Plugins

Adobe Reveals the World’s Favourite Emojis in 2021

14 Must-See Graphic Design Movies You Should Watch

Desech: No-Code Visual HTML/CSS Editor

Of Course We Can Make a CSS-Only Clock

8 CSS & JavaScript Code Snippets for Creating Realistic Animation

What is a Headless CMS and What Does it Mean For SEO?

OOP is Dead. Wait, Really?

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

25 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

HashiCorp Is Becoming an Important Part of Spring Cloud (Part 1)

As we all know the Cloud-based systems are becoming the most popular architecture in the software engineering world, and the most famous and beloved Cloud platform among developers is Spring Cloud.

Spring Cloud has some important features which are given in the following parts and the feature part does a specific job:

Source de l’article sur DZONE

25 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

Making Your Mark: 6 Tips for Infusing Brand Essence into Your Website

What makes a company special? There are hundreds of organizations out there selling fast food, but only one McDonalds. You’ve probably stumbled across dozens of technology companies too, but none of them inspire the same kind of loyalty and commitment as Apple. So why do people fall in love with some companies more than others?

Most of the time, it comes down to one thing: brand essence. Your brand essence, or brand identity, represents all of the unique components of your business that separate it from the competition. It’s not just about your logo or the brand colors you choose for your website. Your brand essence entails all of the visual assets you use and those less tangible concepts like brand values and personality.

When your customers decide which companies to buy from, they’re not just looking for another dime-a-dozen venture with the cheapest products. Instead, your audience wants to buy from a business that they feel connected with. That’s where your brand comes in.

Infusing brand essence into your website helps give your digital presence that extra touch that differentiates you from other similar companies.

So, how do you get started?

What is Brand Essence?

Your brand essence is a collection of core characteristics responsible for defining your brand. More than just a single asset, your essence encompasses everything from your unique tone of voice, from your brand image, your message, and even what you stand for.

More than just a single asset, your essence encompasses everything

When you’re trying to boost your chances of sales, a brand essence helps build a kind of affinity with your customers. Your clients see aspects of your character that they can relate to, such as a modern and playful image or a commitment to sustainable practices. It’s that affinity that convinces your customer to choose your company instead of your competition time after time.

Your website is one of the first places that your customer will visit when looking for answers. They might happen across your site when searching for a key phrase on Google or stumble onto it from social media. When they arrive on your product or home page, everything there should help them make an immediate emotional connection.

The only problem?

It’s challenging to portray a unique brand identity through a standard website template. If your site looks the same as a dozen other online stores, how can you convince your customers that you’re better?

Why Your Website Needs Brand Essence

First impressions are a big deal.

In a perfect world, your visitors would land on your website and instantly fall in love with what they find there. So everything from the unique design of your homepage to the pictures on your product pages should delight and impress your audience.

Unfortunately, if just one element is wrong, then you could also make the wrong impression entirely on your customers too. Adding elements of brand essence to your site will:

Build trust with your audience: Your brand should be a consistent component of everything your business does, from selling products to interacting with customers. When your consumers land on your website, everything from your logo to your chosen colors should remind them of who you are and what you stand for. This consistency will lead to better credibility for your business.
Make you stand out: How many other companies just like yours are on the internet today? Your brand essence helps to differentiate you as special by showing what’s truly unique about you. It’s a chance to remind your audience of your values and make them forget all about your competitors.
Create an emotional connection: Brand essence that shows off your unique values, mission, and personality will help create an emotional link with your audience. Remember, people fall in love with the human characteristics behind your brand!

Easy Ways to Add Brand Essence to your Website

Since there are so many elements that add up to a strong brand essence, there are also a variety of ways you can add your brand to your website. Whether it’s using specific colors to elicit an emotional response from your fans or adding your unique tone of voice into content, there’s no shortage of ways to show off what makes you special.

1. Use Your Brand Colors Carefully

Brand colors are an important part of your brand essence. Walk into Target, and the bright shades of red will instantly energize you. Likewise, when you see a McDonalds, that golden arch logo might instantly remind you of joy and nourishment.

Color psychology plays a significant role in every brand asset you create, from the packaging you choose for your products to the shades in your logo. With that in mind, you should be using your colors effectively on your website too. Stick with the same selection of shades in every digital environment online.

For instance, the Knotty Knickers company uses different shades of pink and white to convey feelings of femininity and comfort. Not only is the website packed with this color, but the company also follows through with similar shades on its social media pages too.

Everything from the highlights on the Knotty Kickers Insta to the decorations in their images feature the soft tones of pink that make the company recognizable.

Remember, consistent use of color is psychologically proven to help improve recognition by up to 80%. So let your colors shine through.

2. Know Your Type

Your colors are just one component of your brand essence.

Fonts and typography are other components that your customers use to recognize and understand your business. There are many different styles of font, and new ones appear all the time. However, your company should have a specific selection of fonts that it uses everywhere.

If you have a typeface logo, then you might have one specific kind of font for this, like Original Stitch’s logo here:

On top of that, you may also use one font for the “heading” text on your website and something slightly different for the body text. Your heading and body text need to be extremely clear and easy to read on any device if you want to appeal to your target audience.

However, there’s more to getting your fonts right than choosing something legible. The fonts you pick need to say something about your company and what it stands for. For example, the modern sans-serif font of Original Stitch’s website conveys a sense of forward-thinking cleanliness and style.

The fonts feel trendy and informal, perfect for a luxury fashion company. Alternatively, a serif font like Garamond might look more formal and professional. So what do you want your customers to think and feel when they see your typography?

3. Know Your Images

Stock images look out-of-touch, cliché, and fake. If you cover your website in images like that, then you’re not going to earn the respect of your customers. Instead, it’s up to you to ensure that every graphic on your website conveys the sentiment and personality of your brand.

Bringing your brand essence into your website design means thinking about how you can convey your values in every element of that site. From the photos of your team that show the real humans behind your products and services to the pictures that you use on your product pages, choose your graphics wisely. If you have dedicated brand colors, you can even include these in your photos.

Of course, the most valuable graphic on your website should always be your logo. This is the thing that you need to include on all of your website pages to ensure that your audience knows who they’re shopping with. So ensure that no matter how much visual content you have on your page, your logo still stands out.

Firebox places its logo at the top of the page in the middle of your line of sight, no matter where you go on the website. This ensures that the logo is the thing that instantly grabs attention and reminds consumers of where they are.

Remember to ensure that each of the images you do include in your website is surrounded by plenty of white space so that your customers can see them properly too.

4. Use the Right Tone of Voice

It’s easy to get stuck focusing on things like logos and colors when you’re trying to make your brand essence shine through in your website. However, one of the most common things that your customer will recognize you by is your tone of voice.

Your brand tone of voice is what gives the content you share online personality and depth. It can come through in the kind of words you use, including slang and colloquialisms. In addition, you can add humor to your voice (if it’s appropriate) and even include emojis if that makes sense for your brand.

With formal words, you can make sure that you come across as reliable, dependable, and sophisticated. With informal words, you’re more likely to convince your audience that you’re friendly and relatable. Sticking with the Firebox example, look at how the company writes its product descriptions.

Everything from the length of the sentences to the humor in the tone of voice helps to convey something unique about the brand.

Like all of the elements that bring your brand essence into your website, your tone of voice must remain consistent wherever your customers see it. Make sure that your customer service agents know how to use your voice in chat with customers and that you include that personality on social media too.

5. Focus on Your Message

The tone of voice and personality that you showcase in your website and content is crucial to driving success for your business. However, under all of that, the most important thing to do is ensure you’re sending the right message. In other words, what do you want your customers to think and feel when they land on your website?

If your whole message is that you can make great skincare easy to obtain without asking people to compromise on animal safety, this should be the first thing that comes across when someone arrives on your homepage. That’s why Lush combines clean, simple web pages with credibility-boosting badges that tell customers everything they need to know instantly.

Ensuring that your message can come across correctly means learning how to use all the different brand assets you rely on consistently and effectively. Everything from the colors on your website to how you place trust badges along the bottom of every page makes a difference to how significant and believable your message is.

Notably, when you know what your core message is, it’s important to repeat it. That means that you don’t just talk about what your ideals and values are on your homepage. You also include references to your message on every product page and the “About” page too. Lush has an entire “ethical charter” on its website, where you can learn more about its activities.

Having a similar component included within your web design could be an excellent way to confirm what your most crucial considerations are for your customers.

6. Never Copy the Competition

Exploring other website designs and ideas created by your competitors is one of the easiest ways to get inspiration. Competitive analysis gives you an insight into the trends and design strategies that are more likely to work for your target audience. It’s also an opportunity for you to learn from your competitors’ wrongs and what they’re doing right.

However, it would be best if you never allowed your initial research and exploration to go too far. In other words, when you see something great that your competitor is doing, don’t just copy and paste it onto your own website. This is more likely to remind your customers of the other company and send them to that brand than it is to improve your reputation.

Instead, focus on making your website unique to you. If you’re having trouble with this, then start by looking at your About page. How would you describe your background and your mission as a business to someone who has never heard of you before? What makes your company different from all of the other organizations out there?

Take the unique features that you rave about on your About page and the personality you try to convey through your employees and bring it into the rest of your website design. The whole point of bringing brand essence into your web design strategy is that it helps to differentiate you from the other companies out there.

It’s a good idea to protect any assets that other people might try to steal from you too. Copyrighting your logo, your name, and other essential components of your brand will stop people in your industry from treading on your toes too much.

Make the Most of Your Brand Essence

Your website is one of the most valuable tools that you’ll have as a brand. It’s an opportunity for you to share your products and services with the world, capture the attention of your target audience, and potentially make sales too. However, it’s important not to forget that your website is also a chance for you to demonstrate what your brand is truly all about.

Through your brand essence, you can share the unique values and messages that make your company special. But, more importantly, you can use those components to build a deeper relationship with your audience – the kind of connection that leads to dedicated repeat customers and brand loyalty. People connect with other people – after all, not just faceless corporations.

Once you’ve identified your brand essence, the next step is to make sure that you know how to connect with your customers consistently. Every aspect of your website, application, social media pages, and anything else you make for your business sends the same message.

The post Making Your Mark: 6 Tips for Infusing Brand Essence into Your Website first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.