Turn Your Website Into Your Most Charming Employee
Have you ever landed on a website so bland that you thought you accidentally clicked on a spreadsheet?
Unless you’re a very technical accountant who wants to show off their formula skills, it's probably not how you want your ideal audience to feel on your website!
75% of consumers admit that they judge a business’s credibility based on their website design
*According to a study conducted by Stanford UniversityYou typically have between 0.2 and 2.6 seconds to make a first impression, so your website must represent your business before your audience starts to snooze and clicks 'exit'. Getting quality traffic to your website is crucial for the longevity of your business - especially for small business owners and freelancers. Don’t let your website design make your quality marketing pointless.
Hiring a web designer to transform your website is a great option - but not essential. Instead, let a web designer who specialises in design filled with personality (hi!) guide you through an exercise and some simple tips to make your website feel like you, with ideas you can implement immediately.
Step 1: Get to know your brand’s creative personality
First things first, do you have a clear idea of your brand’s personality? What truly makes it unique? What makes it stand out against the crowd? Without this, it's far too easy to design your website according to what you think it should look like, not what truly connects with your business and ideal audience.
Here are some prompts to get you thinking about your brand in another way - let your imagination go wild:
If your brand was a person, what would it be wearing? What colours, styles, brands?
If your brand walked into a party, how would it make an entrance? What would everyone be thinking about your brand as it made that entrance?
If your brand was an aeroplane, what would the staff uniform look like? What food would they serve? How would guests be greeted as they entered the plane?
Write down your thoughts in whatever way they come up - you can even create a moodboard if you're feeling it!
What this exercise results in are the feelings, characteristics and overall vibe that are important to your brand. This needs to be expressed on your website so that it truly connects with your audience and captures their attention. Understanding your brand this way is the kind of core work that makes every design decision easy!
Step 2: Inject that brand personality into your website
Clients come to me all the time to do exactly this- they’ve given designing a go, DIYed their website buuut it just doesn’t feel filled with personality in the way they'd hoped. Not to worry, here are the places you can focus on making changes to make it a truly Shiny Happy website!
Go bold with brand colours
My clients don’t know what my logo looks like because I rarely use it, but my brand colours - they can spot these a mile away. Brand colours are a huge part of your brand language and storytelling, so use them and use them constantly! Don’t feel shy or tone them down because of a need to feel 'professional' - you're a pro regardless of the colours you use!
Use them in background sections, alternating from light to dark so it doesn't feel too overwhelming, on buttons to grab attention to your call to actions (CTAs), and any header text to bring everything together.
Top tip: Before finalising your colours, use a checking tool to make sure they work together for accessibility.
Choose fonts that speak loudly
You can bring in so much personality with a cleverly selected brand font! First, choose a headline font that matches your brand personality - is it playful, elegant, quirky, loud, minimal, bold? Use it to bring your titles and headers to life. Second, choose a paragraph font that complements your header font and is easy to read.
Usually, a brand designer (Charlotte from Copper Moth Designs is wonderful!) will help you to choose some brand fonts that connect with your messaging and style. If you don't have a designer, Google Fonts is a good place to start for free fun fonts, but premium markets like Adobe Fonts and Creative Market are where the special sauce is. I love fonts that are bold and crisp, easy to read, but with a unique detail to them.
Top tip: Don't use more than 3 fonts on your website or you'll overwhelm your reader. You want to bring in some personality, not make readers feel seasick!
Authentic, attention-grabbing images
I’m going to be frank with you - generic stock photos immediately tell your reader that you are just like everyone else and don’t push yourself to think outside of the box. A lot of them are overused and, chances are, your competitors are using the exact same stock images.
Instead, take the opportunity to show your personality through your own photos. These can be behind-the-scenes photos, in-action pictures or moody shots. I always recommend working with a brand photographer to ensure they tell your story visually and so that you can feel confident and professional. Lauren Psyk is an excellent brand photographer based in Brighton I can recommend - she did mine!
If working with a photographer isn't possible, photos you’ve taken yourself are way more impactful in sharing a bit about who you are and what your business is than that generic bloke sitting behind a laptop.
Top tip: Swap your homepage hero image for something that actually shows you or your work in its natural habitat.
Bonus: Brilliant brand graphics
This is my secret sauce! When a client comes to me with a well-thought-out brand with graphic elements that bring the whole brand to life, my brain lights up with ideas on how and where I can use them! This is why I usually recommend that clients work with a brand illustrator before I design their website, as I know the site will be lacking in pizzaz - and that’s just not a Shiny Happy website! Check out my trusted network for professionals you can hire to get some pizzazz here.
I love to pepper graphics around photos, headings and empty spaces to add a bit of wonder and surprise. You can even use them cleverly to guide the reader to the next section, helping you to tell a story visually rather than always relying on text. Not everyone reads all the text after all - and we don't want the message to get missed.
Top tip: Make sure to balance graphics and images with overall website usability - creativity doesn’t mean chaos! Make sure everything has a purpose.
Feeling overwhelmed? I get you!
You might be thinking, 'This all sounds great, but I don't know where to begin or how to implement all of these suggestions'.
What's important to remember is that this is a process, and it won’t all come to you right away. Always start with getting to know your brand, like really get to know it - go back to the prompts as much as you need to until your brand feels really clear.
If you have any ideas, give them a go - your website doesn't need to be perfect. And luckily, it’s a living, breathing thing! It's supposed to change over time as your business grows, so don’t feel afraid to tinker with it.
That being said, if you feel like you just don't have the headspace or time to figure it out, reach out to me and let’s figure it out together. Book a Happy Hour (a mini website audit), and you’ll get a window into my mind, resulting in a clear list of the exact changes I would make to your website that you can work through.
I also offer a website makeover service, a Happify Day, my absolute favourite service! This is where I fix up your website in ONE DAY, splashing your newfound brand personality all over your website and transforming it into a bold, joyful website that wows your customers!
Ready to get started?
Let’s see how I can help your business! Book in a free 30min chat and let’s meet!