Your business’s website is the face of your company as well as one your main sales tools. For these reasons, it needs to be built with the goal of converting visitors into customers. While your primary goal should always be to educate your audience on what you do and how you provide a great solution for a customer’s needs, it also needs to prompt users to take action, whether that means buying, subscribing, or contacting, as quickly as possible. Even if you have the best website in your field, you won’t get customers unless your website is communicating your message concisely, effectively, and quickly. Here are five design and marketing goals that you should keep in mind during a website redesign:

Don’t Be Text Heavy

Users who browse websites don’t want to be bombarded with text. They don’t have the patience for it. All they want is to be able to quickly determine whether your site is relevant to them. When it comes to a successful website redesign, keep it simple. Your site’s home page, as well as the main navigation pages, need to be clean, clear, and designed to be visually appealing.

People Learn in many ways

Researchers across different fields have found that people learn in a variety of different ways. Some people are visual learners, whereas others learn better by hearing or reading content. While they’re browsing your site, some people will read the text while others might opt for a graphic or video. When you’re in the midst of a website redesign, your business should attempt to appeal to all learning styles. Address them all, without making the pages too busy, and potentially valuable customers won’t be ignored.

Consider the Customer

There are a lot of company sites that make the mistake of focusing on the business, product, or service. They go on and on about the different features, touting claims of being the best. All the while, the viewer starts thinking “What does this have to do with me? Good marketers know how to highlight benefits in a way that the audience can connect with.

Every person is Different

Just as people learn in a variety of ways, there are a number of different options that will get them to take action on your site. Don’t focus too much on getting them to buy right away. Attracting people to your mailing list will allow you to send them marketing materials to prompt a purchase. Drawing them in with a product or service demonstration is another worthy method. Throughout your website redesign, generally in the footer, you can provide links and buttons that prompt people to take action. This increases the chances of it actually happening.

Guide your audience

When visitors come to your site, they are trying to figure out what you’re about and whether you’re relevant to them. During your website redesign, one of your goals should be to design a navigation that guides them toward becoming educated. This can be done by reorganizing the navigation bar, adding buttons or graphics that direct them to relevant content, or strategically placing directional arrows.