This is a guest post by Pia Larson of Fingerprint Marketing.  We are grateful to share her expertise in order to help you improve your Web site and increase productivity.

Spring cleaning is on everyone’s minds, and while decluttering your home or office is what is usually associated with Spring Cleaning, re-organizing your website is an endeavor worth considering. Why? Simply put: Simplicity Rules! (excuse the pun.)

As we experience information and content overload, because of new media and the internet – Simplicity becomes even more important.

Here are five design tweaks that can make all the difference in improving website interaction and increase your chances of landing new clients.

1) Have Clear Navigation

One of the biggest consumer frustrations is having to dredge through a poorly designed website, only to realize the information they were looking for isn’t even there. Think about the reason
people are looking for your business, what questions do they want answered – and put it right in front of them!

Clear navigation quickly directs visitors to the information they’re looking for. Put the most important information right on the homepage in a clear and concise manner, and design your navigation so that people can find what they’re looking for at a quick glance.

2) Have Clear Calls To Action on Every Web Page

One of the biggest reason people abandon a website is visitor confusion. Present a clear call to action on your every web page and limit it to one per page. Having three or four will lead to confusion and increase your bounce rates(visitors who quickly leave your site).

Visually striking and clear calls-to-action will drive higher conversions.

3) Organize Your Content For Quick Skimming

Don’t try to cram too much content into a small space. Organize your text so that it can be easily understood from a quick scan. Organize your text into short paragraphs and use bullets and lists to communicate information. Be wary of font size and contrast, to make it easy to read without straining the eyes. Keep in mind that a lot of browsing occurs on small screens of mobile devices.

Collapsible content areas allow you to include more information is an organized and visually appealing way.

4) Don’t Feature Too Many Ads on Your Website

Having too many ads on your site can increase the load time of your site. Load times that are more than three seconds are considered slow by Google, and will affect how well you rank on their results pages. Plus people are used to fast websites and don’t have the time and patience to wait for your slow site to load.

From a readability standpoint, having too many ads clutters your main content and makes it a lot harder to read leading to frustration and eye strain. Find a good ad-to-content ratio that focuses on readability and user experience. Remember, Google looks at ad-to-content ratio as well will penalize you if your site is loaded with too much ads at the expense of user experience.

Google can algorithmically measure content ratio and ad ratio.

5) Make A Plan

This tip is more of a combination of all the others we’ve discussed in this article. Just like you need a plan when organizing your home, office, or filing system. De-cluttering your website requires some planning.

When planning your spring cleaning:

● Determine the purpose of your website – whether it”s to sell, educate or engage.
● Determine why people are looking for your website and business.
● Determine what your calls-to-action are.

Once you have those figured out, design your site so that it achieves your purpose, meets the expectations of your visitors, and clearly instructs them what the next steps are. Doing so will avoid high bounce rates, maintain and increase user engagement – and drive conversions – once you’ve got customers on your site.

Pia Larson is Chief Imagination Officer and Principal of Fingerprint Marketing, an award-winning interactive and design studio in Issaquah. Her 10 years experience in visual communications and marketing helps you bring your custom online fingerprint to life. Fingerprint Marketing is a small yet powerful design boutique that offers custom web design and visual branding. Visit Fingerprint Marketing’s website at www.fingerprintmarketing.com