Website Branding Tips Your Business Could Benefit from

1. Keep it consistent

Consistency is one of the cornerstones of effective brand design. It helps improve brand recognition and makes your brand more trustworthy. When customers know what to expect when they engage with your brand, they’re more likely to come back or recommend you to others.

Stay consistent between the different pages of your website – you don’t need a new design for each page. Also make sure your website is consistent with your branding elsewhere. Everything you create online and offline should work together and, when viewed as a whole, all of your branding should be clearly recognisable as belonging to your business.

So whether a customer visits your website, walks into your store or browses your print catalogue – they should get clear and consistent messaging. Keep in mind that consistency in the way your brand sounds (tone and voice) is just as important as visual consistency. 

Pro Branding tips: Create a branding guide. A branding guide puts all your branding choices in one place and is a really helpful tool to have on hand. Send your branding guide to anyone creating content for you to ensure your messaging stays consistent and recognisable.

2. Have a clear focus

Really good branding always starts with a clear understanding of what your goals are. When people visit your site, what action do you want them to take? Whether you want them to purchase your products, fill out a contact form or sign up for a course – your website branding should take your visitors on a journey towards that action.

Focusing your efforts on a particular action sends a clear message to website users and keeps them engaged for longer. On the other hand, mixed messaging can confuse and distract your visitors, driving up the bounce rate. Simplify your goals and streamline your messaging for better website engagement.

3. Target your audience

Branding is a message from your business to an audience. Knowing exactly who your audience is is one of the most important things you can do in the early stages of the design process. 

Consider factors such as the age, gender, location and interests of your audience and focus on tailoring your branding to target that particular audience. From the fonts and colours you use to your brand voice and the style of photos on your website – your audience should be front of mind with every design choice you make.

4. Prioritise user experience

Website branding tips: Website design should always consider user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). 

• UX is all about designing a website that gives visitors a relevant, meaningful and pleasant experience.
• UI is how you optimise the look, feel and interactivity of your site.

Giving your website users a positive experience on your website should never be underestimated. If they can find what they’re looking for quickly, read your content easily and use your site on mobile without trouble – you’ll keep them engaged for longer. 

When you have a good experience in a physical store, you form positive feelings about the brand. You're more likely to come back again and recommend the store to others. The same goes for websites. Give your users a good experience and you’ll reap the rewards.

5. Use engaging visuals

If you want to make a good first impression, you’ve got to think about your website visuals. Everything from the colours and fonts you use to the types of images, videos and graphics you publish can put your audience off or win them over.

Keep these tips in mind when choosing a colour palette:

• Use colours that are appropriate for your industry and audience
• Keep it simple and use only two or three colours
• When applying colours, ensure all text is easy to read

The images you use should be:

• Professional and high quality 
• Unique and original – stay clear of generic stock photos
• Optimised for web – resize and compress your photos as appropriate to prevent site load time issues

When it comes to fonts:

• Use a font that’s easy to read
• Be consistent with the type and size font you use for headings and paragraphs throughout your site
• Choose a font that’s appropriate for your audience (consider whether sophisticated, classic, modern or casual fonts send the right message)

6. Refine your tone and voice

The way your brand sounds is an important part of your brand identity and can shape perceptions about your business. It’s important to consider what tone and voice you’re going to use and be consistent with it across your website and social media as well as your offline presence.

Your brand voice should align with your organisation’s values, reflect the products and services you offer and be appropriate for your target audience. Keep in mind that certain industries perform better with certain types of tones. For example, healthcare businesses should be informative, trustworthy and authoritative. A local hair stylist may perform better with a more casual and friendly tone and a children’s toy store might prefer to adopt a fun and playful tone.

Check out these content tips for more ideas on how to nail your website copy.

7. Embrace simplicity

Keeping things simple with your web design is easier than it sounds. Simple doesn’t mean your website is lacking in content or oomph – it means you’ve conveyed all the things you need to in the most accessible and inviting way.

Web design is important – but at the end of the day it’s there to serve your business goals. Make sure your design choices don’t overwhelm your services or products. Watch out for too many colours, overly wordy content and busy page designs.

Use these branding tips to make the most of simplicity:

• Break text up into bite sized pieces
• Use white space to create visual balance
• Limit your colour palette to 2-3 colours
• Use a visual hierarchy to create a point of focus
• Organise content in an F-shaped pattern (left to right, top to bottom)

In an age of digital overload, having a clear and simple web design can help you stand out from competitors in a good way.

8. Audit your old content

Web design isn’t a set and forget kind of thing. As your brand grows and evolves, so too should your content. It’s a good idea to regularly audit your older content to make sure it’s in line with your brand’s current messaging. For example, you might have an old blog post that isn’t written in the tone you use today or uses images that aren’t on brand. If the information in the blog is still valuable, consider rewriting it and republishing it in line with your current brand guidelines.

Sometimes you might not know what branding decisions will land best with your audience. Use analytics and testing to find out what works, rework sore points and optimise your pages for better performance.

If you’re thinking of doing a full brand overhaul, consider getting professional help. Major changes to your brand can have serious consequences if it’s not done well. Your client base may already have a connection with your existing brand – so it’s important to keep them informed along the way and protect their connection with your brand.