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[00:00:00]  Saul: Hi everyone, and welcome to the web design Brisbane podcast. This is episode number two and today's episode is entitled Website Design Brisbane My name is Saul Edmonds and as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith.

[00:00:15]  Gillian: Good morning Saul. How are you today? 

[00:00:18] Saul: I'm great. How are you? We're the Co -founders and Creative Directors of Roundhouse, the creative agency, a local business with a passion for helping our clients grow. We serve our clients in Brisbane, Australia wide and around the world growing their revenue with strategic website design. Over to you, Gill. 

[00:00:34] Gillian: Hello. Okay. Well, today, we’ll be chatting about website design  and our key topic is how to build your website design, to grow to drive more sales. As you may know, we have a special focus on helping small businesses and start-ups in Brisbane, Australia and that's where we live. But of course, these tips are useful for small business owners everywhere, regardless of your location. 

[00:01:00]  Gillian: Today, we're focusing in a nutshell, on strategic website design. Every business wants more engagement, more leads, more customers, successful outcomes and need a successful strategy. Remember, your website is a key investment, your number one tool, your top salesman 24/7.  To showcase you, your brand and how you can help people. Think helping above sales and the sales will follow naturally, so what are the top eight ways that you can design your website to drive more sales and more engagement.

[00:01:00]  Saul. Exactly. 

[00:01:34]  Saul:  Yeah, let's get started, Gill. 

[00:01:35]   Gillian: Okay, well. 

[00:01:36]   Saul: What's number one?

[00:01:37]  Gillian: With regards to website design,  how can you use colour to drive more sales? 

[00:01:42]  Saul: Yeah, good question. So colour, if you talk to any psychologist, they love talking about colour. So branding, and of course colours are really a central key thing. Just a few key points, branding and accompanying colours are the first one calls to action and the use of white space. So in that sense,  the use of white space might also be interpreted as the absence of colour. But it's also still colour, too. And using colour. Also, with that in mind the use of white space means how much you use it and how intensely you use it as well, as opposed to say having a page that's all red, or  a page that has colour spread around it in a particular sort of way. 

[00:02:38]  Gillian: It's got to be user friendly, and send the right message. With regard to branding and company colours. They're really your starting point for any design, you want to make sure that your website design is infused with your brand. 

[00:02:52] Saul: Yeah,  that's right, and that when that then comes to your brand as well, not only is that like when we're talking about design, well, so talking about the content you include on your website, which might include things like the photography and video, how the colours and the flavour of, say, a really great video or  custom photography that you've had done of your team. How that actually sits well with the other colours and your branding, that you've already established and how that sits well, inside your website, often to have that first really fantastic impact, because as we all know, first impressions last as they say.

[00:03:38] Gillian: That’s right. Well, that brings us to a second key tip. Well regarding how to build your website to drive more sales, and a really great second idea is feature video content. Why is video content today important, Saul? 

[00:03:51] Saul: So well, video content. Let's just start with a particular statistic, which now halfway through 2019. There's a statistic for 2020, which is really just next year, isn't it? That video content is going to comprise 80% of all the internet traffic, which is pretty incredible so not only because of that, because it's so popular, and so many people are chained to it so often every single day.

[00:04:25]  Gillian: You want to harness the power of video.

[00:04:27] Saul: You want to harness the power of video but then there's additional SEO benefits, which will go into in another podcast about video. But also just because video is engaging, people love seeing a story. Love seeing a narrative, and then when it sits well inside your website, and those two worlds meet well, you’ve got a winner. 

[00:04:51]  Gillian. Everyday. 

[00:04:51] Saul: Every day. Exactly.

[00:04:52]  Gillian: Well, that brings us on to the next point for results focused website design. And that is to ensure that your design is user centric. It's all about your user. You've got to build for your user with simple navigation and intuitive design. 

[00:05:07]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. Building for your user is a primary importance. Why? Because it's there for your user. It doesn't exist for any other reason, except to accommodate the needs of the person who's going to be looking at it who's your potential client or your existing client. And just really simple things like how did they find particular content  on your website. Sounds once again, like a bit of a no brainer but it's something that is often overlooked. Websites can sometimes have a tendency to not make it easy. While they might not make it hard for their users, they don't make it easier for their users.

[00:05:51] Gillian: People are busy. They need to access information, they want  quickly. It's got to be straightforward and otherwise, it might offer unless is an optimal user experience. 

[00:06:02]  Saul: And easy user centric use of a website leads to a better experience, which then ultimately, as a part of leading to a conversion is one part of that process, which is important so what's number four, Gill?

[00:06:20]  Gillian: Okay, well to drive more sales from your website, a really important one is you want to stand apart from your competitors don't look like everybody else. So you got to find your unique point of difference. How can you offer value in ways that no one else can? What's your brand mission? Where are you located? Are you nearby? Are you local? What range of products and services do you offer? You got to use your headlines to communicate clearly throughout your site.

[00:06:47] Saul: No, that's right. standing out from your competitors cannot exactly be an easy thing to do. There's a lot of common things that are common across a lot of websites. How do you actually stand out? If you're looking at website, websites they've all got a menu, and they've all got a header area. Some of them might have a video, some of them have photography, they've all got content on them and they've all got writing. What are the things that are different? One of the things I think is really quite important is the little things. Once again, you hear that phrase that the little things matter. That's equally as true for websites, as little things do really matter. That might come down to how you design a particular icon that represents the service but let's go back to branding, then is that all that design comes back to good, careful thought for your brand design in the first place. 

[00:07:50] Gillian: Well, I always think the thing that makes you stand apart from your competitors, is you. There's only one you.

[00:07:55]  Saul:  Exactly. Yeah.

[00:07:56] Gillian: You've got to take your message. It's got to be how visually and supported with content and that's the point of difference. 

[00:08:04] Saul: Yeah, if it and that's actually that's a really good point or why that's so important is because people want to add whatever level ,whether it's a website where they're watching a movie, anything, they want to have some connection with other people that want to know there's other people on the other end. If you can, apart from just having a visually a great design, if they can feel like there's another person on the end to connect to.

[00:08:37] Gillian: Connect to real people.

[00:08:38]  Saul: Yeah, to connect with them. 

[00:08:40]  Gillian:  People to people. 

[00:08:41] Saul: Yeah. Because ultimately, that's going to lead to them actually connecting with you calling you up or having a meeting.

[00:08:47] Gillian: And that leads us into our fifth way to use your website to drive more sales and that is through adding trust symbols and real customer testimonials.

[00:08:59] Saul: Exactly, that's an incredibly good way, once again, is having what real people are actually saying about you that also feel authentic. Yeah, even if they are authentic. Having customer testimonials, ideally, like a video testimonial is probably the best but even if you've got a text one,  if you can get a picture of a customer as well, it adds even more value. What's number six, Gill?

[00:09:27] Gillian: Well, we recommend that you use simple short forms with eye catching calls to action. Again, you want to make it simple for your users to connect with you don't want to burden them or create a barrier to communication with a complex, long form. I keep it simple to the point, and again, make it easy for your customers to find you connect with you and take advantage of how you can help them.

 [00:09:50] Saul: Yeah, that's right. And those eye-catching calls to action so let's not confuse that with being too salesy. 

[00:09:57] Gillian: They don't have to be salesy.  

 [00:10:01] Saul: Calls to action don't have to be salesy. They can look great, they can be still telling people what you want them to do, without coming across as too salesy. That's where a good design comes into play and what I would say about our last point. 

[00:10:16] Gillian: Well, a final idea for growing your business online was a great website is to actually offer virtual chat. Virtual chat is online services that will you can embed within your website had enable people to contact you straight away, you take advantage at that point of them looking at your website.

[00:10:37]  Saul: There's a whole range of really great services that are already out there that do incredibly good job in you being able to you obviously have to have someone there on the other end to actually manage that but the tools that those services offer, allow you to often monitor those things if it's just you doing it. If you don't have an assistant or a virtual assistant to us to help out in that respect. You can monitor what's actually happening through your website through chat on your smartphone or through any device but instead of saying that, that's it for today, guys, thanks so much for listening. Before we go. Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe to this podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. We are on a journey to help local Brisbane businesses grow their opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow.

[00:11:34] Bye, guys.