7 key ingredients for an effective Specialty Food website
Most business owners and marketing directors understand the importance of having a web presence in todays market. Consumers spend more time on the internet than they ever have before. Having a website is one thing, but having an effective website that engages the user and generates business is vital.
When prospective customers visit your website, what’s the impression they get of your company? Do they feel in control when visiting your website, or do they feel frustrated that they can’t find what they are looking for? Does the design engage the user and get them excited about your brand? Is the site laid out in a way that will help your visitors do what YOU want them to do? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself when evaluating your website.
If your companies site doesn't measure up to todays standards, but your competition does, don’t worry. The good news is, with the right help, you can transform your website into an engaging, business generating hub for your online marketing plan.
Put your website through the test. How does it address your visitors needs while delivering the message you want?
1st ingredient: Engaging home page
Your home page is a vital part of your website. It’s where you usually have first contact with your visitors, so having an engaging homepage is vital. How do we do this? We must connect with the user emotionally.
Having a “wow” factor on the homepage is a must. This can come in various forms. Large areas with featured content displayed with stunning graphics and photography are becoming more and more popular. These are quite effective and give your users a way to access the content they’re after quickly. They also provide a way for you to strategically place information you want your users to access on the site.
When designing a “wow” factor for you homepage use animation sparingly and tastefully. Going overboard with intense flash animations usually annoy users and take too much time. Keeping the balance between simple and stunning is tricky, but it’s possible.
2nd ingredient: The Right Color Scheme
Having the right color scheme that engages the visitor as well as communicates your core message is vital. We don’t want to scare our visitors away or confuse them with off message colors.
The right color scheme for most Specialty Food companies depends on your target market. Let’s say your market is Soccer Moms that are environmentally conscious. Having a high-contrast color scheme of black, red, and bright green probably wouldn’t be very effective. However, using earth tones like beige, green and brown with a few tasteful highlight colors would speak to that target market better.
The user makes subconscious decisions based on a variety of circumstances, and color is one of them. Help your users make the right decisions by focusing on using a color scheme that will connect with them visually.
3rd ingredient: Anxiety free layout
Using the layout to organize the homepage content can be very effective. Creating a hierarchy of least important to most important information helps the user make sense of what is on the page. Having a clean, scannable layout also gives the user less anxiety when they visit the site—helping with their overall feeling towards your brand.
Among the key elements of the layout is the navigation systems. Most websites have one main navigation and one, or more, sub-navigation systems. To keep from having a difficult to navigate site, make sure the site’s navigation is easy to find and not hidden in any way. Be carful not to “over-design” the navigation with the use of arbitrary icons or images. Text always works, but text with appropriate imagery can be just as effective.
Having a clean layout will give your users a stress-free experience that will be a delight in their day. It will also keep them coming back for more and tell their friends about you.
4th ingredient: Appropriate typography
Using the right fonts in the right way is highly underrated among the majority of people—especially on the web. The majority of the web is type. There’s no way around it. People read on the web. So, choosing the right font(s) and using them correctly plays a big role in how your user will experience your website.
Choosing the right font can be tough. It must coincide with your brand and be easy to read. In the past websites were limited to certain system fonts. Now, with the advancement in web fonts, the choices are endless. This is a good thing, because it means that designers can choose from a wide variety of fonts to fit specific needs. One rule of thumb: use no more than two fonts. Any more than two fonts on a page begins to appear disjointed and confusing, hindering the user experience.
5th ingredient: Quality images/illustrations
High-quality photos and illustrations can add a tremendous amount of value to a website. Getting a professional to take photos or design illustrations specifically for your website is a great investment. Hiring a professional means you can get specifically what you need for the site, and the assurance that the quality will be there.
There are also stock photography and illustration sites like istockphoto.com which sell licenses to photos and illustrations. This is the more cost-effective route. You can find quality images this way, but it’s much harder to get exactly what you are looking for (especially if you want photos of your products). Also, when you use stock photography or illustrations, you may find that others are using the same ones—maybe even your competitors.
Either way, having quality images and/or illustrations on your website is a must. Investing in this area is a key ingredient for a successful website.
6th ingredient: No-stress Contact Page
Most website owners have as one of their goals to have the visitor to get in touch in some way. So, it’s imperative to have an easy to use contact page. This means having options. It’s good to have a contact form, and even better to have a contact form that gives tips along the way. This helps the user understand what is going on and what will happen with the information they are filling out.
In addition to having a contact form, traditional contact methods should be present. Some people are intimidated by forms, and others love them. It’s important to have your email, address and phone number all present on your contact page. In addition, you may want to put links to your social networking profiles and pages, so that your users can connect with you there.
7th ingredient: Clear Calls to Action
What do you want your users to do once they visit the site? Contact you? Subscribe to your mailing list? Purchase a product? Download something? The answer may be one or more of these, or something else. Having clear, strategically placed calls to action are crucial in accomplishing your goals for your website.
Generally, calls to action contain short bits of copy that are direct in their message. Examples would be “Contact Us!” or “Get our new granola bar today!”. These are usually presented in the form of a button, but they don’t have to be. Depending on the overall design of your site, your calls to action should be designed to stand out, but, remain cohesive with the rest of the design. In other words, if your entire website has a vintage feel, then having a bright green glossy looking call to action might not be the best idea. It can look cheep and devalue your brand. A more effective call to action would go along with the vintage theme, but stand out in other ways through contrast, size and even texture.
Having clear calls to action will help your users know what the next step is and it will help you reach your goals for your website.
Conclusion
Having an effective website that connects with your customers, tells your story and helps to generate more business is essential to todays Specialty Foods companies. Having the right ingredients will make the site that much more powerful in the marketplace. Neglect one or more of the ingredients and you could end up with something unpalatable to the consumer. With the right ingredients, however, your website can be an effective machine in driving up sales and increasing your brand equity.
Bio
Joseph Malleck and Malleck Design helps Specialty Food companies with their web design that attract and keep customers. Malleck design is dedicated to results-oriented, custom design and development that fills client needs and stays on time and on budget. We partner with our clients to develop strategies to succeed on the web.
