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10 Tips

10 Excellent Tips for Optimizing Web Design

for your Construction Site

By Sophie Douglas
January 11, 2023

10 tips for construction business website

You're an expert in building architectural wonders, but maybe not so much in choosing the perfect web design for your construction website?

Don't worry. Believe it or not, building structures and websites have more similarities than you think, and for both, you must use high-quality elements in a predefined order to achieve admirable results.

To help you get started, we’ve laid out ten effective tips for optimizing construction website design so your website can work for you rather than against you.

1. Choose Between Predefined Themes or Build a Site from Scratch

When building a website, you have two options: you can use a content management system (CMS), or you can make it from scratch using plain hypertext markup language (HTML), JavaScript, and cascading style sheets (CSS). Both methods have advantages; the question is which suits you better. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are essential coding languages used to build custom websites. CSS styles pages and gives them design-based aspects, like fonts, colors, and sizes. JavaScript provides your pages with additional dynamic capability, while HTML builds the structure and presentation of the website. Every browser supports HTML. It is easy to understand and use, loads quickly, and is simple to edit, optimize, and integrate with other coding languages. And one of the most important aspects is that building a website from scratch enables you to follow your vision and create the niche-specific site you’ve always wanted.

On the other hand, CMS platform-built websites have their advantages, too. They are user- and SEO friendly, inexpensive, functional, and easy to integrate with many plugins. CMS provides a vast number of themes, ensuring every user will find at least one that’s appropriate for their needs. For example, Astra is one of the best themes for construction websites.

2. Follow web design principles

Following web design principles or guidelines will ensure your website is aesthetically pleasing, functional, and user-friendly. Here are some of the most important principles you should include in your work:

Create a website with your audience in mind and prioritize the user experience.
Use bold, attention-grabbing, and easy-to-read typography.
Create an "F" or "Z" headline alignment pattern.
Don't fill white (negative) space with unnecessary visuals – it emphasizes important elements on your page.
Keep navigation straightforward.
Carefully choose the color scheme for your website, because colors affect emotions and moods.
Structure textual content to improve readability.
Make your website responsive for all devices.
Include accessibility elements for the disabled.

3. Make Your Website Easy to Navigate

Navigation should be simple and predictable. Put menus where they expect them to be – on top of the left or right corner. Add an internal search feature (a little magnifying glass). Make links differ from the rest of the content – underline them or use another color.

Don't stuff pages with interactive elements. We understand you have a bunch of information and want to share it with your audience, but don't do it all on your home page.

Don't try to impress your users with overly innovative design; no one will know how to use it, and nothing is as frustrating as a page you cannot navigate through.

4. Remember SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy that increases website visibility, improves rankings, and attracts local traffic to your website. It is performed through a series of on-page, off-page, and technical adjustments, ensuring search engines prioritize your site compared to the competition.

Of course, in order to earn Google's favor, you'll have to follow SEO best practices:

Research keywords. Don't chase short-tail keywords because they are often impossible to rank for. Check search volume and keyword difficulty. Use keywords naturally in your content, but don't stuff them. You're not tricking Google into ranking you higher; you'll just get penalized for bad SEO practices.
Write high-quality content and make it unique and valuable for users. Quantity is not important – quality is what matters.
Optimize page elements: title tag, meta description, URL, alt text, image, product, and category descriptions with priority keywords.
Optimize images with descriptive names, and don't forget to fill in the alt text.
Interlink all relevant content within your website to provide consistent navigation and a pleasant user experience for your visitors.
Earn external links for authoritative sites from your industry.
Optimize loading speed to be under two seconds.

Don't forget local SEO. According to socialmediatoday.com, 46% of all searches are local. People browse the web to find products or services near them.

Optimizing your local search results can bring significant traffic to your business the same or the next day. According to HubSpot, 72% of people who perform local searches visit the store within 5 miles of their location the same day.

5. Create High-Quality Content

We've mentioned how quality content is essential for SEO in the previous section, but what is considered high-quality content? Should it be full of big words? Stats? Numbers?

Nope. High-quality content provides information helpful to users. It is original, engaging, and worth the time the user spends reading because they learn something new and relevant.

Writing that kind of article isn't a piece of cake. It requires a lot of time and research, but it pays off. It will bring you many backlinks (affecting rankings), generate leads, convert them to customers, improve time spent on the page, and lower the bounce rate.

Structuring content is equally important as its meaning. Use H2 and H3 tags to divide one large text block into smaller pieces. Create two-to-three-row paragraphs and short sentences. Write simply and naturally, so every reader can understand you.

Include an FAQ page with the questions your customers are asking the most. FAQ pages help build credibility and increase your chances of accessing the featured snippets.

Also, add an "About us" page where you will make a brief and sincere introduction to your team, business vision, goals, and achievements.

6. Boost Traffic with Paid Marketing Campaigns

Even the most well-designed website has no purpose without visitors;

Besides SEO, to boost traffic in slow months, you can use paid marketing methods, such as Google Ads or social media advertising.

Google Ads works on a pay-per-click advertising model. They display the above organic search results every time someone enters the keywords you're optimized for. You're paying for results – whenever someone clicks on your ad, calls your business, or gets directions to your office, you'll get charged.

Social media advertising functions similarly. Your ads will display to the group of people you target. You can choose between social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn) where you'll advertise – choose the one your targeted audience uses the most so your advertisements are served to the right people.

7. Optimize Loading Speed

Site speed shows how responsive the website is to requests.

A slow website could be directly responsible for a high bounce rate and drop in your rankings. Why? If the website load takes too long, people get impatient and frustrated and proceed to the next website with an optimized loading speed.

Keeping in mind that loading speed is one of Google's ranking factors, optimize it to be under two seconds. You can check loading time using Google's tool, PageSpeed Insights.

8. Work on Your Website Responsiveness

You might encounter websites that load perfectly from the desktop, but the mobile view needs to be completed.

Desktop navigation is mainly horizontal, while mobile navigation is vertical. You can't see the entire page on the screen, images are too large and load slowly, navigation needs to be clearer, and pop-ups can't be closed. Those are signs the website is not responsive.

With 59.4% of people browsing the web from mobile devices, you must pay attention to the site's mobile responsiveness. Your site should fit all formats, so no matter what kind of device searchers use, they get an optimized view throughout the site.

Mobile optimization isn't only important to the user experience; in 2019, Google started prioritizing mobile-first indexing, which means it favors the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Therefore, making your website responsive highly impacts your ratings in Google's search results.

9. Add Visuals That Show Your Work

The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is especially applicable to the construction industry. People want to see at least some of your previous work when looking for a construction company.

Let's be honest, would you ever hire someone to build you a house without seeing their previous work? Start building your online reputation by showing what you build for others.

Images and videos show how you work in practice and showcase your finished projects. 360° images offer a full view of a building, and drone images provide a bird’s-eye view of the project. Putting together a timelapse of a building being built will draw potential customers in and your portfolio will keep them around.

Visuals will show you're a professional who takes their work seriously. Also, you'll show the diversity of your offer and its quality.

10. Include Clients Testimonials

Visuals are valuable, but if you support them with your previous clients' testimonials, they will become precious for new visitors' impressions.

More than 90% of people regularly read reviews and testimonials, while 84% trust online reviews as much as friends' recommendations.

Testimonials can be in written form or on video. Including them on your home page can help them grab immediate attention and lower the bounce rate. You can also use them for email and social media marketing, commercials, brochures, and other types of advertising.

Consider publishing testimonials on third-party websites, such as the Yelp directory.

About the Author

Sophie Douglas is a digital marketing specialist and a journalist based in Columbus, state of Ohio. Her characters are passionate, innovative, and ambitious.

Before becoming a writer for DigitalStrategyOne, she was writing short stories, screenplays, and directing short films.

Need Help Constructing a Website?

You won't get a second chance for a first impression, and 94% of website impressions are design-related.;

Follow this step-by-step guide for website design optimization. You'll get an aesthetically pleasing, organized, and functional website that will stand out from the competition and evoke credibility among your visitors.

If you want to learn more, check out this article about Custom CMS.

Your website is your business card in the online world. Make it memorable and impressive.

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