The Key Components of an Effective Brand Website
By Ali Ugarte-Martinez, Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director @ Foodie Tribe
Building a branded website is like building a good house. Just as in a house you’ll need to build the structure and foundation before you can think about the furniture and decor, a website needs a strategy well before you begin to consider its design.
And while every website out there may look fairly unique, there is certainly a secret sauce to putting together an effective website regardless of your service or product. Here’s the recipe to our recommended key components of an effective website:
Use a Strategic Layout That Is Easy to Navigate
Have you ever clicked on a website, spent a few seconds scrolling around unable to identify the purpose of the site, and then... just left? When it comes to laying out your website structure, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. You only have a few seconds to capture their attention, so make it easy. Give them all the information they need and make it quick to find.
At a bare minimum, a solid website structure has:
A thoughtful and informative homepage
An About page
A Services and/or Shop page
A Contact page
A clear call to action button, like “Shop Now” or “Work With Us” in multiple spots
Other common pages you’ll see in a website’s top navigation include:
A blog
A page for case studies or previous work examples
For restaurants, a page for the menus
These pages should be the only ones that make the cut for your website’s top navigation. Everything else is likely extra and can be placed in your footer navigation at the bottom of the page. There are exceptions to this rule, however. An example is here on our own Foodie Tribe website — we have two audiences (influencers and brands) so our navigation includes two important sections, “Work With Us” for brands and “Join the Tribe” for creators.
Identify Who the Brand Is and What It Does Before the User Ever Has to Scroll
When you first land on a webpage, you see just a few inches of the top of a homepage. In journalism, newspapers call this the “top of the fold” — the section of a newspaper you see before the fold — and it’s where the most important news of the day belongs. Just like in a newspaper, the section you see before you have to scroll down is the website’s top of the fold. Your goal is to quickly and clearly convey to your readers who you are, what you do, and how you can help them before the reader ever has to even scroll through your website.
In general, that means the reader sees only the following aspects in the top few inches of your website:
Your navigation, with the few pages discussed above
Your logo at the top of the site
A well-written and short description of who the brand is and what it does
A call to action button
Provide All the Important Details on Your Homepage
Assume your audience will never click on your navigation pages. That means you need to provide them with all the important information about your brand on your homepage, without overwhelming them. Again, put yourself in their shoes. What does your audience need to know?
For a service-based website, your homepage may follow this kind of structure:
Navigation and logo at the top
Your short description of who the brand is, what it does, how you can help
A first call to action button
A slightly longer, more detailed description of the brand, typically about a paragraph
A list of your service offerings
Some of your previous work examples or clients you’ve worked with
In some cases, testimonials from those clients
Another call to action button at the bottom of the page
Your footer navigation that includes your social channels, a search bar, and any additional pages that weren’t included in your top navigation
For a restaurant, your homepage may follow this kind of structure:
Navigation and logo at the top
A line or two describing the restaurant and its cuisine
Direct links to your menu, to make a reservation, and/or to order online
Your hours and location
Your footer navigation that includes your social channels and any additional pages that weren’t included in your top navigation
Make Sure Your Services or Products are Clear
Just as a shop will list its products online with descriptions on a Shop page, a service-based brand should also include a Services page with clear descriptions of each offering. The key is to make the pages digestible — you want to provide enough information to grab the attention of your audience and convince them to reach out, without overwhelming them with details and information.
An easy way to lay out a services page is to list the service, provide a brief description of what it is and why it’s helpful, and then list some inclusions. You can see an example of this layout on our own Foodie Tribe Services page.
Weave in Clear “Calls to Action”
Spoiler alert, the purpose of your brand’s website is probably to make a sale, gain a lead, or attract a new diner. Make it easy on your audience. You’re not fooling them or trapping them, they know exactly what your webpage is trying to do.
Simple calls to action like “Buy Now,” “Work With Us,” or “Make a Reservation,” give the audience a clear directive. Assuming the rest of your website has worked its magic, this is where your audience is headed.
A great best practice is to include these calls to actions more than once throughout your site. If your layout allows, you can include it as a button on the top right of your page. Another couple of common locations are on your homepage, beneath your initial description of the brand, and at the bottom of the homepage after you’ve provided the reader with all the important information on your brand. A third handy location is at the bottom of your services page.
Make It Beautiful
Remember when we compared a website to a house? This whole time we’ve just been talking about your website’s strategic structure! Now that we have a blueprint and the foundation has been laid, we can think about the furniture and decor — or in this case your branding and design.
This sounds like a no-brainer, but we’ve all seen some ugly websites out there. For a modern and beautiful website, keep your design simple and on-brand.
Here are a few design best practices:
Use your branding! Your logo should be at the top of the website and any submarks of your logo can be included in your footer. Weave in your brand patterns as backgrounds for different sections and use your brand colors in your navigation, buttons, and/or text headers.
Keep the design minimal and simple so it doesn’t overwhelm your audience. Give text and design elements white space, or room to breathe, so the pages don’t look cluttered.
Weave in photography, preferably professional shots, throughout your pages to break up the text.
Use easy-to-read fonts for your text and headers. We recommend two different fonts, one for your headers and large text and one for your content. More than two different fonts can be very distracting and look unprofessional.
Make sure your design and layout work on a variety of devices! Your audience could be looking at your site from their laptop, their phone, or their tablet. When choosing a website design, make sure it’s “responsive.” This means that it will automatically adjust to the reader’s device.
It certainly takes some work, thought, and know-how to set up a great brand website, but once it’s done it can be your best “salesperson.” And while it’s just one component of your overall marketing strategy, we’d argue it’s one of the most important in this day and age. It’s why so many brands choose to have an expert create their websites for them — *cough cough* — we help food + beverage brands do it all the time! If you’d like to learn more or chat with us about your brand’s website, reach out to us and we’ll schedule some time to connect!