Too many businesses design their websites and build content that mechanically push their products or services instead of trying to please their audience first. If you’re too much of a machine online, this article is for you.

According to a blog post by TopRank, top marketers win their audience over by making emotional connections. You do this simply by creating appealing and easy-to-navigate visual design, writing clear and concise copy, and by having an engaging social media presence. It’s not that hard to appeal to your audience and, at the same time, get something back from the increased customer satisfaction. This article will give you 3 ways you can optimize your website’s entire online presence for usability.

1) Design to Engage – Do Not Bore or Confuse

Assuming you’ve already made sure your site works in multiple browsers, I can just give you some simple steps to improving your web design. This follows the four principles of design, CRAP, from Robin Williams’ Non Designer’s Web Book:

• Contrast to make your design stand out

• Repetition for consistency throughout all the pages on your site

• Alignment, attention both vertically and horizontally

• Proximity to show relationship between text and other images

White space and bread crumbs (easy-to-follow navigation) can also increase usability of your design. Keep in mind that the user wants to find information on your site quickly and easily. Don’t make them think.

2) Woo Them With Words

While you can take a look at our past blog post on optimizing site content, I’ll give you a few extra tips here:

• Research keywords people are searching for and use them to create content that seems to speak right to their wants and needs

• Create concise, well-aligned copy that compliments your graphics and does not confuse the reader

Accomplish this, and you can increase your quality score! If you’re running Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, this will allow you to place higher in search results with lower bids. If not, quality score is particularly essential for you to make it into search results.

3) Get Social With Them!

At Imagebox, we recommend first and foremost that our clients maintain Facebook and Twitter profiles. Additional social channels, which are not less important, should also be considered if you want to make an impact in the world of social media. These channels include Pinterest, Linkedin, Google+ and blogs.

Once you’re on social media, here is what you need to do:

• Post about topics that are relevant to your target audience and will encourage participation.

• Respond to all comments, both positive and negative. Consider giving a shoutout to new followers daily or weekly. Both of these tactics shows your audience that there is a human interacting with them.

• Use a blog to inspire, assert your knowledge and to answer questions your audience has.

You will find out a lot of things that most companies don’t know by meeting your audience on social media. Also see our past blog post to find other important places for your brand to live on Google.

(maybe more visuals throughout there?)

If you’re not worried about your audience, they won’t concern themselves with you either. People want to talk to other people they can trust, so it’s your job to make use of the tips in this blog so your website can be as much of a “person” as it can be. Attempting to make a connection with them can be a win-win situation!

So go check out your website, and imagine it through the eyes of a new user. If you’re not drooling, saying, “You had me at ‘Hello World,’” it might be time to give it a makeover.