Using Icons For Quick Scannability on Your Website

These days you want to keep your website’s home page easily scannable for website visitors who arrive on your site via search.

In that scenario site visitors are on the lookout for something, some piece of information – they may not always know specifically what they’re after from their search, but they’ll know it when they see…and they won’t look long before moving on.

Here are some tips that can help you quickly and easily get your message(s) across on your home page, or your landing page to provoke the action you most want site visitors to take.

Icons and symbol images can be useful visual ‘helpers’ to something you’re referencing in the text on your web page.  For example, on http://www.praisecarpetcare.com/, you’ll see on the right-hand side bar that this site uses icons/symbols to reference the other parts of their site that are also written out in text. 

I can quickly scan the page without reading everything and get the gist of what is being referred to simply by visually digesting the icons/symbols being used to identify various sections of text on the web page layout.

Here’s another example: www.hotwaterdownhomes.com.  This one is a landing page that is using what looks like a Google Map with house icons on it to indicate some information about what this company and landing page are all about – real estate.  It also utilizes ‘call-to-action’ graphics, like a big red arrow directing you to fill out a contact form and ‘join now free’ to sign up for their mailing list.

Another helpful rule of thumb, especially on your home page, is to keep the information relevant to why someone is on your site, concise in length (get to the point as quickly as you can) and keep this info above the ‘fold’ as much as possible (so the site visitor doesn’t have to scroll down the page). 

Here’s an example of my GrowLoop website where I try to employ a bit of what I just described above.

Posted by: Nick Venturella

---

Get My Best Biz Tips in Your Inbox.

---