Web Design for Renewable Energy: Tips for a Site That Shines
WebFX offers 9 tips for renewable energy web design including: professional design, user-friendly navigation, responsive design, visual elements, readability, SEO integration, social media buttons, clear CTAs, and page testing.
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insights from 185,000+ hours of renewable energy marketing experience
When someone visits your website, their first impression is 94% design-related. And, 75% of users judge a site’s credibility by its design.
In the renewable energy industry, it’s especially important to create a good impression right away and instill trust. Consumers have lots of choices when it comes to renewable energy companies and, since energy is so essential in their daily lives, they need to feel your company is credible.
Plus, your website is where people come to learn about your services, find your contact information, and request quotes and consultations. A well-designed website will help visitors find that information fast
Web design for renewable energy companies is crucial for growing your business and reaching more people interested in your services. That’s why, in this post, we’re providing nine actionable tips for renewable energy web design.
At WebFX, we have a team of award-winning designers and have completed more than 1,600 web design projects. View our portfolio, or contact us to learn more about our web design services.
Keep reading for tips on creating your renewable energy website!
Renewable energy web design tips
How do you create an effective renewable energy website? Check out the following tips!
1. Create a professional design that fits your business
Create a website that looks professional and matches your company’s branding. In most cases, a simple and modern-looking design is a good choice.
Web design for renewable energy might take on a more modern, cutting-edge look since many renewable energy resources use relatively new technologies. You might also use green in your design and include images of nature to highlight your product’s environmental friendliness.
Whatever you choose, make sure it matches your brand and looks professional. Be sure to keep your design consistent across your site as well. Creating a style guide, which describes your site’s design elements and style, can help with this.
2. Adopt user-friendly navigation
Navigation is one of the most crucial elements of any website, as it helps users find the information they need.
Without user-friendly navigation, visitors may get frustrated and leave your site, or they might never find the information they want. Either way, you’ll likely lose them as leads.
Aim to make your navigation simple and well-organized. You’ll likely want to create a navigation bar across the top of your site with various page categories.
Include basic headings like “Services” and “About Us” and consider organizing your pages using drop-down menus under each heading. The number of headings you need depends on how large your website is and how much variation there is in your content.
In the example below from GE’s website, you can see that the company listed various categories in the horizontal menu across the top of the page.
Each header has a dropdown menu with more detailed categories. Under “Services,” for example, you’ll find “Onshore Wind Services,” “Offshore Wind Services,” “Hydro Services,” and “Grid Services.”
GE also included several additional elements at the top right of the page.
Breadcrumb navigation is another popular navigation style for providing a great user experience. It shows users the broad categories and subcategories of the page the user is viewing. By clicking on the elements in the breadcrumb menu, users can easily go back to previous pages.
Here’s an example of what breadcrumb navigation looks like:
3. Use responsive design
Today, more than 50% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile, so you need your renewable energy website to work correctly on a variety of devices.
Using responsive design ensures that your site looks good and works well on desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones.
When you use responsive design, your website adjusts to the user’s screen. Responsive design ensures users get similar experiences across devices and that your website creates a positive impression no matter how someone views it.
4. Include visual elements
Web design for solar companies and other renewable energy companies should include visual elements, such as photos, videos, charts, and infographics.
High-quality visuals make your design more aesthetically pleasing and make your page more engaging. In fact, users spend 88% more time on pages when they have videos.
Avoid using low-quality visuals and generic stock photos. Aim for unique, high-quality visual content. Some visual element ideas for renewable energy web design include:
- Videos explaining your products or services
- Photos of projects you’ve completed
- Graphs showing potential energy savings
- Infographics describing the benefits of renewable energy
- Charts with details about energy options
5. Make your site easy to read and skim
Another tip for web design for renewable energy companies is to make sure your site is easy to read and skim.
Users spend an average of just 37 seconds on an article, so you need to make sure they can understand your main points quickly.
Some tips for enhancing readability include:
- Using contrasting background and text colors to ensure your text stands out
- Using simple, easy-to-read fonts that are sufficiently large
- Writing in short sentences and paragraphs (2-3 sentences per paragraph)
- Organizing text into sections and labeling them with descriptive headers
- Using bulleted and numbered lists
- Breaking up text with visuals
6. Consider search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to strategies used to help websites rank well in search results for relevant keywords. Since 93% of online experiences begin with search engines, SEO is crucial to the success of your renewable energy website.
It’s important to keep SEO in mind throughout the web design process. Many aspects of your website can impact its search engine rankings, from your copy to your URLs to your page speed.
It’s much more efficient to design a website with SEO in mind from the beginning than to go back and update it for SEO later. If working with a web design company, look for one with experience with and knowledge of SEO.
7. Add social media buttons
If your company has a social media presence, your website can help you gain more followers and more shares of your content. So, web design for solar companies should include integrating social media buttons.
Social media buttons make it easy for people to follow you on social media and share your posts. The easier it is for people to do these things from your website, the higher the chances that they’ll do them.
On each page of your site, include buttons that link to your social media profiles so that people can easily follow you. Common locations for these buttons include the tops and bottoms of your pages, as well as floating side menus.
For each piece of content you post, whether it’s a blog post, video, or infographic, include buttons that let users share the content on social media. Most websites place these buttons directly above or below each piece of content.
8. Include clear calls to action (CTAs)
Calls to action (CTAs) encourage your renewable energy website visitors to take specific actions, whether that’s requesting a quote, signing up for a service, or visiting another page on your site.
CTAs may come in the form of text, a button, or another element. Here’s a CTA on GE Renewable Energy’s website encouraging users to search the site for a product or service:
When you do web design for renewable energy websites, you want to include CTAs that keep people on your site and guides them to the next step in your sales funnel.
9. Test your pages
Another crucial web design tip is to test your pages. Before you publish a page, make sure it works. Then, conduct ongoing testing to help you improve your website.
You can run A/B tests, for example, which involve showing variations of a design to different users and testing which performs best.
A/B test one element at a time for the clearest results. For example, you might test two different headlines for a given page and keep the better-performing one. Next, you could test the CTA, next the header image, and so on.
You can also use tools like Google Analytics to see the which pages cause users to exit more frequently, for example, and then improve these pages.
Bonus Read: PPC for Power and Utility Companies
Hear What It’s Like to Work With WebFX!
“We transitioned to WebFX last year and have been extremely pleased with the level of transparency into the processes and the response time to any questions we have. Our account manager does a great job at keep our team informed and talking through our strategy for growth on our website.”
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Web design for renewable energy from WebFX
A professional website is an essential asset for any renewable energy company. When you work with WebFX, we’ll create a reliable, beautiful website that helps you meet your goals.
Our company has more than 28 years of experience, and our team has won more than 50 awards for web design. Our web design services include:
- Custom website design: Get a brand-new website for your business that’s tailored to your goals and needs.
- Website redesign: Upgrade or replace your existing website and get help transitioning from your old website to your new one.
- 30-day web design: Need a website fast? Just choose one of our templates, and we’ll have your site ready in 30 days.
- Blog design: Get a custom, professional design for your blog.
To see some of our work, check out our design portfolio. If you want to see how we can help you create a beautifully designed renewable energy website, contact us or call us today at 888-601-5359 to learn more about our web design services.
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