Designing an effective website for your business is never easy, and without insider knowledge, there are hundreds of ways to get it wrong. That said, there are a number of principles that when focused upon, can help you design a website that will attract and retain your target audience, and ultimately, drive sales. Of course, work with a professional web design agency and you won’t have to learn a thing!
Simple navigation
Make your website easy for users to find their way around, and half the battle is won. Make your menu layout straightforward, and enable users to move quickly and easy from page to page.
Tips:
- Have minimal options on your navigation bar
- Don’t overwhelm users with a lengthy drop-down menu
- Avoid jargon that the average user may not understand
- Don’t force users to click too often when using your site
Responsive design
A well-designed website should function effectively on all devices, and automatically adjust to the differing heights and widths of each one. With the majority of users today turning to mobile devices, it’s essential that a website can perform well on all screen sizes.
Tips:
- Optimize all images
- Make sure buttons can easily be clicked on smaller screens
- Consider a mobile-first design approach
Good use of colour
An effective website design will have a clear colour scheme that helps users understand your site.
Tips:
- Avoid the use of very bright and very dark colours
- Use colour to highlight important information
- Use appropriate colour combinations
- Avoid the over-use of colour
Good UI design
Serving as a bridge between the system and the user, a user interface should encourage them to spend more time browsing a website.
Tips:
- Try to keep the interface simple
- Utilise the page layout efficiently
- Have consistent fonts and colours
- Get rid of any irrelevant information
- Avoid users having to scroll and scroll to find information
Meeting your users’ goals
The content of Your website must reflect what you’re offering customers and clearly display it; if users visit but can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll likely look elsewhere.
Tips:
- Make your help and documentation pages easy to search through
- Be specific with the information you provide
- Focus on the user’s task
- Take them efficiently through the steps needed to be carried out
Site speed
There is nothing worse than getting excited about exploring a website, only to find that the process is slow and laborious. Your website must be slick and speedy.
Tips:
- Compress all files
- Optimize all images
- Use images minimally
- Reduce HTTP requests
Mitigate 404 or 500 errors
A website that isn’t quite finished and has broken links and images or incomplete functionalities, is likely to simply deter users from spending time on it. If you’re designing a website, try to develop it with all the relevant pages, features and functionality, and wherever possible, avoid 404 or 500 errors.
Tips:
- Complete every aspect of your website before going live
- If you can’t avoid a broken link for any reason, at least give users a good error page.
While there are many different elements to good web design, trying to incorporate all of the above will at least cover the basics and help users enjoy using your site. To make sure you get great web design guaranteed to increase traffic and improve sales though, it’s best to work with a professional web design company from the outset.
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