When it comes to the best web design, you have to start with the fundamentals. In this article we will be discussing how you can turn your website from something relatively uninteresting to something more valuable, dynamic, and helpful.
If you’re running a business that has its own online presence, ensuring that website is clean and user-friendly is very important. Your website will not only be a place you can advertise and sell your products and/or services but is also a reflection of your company in its entirety. It’s a central point for which customers can access your brand and business. If your website is poorly constructed, it can impair this experience, which in turn can hurt your business.
Below you will find eight web design tips that you can use to turn your website into a conversion machine.
1. Optimise Your Site for Mobile Users
When it comes to important web design tips, this list would not be complete without mentioning mobile optimization. Why? Because mobile is important. It’s so much more important today, as more and more people (around 80%) say they will revisit and share a website (with friends) if it is mobile-friendly. If you have a site that isn’t responsive, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity to generate large amounts of repeat visitors and have them spread your website far and wide.
As each day passes, there are more mobile devices out there, with individuals searching for online businesses via them. If your website doesn’t load up correctly, or if you haven’t implemented responsiveness into your site properly, then would-be customers are more likely to leave your website and abandon it for your competitor’s website. Over time all these mobile problems can grow, resulting in a long-term issue for your company’s reputation, brand, and bottom line. This could make it harder for you to attract new customers in the long term.
For this reason, it’s very important that you focus on mobile navigation and layout in your web design approach, as it is important. To do this, you will need to view every element of your site, whether it be text, logos, social media icons, or call to action, from the perspective of a mobile user. This way you can better ensure every aspect and feature of your web design works for the mobile user; able to give them that experience they crave for.
When looking at that next level experience, this could mean anything from including your more essential cues (menus, buttons, icons, logos, CTAs) throughout the entirety of your site, to focus on more eye-catching elements, such as fonts, making your service pages and text more scan-able, and resizing elements within your page, so that they are easier to reach and interact with.
2. Focus on Readability
Is your target audience able to understand your content? Is your content properly organized or is it all over the place? You want to think about this when constructing your content, as you want it easily read by your visitors. One of the most effective ways to do this is to avoid large blocks of text. You can also use bullet points as it makes things easier to digest.
3. Think about CTAs
CTA or Call to Action is a very important element of any website, especially when it comes to your site. You do not want to leave any mistakes about what you want your visitors to do. However, make sure you don’t go too far with it. Make sure there are no CTAs at the top of your pages. Many of those who visit your site will have next to no interest in taking the “next step”, so it is better that you position your CTAs at the bottom of your pages.
4. Non-Traditional Scrolling
You want your website to implement non-traditional scrolling so that it better engages your users, creating a more unique and recognizable experience. You could go with creative typology, animation or something else. With the right scrolling, it’s possible to improve the level of interaction on your site. This is one element that could make or break your user experience (UX).
5. Consider Easy Navigation
If you’ve been in the game for any real length of time, then you’ll know that a lot of users, they like to avoid websites that are overly complicated, whether it’s due to navigation, etc. You want to go with a more streamlined user-friendly website so that your users are encouraged to stay on your site longer, which in turn, should lead to more conversions.
6. Use High-Quality Images
According to current research data, over 60% of web users are visual learners. Over 90% of all the data that we consume, is transmitted to our brains via visuals. For this reason, it’s very important that your site has the highest of quality images so that it can better and more effectively convey messages instead of relying solely on text.
Visuals are also capable of helping you better connect with your consumer base by providing them with a deeper explanation to your written text. High-quality images are also capable of portraying both professionalism and credibility.
7. Safety-First Approach
When you consider all the new technologies and techniques, this makes staying true to the principles that are pivotal to the best web design is increasingly more important. Security is one of the more important elements of web design, as it will ensure your site is protected from attempts by hackers, protecting critical systems and confidential data. If you adopt a more proactive approach to security measures, then you can effectively reduce risks through your web design.
8. Gender-Neutral Design
From blue, and pink to a more gender-neutral web design. Gender-neutral design is something that continues to become more popular as each day passes. Through the implementation of gender-inclusive design elements and language, a web designer is able to promote equality and ensure everyone who visits the site, regardless of their gender, will feel welcome! This can help you target an even larger audience, which in turn will lead to an increased brand reputation.
AUTHOR INFO
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website https://www.compuchenna.co.uk.