It is now more crucial than ever for businesses to have an online presence in this era of ever-increasing technology. Furthermore, a well-designed website will have a significant impact on your organization. There are a lot of design elements that go into creating a great website that will help your company stand out.
A well-designed website is more than just a lovely face; it has outstanding usability and clarity and will always cater to the user’s needs. After all, it is the users, not the owner, who will judge the efficiency of a website’s design.
The following ten critical characteristics are included in good web design practices:
Take Advantage of White Space
Negative space, often known as white space, will offer your website a more modern appearance while emphasizing your products or information.
Don’t clog up pages with unnecessary visuals and irritating animations just because there’s some vacant space. Using the “less is more” strategy will focus your visitors’ attention on what you’re attempting to accomplish with your website. If you operate an eCommerce website, for example, you should focus on your product images.
Removing any old social network sharing buttons you don’t use anymore is a fantastic way to free up some space on your website.
Make Effective Use of Colors
Colors should be utilized deliberately for design rather than for decoration.
Your logo, which will most likely interpret the color scheme throughout the website, is a smart place to start when choosing colors.
Avoid using too many colors; instead, stick to a limited color palette that complements your content.
It’s also not a good idea to go with your favorite colors simply because they appeal most to you. Not everyone, for example, is a fan of parrot green! Instead, select colors that are appropriate for the website’s theme. For example, blue is a good color for a website about water.
Photographs and Images
Use eye-catching photographs and visuals to break up paragraphs of text and keep readers engaged. If you can take original pictures for your website, that is fantastic. However, for those images that are more difficult to come by, there are a plethora of places where you may download fully free stock photos that can be used commercially.
Choose your fonts carefully.
The typefaces used on the website should be easy to read and consistent. Choose no more than two or three web-safe fonts, as this increases the likelihood that other individuals browsing your website from other machines will be able to see them. Otherwise, while the text will seem great from your vantage point, for those whose devices do not have that font file, some other random font will appear practically everywhere else.
Simple to Use
An excellent website is simple to navigate for visitors. Follow the Three Click Rule to ensure that anything on the website can be reached in three clicks or less, and create a strong page hierarchy with breadcrumbs and clickable links to allow people to navigate the site easily.
Be nimble and quick.
Visitors will quickly abandon your site and go elsewhere if your pages take too long to load. It is preferable if the website loads fast. Optimize picture file sizes and combine superfluous code into core CSS and Javascript to save loading time. Websites that take a long time to load do not rank well in search engines.
The need for planning is crucial.
A disorganized website will turn visitors off; instead, adopt a grid-based structure to present your material neatly and effectively. Follow the F pattern to display your most important content by your viewers’ natural reading tendencies. According to studies, people look at their screens from left to right and top to bottom.
Design that is search engine friendly
Reduce image file sizes to make them load faster, and include alt tags with keywords that are vital for people searching for your type of website.
Text is still the best kind of content that search engines understand, so use it to convey information crucial to your website in terms of search results. If all of your content is shown as graphics, Java applets, or old-school Flash files, search engines won’t be able to understand it, and your website won’t appear high in search engine results for important keywords.
Your website will run faster, be more search engine friendly, and provide a better user experience if you avoid utilizing heavy coding and enormous file sizes.
Use images to communicate.
Use appealing and easy-to-understand icons instead of words whenever possible—for example, a magnifying glass icon for the search function or an envelope icon for being contacted.
Infographics are also an excellent way to show data and value your audience. An appealing, well-designed infographic will have a greater impact on your target audience and be more compelling. It will give the visitors something simple to comprehend and remember, as well as increase traffic to your website, as infographics are excellent for SEO, and people are more likely to share and link to them.
Make your website mobile-friendly.
A responsive website is built to look good on various devices, including tablets and mobile phones, as well as traditional notebooks and desktop computer screens. Around 80% of adults own a smartphone, and not having a website that automatically resizes itself to load on a smaller screen can cost you a lot of revenue. A mobile-friendly website gives you an advantage over competitors who may still be using an outdated website and vice versa.