Are you planning on launching an online business? Whether it’s an eCommerce store or just a lifestyle blog, your web design plays a critical role in building your brand identity, attracting traffic to your landing pages, and converting prospects into readers or customers.
A poorly designed website won’t do your business any favours. When a visitor lands on your site, the visual elements play a significant role in determining whether the visitor stays on your site or bounces back to the search results.
Your website needs an attractive and compelling design to stand out from the competition. Let these elements, highlighted by an actual web design company, guide you to get your build on the right track.
Purposeful Design
Focus on enhancing the user experience when designing your website. Giving your web pages a clear intention improves user interaction with your offer.
Do you know the purpose of your website? What do you want traffic to do when it arrives on your site? Are you selling products? Do you want the visitor to read your content? Understanding your customer journey through your website helps you create a purposeful design.
The Visual Experience
Many website owners decide that they need complicated design features on their site to make it look sophisticated. However, the reality is that simple, minimalist design is always the better option.
Overcrowding your site with clutter will distract and confuse your visitors, and they’ll struggle to understand your message. Keep it simple!
Colour
Colours evoke emotions and communicate your message. Choose a colour palette that fits your brand identity, and you’ll influence the behaviour of your visitors and how they perceive your brand.
When choosing your colour palette, stick to five colours or less for your website design. With the right colour combinations, you increase visitor engagement with your webpage content.
Copy
The typography you use also plays a significant role in the visual impression of your website. Typography attracts attention from the visitor, providing them with a visual of your brand’s voice.
Make sure you’re using a legible font, and don’t use more than three different font types across your site. Less is more, and the use of multiple fonts across your web content reduces the impact of your message.
Images
All forms of photography, video, and illustrations need to express and capture the essence of your brand. Images help to form your visitor’s first impression of your website.
Use high-quality images and video media, and compress them to improve your page loading times. High-quality imagery provides credibility to your site, creating a professional impression for your visitors.
User-Friendly Navigation
If your visitor lands on your site, they’re looking for your to guide them around your web content.
Keeping a clean interface with minimalist design features helps to minimize confusion around navigating your site. User-friendly navigation improves visitor retention and conversion on your CTAs.
“F” Reading Layout
Set up your content to read in an “F” layout. Readers like to read from top to bottom and left to right. Our eyes naturally recognize this pattern.
Using a different layout may cause your visitor to miss critical components of your content, reducing the impact of your message.
High-Quality Content
Your visitors demand high-quality content on your website, or there’s no reason for them to convert on any of your offers. Utilize compelling copy that attracts eyeballs and holds their attention.
If you’re not a natural writer, consider hiring a copywriter or a writing service to populate your site and blog content.
Grid Layouts
A grid layout to your web design assists with giving your content an organized and professional look. The grid provides your web pages with a clean and organized look. It makes it easy for the visitor to browse through all of your web content without any confusion.
Fast Loading Times
When traffic arrives on your site or landing pages, you have three seconds to load the page. Research shows that loading times longer than three seconds cause visitors to bounce back to search results.
A good web design team will optimize your loading times, ensuring you capture your traffic instead of having it fall through your fingers.
Mobile Compatibility
With over 50% of search traffic coming from mobile devices, you need mobile compatibility for your designs. If your website doesn’t feature mobile optimization, Google will penalize you in search.
You’ll also lose plenty of traffic to the frustration of pinching and zooming the screen to navigate around your website.
Work with a Professional Team
Sure, you could attempt to build a website yourself using a web-builder program like WIX. However, you’re not a professional designer, and chances are you’re going to make mistakes.
Why go to the hassle of building and designing your site yourself when you can have professional web designers in Manchester do it for you?
