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A Comprehensive Guide To An Outstanding Website Design

Nowadays, websites are an essential part of having a business. By making an outstanding website design, you can grow your business because websites can allow you to interact and attract more clients nowadays. On the other hand, a lousy web design may harm your business as it may destroy how your potential targets view your business.

If it loads slow, potential paying customers may leave or exit your site. Instead of doing the last step where they’ll already willing to pay for your products and services, they stop.

When they find it hard to navigate, your users are more likely to find other websites that they can use with ease. And if your website isn’t designed well, you may not impress your users, forcing them to find other websites, too.

 

What is Web Design?

Since web design doesn’t only mean making your website beautiful, designing your site can be complicated. But understanding its concept may help you learn how to design your site with beauty and functionality. With such, web design is arranging, conceptualizing, and planning your website content online.

This concept includes considering the user interface design and the overall functionality of your site. While aesthetic is also important, it must work well in making your site functional.

 

Website Design Guidelines

If you plan to make an outstanding website design, you must consider tips that can enhance both aesthetics and functionality of your site. Don’t just focus on just one, as the two should go hand in hand. With such, here are some tips to guide your web designing journey:

 

Visual Elements

Since your website shows your business, the visual elements should resonate with what your potential market expects. Moreover, you may have to consider the following when adding these elements to ensure that they’ll not affect your site’s functionality:

• Videos: Your website isn’t complete without videos. Nowadays, more consumers are likely to engage with videos. Thus, you can use it to convey what your business is all about. However, it’s best to make the content of the videos concise to avoid making your users bored with them. Moreover, the videos should not detract from or compete with other elements of your web design.
• Icons And Images: Also, it’s recommended to aid your users with icons, thumbnails, and images. That way, they can easily know what your content is all about when they see photos. As for icons, these will help them navigate your site easier.
• Spacing: Whitespace is also an essential key in web design because it can balance your graphics, photos, and text. That way, your users will not feel bombarded with your website content.
• Layout: While adding images, icons, and videos is important, having a layout will help you place them strategically. With a suitable structure, you can help your target audience know where to find your products, blogs, contact information, and the like. On the other hand, an overstimulating layout may confuse your users where to find what they’re looking for.
• Colors: As for the color scheme, it’s best to use those that will resonate with your business. For instance, if your products are pro-environment, then your site’s theme color can be green. If you’re unsure about choosing the right color scheme, it may help hire professional web designers like Connective and the likes. That way, they can help you choose the best colors for your site.

 

Make Homepage Headline Keyword-Focused

Aside from visual elements, it would help if you also incorporated texts or written copy into your website design. To let your users know what the website or web page is all about, you may want to use headlines on every page of your site. Make them keyword-focused and descriptive, so users will immediately know if they’re on the right page.

Make sure the words are relevant to the content of the page. Avoid using vague or unclear descriptions that may mislead your users. That’s why your description should be above the fold as much as possible.

Above the fold means the portion your users can see, and anything they need to see below such fold requires scrolling. This fold matters because it allows you to set the expectations of your visitors. When you use relevant and clear descriptions above this fold, you can entice visitors to learn more about what’s below the fold.

Thus, it’s best to describe what the page is all about high on your page so that your visitors will know if they need to learn more about the page.

 

Don’t Make Users Think

Your website design should also be self-explanatory and obvious. Don’t make your site a puzzle for your users by making it hard for them to think about what they should do with your website.

For example, your site should guide your visitors to the checkout page if you’re selling gadgets. But when your site leaves your visitors questioning where to find products or checkout, they’re more likely to leave without buying. That’s because the more you leave them to figure out things on their own, the more frustrated they become. With such, more people are likely to leave your site.

To prevent this, you must have an intuitive site layout and structure. This is where icons, images, and layouts can come in handy. With these visual elements, your visitors can easily navigate your site. Even if it’s their first time checking out your site, they can have a path through your website design.

If your website design leaves them with no questions, you can increase your conversion rate because you can control their buying decision. Whatever your site’s objective is, the design should be structured to achieve such by leading your customers to your end goal: purchase, subscribe, download, and any action you want them to do.

 

Navigability

In addition to making your site easy-to-navigate, you may find these considerations helpful when designing your website:

• Make your labels and location of your navigation menu consistent on every page.
• Create navigation options simple to avoid confusing your users. Generally, you should put your navigation structure at the top of each page.
• Ensure that a search bar is at the top of your page so visitors can easily use keywords to find what they need.

 

Add Social Proof

It’s also best to add social proof to your website design. That way, you can show that your clients are happy with their buying experience and the products or services they bought from you. This will also help visitors know how previous clients think about your business.

By showing your visitors testimonies from your previous clients, you’re instilling them to trust you. The more proof they find on your site, the easier it’s to make a buying decision. Although your header and content may describe your business and website, letting your previous clients do the talking will help you gain trust from potential customers.

When adding social proof in your web design, you can do this in many ways, such as the following:

• Use Tweeted Reviews: If more people tweet their feedback about your business or website, take a screenshot of these. Then, make a layout that showcases these tweets so your visitors can easily read feedback. When using this type of social proof, it’s recommended to include the company or people’s names in the photos. That way, the reviews will appear legitimate.
• Create Case Studies Page: With this page, you can have an in-depth topic about how your products or services are helping your clients. For example, you can include pictures of your crew or team members to make your website more trustworthy. Then, add how your team’s participation helped your clients solve their problems. Moreover, you can add a search bar as part of the layout so visitors can easily search-related case studies for their problems.
• Add Video Testimonials: Video testimonials can help your visitors easily understand what your previous clients like about your business. Since it only takes them to click on the video, they can learn more without navigating your website. Thus, it may be considered one of the best ways to build trust with your target market. To make them clickable, use video thumbnails that show real clients talking about your brand. Also, add some description of what visitors can expect from the video testimonial.

When adding testimonials or social proof into your web design, it’s best to place them strategically. You may consider putting them on a dedicated page, service pages, or homepage. That way, visitors can easily identify that your business has proof of buying clients.

 

Conclusion

Designing your website will be much easier if you understand what essential elements to add to your website. It’s also best that you need to balance the aesthetic and functionality of the site. Avoid focusing on just the visual appeal, as it will be wasted if users cannot enjoy navigating your website. Moreover, it’s also best to remember that your website design should guide your users to the action you want them to execute.