Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.
But good design is essential to the success rate of any particular website.
Is yours an asset or a liability?
When starting a re-design project for your business, there are certain essential elements that you should include — in order to convey the intended message that makes it appealing to your target audience.
Key factors that contribute to a good design include; color contrast, layout, functionality, imagery, simplicity, load time, and consistency. When you create a well-designed website, your work speaks for itself and showcases your professionalism to potential customers. In addition, a good website design touches the hearts and minds of your visitors through impecable user experience.
If you want your website to be an incredibly valuable member of your team, consider these 6 principles of good design.
KISS (Keep It Stupid Simple)
Remember the saying “Too many cooks spoil the broth”?
It also applies when it comes to design.
When launching a new design project for your website, avoid over-designing. When you include a lot of different elements on a web page, you end up creating distractions for your visitors.
Distractions equal less revenue.
Think of it this way. If you sell incredibly delicious lemonade, you wouldn’t surround it with various other fruit juices. The attentions moves away from your main selling point. Customers will eventually leave without doing what you inteded for them to do.
So give your website a big KISS.
Ensure that the design is clean and is easy to navigate. Follow best practices like — your logo at the top left of page, main navigation menu at the top, your unique selling point above-the-fold, etc.
Website Layout And Readability
Don’t use Wingdings or Comic Sans. Unless that’s unique to your brand.
Website typography and readability are important elements when it comes to creating a good design. Remember that text size, headlines, body texts, color and fonts are what your visitors see first.
You only have one chance to make a good impression.
However, your visitors aren’t the only ones judging your website readability and design layout. Google is watching too.
Use fonts that are clear and easy to read — Verdana, Helvetica, Roboto — are great ones to start with. Incorporate keywords and meta-data to keep search engines like Google happy. When they are happy, your webste ranks higherer in their results. Higher results, more revenue for you.
At the end of the day, it’s all about user experience.
Can you seduce your audience long enough for them to convert?
Be Consistent
Don’t be distracting. See above.
All the design elements of your website pages must be consistent. This ensures there is uniformity throughout your website in terms of fonts, text sizes, headlines, sub-headings and even button styles.
Use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) while designing can help maintain this consistency in the design style. Ask your designer if they are using this technique. It’s a lifesaver.
#MobileCompatible
Millennial-proof your website.
One of the great features of a good website design is its ability to be responsive.
With today’s increasing numbers of mobile phone users and tablets, modern web designs must be responsive in order to be used effectively on various gadget screens.
When you design a static website that does not support mobile compatibility — there are high chances that you will lose a lot in terms of ranking with search engines as well as trust from your visitors.
Don’t be that business.
Color Palette And Imagery
“I’ll come back later”. Is what you do NOT want website visitors to say.
They never come back.
The color design, contrast and imagery creates the first impressions to visitors — and this determines how long they stay on your website.
You only have a few seconds to make a lasting impression.
Make it seductive and engaging. Use a unique color palette and imagery for your design that resonates with your messaging, brand and target audience.
Load Speed
Speed kills.
Instant gratification is what matters in today’s technological advanced world.
A fluent, visually appealing and engaging website is half the battle.
If your website doesn’t quickly quench the appetite of a new user — they are gone.
A lost potential customer.
if your site loads in 2.9 seconds, it is faster than approximately 50% of the web.
if your site loads in 0.8 seconds, it is faster than approximately 94% of the web. [1]
If your newly redesigned website doesn’t load quickly, you are vulnerable. Have your developer optimize your content, images, JavaScript file and other codes.
A website that is well optimized significantly reduces the load time, which in turn improves both the user experience and search engine quality.
“There are 168 hours in a week-what you choose to do with them is up to you”
