Your company’s website acts as the gateway to your services. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a well-designed and effective website to encourage visitors to your online domain to get in touch or buy your products. Take note of these website design tips to ensure you’re building a credible online home.
Once you register a company, you’re ready to start attracting customers and selling your products or services. Your website will not only perpetuate the credibility of your limited company, but it also has the power to transform casual prospects into loyal customers. In fact, recent studies reported that 94% of people blame poor website design as their main reason for rejecting a company’s website.
With this in mind, we’ll show you how to make your first impression count with these simple web design tips for creating a professional website.
1. Opt for a Simple Yet Unique Design
“Uniqueness” and “simplicity” are not mutually exclusive, but you should aim to create a design that stands out yet retains its simplicity. However, it’s a fine line to tread — no credible company will present an overly simplified website design. If you choose a run-of-the-mill website template, you risk repelling your prospects due to lacking appeal and credibility. After all, you’re a limited company — you should display your professionalism.
One handy tip is to visit competitors’ websites to get an idea of their designs. If they’re all presenting themselves similarly, mix it up to show that you’re different.
When considering simplicity, it’s important to remember how your website looks and how it functions. You need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to get from A to B — if you send them through a maze of complex menus and make it difficult for them to find the information they need to make the sale or get in touch with you, they’ll likely get frustrated and leave.
Your homepage is your “front door”, and most users will enter your website on this page. Therefore, it’s crucial to make a good first impression. That said, your website visitors could enter your website on any page of your website — especially as your business becomes more prolific and your more specific, targeted pages appear in search engine results — so make sure the design across your entire website is consistent and appealing.
2. Guide Your User’s Eyes with Visual Hierarchy and Negative Space
Web designers use visual hierarchy to guide visitors’ attention to important elements first. The website layout includes the position (high or low on the page), sizes (big or small), visuals (video, images, icons) and contrast (colour and white space).
Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy refers to the arrangement and presentation of elements in a design to indicate their importance or order of importance. It uses various design principles, such as size, colour, contrast and position, to guide the viewer’s eyes towards specific elements.
For example, imagine a web page with a bold title positioned at the top. By making the title prominent, it becomes visually dominant and immediately catches the viewer’s attention. This technique helps prioritise specific elements over others and directs the user’s focus in a desired way.
Designing a website goes beyond simply adding content. It involves strategically placing elements to create a compelling visual hierarchy. Using different visual cues, a skilled designer can control what features the user sees first, second or last, ensuring a cohesive and engaging user experience.
Negative Space
Negative space, also known as white space, is the empty or unoccupied area surrounding the main elements in a design. It is the space between, around and within objects or text. Negative space is not necessarily white; any colour or pattern can create a visual contrast with the elements it surrounds.
Negative space is crucial in the website design process as it helps create balance, clarity and focus. By intentionally leaving empty spaces, designers can enhance the visual impact of the main elements and improve overall readability and comprehension.
3. Keep Your Company’s Mission in Mind
Don’t underestimate consistency. Users arrive on your website because they’re looking for a particular service, so your company’s mission should succinctly outline what you value, what you sell and what you stand for. Your website design should also reflect your unique selling points (USPs).
Let’s say you’re a funeral director. Your prospects will come to your website — likely in a highly sensitive state — looking for a very specific service. If your homepage is filled with animated, joyous media or your entire website is full of brash, inappropriate images and content, you’re unlikely to strike the right chord with visitors. You have to maintain your brand identity throughout your website.
The imagery and colours you use throughout your website will be determined by what you offer and stand for. If your website copy is written in a signature flamboyant style — and that’s what your visitors are looking for — you can get away with using bright colours and zany font types. Suppose you’re a formal business aiming to convey a high degree of professionalism and discretion, such as an accountant. In that case, muted and more conservative tones attract your target clientele better.
4. Ensure Your Website Loads Quickly
In today’s digital world, we expect to access information in a flash. As a result, we want immediate gratification and anything that delays that will turn us off — and potentially away — from a website. There’s nothing more frustrating than a sluggish webpage, which significantly hinders the chances of prospects following through to a purchase. In fact, one study shows that just a one-second delay can reduce your conversion rate (the percentage of users getting in touch or buying a product) by 70%. Site speed issues can be caused by having media or graphic-intensive pages on your site, so speak to your host about bandwidth and compress images to ensure they’re as small as possible.
5. Include Clear and Simple Forms
A crucial aim of any business website is to capture as many leads as possible. Many users will use your site for informational purposes only and won’t necessarily be ready to buy just yet. This means you need to capture their attention so that when they are ready to buy, they’ll come straight to you.
Including a simple form allowing a user to submit their email address allows you to stay in contact and push them further down your sales funnel — sometimes, all a potential client needs is a push in the right direction.
Once you have their email address, you can send follow-up marketing emails and turn these warm leads into paying customers. Remember, a complex and messy form is very off-putting, so going back to point one — keep it simple. Do you really need to ask for a lead’s name, email address, phone number and business name, or will their first name and email suffice?
Consider sweetening the offer by providing a lead magnet — a free eBook, downloadable PDF or discount code off the first order. You want the offer to benefit the user rather than something that only stands to benefit your bottom line.
6. Clearly Display Your Products
The sole purpose of your website is to serve the user’s needs. Whether an individual seeks expert advice or a specific product, each page on your website should be tailored to fulfil that particular purpose. It’s crucial to prioritise clarity and simplicity in your web design to effectively communicate your offering within the limited attention span of users.
Small businesses, in particular, may face the temptation to overcrowd their site or homepage with excessive and conflicting information. However, it’s important to remember you only have a few seconds to capture the user’s interest and convey the value of your product or service. Utilise those precious seconds wisely by being selective with the content you present in terms of images and web copy.
Choosing attractive and visually appealing images that align with your brand and showcase your product/service can significantly increase the chances of conversion. High-quality visuals can evoke positive emotions and build trust with potential customers.
In addition to visual appeal, your web copy should be concise, persuasive and aligned with the needs and desires of your target audience. Communicate the unique value proposition of your offering and how it addresses the user’s specific needs or pain points. By highlighting the attractiveness and benefits of your product or service, you increase the likelihood of user engagement and ultimately drive more conversions.
7. Include Quality Content
Many businesses recognise the value of having a blog but opt out because it can take time to update regularly. However, it’s well worth the investment, as providing valuable content positions you as a thought leader in your industry and instils trust.
When people look for information online, they go to search engines like Google. Usually, they find what they are looking for on the first page of the search results, so that is where you want your company to appear. You can increase your Google ranking with quality content, funnelling more potential customers or clients to your website. Ensure your blog posts adhere to SEO best practices by using attractive, eye-catching headlines and the keywords you want to rank for.
8. Calls to Action (CTAs)
An attractive website offers numerous advantages that can significantly impact your online presence. But you may wonder, do people actually want to read my website? This is where CTAs (call to action) come into play. CTAs are page elements strategically designed to prompt users to take action.
CTAs serve various purposes, such as allowing customers to add products to their cart, subscribe to an email list, download content or sign up for newsletters. You can guide users towards these desired actions by incorporating compelling CTAs within your visual hierarchy.
Making CTAs prominent within the overall design is crucial, ensuring they catch the user’s attention. However, it’s equally important to strike a balance and avoid being intrusive, like some click-through ads. You want your CTAs to be engaging and persuasive rather than annoying or interruptive.
9. Utilising the Fold: Prioritising Content for User Engagement
The relevance of the fold in web design remains a topic of debate. While some argue that it has lost its significance, others disagree. As of 2023, studies show that 80% of the time spent on a website is used navigating “above the fold” of web pages, so the fold remains vital in capturing user attention.
To ensure that users stay engaged and continue using your website, it is crucial to prioritise your content effectively. Here are some examples of effective methods to achieve this:
- Clear and Bold Headlines: Using eye-catching and prominent headlines at the top of your web pages can instantly grab the user’s attention, which conveys the main message and entices them to explore further.
- Concise and Engaging Introduction: Craft a compelling introduction summarising your content’s key points or benefits. By providing a brief and engaging overview, you can quickly communicate the value of your website to the user.
- Engaging Visuals: Incorporate visually appealing and relevant images, videos or infographics in the visible area without requiring the user to scroll. These visual elements can captivate users and encourage them to stay longer on your site.
- Call to Action Placement: Strategically position your call to action buttons or links within the visible portion of the page. This allows users to take action without having to scroll down, increasing the likelihood of conversions or desired user interactions.
- Responsive Design: Ensure your website is optimised for different screen sizes and devices. With the rise of mobile browsing, it is crucial to adapt your design to accommodate smaller screens, placing essential content and CTAs in the visible area.
10. Choose Brand Colours Strategically
Colour plays a significant role in composition, influencing how viewers perceive and interpret visual elements. By understanding the emotional associations of different colours, designers can evoke specific feelings and enhance the overall impact of their designs.
When considering colour in composition, it’s important to ensure harmony and coherence. Colours should complement each other and align with the intended message or mood of the design. Designers can effectively communicate their message and create engaging visual experiences by skillfully using colour.
11. Enhance Engagement and Information with Images
Achieving the right balance between text and images is crucial in web development. Incorporating images into your content can significantly increase engagement and improve information retention. Publishers that feature visual content grow traffic 12 times faster than those that don’t. By utilising images on your website, you can effectively enhance your content’s visual appeal and overall impact.
You should always select appropriate and relevant images that align with your message and target audience. And remember, when incorporating images into your website, be sure to consider copyright and usage rights. Ensure you have permission to use the images or explore alternatives such as stock photos or creative commons-licensed pictures that are freely available.
12. Select a Typography That’s Easy to Read and Skim
Typography refers to the art and technique of arranging and presenting textual content on a page. It plays a crucial role in web design, directly influencing how we read and perceive the text within a website’s content. Selecting the right typography is essential to create a visually appealing and effective design.
Typography can evoke specific emotions and convey the brand’s personality. The choice of font, size, spacing and colour contribute to the content’s overall visual impact and readability. Well-designed typography enhances the user experience and communicates the message effectively.
However, don’t use more than three different typefaces throughout a website. Some projects may call for more elaborate font combinations, but too many varied typefaces usually appear cluttered, distracting from your brand identity.
To establish a clear hierarchy, ensure your written website content is varied in size and weight — from a large title to smaller subheadings to even smaller paragraph or body text.
13. Boost Trust with Testimonials and Social Proof
Utilising testimonials and social proof can be highly effective in building trust and credibility with your audience. The concept of conformity bias explains our natural tendency to follow the actions of others. By showcasing evidence that others have chosen your product or service, you create a sense of reassurance and encourage potential customers to consider you beyond the ordinary.
Testimonials serve as powerful social proof, demonstrating that real people have had positive experiences with your company. Including testimonials on your website helps establish your authenticity and reliability. Ensuring every claim you make is supported and validated is essential. Testimonials provide the easiest way to do so, as they offer real-life experiences and feedback from satisfied customers.
Building a good testimonial list involves gathering various testimonials highlighting different aspects of your product or service. Ideally, your testimonial list should showcase a range of positive experiences, demonstrating how your offerings have benefitted customers. The more testimonials you have, the better, as it creates a strong sense of credibility and reliability.
Remember, trust comes in various forms, not just through testimonials. It can include statistics, case studies, awards, endorsements from influencers or industry experts and user-generated content, such as reviews or ratings. By utilising multiple forms of trust signals, you strengthen the overall credibility of your brand.
14. Avoid Jargon for a Successful Website
To increase the success of your website, it’s vital to prioritise readability. Using commonly understood words and avoiding jargon is critical. Lengthy phrases and fancy vocabulary can make it harder for readers to process information, which is not ideal. Instead, strive for copy that is useful for users with “low literacy” levels, as it benefits everyone. It doesn’t matter if the words are simple or complex; the goal is to use language that is easy to understand.
Research indicates that improving readability levels leads to higher visitor success rates. Even highly educated individuals, like PhD students, prefer reading content written at a 7 to 8-year-old reading level. While using big words may make you appear knowledgeable, it can leave visitors feeling confused or uninterested. If visitors have doubts or need help comprehending the content, they will be less likely to take action.
15. Make It Mobile-Friendly
At the end of 2018, Google revealed that mobile-first indexing (crawling a website’s mobile version over its desktop version) was used for over 50% of the pages in Google’s search results. It has since been announced that as of July 1st, 2019, mobile-first indexing is set to be the default for all web domains. Therefore, it’s crucial that your website is responsive and delivers a great experience on mobile and tablet devices too.
On a responsive site, content is automatically resized and reshuffled to fit the dimensions of whatever device a visitor uses. This is accomplished with mobile-friendly HTML templates or by creating a special mobile site. Ultimately, providing a great experience across different devices is more critical than looking identical across those devices.
Creating your business website can be overwhelming when you’re just starting, but you can seek the help of a professional formations company to hit the ground running!
For more web design tips, as well as a comprehensive web design service, contact mint formations today.
