Web design is constantly changing and so should you. What was in yesterday may not be in today, and you need to follow the trends, see what’s working and find ways you can apply that to your website as well. Creating a website is no easy task and you should always keep in mind that it’s pretty much your online business card. It’s what makes a professional impression, so you need to make sure it’s flawless.
Here are a few tips to help you out on your creative journey.
1. Choose Simplicity
The web is a cluttered place, but it shouldn’t be. There are banners, pop-ups, ads, badges, and icons everywhere. These elements can make a web page look cluttered and make it hard to get the information you need. You need to first put yourself in the shoes of your visitors and understand that what they’re looking for is quality content, nothing else.
If your website cannot provide the answers to their questions, or the web pages take too long to load due to all the images, ads, banners, and so on, they’ll leave in seconds. This will make you lose potential customers and fall back SEO-wise because Google picks up on these things. Be wise and keep your website clean.
2. Improve Readability
Visitors of a website want information and answers to questions they have. They also appreciate when you can provide information on something they didn’t even know they needed until you showed them how important it is. But most of all, your readers want to receive that data in a way that is easy to read. Otherwise, as before, they’ll be closing your webpage and looking for information elsewhere.
Here are some of the few things you can do to improve readability:
- Medium-sized fonts. Choose something not too tiny and not too big. Tiny or huge fonts are not practical and look highly unprofessional.
- Stick to one or two fonts. Every website needs a theme, and one of the elements that contributes to a theme is the font. It’s best to stick to one or two (OK, three tops) fonts, otherwise your website will look nothing but messy.
- Choose matching colours. This is actually one of the biggest mistakes web designers or website owners still make. Putting a bright, pastel colour over a white background is a bad idea. So is putting grey or dark colours over black background. Don’t give your visitors a headache when reading your content.
3. Use Small Images
Nobody likes a slow-loading website and if there’s one way to kill its speed, it’s by not optimising your visual content correctly. Large images coming straight out of the camera are, of course, beautiful. However, even with the risk of losing some of their quality, you need to resize and optimise them to be as small as possible.
A good way to help speed up the images on your website is to use CSS sprites. These are useful when you have certain images used across several webpages on your site. You can use CSS sprites to cache the images, thus eliminating the need to re-download them on the next page your visitors click on. This also reduces the HTTP requests for the webpages, enhancing speed once more.
4. Choose the Best People for the Job
So far, we’ve talked about the punctual things your website needs in terms of user experience. But all the advice in the world doesn’t mean a thing without a web designer or a team of web designers to do the job right.
Finding the right people is more difficult than you’d think and you’d be surprised how many web designers are still using outdated methods. You should look for a company that is well reviewed and has a reputation for solid work. Companies like Pelling Design, for instance, have been in the business for years and many business owners swear by their work. You can learn more about their services and who they’ve helped at https://designbypelling.co.uk/.
A website is an incredible tool to use to increase your customer base and drive sales. The web has an immense potential for businesses and one of the best ways to use this potential is through a great-looking website. Choose your design with your visitors in mind and make sure you hire the best service out there to materialise your vision.
