Web Design: 6 Tips for Creating Professional Websites
The design of your website tells a story about your business. It tells your prospective customers who you are, what’s your personality, and what message you promote. But that’s not all.
Your website needs to attract your visitors to find out more. It needs to showcase important information in such a way that it spikes the interest of your clients. It needs to look professional so that they trust you with their business.
You can achieve all that by keeping a few key factors in mind. You’ll need to pay attention to things like user-friendliness, being mobile responsive, and having a pleasant aesthetic. Many details go into having an amazing design—let’s see what they are.
So What Makes an Amazing Website?
Say No to Clutter, Yes to Minimalism
The purpose of your homepage is to communicate your main message to your visitors instantaneously. Instead of reading every bit of text on a webpage, people just scan it quickly. Knowing this, it’s better to aim for evoking emotions rather than having a great word count.
Usually, the less your visitors have to read or remember, the better their impression will be of your business. This doesn’t mean that you need to communicate less—just more effectively.
Crucial information goes above the fold
Placing your core message at the top part of your page will help people understand what your website is about more quickly and easily. Since they don’t have to scroll or click on a button, they will know instantly if they’re in the right place.
Make use of white space
Blank areas are a smart way of separating important sections or elements of your website. Moreover, white space will give your design a feeling of space and no clutter.
The same goes for bodies or text. If you divide your paragraphs into bite-size pieces, separated by negative space, your content will be more legible and easy on the eyes.
Use visual elements
They don’t say that an image is equal to a thousand words for nothing. Well placed high-quality imagery can be used to communicate your message more effectively than large bodies of text.
Be smart about your menus
To reduce the clutter, you could use pull-out menus. However, excessive use of menus can do more damage than good. If you decide to use those, try to limit the number of elements you include to seven.
Call to Action buttons
Encourage your visitors to take action on your webpage (like buying something or subscribing to your newsletter) by adding CTA buttons where they can easily see them.
By doing this, you make it effortless for your customers to do business with you. Adding more steps reduces the chances of them interacting with you.
Don’t Forget About Visual Hierarchy
This might be the most important design principle that you need to remember. It will help you display and arrange your content in a way that increases its readability. By doing this, you can direct people’s attention to the elements on your website according to their priority.
Mind your dimensions
You can use the height and weight of elements to highlight content. For instance, your business name and your logo should be larger and easier to see. And your headings too—people’s eyes tend to run towards what is large and bold first and move on to the rest later.
Be careful with the element placement
Use the layout of your webpage to guide the way people’s eyes will read your website. Studies show that most visitors scan a page in the shape of the letter F, so take advantage of that. For example, you could place your most important content on the top and left parts of your webpage.
Readability
It’s always good to have in mind how easy it is for people to read your content. If you have high readability levels, it means that people skim painlessly through your website. This is mostly in connection to your use of fonts and typography details that you should pay attention to:
Contrast
Always aim to have enough contrast between all of your text and its background. The colors you chose will probably be characteristic of your visual identity. However, you should still make sure that all elements are clearly visible and distinguishable from each other.
Letter size
You can use different font sizes to distinguish what bodies of text are more important than others. However, you should make sure that all the content on your page has a dimension that most people can comfortably read..
Typically, text on your page should not be under 16pt. While this is a general rule, you should keep in mind that there should be harmony between the sizes of all your elements on your page. Also, some fonts, especially if they are harder to read, might require a larger size to be more readable.
Your choice of fonts
It might be a daunting task to find the perfect font—especially since there are so many out there. Your main choices will probably be either serif fonts (think Times New Roman, with lines at the end of the letters) or sans serif.
The typical choice is a sans serif font, especially if your texts are lengthy. They are easier on the eyes. But you can use stylized fonts for your slogans or separate text elements. Or you could try to combine a couple of fonts that go together.
Limit the number of fonts you combine
If you decide to combine fonts, be careful not to go overboard with it. Try to stick to a common theme with them—don’t choose completely different fonts. This will clutter your page and make your content hard to read.
Additionally, try to stick to a maximum of 3 fonts on your website. Using too many typefaces can distract users from your brand identity and add clutter to your page.
Aesthetics
The way your page looks influences people’s first impression of your site—before they see what amazing things you have to offer. So, to make sure that they stick around long enough to find out, you need to have an attractive design.
Choose your color palette wisely
For starters, the colors on your website should be compatible with the colors of your brand identity. They should be complementary and match both your company’s personality and give a feel for the type of message you want to send.
Another smart thing to do is to study a little bit of color theory. Each color has a different emotional implication. You can also use contrasting colors for your visual hierarchy. If this sounds like too much, you can find lifetime deals of elements online to make your job easier.
Color Hierarchy
To have consistency and structure with your colors, try to use a single color for each type of hierarchical element. This means that your main elements should have a color assigned, secondary items another, and less-important ones, like your background, another color.
Quality Imagery
If you decide to use photographs on your page, make sure that they are high-quality. Your images should set the atmosphere for your whole design; they need to be relevant and look amazing.
If you can, use real people in your photographs. This will make you look trustworthy, especially if there are pictures of yourself or your employees. Obvious stock photos will make your page look low-effort and less professional.
Functionality
You will want to get creative and innovative with your website. While that’s understandable, you should still know that your website navigation might not be a place to get crazy.
Having your navigation on-point will help search engines index your content better and faster, while also improving user experience.
Link your logo to your homepage
This is something your users will expect to find. It’s already a common practice that will save people some effort if they want to get back to your homepage. In case you don’t have a logo yet, get working—it’s high time you had one.
Vertical navigation
This is another thing that is starting to be a common practice. One-page websites with an anchor menu are easy to navigate. Additionally, with this format, it’s simple to display all the information in a highly accessible way—without cluttering your page.
Don’t forget about your footer
Your footer is the last thing your users will see. This makes it a great place for important links or shortcuts to other pages. You can include your contact information or even your social media icons.
Mobile Friendly
Most people browse the web from their phones nowadays. This means that if your page doesn’t look good or isn’t navigable on mobile devices, your visitors will move on to a page that does.
Thankfully, if you decide to use something like a WordPress website design this is a thing you don’t really have to worry about—they are already built to be responsive.
One More Thing Before You Go
Think of your website as your business card. To get people to get to know you, they have to like what they see. You have to make information easily available to them. The more effort they have to go through, the less likely they’ll be interested.
Keep in mind that an easily navigable website with a pleasing aesthetic is just part of the recipe for success. Throw in responsiveness, typography details, and visual hierarchy, topped with beautiful imagery, and watch how your traffic grows.
