A website excels when it utilizes a design that focuses on user experience, functionality, and compliments your content. In today’s market, it’s not sufficient enough for companies to merely have a website, as the truth of modern businesses show that poorly designed websites will actually drive away potential leads. While web design may sound objective, these are tried and true tips to building a site that will deliver conversions.
Make Website Speed a Top Priority
Research has shown that users will not stick around if your website is slow, it’s as simple as that. Plus, search engines such as Google and Bing will factor your page loading speed into their ranked search results. To avoid the pitfalls of a slow website, make sure to utilize a responsive webpage design that’s user-friendly and offers an optimized navigation experience.
Stick to a Simple Layout
Most companies have a list of everything they want on their website, and mistakenly throw it all onto their homepage. A simple streamlined webpage layout will always perform better than a cluttered screen. Instead of inserting complicated animations, which can include sidebars and sliders, trimming your content down to just the essentials and limiting excess drop-down menus will ensure that your web design remains effective.
Keep Typography and Brand Colors Consistent
The overall look and feel of your site should remain similar across all of its webpages. Whether it’s color schemes, typefaces, backgrounds, and even the tone of your copy, following brand consistency across your website makes a positive impact on user experience. When it comes to choosing brand colors, you really don’t need to overcomplicate it, as it’s recommended to use a maximum of five regular colors across your design. Additionally, when it comes to typefaces, be sure to choose a font that’s highly legible and utilizes a minimal design.
Avoid Stock Photos
It’s common to be tempted by stock photos due to the ease of acquiring these high-quality images, but most stock images won’t benefit your website. Users want to see who actually works for your company, and stock photos can drain the life and realism from your web design. While we always recommend using original photos for your website, if stock photos are your only option then remember to choose images that match your companies’ message and avoids the cheesy visual style of most stock images.
Don’t Forget SEO
Making SEO a central part of your web design strategy could be the singular most important web design tip on this list. Utilizing basic SEO principles such as image captioning, keyword research, headline/sub-heading creation, and even URL design are all tactics your company can use to reach the top of search engine results. We’ve also written a blog that discusses additional SEO tactics, such as focusing on long-form keywords, optimizing UX and Meta copy, link building, and more.
Optimize for Mobile
For your website to be effective, it’s critical that your company’s design offers a positive user experience on mobile. Research shows that more than one-third of web users do all of their online shopping over a mobile device and, additionally, America adults spend more than five hours on their cell phones every day. Not only does a poor mobile user experience detour potential customers, but it also negatively affects your website in online search rankings. If your web design isn’t focused on building a responsive website for mobile, your business is omitting an easy opportunity to generate repeat user visits and spread a positive word about your brand.
Design Around Your Call-To-Action
Make sure your Call-To-Action (CTA) is clear and visible! Outlining a simple map of your buyers’ journey is imperative to your bottom line and helps users to easily navigate through your website. Placing your CTA at the top right of your site, or at the bottom of your web pages, are both strategically placed locations that companies commonly use to convert users to buyers. When online users are pointed in the right direction, rather than struggling to find what they’re looking for, this will improve the likelihood that they won’t bounce over to a competitor’s website.
As incredible as it may sound, all the provided steps barely scratch the surface when it comes to optimal web design. In today’s competitive market, your company’s website design is more important than ever. At Destination Marketing, our experts are thoroughly trained in the latest website trends, always testing new tactics and optimizing for the highest conversion rate.
Our agency’s omni-channel digital marketing approach and customized digital solutions will turn your leads into customers and your business into an industry leader. They will also increase your traffic, engage and re-engage your leads, and boost your e-commerce sales. With a fully integrated digital strategy and content that converts, our digital marketing agency helps you stand out from the crowd because everything we do is focused on generating prospects for your business.
