Alright, so this is a pretty huge subject to tackle. There are thousands of books and courses written on web design. Before I start spatting off lessons, I want to ensure you can take something away and implement it today. So, here are the four basic principles of what makes a good website to keep in mind before your redesign/launch: Purpose. Great design starts with a purpose in mind. Ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish with this page?” If a page doesn’t have a clear purpose, consider getting rid of it. Aesthetically pleasing. I’ll dig more into this in section one on visual design, but your site needs to look good. If your site looks like it was built in the 90’s, it’s time for an update. Relevant and original content. Your site should show content that’s relevant to your target market and original. Plagiarism is illegal and penalized by Google. Besides, it’s better to be a first-rate version of yourself than a second-rate version of someone else. Clear site navigation. I’ll discuss this further in section two on technical aspects, but know that navigation matters. Any page on your site should be within three clicks of any other page on your site. Your navigation should be intuitive and simple. This helps both Google for SEO and your visitors for navigation. Great design starts with a purpose in mind.CLICK TO TWEET Now that you have the major principles in mind, let’s dive a little deeper.
Visual Website Design (AKA “Prettiness”) Imagine a scenario for a moment. You’re looking for a gift for your sister’s birthday. You notice a tweet by someone you follow sharing their friend’s new clothing shop. You click. Then you see this. ugly-website-design-1024x533-2Haha, nope. You’re gone. Is this an extreme example? Yes. Does website design still matter a whole heck of a lot? Yup.
Am I going to tell you what you should do to make your site look great? You betcha. You see, visuals affect everything from conversion rate to time on page, trustworthiness, and organic backlinks (which help you rank your site on Google.) So the equation looks like this: Great site design = More trust = Better conversions Great site design = More trust = More conversions.CLICK TO TWEET How do you make your site look great? Start with your brand. Branding Through Site Design Your brand is your image. Everything from the colors you use to the fonts you choose affects people’s perception of who you are. In her guide to branding, Sonia Gregory says that “as a small business, you may be competing against big brands with devoted customers. That’s why you have to find ways to differentiate–with a solid brand building process of your own.”
What do you want people to think when they see your site? Edgy, modern, satirical, professional, something else? You can convey those things through your design. Just take a look at the psychology of color – different colors convey different emotions. In fact, a study titled “Impact of color on marketing” found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone, depending on the product. Beyond color, you also have font choice. And yes, there is a psychology behind font choice as well. Ted Hunt from Crazy Egg made this cool infographic about it: Psychology behind font choice Regardless of the font you choose for your logo and branding efforts, you should always choose readability over emotional feel for your main body font. Typically that means sans serif fonts, as they read the best on the web. One last tip on font choice: Don’t use more than two fonts in your design. Pick two that compliment each other and stick with those for your entire brand.
Key Takeaway: Choose no more than three colors and two fonts to represent your brand. Write down the fonts and color codes and use them consistently across your entire site and marketing efforts. Finding, Designing, and Using Images Imagery is a major part of website design. And yet so many people do it wrong. Great images add value to the visitor. They help explain a key point and give the eyes a break. They even help sell your products and services. For example, if you’re an eCommerce site, you want your product photos to be high-quality and show tons of different angles.
Squarespace website templatesWhich of these flowers would you rather buy? Website imagery (Source) If you even saw the image on the right, you’d probably leave and never come back. The middle image is better, but still not great. The one on the left makes you trust the website. Just be careful, because bad images actually reduce readership. Remember design principle #1: Great design has a purpose in mind. Any image that doesn’t have a purpose is a bad image. Period. If you needed more incentive, page load speed (which I discuss in section two), is extremely important to SEO and usability. Having too many big images slows your site down.
So, how do you find, design, and use images on your website? We wrote about some tools to make great images in this post. Go check it out. But to give you some inspiration, here are a few examples of good images you can use: Charts and graphs of data points Screenshots High-quality stock photography (choose wisely) Custom designs and vector graphics Professional (or at least well-done) photography Key Takeaway: Use images, but do so with a purpose in mind. 3 Examples of Beautiful Websites Knowing what makes a good website is easier when you see real-life examples.