Having an effective and efficient website is the first step in drawing in new users. A boring, broken, or unresponsive web design will drive away potential customers and send them into the hands of your competition. To retain the traffic you’ve worked hard for, make sure your website is in tip-top shape with these tips.
Tips for Effective Website Design
Creating a user-friendly website will help you in more ways than one. Still, it’s not easy to throw together a perfectly user-friendly design all by yourself, especially if you don’t have any experience with website creation. However, with a few tips and tricks, we can help you make the best website you’re capable of making.
Make Navigation Simple
When creating a navigation menu, make sure to keep things simple. Website visitors often go to the navigation menu first to get their bearing on the site. A confusing or overwhelming navigation menu with too many links will often drive your audience away. They won’t be able to find what they need, and they’ll go elsewhere.
Ensure that your navigation bar is visible on every web page and includes all the essential links while not overly bulky. Website visitors should be able to find everything they need without ever having to use your website’s search bar.
On top of that, you want to make sure that you have a responsive layout that responds well to clicking on a link, opening new windows, changing pages, and overall allowing for easy and quick navigation around your site. Having good website usability starts with the navigation menu and should be carried throughout the rest of the site.
Create a Mobile Responsive Site
There were 177.8 million mobile phone search users in the United States as of 2016 and 211 million mobile phone searches in the United States as of 2020, a rapidly increasing number. Because there are so many people using their phones to perform Google (or another search engine) searches, it’s important to make sure that your website is properly optimized for mobile usage.
If a potential customer looks up the hours of your business or looks for information related to your business from their phone and is met with a non-mobile site or a mobile site that doesn’t work properly, they’re likely to click away.
Keep Load Times Quick
When users click on a link, they expect the page to load quickly, allowing them to hop between different pages efficiently. If a page is slow to load or a link doesn’t open immediately, it may be just enough to cause them to check out another site instead. A one-second delay in loading time results in 11% fewer page views and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.
There are many ways to speed up your website, including:
- Minimizing HTTP requests
- Combining files
- Deferring JavaScript loading
- Reducing server response time
- Choosing a better hosting service
- Reducing image sizes
- And more
Focus on Practicality
When it comes to designing a website, it’s often better to do less. Keep colors, typography, imagery, copy, and white space simple enough that users can make sense of it. While you may be tempted to implement a complex design right off the bad, it’s better to avoid overwhelming your audience with too much.
If you aren’t a designer, implementing too many new elements can be confusing and could cause problems on your site. Focus on something simple instead and worry about dressing it up later.
Deliver Valuable Content
Your website should include valuable content that people want to read. Avoid overly fluffy pieces and non-evergreen content that won’t be relevant in just a few days (or even hours). Deliver information work that reflects your company and brand as a whole.
Valuable content is a great way to turn your audience into customers. For example, say someone clicks on one of your blog articles. They like how you write and decide to check back every once in a while for new posts. They continue reading your content. When they finally decide to make a purchase, they’re more likely to go for the reliable brand they know over a completely new company.
Should you Hire a Website Design Company?
If website design isn’t your strength, you may be skating by on a website you’ve built yourself. While using a website of your own design is fine for the time being, a website design company can really take your site to the next level. Using your vision and our own expertise, we can design the perfect website for you.
We have years of experience designing websites, so we’ll handle your website while you focus on what’s important, working with customers, and creating products.
Looking for content strategy, marketing, or search engine optimization? We do that too. For more information, contact us online or call/text us at 407-712-0494.
