Web Design – More Than Just Good Looks

Before having your website designed or re-designed, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of good design practices. Everyone wants a website that looks good, but looks aren’t everything. You need a website that conveys your message clearly and makes it easy for your customers to buy from you.

These are probably the three most important aspects of web design that may mean the difference between your visitors buying from you or your competition.

Navigation

If you have a small site, then navigation is usually pretty easy to design, but if you have hundreds, or thousands of pages, it’s important to design your navigation in a way that makes it easy for your visitors to find the content they are looking for. Having a list of 300 links down the side of the page is not very useful. Organize by categories and keywords so your visitors don’t have to spend a lot of time hunting, because most of them would rather leave and look somewhere else.

Call to Action

 

This is something you and your designer need to spend some time on. Your visitors need to be told how to buy from you and they need to be told clearly. For example, if you want them to call you, then you might have “CALL NOW 555-555-5555!” at the top of every page. Make it stand out from the page so the visitor can’t help but see it. It’s super important to make sure that your visitors know exactly how to do business with you. If they have to spend time figuring it out, they’ll just go somewhere else.

To the Point

People are busy. They don’t have a lot of time to read your life story about how you got into business and why your business is so great. Make your content short and to the point, then make it shorter. Trim out as much unnecessary information as possible until nothing is left but only the most vital of information.

  • Bullets are great.
  • People don’t read entire web pages.
  • They scan them and look for parts that interest them.
  • Making your content “scannable” will ensure your visitors get your point without making them read a novel.

These are the 3 most important aspects of a website that must be considered before even thinking about the design of the site. Your site can be super ugly, but if you nail these 3 things, it will more than make up for it.

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