Website design is a tricky skill to master. You have to be able to meet the needs of your customers, while producing something that the search engines are going to love. That means you should look into how you use royalty free stock photos, how you put together your menu bar, and the backgrounds you are using.
There are literally hundreds of different points of order that you can bring up to improve your website design. Not everything is going to work for every type of business. This guide is going to show you ten ways in which you can improve your website design.
Go for Responsive Design
Did you know that 31% of traffic coming to the top 10 websites in the world all came from mobile devices?
This is a significant number, and a number that continues to increase over time. If your website isn't ready for mobile, you're going to have a hard time keeping visitors on your pages. Responsive design means your site will adapt to any screen and device.
Choose a Simple Design
Web design embraces minimalism and a simplistic approach. Many years ago, web designs were incredibly complex. Today, all that has changed. Clean and flat designs are very much in, and this is what brands are steadily trying to adapt to.
Impress your visitors with your products not by how flashy your website looks. Furthermore, fancy website graphics will only slow down your site.
Use Stock Photos in Moderation
Stock photos are great for a lot of things. There are lots of sources where you can pick up free high-quality stock images. But what you have to keep in mind is that sometimes it pays to change things up by using a series of unique images. People can tell the difference.
Try to use them both for the best results.
Keep Navigation Simple
Consumers that land on your page should be able to get to any page within two seconds. To earn links and gain credibility, people need to be able to find everything with no effort. Don't give them too many options. For less important pages, stick them in sub-menus.
Make it Easy to Get in Touch
Sometimes it's unbelievable how difficult it is to get in contact with the owners of a website. Your contact information should be available on every page in some form of side menu, or in the footer. If you are making it difficult for people to get in touch, you are already losing 95% of your potential leads.
Get Rid of Social Media Feeds
Social media is a powerful tool, but its primary purpose is to drive traffic to your website. You don't want to add any distractions to your site by positioning your social media feeds there. The last thing you want to do is to send that hard-earned traffic back again.
Clickable Banners
Make it easy to always return to the homepage. Your banner or logo should be clickable and it should link back to the homepage. This just makes it easier to navigate, and so many websites have this feature now that it's almost expected. This is sure to boost organic traffic and keep people on your website for longer.
Make Every Page a Landing Page
This is important because so many people concentrate on the Home page and neglect the rest of the site. See every page as an opportunity to force people further down the sales funnel. Imagine that every page is a landing page, which means it should in some way be contributing to making a sale.
There's no excuse for not doing this in 2016.
Focus Above the Fold
Some webmasters complain that they don't get enough user engagement on their website. One look and you see all the important information is below the fold. As soon as someone lands on a page, everything they immediately see is considered to be 'above the fold'.
Place all the important information here. Anything that goes below the fold should be supplementary.
Review Your Web Design Regularly
Web design trends change all the time, and so do the demands of customers. It's important to review your website every six months to see what's current and what people are demanding. This doesn't mean that you need to opt for a complete redesign. What it does mean is that you should see if you can make some minor tweaks.
How will you keep your web design updated today?