Essential Design Elements for a Successful Website
For most businesses today, your website is your shop front. Whether your business is operating from a physical location or you are running a company completely online, your website is front and centre of your online presence, and it’s become more important than ever before in a world that is increasingly digitally connected.
Your website is not only there to put the message out about your brand and what it is all about, but it’s also the first impression that many customers are going to get from your business.
Whether you’ve been running a business for a while or are just starting out, a business website that is well-designed, current, and easy to use is key to boosting brand awareness, increasing sales and conversions, and building strong customer relationships.
Why Work With a Web Designer?
These days, creating your own website has definitely got a lot easier. All you need to do is sign up for one of the many different website building tools and platforms that are available to access an easy way to put your website together without the need for any previous coding or web design experience.
However, the issue with this is that if you’re not educated or experienced in web design, your website might be functional, but not working as well for you as it could.
Working with a web designer or a web design agency like ALT Agency means that you get access to the expertise and experience of the web developers and designers. They know what’s currently trending, what tends to get the best results for websites in your industry, and what to avoid.
What Design Elements are Essential to Website Success?
Building a good business website is about much more than simply putting a site together with some pictures and information.
The way that a website is designed can say a lot about your business and can be the difference between users visiting and forgetting about your site, and visiting to eventually become a loyal, returning customer time and time again.
One of the main reasons to work with a web design agency when it comes to building your business website is that they are experts in what’s going to help your website thrive online.
Responsiveness
Any good web designer knows just how important it is to have a responsive website. While DIY website building platforms usually tend to offer themes and templates that are already coded to be responsive, the issue here is that if you don’t keep this in mind when you are adding customisations, then you could end up with a website that looks great on some devices and awful on others.
Web designers conduct extensive testing throughout the process to make sure that every element added or change made looks just as amazing on a small smartphone screen as it does on a large desktop monitor.
Ease of Navigation
Adding a menu to your website might seem like a simple process. However, there is a lot of room for things to go wrong if you’re not sure how to set up a website navigation system that’s going to work well, especially if you’re building an online shop.
Navigation mistakes are quite common, and this can have a huge impact on how people interact with your site. A good web designer knows just how important navigation is when it comes to your website and will design an easy navigation system that allows users to find what they need in no more than a couple of clicks.
White Space
One of the most common mistakes that people make when they design their own website is adding too much clutter. It’s tempting to want to pack your website out with as much information and content as possible.
And when you can add loads of cool features and elements to your site, you might not know where to stop. The truth is that a cluttered website isn’t going to get you the results that you want for your business.
Web designers have the training, education, and experience that allows them to get that balance between content, features, and white space just right.
Accessibility
Another feature that many people forget about when it comes to designing their website is accessibility. If your website is not accessible, then you could end up completely alienating a large portion of your target market.
Your customers who are colour blind, for example, might not be able to get much use of your site if you have not considered this when choosing which colours to use. If you have not considered users who rely on screen readers when designing your site, then you might lose customers as they won’t be able to access or interact with your site.
Website accessibility can be trickier than you think, so it’s best to work with a web designer who can ensure that your website is accessible to all.
Colour Choices
Something as simple as colour choices might not have crossed your mind when you think about website design. Many people who build their own websites simply go with the default or overdo it with their brand colours, without thinking about how contrasting colours can make a difference.
When you work with a web designer, you’re working with somebody who understands colour psychology and how the use of different colours for certain elements of your website, like call-to-action buttons, can make all the difference to your future success.
Readability
No matter how great your content is, it’s not going to be much use if users struggle to read it. Another common mistake that people make when building their own website is that they choose fonts that aren’t great or set them to the wrong size.
Too small and people are going to be squinting at the screen, too large and it’s going to take people forever to read everything. You also need to think about responsiveness – perhaps the text is perfectly readable on a desktop, but does it transfer to mobile devices well?
Final Words
With an online presence becoming an increasingly important part of running a business, it’s definitely worth investing in a professional web designer who is an expert in all the different design elements that will help to make your website more successful.
Comments are closed.