Websites are the ultimate online representation of businesses, organizations, and individuals. It’s the one platform where they are in control of almost all the variables, and they don’t need to be restricted by limitations of other platforms. But this can be a double-edged sword.
Having control over every single detail might require more time, effort, and resources to make everything look and feel the way you want it, too. And whether you’re just starting or you’re in for an overhaul, the sheer amount of design choices can be understandably overwhelming. But don’t worry. This article will discuss the leading website design areas you need to improve.
Branding
As with anything used to represent yourself or your organization, branding has to be clear, consistent, and compelling. From the use of colors to the messaging of every page, these characteristics should be apparent.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you’ll have to cram every page with everything about you. The trick is to maintain branding while keeping everything simple. According to Web Alive, it’s essential to have a clear focus on an attribute that you want to be known for. If you’re a portrait photographer, for example, incorporating your signature portraits into your branding is a good idea.
Ease of Use
One of the most important aspects of any website, or any product for that matter, is the user/customer experience. For websites, this means people should be able to have a clear idea of what each button does, and what each page is for. It should be easy for users to navigate freely across your site.
First, you need an intuitive user interface. Thanks to the frequent use of some icons on the internet, people are now accustomed to seeing them on websites and, for the most part, they instinctively know how to use them.
Colors and typefaces are also essential here. Some find it difficult to differentiate specific colors. Make sure you use high-contrast ones in the text.
That said, many websites are also starting to include accessibility options. It’s something you should also definitely consider.
Speed
But ease of use is not the only part of user experience. Even if your website has the best user interface, with clear and intuitive buttons and text, without speed, it can still be painful to navigate through. Terrible load times can mean the difference between a one-time visitor and an avid user. Here’s Moz explaining page speed in more detail. It also gives some tips on how to improve it.
Incidentally, both ease of use and speed are being used by Google and other search engines to rank your website. This means that if your website is easy to use and loads quickly, it will more likely show up higher when people do their searches. This essentially increases the traffic going into your website. If you want to focus more on that, you can also tap search optimization services.
Content
Content is as much part of website design as any other. That’s because content is not only delivered through bland blocks of text. The best websites leverage content in such a way that it’s seamlessly integrated into the design. This means you’ll also have to create content with the design in mind.
