Websites are an effective way to boost your business’ awareness and provide you with a digital presence that customers can use to get information and interact with your brand to make conversions. It’s a good idea to think of a website as a digital extension of your business, so it’s vital that you design your website well so that it makes a good first impression and encourages users to interact with it more and eventually buy a product or service from it.
There are many different things that can make a website ineffective and cause it to have a high bounce back rate. Here are the fundamentals of website design to help make sure that your website is in a good condition.
Keep It Consistent
One of the most important aspects of designing a website is to ensure that it has a consistent theme throughout and that it sticks to a particular style. This helps to keep your brand recognizable and memorable, so it’s a good idea to use the same color scheme, fonts and design principles in all your pages and content.
It’s also a good idea to keep your website consistent with your other pieces of media and marketing. This means that your website should have the same tone of voice as the posts on your social channels as well as a similar design to other media such as business cards and leaflets. To make this an easier thing to achieve, you can design your custom business card online so that it matches your website and brand.
Make It Easy to Read
Users of the Internet are generally impatient, meaning they want information quickly and easily. To help with that, it’s a good idea to position key text higher up the page, above the fold so that no scrolling is necessary. It’s also a good idea to organize your content with headings and subheadings so that it’s easier to digest.
You also want to consider the font you use to help make it easier to read. In general, sans serif fonts like Arial or Verdana are a lot easier to read, and the ideal size to implement is 16 points plus. You also don’t want to deviate between three different typefaces so that it appears more streamline.
To better improve ease of use, it’s also a good idea to use appropriate contrasting backgrounds that the text can easily be seen from. When using black fonts, you don’t want a dark background, as that can be hard to see and might put potential website visitors off from converting.
Use Images
An image can speak a thousand words and are great things to include in websites as they make it far more visually attractive. Pictures can be used to portray your brand and add personality.
It’s far better to use unique pictures that you’ve taken yourself than generic photos from a copyright-free image bank, as this will make your website more memorable. As well as pictures you can also include logos, infographics and potential videos to really make your website pop and bring it to life.