What Makes a Great Website?
Your website is your first digital impression and you want to make sure it’s a great one. It should reflect everything you want potential customers to know and remember about your business.
Websites that are not well designed tend to perform poorly and have sub-optimal Google Analytics metrics (e.g. high bounce rates, low time on site, low pages per visit and low conversions).
So, what makes good web design?
Visually
Sometimes less is more! It needs to be clear and easy to use. Your website needs to be eye-catchy, so visitors want to explore it. If it’s unattractive and old-fashioned, visitors might lose interest and move on to another site.
Colour is critical on web pages, but colours have meanings to people, and using the wrong colour can have the wrong connotation if you're not careful. Web pages are, by their very nature, international. Even if you intend your page for a specific country or locality it will be seen by other people. And so, you should be aware of what the colour choices you use on your web page are saying to people around the world. When you create your web colour scheme keep in mind colour symbolism.
Use bright colours may help, try to keep it in keeping with the brand you want to portray. Images are great! Don’t use huge images if you don’t want your website to be slow and keep in mind to upload them in PNG or JPG format. Always use graphics and pictures that fit the content. Keep your content clear and simple.
Placing content randomly on your web page can end up with a haphazard appearance that is messy. Grid-based layouts, arrange content into sections, columns, and boxes that line up and feel balanced, which leads to a better-looking website design.
Content
To have a successful and engaging website, it should have a simple and clear message that all visitors can understand. Your customers don't want to be reading an essay. The best way to communicate your website’s purpose is through a clear message on your homepage. This will also help search engines categorise your website for appropriate keywords and phrases.
Think about what your website does or what you want it to do. What products or services do you offer? Then, on your homepage clearly display that message in your content.
Consistency
A website should be consistent throughout its pages a few key points to remember are: -
Logo placement and size - These details should remain the same across all pages.
Navigation location and links - It can often be helpful to indicate which link in the navigation is active as well.
Banner backgrounds - If present on one subpage, this should carry over to other subpages.
The font - Your font should be the same on every webpage, but it is acceptable to have a different font for headers and body text.
A consistent footer - The footer should appear on all web pages and provide copyright information.
Navigation
Another important feature of a good website is navigation. Many websites fail to include well-structured pages or clear navigation tabs that lead visitors to relevant sections of their website.
Think of the general path you would like a site visitor to take. In many cases, adding sub-pages to the top navigation will be the best option for organising your information into specific categories. Think through your web pages’ structure so that it all makes sense in a logical flow. That way, when customers visit your website, they will have an easier time navigating to the information on your website that is most relevant to them
There's a general rule of "The three clicks rule” which means users will be able to find the information they are looking for within three clicks. In this day of age, people want fast, quick information at the touch of a button being able to navigate with ease is key to a great site.
Mobile Friendly
It is now commonplace to access websites from multiple devices with multiple screen sizes, so it is important to consider if your website is mobile friendly. If your website is not mobile friendly, you can either rebuild it in a responsive layout. This means your website will adjust to different screen widths or you can build a dedicated mobile site.
Here at Pebble we can help with are all your design needs to make all your ideas become reality. Speak to us today on 01733 902070, alternatively, you can reach out to us via our contact page.