The visual appearance of your website, aka your web design, plays a crucial role in the success of your website, and by extension, your entire brand. A well-designed website isn’t just aesthetically pleasing; it’s functional, user-friendly, and helps you engage visitors—whether that’s for increasing sales, sharing information, or building your brand.
If you’re considering designing a website or refreshing your existing pages, make sure to keep the following key points in mind!
8 Web Design Elements to Pay Attention to:
1. First Impressions Matter: Keep it simple!
You’ve heard it so many times before—but first impressions really do count. There’s nothing more frustrating than a cluttered website where you can’t find what you’re looking for. Our advice? Keep it as simple and intuitive as possible!
This means choosing easy-to-read fonts, complementary and visible colors, and a user-friendly interface. Make sure that visitors can quickly find what they’re looking for to decrease bounce rates and increase time spent on your page. Trust us—less is often more!
2. Mobile-Friendly Web Design: Because everyone’s on their phones
Let’s be honest, we’re all glued to our phones these days. That’s why it’s essential for your website to look great on mobile devices. Not only will your visitors appreciate it, but Google will, too! Websites that are optimized for mobile phone use rank higher in search results. It’s a simple SEO strategy that can have significant results.
We recommend getting a circle of trusted colleagues, teammates, or friends to test out your website before the big launch. They can provide valuable feedback and often identify shortcomings in the web design better than the original designer can.
Luckily for you, we have a complete blog on designing mobile-friendly webpages, which you can check out right here.
3. Colors and Contrast: Make it beautiful but keep it readable!
Choosing the right colors is crucial for effective web design. Ideally, they should match the color scheme of your brand while also supporting the message you are promoting. For example, if you’re selling herbal supplements, you probably want to stay away from aggressive colors like purple or orange and stick to natural greens, browns, and yellows.
If you don’t have a color scheme for your business yet, we recommend reading about how colors influence our perception of brands.
Whatever color scheme you choose, make sure important elements (like the “Buy Now” button) stand out so visitors don’t miss them.
4. Typography: Be stylish yet readable
Typography—the choice of fonts and text sizes—is another key element of web design. To maintain readability, opt for simple, clear fonts that display well across all devices. Use different sizes for your H1, H2, and H3 titles to make them easy to distinguish.
Also, make sure that your font choice stays consistent across your webpage. You’d be surprised how many web designers forget this tiny but important detail!
5. Images and Visuals: A picture is worth a thousand words
A website without high-quality images is like me without coffee in the morning—not very appealing! Use high-resolution, relevant images, but don’t overdo it. Nobody likes waiting forever for a page to load. Optimize your images to keep them sharp without significantly increasing load time.
6. Navigation: Make it easy for your visitors
Think of your website as a store—no one likes shopping in a place where they can’t find what they need. The same goes for websites. Make sure navigation is clear and intuitive so visitors can reach their goal with as few clicks as possible.
This can help decrease the bounce rate of your website, and boost whatever conversions you’re looking to make. It’s amazing how much UX/UI optimization can boost sales and increase the online visibility of your brand.
7. SEO-Friendly Web Design: Get on Google’s good side
Web design isn’t just about looks; if you want it to perform well, it needs to be search engine-friendly. In simple words, Google needs to love your site as much as your visitors do. Use proper headings (H1, H2, H3), fill out meta tags and descriptions, and don’t forget to add alt text for images.
And for those wondering what alt text is:
“Alt text is the written copy that appears in place of an image on a webpage if the image fails to load on a user’s screen”. – HubSpot
8. Listen to Feedback: Your visitors are your best advisors
Last but not least—pay attention to what your visitors say! If multiple people struggle to find something or complain about an issue, it’s time to make a change. Don’t be afraid to experiment and improve your web design—great websites are constantly evolving!
Conclusion
The basics of web design include simplicity, responsive design, great UX/UI, well-thought-out colors and typography, high-quality visuals, logical navigation, SEO-friendly elements, and continuous optimization. Whew—that’s a lot to remember!
Don’t worry about not getting all these aspects down in the beginning. Not many people do. The great thing about web design is that you can constantly improve and upgrade your existing pages. If you focus on these aspects, your website won’t just look good—it will serve its purpose and contribute to growing your business!
