Designing a website can seem like the biggest or the smallest task depending on what way you want to look at it. Every designer will tell you that careful planning will most definitely work in your favour.
No doubt, you’ll be eager and excited to start designing your website and getting it live for everyone to see. Planning doesn’t have to be boring and mundane. It is the opportunity to experiment and show off all your creativity without making those classic design mistakes.
There really is no definition of the perfect website but with a few guidelines you can ensure that your website is perfect for both you and your user.
Organise Your Ideas
A good starting point for any design process is to collate all of your ideas in one place. How you go about this is entirely up to you – you could type them out, draw diagrams, create flowcharts etc. Pencil and paper are absolutely fine for this and have been found to be just as effective as online tools.
Don’t hesitate to take inspiration from other website that you have seen. If there is a certain style that you like then it’s worth bearing in mind so that you have a clearer idea of what you want when designing your own.
Consider Usability
The usability of your website will determine whether your visitor stays on your site or not. This will all boil down to the design of your website navigation.
Your homepage is the landing page which will determine whether your visitor stays or leaves. The purpose of your website should be very clear. When your visitor lands on your page, it should be obvious from the first few seconds exactly what your website is about. This can be done by including a logo, slogan or image which clearly represents the purpose of your website.
Easy navigation will play a big part too. This can be mastered by keeping your layout consistent. The home button should be in the same place on each page and the toolbar should either remain at the top or the bottom throughout.
Effective Copy
You’ll need to speak to your audience both visually and through your copy. It’s important that you address a specific target audience as this will really speak to your visitor and draw them in.
Your copy should be easy to read and scan. Format your information into bullet points and sub-categories if needed. You’ll be doing yourself no favours by having chunks of text so make sure you use appropriate spacing to break it up. This will make all the difference to the overall design of your page.
Smart Design
As well as considering your personal taste, you should also design for your user. Think about which colours appeal to human emotions. After all, it is humans that are going to be looking at your website and this is the best way to grab their attention. The colours you use will depend on the nature of your website.
Simplicity can also be extremely appealing in website design. You don’t want to bombard your visitors with over-the-top designs. This will prove distracting and means your visitor is more likely to leave your page.
Appropriate Typography
Typography is something that often gets overlooked in the design of a website. Avoid using fonts that are hard to read. This also means considering the size of the font. Straining to read copy on a website is guaranteed to aggravate and frustrate your visitor. There are many web-safe fonts that you can use which include Arial and Helvetica.
Powerful Imagery
Never underestimate the power of imagery. They can appeal to your visitor in under a second and leave a lasting impression. Your images should be in proportion with your text. They should also be relevant so that your visitor can make an easy connection.
And finally…
Before you unleash your website into the World Wide Web, it’s worth testing it out on different browsers and screen sizes to test for compatibility. You’ll need to ensure that everything functions and looks great across a variety of devices. This includes mobile phones and iPads for visitors accessing your website on-the-go.
About Alex Woods
Alex Woods is an online writer and blogger at BaseKit – an online website builder. She enjoys finding interesting topics to write about and sharing them with others.
Thank you for sharing some tips. That increases my knowledge in building e-commerce site.
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Jenny Brown recently posted..Gas Duster: Effective Cleaning Tool for Delicate Items
Thanks for sharing those tips on creating more meaningful web sites. ya, Its very important to test your site on multiple browsers. Now a days many leading sites don’t work on I.E. 6. If its not compatible then appropriate messages should get flashed.
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Retro Sukneles recently posted..Sniego imitacijos vestuvinė suknelė
Great Article! Thanks for sharing your top 6 tips on website design. A must read for your online business.
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Bill Lawrence recently posted..Pinterest
Good points, Alex. I have always preferred sites be well organized and easy to navigate, first and foremost, over having too much glitter and flash. Like you said, it will determine if the visitor stays or leaves. Also a good point about typography. Some sites try too hard to be different and use strange fonts and sometimes laid up against bright neon backgrounds that strain the readers eyes after a few seconds of reading. I have found myself leaving such sites in a heartbeat.
-Jean
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used tires recently posted..Things to remember before buying Used Tires
I’m really interested in improving the design of my blog to make it more visually appealing. Ultimately I’m hoping to decrease my bounce rate and increase the average time spent on my blog. Do you have any posts you could recommend specifically for this? Thanks.
yes I do rich, Go here http://kezanari.com/9-common-mistakes-that-web-owners-make-that-causes-high-bounce-rate.html/
Very nice suggestion Brother…
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I was also searching about bounce rate…
thanks
Zeshan recently posted..Har Roz Bhula Dete Ho Kamal Krty Ho
Thanks a lot for getting back to me Robert. Have a great rest of the weekend.
I was looking for ideas for a new website and found your post. Great tips to start with. I’m gonna try this and she how it works.
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Breville Citrus Press recently posted..Sterling Silver Diamond Cat in Heart Pendant
Great tips. The one I always ask people who are struggling with content is – “what are the two or three things you *really* want everyone to know about you before they leave your site?”.
Prioritising that can really help with both content and navigation.
Some great tips here, I think that just about anyone can learn from these. Sometimes websites just forget the basics.
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Jessie recently posted..Car loans even with a bad credit history
Thanks for the great post, Alex. It’s always pleasure read article from a knowledgeable author. I would also like to add that planning of any site should begin with simply setting the goals.
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adam recently posted..Website Conversion Cheat Sheet
Your websdite decides the sucess of your business. A website for the ompany is just like the headquarter. It is vbital to understand the importance of the good design. To reach the maximum number of the visitor the good design is vital.
Betaalbare webdesign
I find some wonderful tips from your article. Thanks for that. In past when I think about website design, I just consider usability, good design and typography. I never thought about the basic of organizing ideas. Actually now I believe that organizing ideas can reduce lot of work in designing a perfect website. Same thing for powerful imaginary. I just tried to design a good website. But never thought about powerful imaginary. So thanks for the article. I get some new ideas from it.
Thanks for sharing great tips on Website Designing. You have mentioned a lot of stuff in just a short article. You have mentioned some tips which are not that much famous. I always thing that Website Design is all about usability and beautiful designs. I just design user friendly website and think that its perfect. But after reading your article, I have to think again about it. http://www.ncodetechnologies.com
Your article not only highlight the design prospective of web site but also its necessity in today business scenario, as effective web design helps business organization to standup in competition and also helpful in creating its brand image. Thanks for sharing this valuable tips with us.
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Great informative post, I am happy to read it. I think really it is excellent post, waiting for the next post soon. Thanks for sharing me.
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Peter recently posted..The Cross Platform and Mature Supernatural Role Playing Game
Thanks for the post, Alex. Concise and to the point. Especially enjoyed your thoughts on usability and typography.
Hi there. Website designing plays a vital role in digital marketing as well as search engine. Thanks for sharing it.
Good points. The last one, testing, is probably the most important, and it should be done on every stage, right from the beginning. Especially if it’s custom design, and not just using a standard theme.
Hi Alex, it was nice to read such tightly focused points on creating a perfect web design. I would like to add that try to create a perfect and responsive web design. if you will focus on making it responsive, your design will automatically set resolution according to the device which has been used to view it like it will automatically adjust itself while viewing in ipad, iPhone and on desktop.
I honestly learned a lot of ways in creating the perfect web design. Website designing is really very enjoyable. I’ll be happy to share your ideas with my friends as well.
Thanks for the 6 tips you could go on and on with tips for website design but 1 of the big ones is to think about speed in the design process.
It’s important and dramatically effects conversion rates.
Regards
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Dave
dave recently posted..Search Engine Optimisation
That is very true
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Robert recently posted..Impacts of Facebook Graph Search on SEO
Hi there. Yeah before designing a website you should make a rough idea about what you want to design. Then you should proceed. Anyway your tips are also remarkable. Thank you.
These all points which are you have mentioned for web design is really necessary for create a good web design. Good job.
Putting in your overflowing ideas on your website would be great but the purpose of it being able to attract visits might be taken for granted. You should always keep in mind that you need to consider what interests your visitors most and not what interests you.
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KeithRobinson recently posted..4 Free SEO Tools
I definitely agree. Website design is essential in driving mre potential clients on ebusiness since it attracts the cients attention.
A very true thing is this. Effective web design is not only attract the visitors but also increase your business tremendously. These tips are just awesome. We can also decrease our website loading time to enhance the website performance more.
Thanks for those 6 nice tips! I personally very bad at designing,I like developing server side scripts with php.I had designed some small personal sites,but I feel its very hard to design a site as compare to develop any script or code snippets.I know how the design should be but unable to implement it practically,major issue of designing is browser compatibility.So,its too far away for me.lol….
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Techya recently posted..Yahoo Online Status Checker Script in PHP
I really glad, these all tips are essential for perfect website design. If your website has really good design then your visitor ration will be high. Well very nice article, Great job.
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Software Development Company recently posted..Responsive Website Design Trends in 2013
Thanks for the tips to tell about the designing of perfect website.It’s really helpful for me.
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for designing a good website you must be a good designer or must hire a good designer. tell him all your ideas and let hm design your website good tips
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Syed Danial recently posted..20 Latest Photoshop CS6 Web Design Tutorials for Beginners 2013 Part 2
you should use high quality images in your web design it will make your website more beautiful and will give a perfect look
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Guppu Boss recently posted..Does Your Web Hosting Company Offer Mobile Solutions?
Great tips and I am looking some tips to make my website design. I think this top tips is really good better for my website design. And my point of view smart design point is good describe about to appeal a human emotion. Thanks for sharing this tips….