Running a website is very important these days, and even if you are doing it as a hobby, and you’re not running a commercial website for your business, there are still some things that you need to know if you want to achieve success.
If you are a businessman, and you require a website to reach more customers on the internet, reading this article until the end will help you understand a thing or two about design. The same thing goes if you are a beginner web-designer, this guide will contain some pretty generic things that everyone that wants to design a website should know about.
So, since there is a lot to talk about, and most of you are probably very impatient to expand your knowledge horizons, let’s end this introduction right here and jump straight into the content, shall we?
Contents
Why a website in the first place?
Source: JLB
Before learning about the useful design tips and tricks, let’s take a look at some of the main reasons why you should consider making a website in the first place. For some people, usually, those from the older generations, investing in a website is an “unnecessary” cost. Is this true? No, it’s not, and here’s why.
Ever since the internet appeared, it changed how a lot of things work, and one of those things is marketing, something which is extremely important these days. When it comes to marketing, there isn’t a better way of promoting a certain product for example, than by doing it on your official website.
Let’s say that you are selling computer components, and that’s what your entire company is based on. If someone wants to know the prices of the parts that you’re selling, as well as their statistics, they’ll have to make a phone call and ask you through the telephone for each part separately. This means that you’ll have to answer hundreds of calls per day and spend your entire time on the telephone, answering questions of confused potential customers.
With a website, however, you’ll skip all of this, and as we all know, time is money, so instead of being on the phone every single day, you can focus on doing something productive that will improve your business.
1. Focus on functionality first
Great-looking websites are pretty cool, especially if your company is in the tech-field and you want to show off a bit by making some animated designs with all kinds of features. However, remember that the main reason a customer clicked the link that leads to your site is that they require certain information about you, they’re not here for a design-show off. This means that whenever you’re making your site, the functionality should be your primary focus, and when you make sure that everything is responsive and works as it should, you can spend some time making things fancy and good-looking.
Source: techdonut
2. Optimize and then optimize some more
According to punchbugmarketing.com, one of the main reasons why people leave a website is because they feel frustrated when things take a lot of time to load. If someone wants to see your working hours, they shouldn’t be forced to wait three minutes until the page loads because it is overwhelmed by a bunch of unnecessary widgets and features.
Optimization is something that needs to be on top of your priority list, along with functionality, so make sure that you test the response time of everything before launching your site live.
3. Have a separate page for everything
When someone visits your site, they shouldn’t be overwhelmed by all sorts of information at first. Instead, they should be greeted by a homepage that displays the name of your company, the logo and a few other important things such as working hours, etc.
From there on, it’s completely up to you when it comes to the design. You can make a drop-down menu on your left side with all sorts of different categories, or you can have buttons on the top that lead to a separate page, let’s say for graphics cards only if your company sells computer parts like the example we gave earlier. It’s totally up to you, but make sure that the first page is welcoming and not overwhelming.
Source: webdesignerdepot
4. Try to match the colors
People these days appreciate aesthetics, and although this isn’t the most important thing when you’re building a webpage, it still matters quite a lot. Make sure that you use matching colors and not too many when you’re designing.
The site should be pleasant to look at with your eyes and if someone spends some more time looking in it, their eyes shouldn’t get tired. Don’t use too bright colors, and make sure that any text is placed on a background that makes it easier to read and more visible in general.
A cool trick is to include “Dark-Mode” as well because most people these days are browsing the internet during the night with their lights off.
5. Don’t go “retro” unless it makes sense
The design of your webpage shouldn’t be very retro unless that’s the entire point of the website. If you are promoting older music or some merchandise that is connected with older music, it is okay to come up with such a design, otherwise, you should focus on a modern and futuristic design, because people like to see these things in 2024.
Source: Magda Urbaniak
6. Don’t copy – Be unique
If you are trying to be unique with your design, avoid using presets such as the ones from famous web-building tools like WordPress. Not that they aren’t good, quite the opposite actually, but if you want to stand out, it is better that you come up with your design.
You can draw some inspiration from another website as well, as there is nothing wrong with that, just make sure that you don’t copy too much because people will notice this.
Remember, practice makes perfect, so don’t feel disappointed if your first webpage doesn’t end up looking like you wanted it to be. The more time you spend on this the better results you’ll get.
