These days, you can’t survive in the business world if you don’t have an online presence. It’s not enough to just have a brick and mortar location. If you aren’t visible online as well, customers are going to have a hard time finding you. But if you’re going to have a web site, you have to do it right. A bad web site is worse than not having one at all. Here are five essential tips for good web design.
1. Keep it clean: Gone are the days of flashing banners and brightly colored backgrounds. Today’s internet users want simple, clean designs. White space is your friend. Not only does white space lend itself to simple design, it also makes the content of your web site easier to scan and absorb.
2. Make it user friendly: No matter how great your web site looks, no one is going to stick around if they can’t find what they need. Design with the user in mind. Make the navigation easy and consistent. Internet users don’t read, they scan, so make sure there are no big chunks of text. Make sure each page has one, clear purpose so users do not get too confused or have to think too much. People searching online are there for quick, easy answers, so make their experience quick and easy.
3. Make it load quickly: Everybody hates waiting, especially on the internet. What might actually be a few seconds can feel like whole minutes in internet time. Most users will abandon a web site if it takes more than a few seconds to load. This means potential customers are navigating away from your page to spend money elsewhere.
4. Use proper spelling: Poor grammar and spelling make you look unprofessional. If you look unprofessional customers are not going to trust you and your product. If you run an e-commerce site, they’ll also probably lose trust in the security of your site. Always, always edit your work. If you have time, it’s best it edit it a day after you write it.
5. Make it mobile friendly: If you do nothing else on the list, do this. In 2015, the number of mobile internet searches surpassed the number of searches on computers. Do not underestimate the power of a mobile site. If you’re tight on cash, you should invest in a mobile site. A mobile site will still look fine on a computer, while a non-mobile friendly site will look great on a computer and terrible on a mobile device.
Having a high-quality web site is an integral part of any business. While there are tools to help you design your own, you can also higher a web designer to ensure that your web site is optimized for search engines and mobile searches.
This blog post was written by Beanstalk Web Solutions, a St. Louis web designer that specializes in mobile friendly, search engine optimized web sites, e-commerce stores, custom web apps, and everything in between.