10 things to keep in mind while designing and developing a website
Within five seconds of landing on your website, can your visitors determine what your company does? Could users easily navigate to the blog if they need to? Is the layout of your pricing easy to understand? Does your website have a low bounce rate?
If you're finding yourself answering ‘no’ to these questions, it might be time to take a hard look at the way you’ve been designing and optimizing your website.
A website truly excels when it has a design that feeds into your website's user experience, functionality, and appropriately complements your content.
It can be super easy to neglect these things, thinking these updates are the lowest thing to worry about on your totem pole of website priorities, but a successful website has both high performing content and an exceptional user experience needs to have balance.
But the umbrella of website user experience has a lot under it, and it can be challenging to understand all that's under it while figuring out the most important things to tackle.
To answer that, here are 12 website tips to ensure that you're going in the right direction in your redesign and are assuring you aren't turning visitors away.
1. Have a plan for your website design
Now that you’ve acknowledged that your site likely needs some improvements, it's time to work your way backward and create a plan detailing how you’ll tackle them.
Start by mapping out your customer journey from the first time someone visits your website to the moment they become a customer. When doing this, think about which pages are they going to view, what content are they going to read, and what offers are they going to convert on. Understanding this will help you design a site that actually helps nurture leads through the sales funnel.
Certain elements on your website are going to detract from the value and message you're trying to convey. Complicated animations, content that’s too long, and “stocky” website images are just a few examples.
With an audience that only has an attention span of eight seconds, you need to make it abundantly clear what your user will learn on the page they're viewing and your design must not detract from this.
This starts with making sure you have consistent brand guidelines you can work off of.
This should detail your font styles, colors, imagery, iconography, and logo usage. Without this, it’s easy for brands to struggle when designing pages. You’ll likely start to see arbitrary colors and varying font styles and sizes used, which in turn, can distract from your message or create visual confusion for people trying to convert. It’s also important to avoid too many on-page animations or interactions. If you're scrolling through a page and see every button pulsing or a section of icons each with its own animation, it can feel overwhelming and distract them from reading what's on the page.
Let’s take a look at the website below as an example. Note, since I’m treating this as more of a critique, I’m removing the brand’s logo from the image so they can remain more anonymous. When looking at this site, the first thing I noticed was the colors
2. SEO Optimisation
Second, there are some areas of inconsistent spacing. The hanger in the hello bar (‘you!’) creates a second line that could easily be fixed if the width of the container around the text was increased. The H1 also isn’t exactly vertically centered in the white area, drawing your eye to “issue” rather than the bulk of the message.
In the grey section below the header, they lead with a button (which doesn’t have much context) and feels sandwiched on top of an image. As a user, I'm left to wonder if it's supposed to have space below, or, if it's supposed to directly relate to the image. Did the site just load incorrectly? This internal debate creates friction and confusion Details like this really help make or break your overall website experience and help your users better understand what you want them to do, leaving less room for confusion
3. Add social proof
If you shop like most people when you’re on Amazon, chances are you gravitate towards products that contain mostly four to five-star reviews from people who wrote out their experiences with a product.
In looking at these reviews, we gain trust in the product that it will do what it promises and we need it to do, which in turn, pushes us to purchase it.
The same effect is applied to your product or service and website. If users see impactful testimonials from real people, studies show your prospects are 58% more likely to buy your product
But how should your testimonials visually look so they effectively create that trust with your users when they see them?
Well, there are a few strategies you can take. But first, you need to think about what format of testimonial you want, text or video. Historically, video testimonials have been found to be the best. This is because the medium naturally keeps your user’s attention for longer and also builds a stronger human connection being able to hear voices and see faces of real people.
You also have the option of text testimonials, however, which, when designed and incorporated properly, will still help build trust with your users. Upland Adestra is an enterprise email and marketing automation software company in the United Kingdom. They have four videos on their testimonial page that each are contained in their own sections. Rather than arbitrarily place all the videos next to each other, Upland separated them and accompanied them with a header and sentence detailing the result or benefit the client had working with them. Now, users have context to what they will hear about in the videos. I also like how a few of the videos show thumbnails of someone talking, which visually reassures the user that they will likely be hearing from the client themselves, as opposed to watching a text-based video.
Zenefits has done a great job of this on their website Each card is designed with an image that showcases members of that company, which is way more trustworthy than if they were to use stock photos, or just a picture of their logo. And because they have five pages of testimonials, they've added a filter at the top of the page that allows users to segment what types of industries or solutions to look for. Now, users can find the types of case studies they want faster. Finally, if your site only has text testimonials without case studies, there are aspects you need to be mindful about when designing them out. For instance, you can’t just put a set of text testimonials and a name alone. It’s less likely these will be taken as truth since it will leave users wondering what company they work for, what their job title is, and visibly what this person looks like (for visual confirmation that this person is likely real). In their case, they use tweeted reviews, but you can easily supplement this layout with something not using a Twitter feed Regardless of them coming from Twitter, this section gets a bunch of things right. One, there's a large number of reviews that can be seen at once thanks to the interest-styled layout. Secondly, the testimonials include photos and people/company names, making the reviews are that much more legitimate. When it comes to places to include testimonials on your website, I always recommend your homepage, service pages, and/or on a dedicated testimonial page that you include in your navigation. Each of these pages is the best touchpoint for people who are either learning about your company and considering buying. So long as they are genuine, testimonials will better your website's experience and build trust with your prospects before they become clients
4. Implement calls-to-action
Once your visitors land on your site (likely through the blog or home page), you need to guide them to places on your website that will help nurture them to conversion. People are lazy, so make this easy for them. Point them in the right direction so they don’t have to struggle to find what they are looking for. One of the best ways to improve your web design with this in mind to use strategically placed call-to-actions in areas such as the top right of your navigation, below sections that require action, and at the bottom of your website pages.
5. Use the right stock images
We always recommend using original photography on your website, but if that’s not an option, there are techniques you can use to help pick out the right type of stock photo. While stock photos save you the time of producing your own imagery, many websites have imagery that falls into cliche. You’ll also find a lot of other websites may be showcasing the same imagery, which certainly doesn’t help for your credibility. So, when choosing stock photos, try to stay away from these cheesy images. These are the photos of people high-fiving with over-exaggerated smiles, groups looking at the camera, executives in superhero costumes, groups of suited people jumping in the air When was the last time you saw people in these scenarios in real life? Look instead for photos that depict realistic scenes in well-lit environments. This could be people in an office talking over a meeting table in business casual clothing, over-the-shoulder shots of people typing on a laptop, people drawing on a whiteboard in an open room. These are the types of scenes others will start to recognize as legitimate. Look for candid images and ones in real-life settings rather than studios. This will aid in bringing more realism to your brand and making sure the images match who you are and what your content is explaining You can also check out this article for some awesome stock photo website suggestions if you find yourself struggling with getting more realistic photography on your website. Being more mindful with your photography will help better represent your brand and how you want others to perceive it.
6. Organized navigation
When designing your website, navigation is key. It's essentially the map that displays the core places users can visit. It's how users can easily dive deeper into areas such as your services, products, blog, etc. There's nothing worse than a site with a disorganized or confusing navigation interface. Poor design practices such as overstuffing your navigation, using vague or confusing hypertext, and lack or organization can make it hard for your visitors to find where they want to go If users cannot find what they're looking for, they have no reason to stay on your site. Instead, they will certainly bounce and find a competitor that offers a better user experience. In some cases, like in the image above, the menu item will even have a descriptive line to provide more context to the purpose of that page. The hover effect also makes it clear to the user that these are links that will result in them going to another page. With one click, users can get to these places with ease, so make sure you’re enacting a similar strategy (without overloading your navigation) Clean and specifically organized navigations like this let the user know that you want them to have an easy time moving around your website and that there's nothing to hide. As a result, your users are more likely to visit higher numbers of pages during their session, increasing their time spent on your website.
7. Let your visitors scroll on your homepage
There was a time where we were wary about making our website pages too long, especially your homepage. This was out of fear of users not scrolling, so it forced folks to try and cram what they could into the most common screen size people view their website with. But those days are long gone. In a 2018 study by the Nielsen Norman Group, 74% of the viewing time on a website page was spent in the first two screenfuls, up to 2160px horizontally. So there's no need to be afraid of creating a more robust below-the-fold experience. Use your homepage real estate to your advantage. For example, see the Website hosting company.
A good rule-of-thumb is to include three to five sections that help direct new and recurring users to the key areas of your site What should these sections be? This list could go on forever, but a quick hit-list of some of the more crucial elements includes: Value proposition Intro video Overview of services Product features About your company Testimonials Case studies/Success stories Content
8. Don't be afraid of white space
Whitespace is an essential design element that helps you break up the page and increase readability. Also called “negative space,” white space refers to the areas around elements on a page that are empty and lacking content or visual items Whitespace also plays an important role in the design process and positioning of website elements. While more whitespace can dictate what sections are separate and guide the eye, less whitespace can dictate which elements are supposed to be related to one another due to their proximity. This enables users to focus on each part of a website page piece by piece and instantly lets them know where each section begins and ends. This can do wonders for helping guide your user’s eye to important information such as a call-to-action or value proposition.
9. Mobile optimization is a must
But it’s more than just being responsive visually. It’s a necessity to tailor your site to fit the needs and wants of your visitors. Ask yourself, why would someone access my site on mobile? What things would they look for? Does my experience currently allow them to do those things easily? Using Chili’s website as an example, you can visibly see how the desktop and mobile websites are extremely similar. So when users go back and forth between the two for orders over time, there are similarities between the two that make using the website familiar They also make it easy to do the core thing on their website, ordering food. The button needed for this is always on-screen on the mobile website, so you can order whenever you're ready without having to go to an entirely different page.
10. Make pricing easy to find
Tell me if this situation sounds familiar to you You’re currently looking for a new SaaS product online to solve an issue you’re having. For this story, let's say a project management tool You’ve spent the past hour vetting a couple of pieces of software, and think you’ve finally found one that looks promising. With that in mind, you now try to find pricing So you click on the pricing page only to arrive at a page that looks something like this: At this point, you’re likely a little frustrated. You might even be wondering if this means it's too expensive. What are they trying to hide anyway? Why bother calling and asking? So now you decide to leave the site and look at the competitors. If your site follows a similar pattern, or worse, lacks a pricing page at all, you’re going to find your users following this same mindset With this in mind, let's look at a website that does make pricing stand out on their website. Trello makes it extremely easy for users to figure out what pricing tier they best fit into and what it will cost the user. The pricing table has the features included below each tier, so comparing each is as simple as reading left to right. The green buttons utilized in the last to tiers also help draw the eye to those being more desirable options. To get started on a great pricing strategy, take a look at these sure-fire tips to help guide you.
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