2013 is nearing its end and 2014 is just around the corner. We have a tendency to begin every New Year with something new. It can definitely be expected from a website designer to come up with a new website. So what are your plans to develop a new website? This blog post would put emphasis on some of basic tips which would help you to come up with a website which would be having high reach and conversion rate.
But before we even start off by giving the tips, let’s begin this post with some words of advice. Keep in mind fellow designers, the average time a visitor spends on every page is not more than 60 seconds. The main objective of your website should be all about conveying the message within 10 seconds or less. The math is simple. The higher the time the visitor is going to spend on the website, the better would be the conversion rate.
If you come up with a poor website, you are ought to lose your visitors. Thus coming up with a professional looking website becomes the necessity of the business. The following lines of blog post would be giving some tips and tricks which would be making your website target audience ready for the coming year or the next. Some of these tips are quite old but still effective in the present times.
8 Tips to Design Your Website for the coming year
1. Getting Wired and Getting Framed
Remember the times when we used to take math test back in our school days. We used to scribble down our calculations on a rough piece of paper, before even coming up with the right answers. The wire frame of a website does exactly the same.
The wire frame acts as the bare bones of the visual presentation which would be there in the website. It is the basic blueprint of the essential page layout structures which is going to populate the websites. These wire frames help both the web design agency as well as the clients with what to put or what not to put as well as the compatibility and synchronisations of every element which makes the whole website.
As a website designer you should be building your wire frames using grayscale boxes and blocks which can be used as place holders. Keep the things absolutely simple and try to avoid colours and textures. This will help your client to see the essential site elements without being distracted by the glitz of the websites.
2. Navigation Is The Key To Everything
The aspect of navigation plays a huge role which dictates that how far would be your visitors would be sticking to your website and how far they would be engaged in your creation. Be absolutely hygienic about developing the navigation of your site. The navigational elements should be clear, consistent and easily approachable for the user to give him the ideal experience.
Keep the navigation flexible enough to make changes for the future, in case there are any. Keep the navigation open for additional links and open pages.
3. Make Content the King
The last Penguin rule imposed by Google in April 2013 was devastating for many of the sites around the World Wide Web. One of the criteria of the rule has specifically focused on the provision of better quality, unique content for every site. So, a major amount of importance would have to be given for the creation of the content.
When placing the content in your site place the best content on the site which would direct the viewer’s attention. A content strategist can work best for placing the information in the right place on the site. Once they have finalised the way your content would be placed, you can now use your designer skills to come up with font types, colors and weights. Always try to couple your content with the best possible calls to action. And that brings us to our next point.
4. The Importance Of Calls To Action
The only active element which is going to generate the revenue for your site is the call-to-actions. Being a website design professional your main intent is to make the visitors take action on the site. It is your job to get them to watch a video, read a blog or a testimonial and finally to make a purchase from your site.
It becomes your responsibility to add a button or a hyperlink which will direct them to take the action on your site.
5. White Space rules!
The last few months have been quite revolutionary in the field of graphic designs. The use of white space has been seen to be prevalent in these times. Be it flat designs or minimalist approaches the use of white spaces have been extensively used in the recent times.
The recent trends of website designing go by the formula of ‘less is more!’ The white spaces in the website help in breaking the page and separating the crucial elements of website designs. A clever website designer would be judiciously implementing in headers and footers and between the images and the texts.
Don’t take the white space literally to be white. You can fill the spaces from any of the solid colours from your colour palettes. Stick to 2-3 colours and try to highlight the points which are most important to you. It will help in creation of cleaner designs and more user-friendly experience for your visitors.
6. Font it Up!
As website designers, it is your prerogative to know that 95% of the website is dependent on typography. The websites react differently with different browsers so does the fonts. So it becomes your responsibility to choose the fonts which are Web-Safe and acclimatise with different browsers. The subject of typography might seem to be miniscule, but it affects the visitors’ experience extensively. Take care of the letter spacing, word spacing, line height as well as the text alignment before even you are making your website live. The typographical hierarchy is definitely going to help the visitor with the visual narrative of the site.
7. Big images make a great Web site
Since the time when minimalism has got into vogue, big images have taken most part of the website design. Use images which can capture the attention of your visitor instantly. Build a unique feel to your website by adding some personal touch to these images and putting them in the background, the header as well as in the core theme of your website.
8. Social Network and Your Website
A popular website today is measured by its standing in the social network domain. It becomes mandatory for the site developers to work smoothly together for the promotion of the brand. So don’t forget to embed the social networking buttons for your website. The reaction from the social networking sites would be acting as the benchmark for your website. Place the buttons on the top, bottom, or the sides of the homepage, so your visitor can find easy access to it.
The above mentioned points are sure to give you a head start to design your website for the following. If you want to add some points which can spice up the website design process, you can always add it in the comment section. Best of Luck with your website designs!
