5 Principles of Good Website Design

The success of a business website is all in its design, that is why it is important to cover the basic principles. Every element on your website plays a role in your client’s journey and it may be the very first thing they see related to your company. That is why websites have become our company’s online face and good website design is what makes your first impression count. 

To talk about the principles of website design means to take a look at everything that makes a website work. To begin, we will ask ourselves, “what does the client want when they land on our website?” They want answers or content, something your brand supplies. To send them on a successful journey, it takes many different fields of expertise and it starts with the principles. 

Keep it simple. 

Even the craziest websites that are successful limit the number of elements on a page. Why? 
Too many things to do distract your client which can cause frustration and increase bounce rate. Practising simplicity will also make your website look better and aid in navigation. With fewer elements that stand out, your client will know exactly where they want to go. 

We will make use of logical page hierarchy, breadcrumbs and familiar symbols like the hamburger menu icon you can see at the top right of this page. 

Design for mobile first. 

More and more business websites are searched for on mobile instead of desktop. This means that most of your clients will look for you on different screen sizes, so if your website does is not designed for mobile, your clients are likely to leave and seek an alternative solution. 

Colour speaks. 

The perfect colours compliment the brand and attract clients. It plays a role in how your business website feels and removes distractions from your client’s journey. Use complementary colours to create balance and harmony with the different elements on your website. Remember to keep those colours in mind when working with pictures too and don’t be afraid of white space. 

Communicate clearly. 

Your website can look pretty but, the information you want to give must be clear and easy to read. Use effective fonts and colours that stand out against the background. Remember that clients are more likely to scan information to put what’s most important at the top and along the left border of the text. To find out more about making text effective for your business website, read our article about kerning and tracking. 

Search engines also love to read, and it takes careful use of keywords and other search engine optimizing (SEO) elements to make the page readable to people and rank on Google search. 

Faster load time. 

Nobody likes to wait for websites to load and your clients will expect your business website to be fast. In fact, they probably don’t want to wait for any longer than 2 seconds. How do we do this? Combine code into a central CSS or JavaScript file and compress images and code to be more efficient. Your SEO rankings will like this too. 

Combine these principles for your business website with Web2Web. 

Creating an effective website design that is both attractive and brand-sensitive can take a team of professionals with a wide range of expertise. That is exactly the kind of team you will find at Web2Web. We design and develop websites in an elegant, easy to use manner that will guide visitors into becoming customers. Speak to us today if you want your website to move to the next level.