Begin researching how to design a website and you’ll find there are tons of tips out there. However, when it comes to the best advice for web design success, many of the suggestions for web designing are based on opinion rather than fact.
As an experienced web designer, I know how important it is for you to end up with a website that will promote your brand, attract your target market and facilitate long term business success.
I’ve put together the top 5 essential web designing tips based on proven evidence, every insider follows. These are solid steps, generated from reliable research data, you should use if you want to know how to design a contemporary website successfully.
Let’s take a look at my top 5 essential tips for successful web designing.
- Bespoke Website Design
Did you know, researchers at Stanford University found 75% of online users judge the credibility of a website by the quality of its website design?1 An amazing statistic – one to keep at the forefront of your mind as you embark upon your own web designing.
The visual appeal of your website will directly affect your ability to convert visitors into long-term customers and avoid the perils of a high bounce rate.
Don’t be swayed by trends, quick fixes or wild ideas. Find a proven, experienced web design company, such as the award-winning team at Web Design London and ensure your finished design is credible, professional and perfectly suited to your brand and target market.
2. Employ Hick’s law
When considering how to design a website, Hick’s law should play a central role. Hick’s law suggests the more options a customer is given, the harder it is for them to make a decision.
What does this mean for your web designing?
When designing a website, too many choices will reduce your conversion rate. Give your customers a limited number of options using these top tricks:
- Limit the number of menu options.
- Include less fields in forms.
- Keep calls to action clear, precise and easy to follow.
- Only display social buttons for accounts that are currently active.
- Stick to one objective for each page.
3. Prioritise site speed.
For any website user, speed is crucial. The speed of your website can add or detract from the value of your online presence in milliseconds.
Research conducted by teams at both Google and Bing confirm the significant role your web page loading times play in your success online. With delays of as much as ‘half a second’ impacting ‘business metrics’, it is critical you ensure your site speeds are a priority. 2
A slow-loading website will affect your bounce rates, conversion levels, user satisfaction and profits. Website visitors won’t stick around to wait for your pages to load, they’ll simply move on to one of your competitors.
Search engines also overlook sites with slow speeds because loading efficiency is one of the key factors in the allocation of search rankings.
Your website speeds should remain a long term priority and you’ll need to evaluate your site’s performance and page loading times on a regular basis.
4. Keep it simple
Let go of the idea simplicity does not equate with professionalism. When it comes to web designing the opposite is true.
Research carried out by Google shows users judge the simplicity of a web design within the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. Websites with complex designs are consistently judged as less attractive than those with simple designs.3
Avoid over-complicated web page designs. Keep your interface simple and easy to navigate with these top insider tricks:
- Ditch sidebars: Users find sidebars distracting. Choose a website theme with a single column design. Single column layouts allow the user’s focus to remain on the content of the page so sidebars are increasingly rare on modern UX web page designs.
- Familiar layouts: Your website visitors already have certain expectations about how your web page should be set out before they arrive. Ensure your users are not confused and turned off on arrival by an unexpected page layout.
Users like familiarity because it is easy. Keep your site simple and enjoyable to use by selecting standardised page layouts your users can navigate easily.
5. Swap clicks for scrolling
A joint study by Conversion Rate Experts and Crazy Egg found a carefully optimised page, 20 times longer than the original, increased the conversion rate by 30%.4
By making the time to address each of the user’s objections, instead of pushing them to click through to the next page quickly, the team were able to turn more website visitors into paying customers. As the joint research team highlight, ‘visitors want their questions answered’. 4
Don’t be tempted to opt for short content and miss valuable opportunities to fully address your user’s concerns. Swap clicks for scrolling and prevent your website visitors moving on before they are ready.
With these top 5 insider tips at the ready, you can ensure your web designing is based on proven research, rather than dubious gut instincts and subjective advice. Why dabble with opinion that may harm your long-term success online when there is plenty of solid research around?
