I’ve been working in the web design industry for nearly 15 years and I love it. The best part of my job is helping people make their business websites as successful as possible, whether they’re looking to build a new website or just update their current one. But there’s one thing that keeps popping up: how do we make our businesses look appealing? It can be hard to find an answer when everyone has different ideas about what looks good on a website. However, if you follow these simple rules for designing your own site it will help ensure that visitors will navigate through it quickly and easily – which means more sales!
Assume nothing about your audience.
When you’re building a website, it’s important to assume nothing about your audience. Don’t assume that your audience is male or female, local or international and young or old—and don’t even bother with the idea of what their level of education is or how much money they make.
Instead, start from scratch with a blank slate and think like an engineer: What problem do I have? How can I solve this problem in a new way? Then look at all the options available to solve it (e.g., social media) and choose one that makes sense for your business goals and objectives.
Skip the jargon.
We all know that using jargon, acronyms and industry-specific language can make your content harder to read. But do you really need it? If you’re going to go down this route, at least ensure that your audience will understand what you’re talking about. If they don’t get it immediately then they’ll be distracted by the extra words and would rather not bother reading on because they don’t understand what’s being said anyway.
Make sure your website is accessible to all user groups.
To make sure your website is accessible to all user groups, you need to:
- Include alt text for images
- Use semantic HTML (html5)
- Make sure your website is mobile friendly and responsive design.
If you have a responsive design, then it should work on all devices including tablets, smartphones and laptops. The best way of knowing if a site has been built properly is by keeping track of its SEO performance over time. A good rule of thumb here is that if your site doesn’t rank well in Google search results or other directories like Yahoo!, Bing etc., then there’s something wrong with the SEO strategy behind it!
Use testimonials from clients to promote your business.
Testimonials are a great way to show off your work and attract more business. They can be in the form of video or text, but they should be short and sweet.
Your testimonials should be genuine, so make sure that you only use people who have actually used your services before! If you’re not 100% confident that their experience was positive enough for them to write about it on the internet (and if so why would anyone else care?), then maybe consider asking one of their friends or colleagues instead—they might have something much better than you do!
Put your website to work for you with forms.
Forms are a great way to collect information from your customers. They can be used to gather information about their name, email address and more.
Forms also allow you to collect information about your business. For example, if you have a location that isn’t immediately visible on the main page of your website, then it’s probably worth adding this into the form itself so that visitors will know where they’re going before submitting their information (and making sure their submission goes through).
Focus on your business goals and audience rather than design.
The first thing to remember is that design is not your most important goal. It’s just one of the many things you need to focus on when building a website.
It doesn’t matter if your site looks great or not if it doesn’t help with getting business, so don’t worry about how it looks at first and instead work on what matters: finding the right audience and getting their attention.
Use white space effectively.
White space is the empty space between elements on a web page. It can be used to create hierarchy, visual cues and guide the user through your website.
A good way to use white space effectively is by creating gaps or areas where there isn’t much information (like on sidebars). This will help you create an eye-catching design that’s also easy to navigate through!
Utilise the hamburger menu for less clutter.
The hamburger menu is a good way to hide dropdown menus. You can use this method to reduce clutter on your website and make it mobile friendly at the same time.
- It’s easy for your audience to find what they are looking for when there is less clutter, so adding this will make things much easier for them.
- If you want to keep your site mobile friendly, then the hamburger menu is one of the best ways for doing so!
Groups similar items together so they are easy to find and use.
Grouping items together is a great way to improve the usability of your website. For example, if you have a lot of categories and sub-categories on your site, it’s easy for users to get lost in the sea of links.
To solve this problem, consider grouping related products together so they are easier to find and use:
Take the time to think about how best to display information on your site so that it is easily digestible by your audience and in turn helps increase conversion rates, sales and revenue of a business
- Take the time to think about how best to display information on your site so that it is easily digestible by your audience and in turn helps increase conversion rates, sales and revenue of a business.
- Use testimonials from clients as a way to promote yourself as an expert in your field.
- Consider using forms on your website for free downloads of brochures or white papers. This will help you save money while building trust with customers who may not be ready yet for paying full price for services at the moment but are interested enough in what they see online before making any decisions about hiring someone like yourself.*
Conclusion
We hope this post has given you some insight into how to build a beautifully designed business website. We know that it can be difficult and time consuming, but we think the results are well worth it!
