Visual Website Design (AKA “Prettiness”) Imagine a scenario for a moment. You’re looking for a gift for your sister’s birthday. You notice a tweet by someone you follow sharing their friend’s new clothing shop. You click. Then you see this. ugly-website-design-1024x533-2Haha, nope. You’re gone. Is this an extreme example? Yes. Does website design still matter a whole heck of a lot? Yup.
Am I going to tell you what you should do to make your site look great? You betcha. You see, visuals affect everything from conversion rate to time on page, trustworthiness, and organic backlinks (which help you rank your site on Google.) So the equation looks like this: Great site design = More trust = Better conversions Great site design = More trust = More conversions.CLICK TO TWEET How do you make your site look great? Start with your brand. Branding Through Site Design Your brand is your image. Everything from the colors you use to the fonts you choose affects people’s perception of who you are. In her guide to branding, Sonia Gregory says that “as a small business, you may be competing against big brands with devoted customers. That’s why you have to find ways to differentiate–with a solid brand building process of your own.”
What do you want people to think when they see your site? Edgy, modern, satirical, professional, something else? You can convey those things through your design. Just take a look at the psychology of color – different colors convey different emotions. In fact, a study titled “Impact of color on marketing” found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone, depending on the product. Beyond color, you also have font choice. And yes, there is a psychology behind font choice as well. Ted Hunt from Crazy Egg made this cool infographic about it: Psychology behind font choice Regardless of the font you choose for your logo and branding efforts, you should always choose readability over emotional feel for your main body font. Typically that means sans serif fonts, as they read the best on the web. One last tip on font choice: Don’t use more than two fonts in your design. Pick two that compliment each other and stick with those for your entire brand.
Key Takeaway: Choose no more than three colors and two fonts to represent your brand. Write down the fonts and color codes and use them consistently across your entire site and marketing efforts. Finding, Designing, and Using Images Imagery is a major part of website design. And yet so many people do it wrong. Great images add value to the visitor. They help explain a key point and give the eyes a break. They even help sell your products and services. For example, if you’re an eCommerce site, you want your product photos to be high-quality and show tons of different angles.
InternetWhich of these flowers would you rather buy? Website imagery (Source) If you even saw the image on the right, you’d probably leave and never come back. The middle image is better, but still not great. The one on the left makes you trust the website. Just be careful, because bad images actually reduce readership. Remember design principle #1: Great design has a purpose in mind. Any image that doesn’t have a purpose is a bad image. Period. If you needed more incentive, page load speed (which I discuss in section two), is extremely important to SEO and usability. Having too many big images slows your site down.
So, how do you find, design, and use images on your website? We wrote about some tools to make great images in this post. Go check it out. But to give you some inspiration, here are a few examples of good images you can use: Charts and graphs of data points Screenshots High-quality stock photography (choose wisely) Custom designs and vector graphics Professional (or at least well-done) photography Key Takeaway: Use images, but do so with a purpose in mind. 3 Examples of Beautiful Websites Knowing what makes a good website is easier when you see real-life examples.
Here are a few I love: KlientBoost is completely devoted to amazing website design. Their site oozes beautiful visuals. Klientboost Website Design CoSchedule is a site I look up to as well. Their whole site is based on great formatting and consistent branding. CoSchedule design example Expedia: Visit Britain received a developer award for its design. expedia-great-britain You can also see more examples that actually won awards for great design at Awwwards and Webby Awards. (Note: I also give a list of website templates with great visuals in the next section on responsive design, in case you’re like me and can’t code.) Enough about visuals. Let’s get a little geekier.
Technical Website Design (AKA “Geeky Stuff”) Technical web design includes things like: Responsive design and mobile-friendliness Fast load speeds Search engine optimization (SEO) SSL encryption Site architecture & navigation If any of these things made you say “What?”, don’t worry. I’ll explain them all in laymen’s terms. Responsive Design and Mobile-Friendliness
There are also a variety of additional features you can pay for to better understand what users are doing when they visit your site. These include Ad Manager, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360 and Campaign Manager 360. Furthermore, Analytics 360 includes customizable funnel reporting and access to advanced data and data-driven models. Test for bugs and compatibility issues Before launching your site, it’s important to test it for any potential bugs or compatibility issues. To get started, log out of your website (user experience can vary when you’re logged in) and test all of the links on your site. Make sure all buttons and image links work properly. You’ll also want to test videos, contact forms, the navigation menu and other apps to ensure they’re functioning correctly. Lastly, you’ll want to test compatibility and responsiveness from various devices (phones, tablets, large-screen monitors, etc.). You should also view your site in different web browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera) to ensure there are no compatibility issues. A QA tester can help ensure a full QA of your website and address and fix any bugs or compatibility problems.
Adapt to keep up with customers Once you’ve launched your new website, congratulate yourself! This is a major accomplishment that will bring you closer to achieving your business goals. Since digital media is at our fingertips, it’s important to keep your site current and updated. At this point in the website development process, it’s time to take another look at key metrics. Are there certain keywords that bring in traffic? In this case, writing a blog post with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind can help you continue to target your audience. Alternatively, you might have more projects to add to your portfolio. For example, you might have just taken wonderful wedding photos as a photographer—of course, you’ll want to add new pages to your website. Ultimately, updating your website regularly will help keep your content fresh and increase organic traffic. Build your website with the world’s best Creating a website that you can be proud of is important for any business. Websites attract new customers, bring in new readers and subscribers, and can help further legitimize brands and simplify the sales process.
Build your brand’s new website quickly and effectively by recruiting the world’s best web designers, writers and developers. Let connect you with top talent across the world to build your website right the first time. Whether you are a freelance photographer, own a hardware store, or have another type of small business, a great website is essential for your company’s success. As a webmaster who has worked on building or marketing over 100 small business websites, I know what it takes to create great and engaging business websites. If you are looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective, here are 10 key steps to getting started and helping your small business website compete effectively in the online marketplace. Looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective
Obtain a good domain name Your domain name, also known as your website address, is often the entry point to your site. It is important that it makes a good impression for usability purposes, as well as for search engine optimization (SEO). Here are some tips for coming up with an optimal domain name: Make it easy to spell. Try not to use slang, made up, or extremely esoteric words. Keep it as short as possible. The shorter it is, the easier it is to remember and type correctly. Use the proper domain extension. Try to always make it a .com domain name (as opposed to .net, .co, etc.) unless it is more appropriate to use another extension, such as .gov, .edu, or .org. Avoid numbers and hyphens. They are hard to remember and less elegant and memorable than word-only domain names, and may be misunderstood when vocalizing the domain name.
InternetMake the address broad to facilitate future growth. For example, Amazon.com is a much broader website address than BooksOnline.com and allows Amazon to sell pretty much every type of consumer good instead of books only, as was its original purpose. Ensure it is memorable. With so many websites on the internet, it is important that your website name is catchy so people will remember how to access it in the future. Research the domain name. Google it to see if a similar website address already exists online, and search on USPTO.gov to make sure it does not contain any registered trademarks. Check if the price is right. Determine if you can purchase your desired website address at a reasonable price since most good domain names are taken and will need to be bought from the current owner. Avoid nonsensical names. Choose a name that conveys a meaning so that users will know immediately what your business is. Yahoo and Google are catchy names, but they were very expensive to brand, and your small business may not have the same budget. Create an SEO-friendly URL. When appropriate, try to come up with an SEO-friendly website address that includes keywords and geo-location; for example, “www.LasVegasElectrician.com.” Purchase secure, scalable website hosting with good tech support A website host (or sometimes referred to as a website hosting provider) is a company that offers the technology and services necessary for a website to be viewed on the internet. You connect your domain name to your hosting provider so that when users visit your website address, they are shown your website that you store on your hosting account.
Hosting services can cost anywhere between $2 to $100+ per month, depending on the kind of technology and support you choose. You can usually get a discount if you purchase a yearly plan as opposed to a monthly plan. Here are some guidelines for choosing a good website hosting plan: Although you can get a “shared server” hosting plan for as little as $2 per month, I would typically advise against this. Shared hosting means you are sharing a server and its resources with other customers, which can make the performance of your site suffer. Also, if one of the other websites on your shared server is hacked, it is possible for your website to also be infected. A “dedicated server” hosting plan is the most expensive option—cost can range from around $100 to $2,000 per month—but it would make your website perform the most optimally. Having a dedicated server plan means that the physical server machine is entirely dedicated to your site; therefore, all the resources are yours and it is more secure than a shared hosting plan, as long as the technology is optimal. However, it is much more expensive than what most small businesses usually are willing to pay. Once you have a very high-performing site, this may be what you need, but it is overkill for most early stage and small businesses.
The compromise I typically recommend is a “virtual private server” (VPS) hosting plan which offers the best of both worlds. The cost ranges from around $20 to $50 per month, which is affordable for the hosting services you will receive. A VPS is one machine that is partitioned to act as multiple machines, which gives it a similar affordability to shared hosting, with similar security and performance potential as a dedicated server hosting plan. Make sure your hosting company has phone and/or chat support so you can be helped quickly if you have a problem. Email support can often take too long and become frustrating when a problem needs to be resolved immediately. Phone support is best, but chatting works well, too. There needs to be an easy to use server interface like cPanel to access your server. You do not want to have to use terminal commands to view your server contents and make changes, unless you can afford to hire a professional server administrator to help you. Check to see what kind of server security is in place on the server you are considering. You will want to be able to access your server via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). There should be daily backups being made of your server contents. There should also be an easy, one or two-click method to install Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. Make sure the hosting company performs regular security maintenance. Ideally your hosting company has a published security protocol you can review so you know how they keep their servers safe. Some popular website hosting companies include:
GoDaddy DreamHost Bluehost InMotion SiteGround Prominently display a clear description of your business It is important to let people know who you are and what you do right away so they don’t feel confused when they visit your small business website. Make sure your main homepage banner (also known as a “hero image”) and subsequent banners are visual representations of your services, and also that you have an introductory text blurb near the top of the page that describes who you are and what you do. Additionally, make sure both your main and footer navigation menus have "About Us" page links easily accessible so people can click them and read more about your business in depth. Implement the best content management system A content management system (CMS) is a software program or application that is used to create and manage digital content. A good CMS will help you maintain your site, and you don’t need much technical knowledge to use it. You should choose a CMS that is designed for your unique needs; different systems are used for different reasons, such as user-friendliness, extensibility, and budget.
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