With the look and feel of websites becoming more and more valued in the digital space, it can be easy to overlook the importance of quality content that engages your audience and drives traffic to your website. When developing your website, it’s important to think about the ways in which the overall design can enhance your content and make it a valuable asset to your online presence. Here we look at a few things to keep in mind when developing your website or online shop.
K.I.S.S.
Have you ever hear of the acronym – KISS – “Keep it simple, stupid”? It’s a design principle conceived by the U.S. Navy in the sixties which is highly relevant today, especially when it comes to web design. This principle is based on the premise that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated.
When engaging with things online, people tend to adopt a simple scan and click mode that doesn’t allow for huge amounts of text to be processed by the user. Therefore, when designing your website, you should think about the ways you can minimise large chunks of text or information, breaking them down into palatable portions that can be easily digested. Where possible bring your information to life with images that helps to convey your message.
User-friendly navigation
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to navigate through a website that doesn’t seem to follow a logical progression of information. When designing your website or working through your wire-frames, be sure to think about people’s expectations of where key elements of the page should be and consider the paths they will be likely to take to arrive at their desired destination of your website. By obtaining a custom web design for your website rather than a standardised template design you can ensure that your navigation and layout suits the actions and pathways you expect users to follow on your website.
Use call to actions and banners effectively
Common complaints about poor website design include that it isn’t immediately apparent to the user what products or services are being offered and that it isn’t obvious how to actually obtain these products and services via the site. Using banners and call to action buttons that are displayed prominently and clearly on your homepage and link to your most important subpages will help to set the context for audiences and direct them to the information they are looking for.
Focus on great content
Don’t let the pursuit of SEO stand in the way of great content. While using the right keywords and making sure your website contains fresh content when possible is important, you need to ensure that you focus on creating content relevant to your audiences. Great content will be shared around and help to build a network of referring links, one of the key drivers of SEO. When designing your website, make sure you plan how you can best develop and maintain a great stream of content that’s well publicised on your site.
If you are looking for a web design team who will deliver a cutting edge web design that is customised for your business and industry – AWD are just a phone call away on 1300 855 651.