Web Design Elements: a few simple tips to help improve your site design

Sometimes a website can be let down with a few minor issues, that can sometimes spoil all the other hard work that’s gone into your design.

Here are a few tips to consider;

1. Design

Create a professional logo design and place at the header and footer.  A site can also gel together if there is a feature/characteristic  in the logo that can be reinforced or propagated  throughout other parts of the site design. For example, use the logo or icon shape for  bullet points .

There are a plethora of web fonts and replacement fonts that can add that creative touch to your site; rounded, square etc. Try and use Font styles that fit in with your brand and overall theme. For example if you’re a creative type business, using a stylised font will harmonise better.  Most importantly, ensure that your font can be read across multiple browsers.

2. Composition

Give you website some breathing space.  Allow for white space in between images and text.  Don’t think that you have to fill in every area of space on your page. Less is often more…

You need to think about how you are going to persuade customers to buy your services or products.  I recommend designing landing pages for specific actions. These will help convert customers from say paid advertising channels like Google adwords, and help to minimise cost per conversion.

3. Usability

Navigation is important – it must be intuitive. As well as top bar navigation, consider using  secondary navigation on other pages on the left hand side. This is convention and works well.

Don’t overcrowd your pages with conflicting call to actions. Less clutter is better for the user experience and they are more likely to convert to a sale. Be aware of the fold and avoid pushing your content and call to actions down the page out of reach of the customers view.

Using full width sliders for the home page is probably not advisable. A two thirds width slider can be better allowing space for other important attributes like a contact form.

Make use of buttons in your banners and pages, and make them dynamic if you an with colour change on hover.

4. Conversions

When writing the brief for your web design, don’t forget if you’re going to be using Google adwords or Facebook ads to drive visitors, include the design for landing pages that will help you website convert your visitors to paying customers.