5 surefire essentials for an amazing website design (& what not to do)
Today, we’re discussing what to look for in good website design (& bad design to avoid). We’re a creative design studio in Devon, specialising in standout branding and website design for brands in the homes, gardens and interiors space, such as garden designers, interior designers and interior architects. This is part 1 of 2 in a mini-series on good versus bad website design, showing you what to look out for and what to avoid when it comes to commissioning your new website or auditing your current website design.
In this first installment, we focus on the framework that allows for good website design (moving onto the design elements in the follow-up blog), which was inspired by a suggestion by Nick, who’s one of our Studio Email subscribers:
How do I make my website look super cool - anything on this would be great (examples of bad design vs. good design). I think so much of the effectiveness of a site is on its look and feel rather than what it says.
In part 2, we look at the visuals of good and bad website design, including elements such as photography, graphics and fonts, among other things.
Here’s what we’ll be covering in good vs. bad website design:
Make it clear what you do & how you help
Answer the questions people are asking
Create a strong user journey
Allow people to place themselves within your site
Pacing on product-based websites or e-commerce
Be clear
Website navigation & menu structure
The importance of your about page
Your contact page for action
1. Your website design should make it clear what you do & how you help
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: website visitors have short attention spans, so you need to make it clear and quickly what you do on your website. Here’s ours:
Wildings is a creative branding & website design studio in Devon, UK offering branding and website design to small businesses. We create magical brands that your ideal customers rave about; and leave you feeling empowered and inspired. Our approach blends both style and substance, helping you go beyond your wildest expectations.
Ideally, you should to this in the first few seconds of a visitor’s visit by incorporating a short, succinct summary ‘above the fold’ when your website first loads.
Note that on our site, we include a full width video before the text to emphasis our brand style and personality. Read more on ‘what is above the fold in web design?’ by OptinMonster.
This gives your visitor the green light to carry on exploring your site, otherwise you’ll get what’s called a bounce, which is when someone navigates straight back to Google without surfing any further pages or click on your links. Read more on ‘what is a bounce?’ by Semrush.
The second part of the equation is equally as important - don’t make the classic mistake of simply listing what you do; develop it into what you do for them; i.e., the problems you solve or the impact of what you do.
If you take our example above, we are careful to highlight that we want people to feel empowered and inspired through our website designs. Not sitting there with a site wondering what to do.
2. Answer the questions people are asking with your website design
Good website design also starts by taking a step back before plunging into the design, which is why we always start with strategy and planning in our web design projects.
In the same way that your potential customers go to a Google search with a question (looking for it to point you to an answer), when they arrive on your site there is the expectation that you will fulfil that need.
To meet visitors’ needs you need to have considered what are the questions that your ideal customers are asking.
Some of these questions may be high level or not fully developed, such as: ‘I need someone to help me design or refresh my website’. Beyond that, there may not be much more, giving you the opportunity to guide and educate your visitors.
By making clear ‘the what & how’ from point above (which ensures your visitors know they are in the right place), you can then go into further details. When a visitor clicks through from your homepage to a website design page, for example, you can then explain more about features, functionality and your approach to projects.
3. Use your website design to create a strong user journey
Establishing a good, clear user journey for your visitors is a critical part of good website design, and again is something that happens in the planning stages of a project.
When we say user journey, we mean the way in which people move around your website and how it is structured to enable people to do that quickly and easily. This can be influenced by things like the navigation and page structure which we’ll cover next time in part two.
A good user journey has two benefits:
It helps you inform people if they are exploring their problem and
Paces them through your site, ensuring you don’t overload or overwhelm them
In marketing terms, when it comes to making a purchase, people go through stages, so they are not necessarily always in a position to buy there and then.
An easy way to think about it is:
Aware → Informed → Motivated
Trying to force or manipulate someone to go from the first to the last stage is likely to result in frustration or rejection. Equally, presenting too much information or detail at once in the hope that it will tip the balance to a sale is not a good tactic.
A good user journey allows your users to interact and move around on their own terms; you simply provide helpful handrails to enable them to do that.
Read more from our blog: Why your customer's journey on your website matters & how to influence it
4. Allow people to place themselves within your website design
Trust is such a key part of selling or at least prompting further engagement, particularly if you are a services-based business (we’ll talk about product-based businesses below).
Good website design will induce a strong sense of trust in your potential customers, particularly by helping them see or place themselves within your site.
Some of this is by covering the problems or pain points that visitors are facing; some of it is by talking about the positive emotions experienced through a great outcome. Fantastic brand photography is a great factor too, which we’ll cover next time.
Overall, you could say it’s about ‘putting yourself in your customer’s shoes’, but going one step further and allowing a customer to recognise their shoes on your site and remark at how good a fit they are!
It’s about conveying a sense of empathy and taking that a step further to show how you can solve those problems.
Pacing on product-based websites or e-commerce
If you’ve got an online shop, the process is quite different.
When we buy online we want quick wins, so the journey is not so nuanced as with bigger-ticket services.
Being able to get to a product from your homepage and then to check-out is critical, so burying products deep your site, requiring multiple click or taps is a big error.
The experience is all about getting your wares front and centre and showing them off.
5. Be clear with your website design
If you’ve got all the elements above in place, you’ll be in a great place to bring laser clarity to the design of your website. When you don’t have clarity through website design you introduce uncertainty.
And when a website visitor experiences uncertainty, even if it is underlying and not necessarily totally obvious, it will detract from the experience and decrease the results that you want.
Uncertainty can also be evident through friction, so how easy nor not it is to achieve certain tasks through the site.
Three areas that provide a good solid framework for clarity are:
The navigation
The about page
The contact page
Website navigation & menu structure
A clear navigation and menu structure allows your website visitors to see everything at a glance, as well as remind them that they are in the right place (i.e., that you offer what they need). People often land on your site in unexpected places, so being able to orientate themselves is crucial.
The importance of your about page
Believe it or not, your about page is one of the most popular pages on your site. This is because people want to know the humans behind the brand or perhaps whether you are local or not. People buy from people and this is a great page to use to build trust.
Your contact page for action
Your contact page is one of the last pages visitors will see before taking action or leaving. It should come at the end of the process from awareness to motivation, allowing your website visitors to make that last, crucial step of getting in touch, acting on the impulses you’ve stoked.
Equally, you can use it to continue the process of informing future customers, by encouraging them to sign up to your newsletter or explore your FAQs to take care of any further niggles.
Additional considerations for amazing website design
A visually appealing and well-designed website is crucial for attracting and retaining online visitors. In addition to this, we’ve added some additional considerations that reinforce the aesthetics of amazing website design with a sound approach to search engine optimization (SEO), which will ensure maximum visibility and organic traffic.
Intuitive navigation
A well-designed website should also contain an intuitive navigation system. Your visitors should be able to find what they're looking for effortlessly - speed and efficiency enhances a customer’s user experience. Ensure your website has a clear and well organised page structure that uses logical categories (and subcategories where necessary).
Drop-down menus in the header navigation and breadcrumbs* help your visitors understand where they are on your site. This is important, as it means they can move backwards easily, if they can’t find what they want, rather than getting frustrated and clicking away. their location within the site. Alongside the navigation and breadcrumbs, consider the use of a well-placed search bar. Again, if a visitor is repeatedly unable to find someone, a search box is a last-ditch opportunity to hunt down what they want - it aids the navigation and assists users in finding specific content quickly when other options have failed.
* Breadcrumbs = text usually found at the top of a page that specifies which page you’re on currently and is common in online shops
Responsive design
This might sound like sucking eggs, but you’d be surprised at how many websites don’t respond automatically to the device on which they’re being viewed. We’re now firmly in a mobile-first era, so Google takes into consider responsive design when it ranks websites in search engine results. Responsive design is basically no longer an option - it's non-negotiable.
In essence, a responsive website adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes, ensuring your visitor gets a good browsing experience regardless of the device. Without it, you leave users squinting at and pinching their screen, which will drive people to abandon your site through frustration.
In addition to being a user experience consideration, mobile-friendliness is also a critical ranking factor for search engine results. Use it in the design of your website to improve your website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), to drive increased organic traffic. (Note, this takes time and is not an overnight fix.)
Engaging & high-quality visuals
Your website visitors are more engaged by visual content, so use imagery and visual designs to deliver a captivating user experience. Incorporate high-quality images, videos and branded graphics relevant to your content. This will enhance engagement on your pages and make your website more visually appealing.
That said, don’t fall into the common trap of loaded up your site with massive images of 1, 5 or 10+MB. It absolutely essential to optimise any images you upload so that they feed into your SEO. In overview, use descriptive filenames, craft alt tags and add relevant captions wherever possible. These small elements provide search engines with context; improve the discoverability of your content through image searches; plus ensure your content is accessible
So that should get you going with as you looking out for good website design and bad design to avoid. Plus check out part 2, in which we’ll give examples of visual designs that reinforce these areas. If you’d like to learn more from us on website design or get visual inspiration, follow @wildings.studio on Instagram or read more of our blogs on website design below.
