WEB DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS

THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF A WEBSITE

MOST WEBSITES WON'T GET A SINGLE VISITOR

Yes, you read that right. In fact, 90% of websites will not get a single visitor through Google or Bing search engines. What does this mean?

This means the strategy “build it and they will come” does not work for web design and no matter how good your website looks, it won’t get you visitors and sales if it isn’t designed with search engine optimisation or SEO in mind. But don’t worry, we’re here to point you in the right direction.

 

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WEB DESIGN AGENCIES WON’T RANK YOU ON GOOGLE

Most web design agencies are not experts on getting your website found on Google. Their main job is to make your website look good and because of that they often forgo the vital ingredients and factors that rank your website on top of Google. 

You see, web design is just the first of many steps. Below, you will find the most important elements that you need to take into when designing or redesigning your website. They are the blueprints that ALL of the world’s largest companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple use to increase their website presence and searchability to grow their business online and it is what we at ShoutItOut use on every single one of our web design projects.

Website User Experience

Without getting into the technicals, know that Google’s job is to rank millions of websites based on how efficient they are in delivering the most relevant information to the people who search for them. 

This means if there are two websites in the same niche, the one that provides the most accurate content and the most efficient way to deliver it to their clients will generally rank higher. 

So ask yourself these questions whenever you are wondering why your competitors are ranking higher than you:

  • Does my website provide the information that my clients actively search for?
  • Does my website provide a better user experience than my competitors?
  • How efficient is my website in delivering the required information to my clients?
  • How trustworthy is my website in delivering and receiving information to my clients?

 

At the end of the day, user experience of a website ranks above all else when it goes to ranking your website on Google. We will delve into the elements that make a great user experience below.

 

Tips for Better User Experience

Less is More

When it comes to web design, less is often more. This means have plenty of white space on your website and  don’t overcrowd your website with busy elements and graphics that overwhelm your visitors. Always have only one purpose per webpage (if you can) to avoid inducing decision paralysis in your visitors.

 

Navigation

Make sure your pages are sorted out in categories that makes it easy for visitors to navigate. Avoid too many redirects as this will drastically increase loading time.

 

Content

Reason visitors click out of a website is if they do not find what they are looking for. To ensure clients stay on your page, avoid using clickbait titles and always have the most important information at the beginning of a webpage.

Furthermore, visitors only read on average about 20% of the text on a webpage by skimming so make sure you make pages easier to read by having plenty of headings and subheadings.

 

Design Consistency

By having consistent design elements such as the same font, size, colours and layout throughout your entire website, you establish your company as a consistent and credible source of information. Do not make your visitors leave your website by alienating and confusing them with inconsistent design. 

mobile friendly websites

MOBILE FRIENDLINESS AND RESPONSIVE DESIGN

People access your website on a plethora of devices such as mobile phones, desktop computers and laptops. In order to get the same user experience across all screens and devices, your website must be mobile responsive or mobile friendly.

Technically, a mobile responsive website is one that adapts and responds to the size of the screen they’re presented on to provide the same excellent user experience across all of them.

Mobile responsiveness is an important ranking factor on Google.

To check if your website is mobile responsive, visit Google’s mobile friendly test page.

website speed

Speed is one of the most important technical optimisations you can do for your website to have it ranking well.

A lot of websites look good but are often stuffed to the brim with graphics that take a huge amount of time to load. This is detrimental to overall user experience of your website and drags down your rankings.

Some easy to do but not overly technical things you can do to reduce the size of your webpages is to compress your include:

  • Keeping images to less than 100KB each using image compression such as Photoshop
  • Using CDN or purchasing a good quality hosting service within the same country as your clients will greatly speed up your website
  • Avoid page redirects if you can
  • Upgrading your PHP version can significantly improve our website speed


Extra Tip: Google has it’s very own pagespeed insights that you can check the speed of your website and make improvements.

quick loading fast websites
secure website with SSL can increase your SEO and website ranking

website security

As the world is faced with more and more online frauds and scams, security is paramount on websites and especially more so if you run an online shop. In fact, if you run an online store SSL is required for it to accept payment.

Without HTTPs and SSL security on your website your visitors will be notified that it’s insecure with a red padlock next to your website address. This may lead to your customers clicking out straight away, this increases the bounce rate of your website and in turn will lower your rankings.

It is no wonder that Google treats security as one of their algorithms when ranking a website.

The easiest way to increase the security of a website is with a  Secure Socket Layer or SSL certificate. You need to contact your hosting provider or website designer for a SSL certificate. ShoutItOut includes SSL in all our web designs.

SUMMARY

There you have it, the most important elements of great web design. To make a great website that ranks you on Google and get found by your ideal customers takes a lot of work. It brings together the best practices of usability, speed, mobile responsiveness and security.

Most business owners want a website but they do not ask why they want a website. Do you want a website that just looks good or do you want something that gets seen by their customers whenever they search for your services? Do you want a website that just sits there or do you want one that gets you leads and sales day in, day out without you leaving the bed?

If you want a high performing website that gets you leads and sales then it will take more work but ultimately provide a much much greater return on investment.

If you have a business and you’re not constantly getting new customers and leads through your website then you’re doing it wrong. 

Afterall, if you’re not getting business through your website, what’s the point of building one in the first place?

If you’re keen to learn more, please contact us for an obligation free consultation.

ShoutItOut is your #1 Web Design Agency for business GROWTH

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