A Guide to Good Website Design: 8 Key Principles
When it comes to creating an eye-catching and informative website, more thought goes into its planning and design than you might think at first glance. There are some key components every great website has, which is why Ravyn Design, one of Toronto’s leading website design companies agencies has collected everything you need to know here!
1. Be Consistent
When it comes to maintaining a great website, as well as a strong brand reputation, consistency is a must. Creating consistent designs means that your logo, color, and other branding aspects are the same not only on your website but across all channels, whether it be social media platforms or email marketing campaigns. Doing so will help develop your brand’s credibility in addition to building trust among current and potential clients. Also, using the same color and logos across the board will boost brand recognition.
2. Keep it Simple
One of the best ways to make certain your website design is user-friendly and informative is to keep it simple and uncluttered. This means having a design that’s easy to read and navigate. This doesn’t mean you have to go overboard and be completely minimalist, but make sure that when adding elements to your site, they also add value. Search engines favor websites that are informative and offer the best user experience.
3. Make it Mobile Friendly & Responsive
These days, more than half of the traffic online to your website will come from mobile devices, so it needs to be designed with this functionality in mind. It needs to be responsive to mobile search and other wireless devices, like tablets. Having a site that can determine the device a user has, then adjust its settings to be easy to navigate on that device will have the best rankings.
4. Readability & Typography
People aren’t going to want to continue on your website if it doesn’t look very appealing to read, they’ll likely go looking for a more modern or well-designed website, so readability and the typography you employ are essential to keep users engaged. Choosing standard fonts that are easy to read and also further your brand’s vision is important. Avoid flashy fonts that are complicated and vary your font size or bold certain sections to create a contrast and let users know what information is the most important.
5. Imagery & Color Palette
Sometimes the right picture or color can tell a whole story in itself, so adding the proper colors and images to your site can make it truly resonate with customers. However, here a good rule of thumb is to keep it simple. When selecting images or taking photos, keep them clear and professional and ensure they reflect your brand’s vision, products, or services. Additionally, when selecting colors for branding purposes and to include on your website, don’t go overboard; choosing 3-5 is often recommended by most website design and development companies and branding agencies.
6. Communication is Key
Just like consistency, communication is another must-have when it comes to your website. Any web design company will tell you that you need to develop a site that will lead potential clients through your pages and make it easy to communicate with you, make a purchase, or ask for a quote. Remember communication goes both ways, so you should make the message you’re trying to communicate easy to understand, as well as provide your customers with a straightforward way to contact you. Again, all of the things we mentioned above can be used in tandem to strengthen and simplify your message, everything from the colors you choose to the font you use.
7. Simple Navigation
As briefly mentioned above, the navigation on your site should be simple and make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for without having to dig for info. Also, if using a website design company, make certain they have a sitemap to work with that’s logical and user-friendly. For example, you should have a homepage and then various service pages that branch out and explain what you do, as well as a clear “Contact Us” button or “Call-to-Action” on every landing page. Always keep navigation structured on your website by implementing a sidebar, menu, or navigation bar.
8. Optimize Your Site for Speed
These days, it’s the fastest loading sites for both mobile and desktop that rise to the top of the rankings, so make sure you optimize your site and run speed tests regularly. You can increase the speed of your website by eliminating images that take too long to load and cleaning up the back end of your site.
Contact our Toronto website design and development company today!
If you want a great website, Ravyn Design can create one for your luxury brand in Toronto. We also specialize in digital marketing solutions, logo design, branding for startups, and more. Contact us today to schedule a discovery call or email hello@ravyn.io.
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