Every year, we come across different styles and elements in website design. Several of these elements are thoughtfully integrated in the designs, helping to tell stories and explain the mission or objective of your company. There are several other elements which help in improving the look of the content on other devices, helping in improving the visitor experience.
It is often challenging even for experienced web designers to determine the right element. Here are some of the most essential elements, which can help in improving the performance of your website.
Design for Users
Any modern website is designed for the user primarily and should not focus on increasing the website ranking solely. Often it is seen that companies in a bid to boost their rankings, do things which are for search engines and not for the users. But this shouldn’t be the lookout of the website. A website needs to be user-friendly first which ultimately helps its performance. Bringing in more traffic doesn’t help in the long-run if the users find it difficult to navigate or find the information which they are looking forward to.
Elements to Boost SEO
Smart SEO elements need to be considered which help in improving the SEO of the website. Though most of such efforts are invisible to the naked eye, these elements cannot be ignored. Specific design tricks like heading tags, title tags, meta tags and different HTML elements play a major role in helping a website rank higher in search engines. Designers should consider tweaking and optimising various elements which are relevant to the website and can improve the search engine results.
Typography Size
Usually companies have a unique typography or a font, which acts as their brand identity. The font shouldn’t be too large or too small, both of which can be quite inconvenient. Customers recognise the brand through the specific or unique typography and help to distinguish it from the competitors. In the recent times, web designers have a huge selection of fonts. Thus, designers now have greater choices to express themselves. Startups or new businesses having their website designed should consider typography because it indicates a lot about the company and its ability to connect with the visitors. However, when choosing a specific typography, designers should consider its applicability across different computers and browsers should be considered as well, to avoid awkward displays.
White Space
White space refers to ‘empty’ space in any webpage, which works quite like a buffer between the other elements of the page which includes margins and sidebar. All elements need to have sufficient space and shouldn’t look cluttered or forced into the different design of the website. If there is little or insufficient white space, the visitor gets distracted. Including sufficient white space ensures that the design is clean, the elements are nicely arranged and it is easily digested. A minimalist design is a trend in the current year, helping users to navigate their way through the page with great ease.
Call to Action
An important aspect for the survival of any business is its ability to convert visitors to customers. Websites help in connecting with people who choose to connect or are interested in your different products and services. As the connection is made, businesses should make all efforts to retain the relationship and bring in more visitors as well. Call to action is a way to lead the customers to their next step and play a crucial role in converting leads to customers. Small things which include free product forms, email subscription buttons, downloadable whitepapers and other invites are said to be smart call to actions. Including the right CTAs and at the optimal spaces of the websites help businesses to grow and increase their performance.
Optimising Speed
Speed is a crucial element of website designing and should never be ignored. In the present times, where digital devices have become an integral part of our lives, visitors are hasty and expect things to load quickly. Businesses need to ensure that visitors do not have to wait for a long time as the website loads. If any webpage takes a lot of time to load, visitors quickly move away to another site, often believing that something is wrong with the website. If this happens, it acts extremely negatively for the brand. Designers need to ensure that the website is completely optimised for speed.
Here are some elements which need to be considered:
- Optimise a photo, even if it is small
- Compression of files is done so that it can open quickly
- Minimise HTTP requests on Chrome’s Developer Tools.
- Select the right hosting option, no matter it is a dedicated server or a shared hosting or a VPS hosting service.
Experts recommend regular site updates and website maintenance to ensure all elements are functioning as they are supposed to. Though trends keep changing every year, design elements usually remain the same keeping in mind the latest innovation and design requirements.
Still having an outdated website design? Talk to our experts on how we can improve your website design and usability to boost your search engine ranking.
