6 Website Design Tips For Your Next Website Redesign

Change is the only constant in life. Given that, website design and marketing are no different. Web design seems to change on a yearly basis, constantly changing with new trends and fads.

Creating a website that will make a professional impression is a key to success in today’s internet savvy world.

Customers are constantly searching for professional brands, according to Hubspot 81% of shoppers conduct an online search prior to making a big purchase.

Whether consumers are searching for a new sofa or a new dentist, the website that they land on, and ultimately purchase from, has to be professional.

No one trusts a company with a bad website. After all, when you go in for an interview don’t you want to look your best?

If you are just starting out or if you are a professional looking to rebrand and build an online presence here are six crucial web design tips to keep in mind:

Make it Mobile

According to Google, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the United States.

With all of this mobile searching going on it is important that your website is designed for the mobile user. Especially because, according to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile website they had trouble accessing and 40% will visit a competitor’s website instead.

That is INSANE!

If you are not optimizing your website for the mobile user your competition is going to crush you.

When we say “optimize for the mobile user” what do we mean? We mean making sure that if a visitor comes to your website from a desktop computer, mobile phone, or tablet, they have a seamless experience across devices.

The website should look and feel almost identical to each other across devices. Our friends at Hubspot have a great definition of what responsive website design is:

“Responsive website design is the method of designing web pages that automatically appear in their optimized form on all devices. In other words, responsive design automatically reformats your website for all screen sizes so your website visitors can easily interact with your website no matter what device they’re using.”

An easy way to test if your website is responsive is by going to your website on a desktop and making the browser larger and smaller.

If the website fits in the window as you make it larger and smaller, you know your website will easily transfer to a tablet or mobile phone.

You can also check on your mobile device to see if you have to zoom in to see text. The website should look the exact same across devices, ensuring your user will have a seamless experience.

Another great way to test to see if your website design is mobile friendly is by using a new tool from Google.

Simply searching in the Google search bar “Mobile Friendly Test” will bring up the new tool where you can type your website address in the bar and Google will run a mobile-friendly test for you. The best part, it is totally FREE!

Make your Text Easy to Read

Text is important when it comes to web design.

Almost everyone that is searching and landing on your website is coming because they are trying to solve a certain problem.

Your website text needs to be informative, easy to understand, and easy to read.

Your readers should not have to squint or change their browser settings, like zoom in, to see the text on your website. Here are some simple rules to follow when placing text on your website:

• Make the font easy to read: please do not use super small font on your website. It is ridiculous to expect anyone to learn anything by making the font size 10. Be practical, if it is hard for you to read it do not publish it. Make sure your readers do not have a need to put your website under a magnifying glass in order to read it.

• Overlay text with the right colors: obviously white text should not go over a white background. Similarly, black text should not go over a black background. Make your text pop. Have it stand out from the background, it will be much easier to read that way.
• Don’t overdo the font selection: 3 fonts, that is it, no more. There is no need to have a different font for every single page for your website. Your website is an extension of your brand, as such, it should be consistent, including the font.

Have a Clear Call to Action

What is the purpose of your website?

Are you using your website to sell a product, sign people up for a blog or newsletter, be informative?

Your website design needs to reflect what the purpose of your website is. Having a clear call to action will accomplish this.

Having a clear call to action helps your users know exactly what you want them to do. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter, tell them that.

If you want them to purchase something, it needs to be explicitly clear when they push a button they are buying something.

Good website design is all about clarity and ease of use, these call to actions should not be hidden or hard to understand.

Create your website as if a four-year-old could understand what they needed to accomplish. (I am exaggerating but you get the point).

After you have decided on your call to actions, test out your landing pages using tools like Optimizely, which is the world’s leading experimentation platform.

Optimizely allowing you to A/B test your call to actions to choose the most powerful way to capture the attention of your audience, more to come on that later in this blog.

Keep it Clean and Easy to Use

No one likes to have a messy room or a dirty kitchen, the same concept applies to a website.

A clean, easy to use and understand website is paramount to the success of the business that uses it.

Today some websites bombard their visitors with display ads, pop-ups, icons and so many buttons it is hard to focus on what one the visitor need to push. Give your website visitors a break.

Give them room to breathe with a simple clutter free website design that is easy to use and understand. Try to provide as much content as possible but do it in an easily digestible way.

Get Feedback

One of the most important steps you can take in order to make sure your website design is user-friendly and easily navigable is to get feedback on the website.

There are a few ways you can get feedback on your website, a few of which I will detail here.

Get a group of friends or colleagues to go over your website to give you good, honest feedback about how your website looks and feels to them.

Ask them questions about what they see and be open to the feedback you get. Take their feedback and use it to enhance your website. A few questions to ask would be:

• How does this website feel to you? Is it easy to use?
• Do you like the colors of the website? What about the layout?
• Does the website make sense in how it flows?
• Do you know what this website wants you to do? What is the call to action?
• Do you find the content of the website easily accessible?
• What are some areas of the website you really liked? Why did you like them?
• What are some areas of the website you did not like? Why did you not like them? What would you like to see changed in these areas?
• Do you know what my business is when looking at this website?
• Are you able to clearly transition from your desktop to your phone?
• If you were looking to buy *(Whatever the website is selling/service) would you trust this website as a source of truth? If so, what makes you trust this website? If not, what makes you distrust this website?

Another way to get feedback on your website design is to use third-party websites like Userinput and Peek. Basically, the same concept, Userinput, and Peek allow you to access the world wide web to get real honest feedback. These sites give you honest feedback at scale.

Test Test Test

Finally one of the most important website design tips that I can give you is to test different parts of your website design as much as possible.

You have already gotten feedback from friends and colleagues, now it is time to start testing your website for key metrics that are important to your business.

Some examples of key metrics are: clicking a “checkout now” button, making a phone call to your business, signing up for a newsletter or blog. You should test out whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish through your website.

A great way to A/B test your website design is using a software that, in real time, drives 50% of your traffic to different website landing pages to test the effectiveness of each landing page in driving the result you are looking for.

For example, if you are looking to see if a larger “Sign Up” button will impact the number of newsletter or blog signups you receive, you will want to test this without changing your website for eternity.

That is where software platforms like Optimizely and Unbounce come into play.

So what is A/B testing? According to Optimizely, A/B test is:

“a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better. AB testing is essentially an experiment where two or more variants of a page are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which variation performs better for a given conversion goal.”

So, when you A/B test correctly you will be able to determine through the use of data, which website landing page design is more effective.

So how does it work?

An effective A/B test uses two of the same website landing page with a simple change, this could be a different headline or call to action.

Then half of your traffic is shown the original website landing page (known as the control) and the other half is shown the new website landing page with the change made to it.

As each visitor interacts with your website you are collecting data into how they are using the website pages.

After enough data is collected you can tell if the change had a positive, negative, or no effect on visitor behavior.

A/B testing allows you to make changes to your website that will impact the overall experience for your visitors.

In the end, website design is important not only for your brand but also for the world wide web.

In a world of terrible website design make your website stand out with these six simple website design tips.

The best part about investing in quality website design now is that in the future, as new technologies emerge it will be easier to update your website in order for you to stay relevant to the times.

Hopefully, these six website design tips will help you navigate the world of website design and help educate you on exactly what you need to do next in order to have a quality website.

With a little effort, time, and a little money you will reap the benefits of a quality website for years to come.