There are lots of details to consider when designing a website. An organization’s website is an important tool that helps promote what the organization is all about and helps to sell products, transfer information, or gather support for a cause. Your website is a reflection of your organization and may be the only impression a potential customer will receive of your company. This is why it is of utmost importance to include the key features of the best web design on your website. The best websites urge the audience to return time and again.
If you search for the best of the web you will realize that there are certain design elements that most of these sites have in common. Here are 5 features that should be included in any of the top web design sites.
1. Good Visual Appeal
One of the most important elements of a web design is that it looks good. A website needs to look visually appealing and professional. Sites that do not have a professional appearance are a turn off and experience a high bounce rate. Attractive sites create a positive impression and help to keep visitors on the site longer once they arrive. A visually appealing design is important to attract visitors to the site and keep their attention long enough to look around.
Elements of good visual appeal include: use of color, easy to read text, good use of graphics, quality photos, and simplicity.
2. Clear Navigation
Navigation to the main pages of your website should be easily found above the fold near the top of your website. If you wish to navigate to sub-pages from the top menu that’s fine too as long as it doesn’t add too much clutter, drop down menus can be good for this. If you choose not to use drop down menus, then placing links to sub-pages somewhere else, like the bottom or footer of the page, can help to avoid cluttering the top of the page. Consistency in navigation is important. The primary navigation links should look the same and be located in the same place on every page of the website.
Repeating all of the main navigation in the footer can be helpful. You want to make it as easy as possible for your site visitors to find the information they are looking for on your website making clear navigation links an important feature in web designs.
3. Content
Visual appeal is important to web design but the content is important as well. You can have a site that looks awesome but if there is no quality content on the site then visitors will figure it out and will not stick around long.
When creating content for your website you need to provide helpful information. Remember, when someone comes to your website typically what they are looking for is information, so you that’s what you need to provide. Give information about your company, your products, your services, etc. It’s important to keep this information up to date and keep the content on your website fresh. The content should be broken up into small chunks of text avoiding large overwhelming paragraphs. Keep it clear and concise.
4. Search
When a site visitor can’t find the information he is looking for he’s likely to look elsewhere. If you have a lot of products or content on your website having a search box will be extremely helpful to your visitors, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for.
5. Usability
A successful website needs to be accessible and useable. Two key elements of website usability are page loading times and browser compatibility. Fast loading pages are necessary to keep a visitor’s attention. Pages need to load in 20 seconds or less for dial-up users. Browser compatibility is important as well, it’s important that your website displays well in as many browsers as possible. Just because you might use FireFox doesn’t mean that everyone does. Being compatible across platforms is important as well You want your site to look good on a PC as well as on a Mac.
