There are many ways to improve your website. In order to design a website that is superior to your competitors, you need to make sure your website has the right qualities required to succeed. Whether you are designing a new website or simply updating your existing site, you can benefit by following the simple web design techniques listed below.

The following techniques cover basic  principles in web design that can be applied to all websites. They are not very technical and easy to implement by anyone with basic knowledge of websites. You can apply these methods simply by customising your content and basic website elements.

Here are 1o easy ways to improve your website and make it more attractive to your visitors.

1. Format your text using CSS.

CSS can be applied in-line within your website’s HTML code or it can be defined in an external file. It is better to use a single external Cascading Style Sheet document to apply styles to all pages of your website. It makes it easier for you to manage design changes as your entire website can be updated by changing a single CSS file. The resulting code is also more efficient for search engine rankings. CSS provides consistency to your website by ensuring that text and images on all pages are formatted in an identical manner.

2. Typography and larger Font size

Typography plays an important role in modern web design. Modern browsers have better font support and offers a larger choice to designers. You can use CSS to format the text using the right font settings. Larger font size makes the website easy to read across multiple platforms and devices. It also makes your website accessible to a larger audience including high age group  or those with disability. Font sizes less than 12-pt should be avoided as far as possible.

3. Make sure the text is in contrast with its background.

High contrast between foreground text and background is better and makes the content easily readable. Black-on-white or White- on – black are examples of high contrast that can improve usability. You can use colours of your choice as long as you follow the general rule of contrasting foreground text and background colour.

4. Use White space in website elements.

Use of white space gives the lines room to breathe. You should avoid stacking lines on top of each other. Use the line-spacing directive in CSS to ensure the lines do not appear too close to each other. l often set line-spacing to about 12-% to 140% of the height of a typical line.

5. Break text into chunks.

This technique is widely used in web design and has proved effective. Breaking the content into relevant chunks or paragraphs improves the readability of the web page. This is particularly useful for pages with a lot of information. Users tend to scan the content of a web page as opposed to reading each and every line. By using sufficient space between paragraphs, you can remove clutter. Making your website’s content more flexible an digestive it would be easy for customers. No matter how good your content is, users don’t usually read long paragraphs of text without any breaks.

Headlines and bullet points change the pace of the writing and allow users to scan through the content to find information that is of interest to them. Breaking  the content makes the text more readable and improves retention.

6.  Minimise Scrolling

You should avoid too much scrolling on a page if possible. Some web designers prefer the page content to fit on a single screen without the need to scroll to read the content.  Whether there is any scrolling or not is matter of personal choice. It is perfectly OK to have some scrolling although if possible the content should be limited to 2 or 3 screen sizes at the most.  Horizontal scrolling should be avoided at all costs.

7.  Make it easy for customers to contact you

You should make it easy for customers to contact you. Research shows that customers feel more confident when they know that they can contact the website owner should the need arise. At a most basic level, customers should be able to contact you with the help of a contact or enquiry form. The contact form or a link to it should be prominently placed on all pages of your website. Listing your full contact details including phone number and address can help build trust and confidence among customers. This is especially important on e-commerce websites.

8. Add images to text

Images are important in web design. It is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your website. You can  improve the quality of your content by adding pictures to support your text. The right images can complement the text and help to get your message across.

9. Syndicate your content using RSS

RSS feeds are easy to add and can offer many benefits. Small businesses can use RSS to automatically update their  profiles on social sites like Twitter and Facebook. This offers an excellent opportunity for smaller businesses that may not have  resources available to actively maintain their social media presence. Most social networks offer a method to  update your profile automatically when your website is updated. Syndicating your content on other sites using RSS will provide back-links to your website and help improve traffic. RSS feed also allows your visitors to receive website updated by email. This can be very beneficial for websites that are updated frequently or e-commerce websites that sell products.

10. Add a sitemap

Sitemap is simply a list of all pages available on your website. It is used by both, users and search engines. They are easy to create. If you use a content management system, you can integrate one of the many third part add-ons available for free. If your website is not very large you can simply create it as content or text.

11. Add Google’s Custom Search Engine (CSE) to your website

With Google’s Custom Search Engine (CSE) it has become easy for anyone to add Google’s powerful search feature on their website in a few simple steps. No programming or technical experience is required and it is completely free to use. You customer will remain on your website and you can choose to search the content of your website only. Google’s complex search algorithms are used to perform the search. You can also choose to display Google ads on search results and share revenue with Google. In general search pay-outs are higher than Adsense revenue.

12. Add Call to action

The importance of ‘Call to action’  in web design has been covered in many articles.  Nevertheless many websites fail to include appropriate call to action statements or links. The ultimate objective of your website should be to encourage customers to take some action. This can be anything from registering on your website, making an enquiry or register for your newsletter. Ideally all pages of your website should include some call to action links or features. The positioning of  ‘call to action’ is also important. It should be placed in a prominent place on the website.

13. Offer other ways for customers to connect with with your business

In addition to contact details discussed earlier, you can offer other ways for customers to connect with your business. You can create a Facebook page or Twitter Group to target existing and potential customers. The possibilities are endless. You can provide service updates, answer questions of customers or offer news related to your niche. our website visitors can be encouraged  to join your group or follow you on social media.

14. Offer free resources or articles related to your industry

In order to succeed, your website should offer a mixture of  content. Whilst it important to promote your company and its products, it is also important to offer other resources or articles that are valuable to your website’s visitors .  Offering independent articles and reports related to your industry will help establish your expertise in the area whilst encouraging customers to visit again.

15. Add a Favicon

Favicon is a small icon or image that appears next to the website’s URL in address bar of the browser. Although it is a minor factor, it has an impact on your brand and overall design of your website. Favicon is also displayed if someone creates a shortcut of your website on their desktop or when they bookmark a website.

RESOURCES:

The article was written with input from the web design team of Kronik Media, the London based Web Design Company specialising in Bespoke Web Design, SEO and low cost database driven websites developed in Joomla, the award winning CMS platform.

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