In today’s constantly evolving digital society, designing an effective and attractive website is an art. It requires expertise in graphic design, copywriting and search engine optimization techniques.
For beginners and experts alike, following best practices is crucial to stand out from the crowd. In this article, I will reveal the best tips for designing a website that will not only be engaging, but also rank well on search engines.
The Importance of Design
The design of a website is what visitors see first! So neat and professional graphic design is very important to make a good impression.
Choosing a harmonious color palette, legible fonts and balanced ergonomics are the basis of a successful website.
Current trends recommend a refined and minimalist design. It’s a good idea to use white as the background color for your Web pages.
Your website logo and a few graphic elements make your site professional and user-friendly. Using Adobe software tools, a graphic designer will offer you tailor-made solutions.
Adaptive Web Design
With the increasing prevalence of smartphones, it’s essential to adapt your website to small screens. This is what we call “Mobile Friendly” sites. Nowadays, many tools make it easy to adapt a website to a mobile device. It’s even possible to design mobile-only websites. A site designed to work on smartphones will also be readable on computer screens.
Since 2015, search engines have downgraded websites that are not mobile friendly. So you need to maximize your chances by prioritizing mobile design.
Tips:
Test your website on various mobile devices to make sure it’s readable! If you’re about to have a new website designed, check that your webmaster has thought about mobiles.
User Experience
The user experience (UX) is at the heart of successful web design! To make your site intuitive and easy to navigate, you need to think like your users. This includes a clear, harmonious structure, an accessible menu and fast page loading times. Effective design should guide users towards the desired actions, whether they’re looking for information, buying a product, or getting in contact.
A website page that loads in less than a second on a Web browser is a determining factor. This means, among other things, avoiding images that take too long to load.
Useful link: pagespeed.web.dev
This link gives you free access to test the loading time of a web page. You’ll also find practical advice on how to correct any errors.
The Quality of your Website Content
To understand just how important your website texts are, you must remember that content is the priority. Relevant, informative and regularly updated content is what attracts visitors’ attention. It’s also a great way to improve your website’s SEO. Web crawlers include content quality in their selection criteria, so it’s important to include relevant keywords in titles, subtitles and the body of the text, while ensuring consistency.
Tips:
Get advice from specialized SEO copywriters! SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of practices designed to ensure that your important themes are well exploited. Be careful not to over-optimize keywords, as doing so can be penalized!
Search Engine Optimization
A successful website requires effective search engine optimization. As already mentioned, it’s important not to overlook SEO.
You also need to consider the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). SERP refers to the positioning of your site’s pages in the list of results supplied by a search engine in response to a user’s query. If we take the example of a painter and decorator, when you type the keyword phrase “painter and decorator in San Francisco” on Google, you’ll see some good examples of sites that use the best SEO techniques. The websites listed no doubt have a great SEO strategy, and rank at the top of the results (SERP).
In brief, SEO and SERP are key elements that need to be taken really seriously. By adopting the right strategy, you will drive more traffic to your website. Designing a good web page also involves using META tags. These include web page titles and descriptions with strategic keywords.
Useful link: developers.google.com
Website Accessibility
An accessible website is one that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. It means taking into account text size, color contrast, keyboard navigation and the use of screen readers. By putting yourself in a disabled person’s place, you will fully understand why user comfort is so important.
Security
Making your website secure is a really serious matter! It’s the best way to avoid nasty surprises. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for hackers to damage or completely destroy a website. Even if access to your site is secure, malware can still penetrate it.
To avoid security breaches, it is strongly recommended to frequently update the various tools used on your site. For example if WordPress is used to manage your website, automatic updates should be scheduled to ensure a high level of security.
Tips:
Perform a security audit at least once a year! Inexpensive software is available for this purpose. Reliable Web agencies often offer this service free of charge, so take advantage of it.
Analysis and Continuous Improvement
Once a website is finished, people often think that everything is done.
This is a mistake! To ensure the long-term success of your Web project, you need to remember that it’s never finished – so you need to consider a long-term strategy and budget.
It’s worth analyzing your entire website at least once a year. There will always be things to improve, in terms of both traffic and content. And you will probably need to update or add new information.
Tip:
Use Google Analytics to track your website’s performance. It’s free and very accurate! And it gives recommendations that help you identify areas for improvement.
Extra Info
Beyond the basic requirements for creating a top-quality website, there are other things to think about. The hallmark of your skills plays a role, as does your reputation. The combination of know-how and communication skills can sometimes work miracles.
With consistency and common sense, the success of your personal or professional projects is at your fingertips. It’s important to be pragmatic, because there’s no magic formula for achieving success!
However, by following the principles of the golden rule in areas that are important to you, many things can be accomplished.
How much does a Website Cost?
Think budget! Even if the cost of creating a website is quite reasonable, it’s advisable to set limits and take a long-term view.
To give you an idea, the cost of a website for an SME is around $5000. As for maintenance and updates, you’ll need to budget between $2000 and $3000 a year. And last but not least, allocating $2000 to $3000 a year for SEO is a must.
With the right SEO techniques, you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing your site rank in the top search engine results. Choosing the right keywords helps drive traffic to your website and generate leads. So giving importance to SEO can be profitable.
Beware of prices charged by graphic designers! Design is important, but it can quickly cost a fortune. For good website graphics, it’s best to keep things to a minimum. The logo, a few photos and icons are all you need.
Conclusion
For a website to be successful, you need to consider a number of things. Graphic design is important, but so are content and search engine optimization (SEO and SERP).
By taking note of the essential points in this article, you’ll know what to bear in mind when creating a professional site, and also how to improve its search engine visibility. Having your website designed by a reliable professional certainly has its advantages.
And don’t forget regular, ongoing updates! A website should be seen as a living entity: the best results require maintenance.