Building an effective website isn’t always easy. When designing a site, you need to take many types of users into consideration. These website design tips will help you to create a well-designed, professional-looking site. You’ll be able to lower your bounce rate and improve user satisfaction.
Take Steps To Improve Your Loading Speed
Slow load times can have a negative impact on your search engine rankings and increase your bounce rates. Users aren’t going to want to wait for your page to load in; they will want to access it instantly.
When you’re designing a site, you’ll want to take steps to minimize the loading time of your site. Combine and minify files when possible. Work to reduce server response time. Try running a compression audit. A fast load speed should be your time priority. Don’t be afraid to get rid of features if they’re causing your site to load more slowly.
Simplicity Is Key
Minimalism has been a major trend in web design for a number of years now. A simple approach can boost your load time, and it can also make your site much easier for users to navigate.
Keeping your site simple could also have a positive impact on your conversion rate. Studies have found that people take more time to make a decision when they are presented with more choices. Work to reduce the number of items on your menu and ensure that users will be able to browse your site without any issue.
Avoid Using Carousels
Carousels are flashy and visually appealing, but they won’t improve your website. Reports have found that carousels are usually ignored by users. Many users exclusively browse the web via mobile devices, where carousels may not display properly.
Beyond that, carousels can cause your site to load in more slowly. Because of this, you should stay away from carousels and similar features, like sliders and accordions. A simple and clean site design is always going to be your best choice.
Minimize Clicks
Ideally, it should take no more than three clicks for someone to reach any page on your website. Look for ways to reduce the amount of clicking a person has to do in order to access the part of your site that they want to reach. For example, instead of asking someone to click the “next” button to see a new page, you could simply allow them to keep scrolling.
Don’t be afraid to have longer pages that people will have to scroll through. It’s usually easier to scroll through a page than click a button, especially if the user is on a mobile device. Take steps to minimize clicks so that you can offer a better user experience.
Use Images Effectively
Images can be an excellent way to break up content and attract the attention of a user. Images can also be a great way to draw traffic to your site. Using alt tags for your images will allow you to capture image search traffic.
While stock photos can be effective, you’ll want to create original images for your site when possible. Infographics are an especially great option. If you do create original images for your site, you may want to add a watermark so that you’ll receive credit if other people share or user your image.
These web design tips are simple to implement and will allow you to create a much stronger site. You should make a point of designing a user-friendly site that will appear on the first page of search results. Keep these suggestions at the forefront of your mind when creating a new site.