5 Design Tips to Improve Your Website

Posted on: 27 August 2020

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Since 2017, the proportion of small and medium enterprises with their own websites has shot up, notably among those businesses which have between 10 and 19 employees. However, many of the websites that have been added to the worldwide web in that time have been underperformers. This is often down to a lack of understanding about what a well-designed website can do. Investing in proper web design makes all the difference to growing businesses. What should you be doing to improve the appeal and reach of yours?

Keep the Look Simple

All of the best websites around the world have something in common. Usually, it is a simple design aesthetic that requires very little user navigation. Some smaller enterprises do very well from a web design that is just one page. Visitors simply scroll down it to find the information they want. Although this won't suit every kind of business, it is usually a simple approach that SMEs can benefit from.

Readability

Of course, you need a website design that will look good and provide some eye-catching images here and there. This should never come at the expense of compromising on readability, however. To keep your web design on track, use small paragraphs, bold headers and typography that is consistent everywhere on the site.

Mobile-Friendliness

These days, it is no good to have a website design that is optimised for Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge and to leave it at that. Your website is now almost as likely to be visited by someone using a mobile device. Therefore, all commercial websites need to be mobile-friendly especially if your target customers are drawn from a younger demographic.

Fast to Load

Although some of the standard site themes you can obtain from web hosting services look fine, many businesses want to adapt theirs to suit their corporate image. This often means, however, that adapted themes end up becoming slow to load. When visitors are left hanging while a page loads, it will soon mean they become turned off and visit elsewhere. Ensure any extra coding you have on your site doesn't cause this unwanted effect.

Avoid Pop-Up Links

It was trendy for a while to use pop-up links that would open every link that a visitor clicked on within a new tab of their browser. Without always realising it, a user could open many of these while navigating a site. These days, this approach is seen as old-fashioned and annoying. Avoid it and ensure all your internal hyperlinks work intuitively so that the back button can always be used.