There is nothing worse for a website visitor than to land on a page of a website that is visually unappealing. Colors that clash, too many images or not enough images, text that is all over the place, and my particular bug-bear, more Google AdSense than information. You have a few seconds at most to persuade your visitor to stick around, and website design is first and foremost the best way to achieve this goal.

In this article, we’re going to look at the different aspects of designing a website, from the way your website should look to those ‘under-the-hood’ elements that will make Google love your site and, hopefully, give it a high ranking.

Website Design and Branding

The first thing your website must do is reflect the branding of your business. If your business is purely online, then that is reasonably easy to do. However, if you have a bricks-and-mortar business, then your online presence should reflect your business in the real world.

Content Management Systems

The Content Management System (CMS) you choose is also important. If you are going to be looking after your site and are not too technically-minded, you should consider a CMS that is easy to use. If you’re not going to be managing it, who is? Also, how much expertise will they need to do the job well?

Visual Aspect of Website Design

As we have already talked about, if you have a real-world business, your website should reflect the colors of your established company. If you don’t, then you need to think about what colors you’re going to use, what your homepage will look like, what images you need and where they should go.

Your Website as a Marketing Tool

If you have a website, you should be thinking about how it will help you market your business. For example, think about where you are going to position your email capture page while you are thinking about your website design. If it looks like an afterthought, your visitors will probably ignore it.

Navigating Your Website

When thinking about website design, think about how your visitors are going to travel around your site. If you want Google to know that your site has value, persuading visitors to stay on it is critical. For example, if one of your goals is to get your customers to request a quotation, make sure the form is easy to find.

Search Engine Optimization

Finally, you need to make sure that search engines love your website. For instance, page speed is critical. If your site takes too long to load, most search engines will give it a lower ranking. If your coding is poorly written or your images aren’t compressed, these will affect your ranking.

Wrapping It All Up

The points above only touch on the complexities involved in designing a website. While the six points above are some of the most important, there are many other aspects to website design that you must consider before you start to build your site.

As you can see, there is a lot to think about when building your first website. If you are uncertain what is the best way to proceed, then you should definitely consider hiring a professional website development service provider. He or she will be able to guide you to find the best solution for you and your business.