There are so many different ways to design good websites. While all well-designed websites have features that are unique, they all follow a series of basic rules that govern their look. And you don’t need a degree in visual design or web development to know when these rules have been broken.
So here are some of the biggest rule-breakers in web design:
Font
The way your content is presented is so important – you have a message you want to get across to your visitors, but if the font isn’t right they won’t waste their time trying to read what you have to say. Instead, they’ll visit the next website in Google’s rankings, and take their business elsewhere.
There are a few key elements to remember when considering your font. The first is the size – make the font too small and your visitors won’t be able to read it. But if you make the font too big, you’re website will read more like a children’s book instead of a gateway to your business.
Another thing to consider is the type of font. Some fonts look great on websites, while others do not. It may take a while to find the font that suits your site and matches all the other elements, but it’s definitely something worth putting in a little extra time and effort to get right. Again, a poor choice of font will have your potential clients and customers heading ‘next door’.
And when you’re putting your content up, make sure to space it out nicely using paragraphs. Arriving at a site that’s just a single block of text with no breaks isn’t going to make anyone happy.
Images
You will often find that images and photos really make a website ‘pop’. Without them the site would be flat, stagnant and a chore to read. In the same way, poor choices of images can really ruin a website.
Having a website that depends too heavily on images can be bad for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Firstly, search engines, like Google or Bing, can’t scan images to determine what they are. This means your site can miss out on important ranking factors for SEO. Instead, they rely on small snippets of code which you can insert into the back end of your site to tell the search engines what your image is, allowing your search rankings to benefit from the images.
Another issue is the quality of the images. If your photos are out of focus, over-exposed or grainy, it’ll bring your whole website down. It doesn’t matter how well the other elements are designed and fit together, poor photos will ruin the whole look.
Navigation
Have you ever been to a website and wanted to find out more about the company, but couldn’t find the links to get to other pages? The menu is one of the most important elements of your website – it’s the tool you use to get them from one page to another and eventually complete a conversion (purchasing something or contacting you). If your menu isn’t obvious, or is poorly organised, your potential customers aren’t going to get very far through your website.
Animations
While it’s true a little movement on a website can sometimes be used to capture the attention of your visitors, too much is a real turn-off. If there’s one sure-fire way to give your visitors a literal headache, it’s by overloading your site with unnecessary animation and movement.
White space
Most businesses like to include a lot of information on their sites, thinking the more content there is to read, the more chance they have of completing a sale. But the old adage, ‘less is more’, applies to web design too. Too much content makes the site cluttered and unreadable. But well organised content, even if it’s spread over multiple pages, adds white space and makes the whole site a lot easier on the eyes.
Music
There are few things that’ll have your visitors hurriedly exiting your site as fast as having automatic background music – even if there are controls that let the visitor pause or turn it off. One of the problems with background music is it’s often so unexpected. People often browse the net with their speakers on, or while listening to music, so the last thing they want is to get a fright when your website starts blaring, or having to pause their own music while they figure out where your music is coming from.