{"id":6267,"date":"2020-09-07T14:29:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T14:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.logodesignteam.com\/blog\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2024-03-13T07:58:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T07:58:45","slug":"how-to-design-an-effective-website-3-principles-to-follow-3-to-avoid-at-all-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.logodesignteam.com\/blog\/how-to-design-an-effective-website-3-principles-to-follow-3-to-avoid-at-all-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Design an Effective Website – 3 Principles to Follow & 3 to AVOID AT ALL COST!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Designing a website might sound so regular in today\u2019s world as there are over 1 billion websites in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Everyone wants a website these days.<\/p>\n

Businesses use websites.<\/p>\n

Even you, probably want a website and that\u2019s why you\u2019re here right?<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re thinking:<\/p>\n

How do I really put out the perfect design for my website?<\/p>\n

Are there certain principles I need to follow in order to have a successful website?<\/p>\n

Well, firstly, there are certainly a couple of principles that you must follow to have a successful website design.<\/p>\n

You see, we\u2019ve created and designed a bunch of websites for some of our clients and what we\u2019ve noticed is a pattern as to how successful websites work.<\/p>\n

And in this walkthrough, we\u2019ll be guiding you through the same principles.<\/p>\n

But firstly, what sets this article apart?<\/h5>\n

It\u2019s simple:<\/p>\n

Rather than telling you things like Add a Search bar, create better navigation, create a good menu, we\u2019ll be diving deeper into the real principles that actually affect your website\u2019s success when it comes to your website and user experience.<\/p>\n

You see, if you\u2019re a beginner, you\u2019re probably mostly attracted to the \u201clooks\u201d or \u201cbeauty\u201d of your website. That isn\u2019t a bad thing to want but an efficient web design goes beyond that.<\/p>\n

If you already have a website, you probably find yourself always tweaking your website\u2019s look, design and it never seems to be perfect!<\/p>\n

With over a decade\u2019s experience in web design, we\u2019ll be walking you through some of the pillar web-design principles you must follow to ensure a successful website.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How to Design an Effective Website – 3 Principles to Follow & 7 to AVOID AT ALL COST!<\/h4>\n

Just like I\u2019ve earlier mentioned, rather than just piling up a long list of certain web design principles that your business website should follow, we\u2019ll also look at what you should avoid.<\/p>\n

This will not only help you get a successful website but would ensure you stay clear of the mistakes most business websites tend to make even in 2020.<\/p>\n

Principles to Follow:<\/h4>\n

Rather than just stating random design principles, we like to approach web-design from a \u201cfunctional\u201d basis.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get it? I\u2019ll explain.<\/p>\n

Your website is meant for the users right?<\/p>\n

I mean, the usability & functionality of your website are key to having a successful website as users are sort of the reason why we even think of creating these websites.<\/p>\n

Correct?<\/p>\n

Why not focus all your efforts on that?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve read the dozens of articles on web-design out there, you\u2019ll see that literally everyone talks about usability and user behavior!<\/p>\n

As a result, we\u2019ve broken down our 3 major functional web-design principles as:<\/p>\n

1. Search Engine Optimization –<\/strong> if you\u2019re trying to build a website, then you\u2019re most definitely going to need organic traffic. We\u2019ll discuss some key website design elements that you must to get your search engine optimization right!<\/p>\n

2. Web Hosting –<\/strong> Surprised to see this here? Well, we\u2019ve noticed that web hosting<\/a> affects the functionality of your website. I\u2019ll tell you a story of a friend whose web host had a technical issue which led to his 4 years old site crashing thus losing his search traffic within 2 weeks.<\/p>\n

Shared hosting is relatively cheaper hosting option<\/a> but certainly means slower performance for your website as your website\u2019s performance will depend on the load that other websites are putting on the server.<\/p>\n

3. Website Structure –<\/strong> this is where people employ principles like menu, navigation, themes etc. but we\u2019ll be given a pretty unique perspective of these.<\/p>\n

But before we dive deep, to explain these principles, we first need to understand how users interact with websites, user interface and user interface.<\/p>\n

How Users Interact With Websites?<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s fair to say that different people behave differently on various websites but with the help of data and our vast web experience, we\u2019ll help you understand how people interact with websites and exactly how your business can follow that pattern to ensure a successful website structure.<\/p>\n

User Experience is used to describe the role of website design in determining a user\u2019s experience when using a web page or application.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s basically every step a web designer takes to ensure that a user gets the best possible experience on their website.<\/p>\n

From the homepage design, placement of buttons, menus, links, photos and even what happens after they click on anything on the web page or web application.<\/p>\n

Certain tools like Crazyegg help explain how your users engage with your website.<\/p>\n

It shows a hitmap of what your users pay more attention to whenever they\u2019re on your website.<\/p>\n

So the very first step to a successful web design is to properly understand how your users behave on different websites.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1) Search Engine Optimization<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s no news that search engine optimization (SEO) leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a huge gap between SEO and Outbound leads in terms of close rates.<\/p>\n

And if we\u2019re being honest, most websites fight for organic search traffic. In fact almost every business prefers Google traffic\/rankings to any other form of traffic.<\/p>\n

This shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise as a good chunk of web visitors that come from Google (organic traffic) convert to buyers or clients.<\/p>\n

For this reason, businesses use certain services or tools to ensure their websites are search engine optimized.<\/p>\n

Is that correct?<\/p>\n

For example using cache tools to ensure site speed which in turn improves your website rankings on search engines.<\/p>\n

There are a couple more things you must consider to have a great website that search engines love.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty much a different thing to create websites and also a completely different thing to create one Google LOVES!<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ll be highlighting a few really important design techniques to ensure a website that is loved by search engines but before that, you must understand that a website\u2019s structure or design can harm its rankings.<\/p>\n

CONTENT:<\/h4>\n

Yes, you heard that right. A website without content is pretty much not going to get loved by Google. Well, I guess it\u2019s no news that search engines prefer websites that get updated constantly.<\/p>\n

Correct?<\/p>\n

Now content can be the backbone of your entire business. We understand how powerful content & content marketing is.<\/p>\n

Over the years, we\u2019ve been able to create a ton of content across our different websites that have ranked on the first page of Google and from our experience, this is what we have to say:<\/p>\n

Your website can be as beautiful as possible but without consistent content, you are definitely missing out on a lot of good traffic!<\/strong><\/p>\n

And on the other hand, your website can be looking so normal (or ugly) but get all the rankings possible.<\/p>\n

Good content always helps with the rankings. As a matter of fact,<\/p>\n

Get the idea?<\/p>\n

WEBSITE SPEED:<\/h4>\n

Over the years, website speed has been key to rankings. 47% of consumers expect websites to load in two seconds (or even less).<\/p>\n

We all understand that the faster your website pages load, the better your search rankings.<\/p>\n

Is that correct?<\/p>\n

Good!<\/p>\n

But site speed is a huge topic on its own as there\u2019s a ton of things that determine your website speed. We\u2019re talking about things like page load data, plugins, website structure, website hosting (we\u2019ll be discussing below) and web content.<\/p>\n

A key web design principle that we always follow is the type of content (or files) that your web pages have (to load for every user).<\/p>\n

Have you tried visiting a website\u2019s homepage but see lots of graphics content? Well, that plays a role in your page\u2019s load time.<\/p>\n

As a result, we try to keep all graphic content as minimal as possible.<\/p>\n

You can make use of web tools like Google\u2019s speed test or Gtmetrix to check your site speed.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple key things to put in place:<\/p>\n