What Makes A Great Web Design?
Designing websites is hard, but not just for beginners, it's also hard for seasoned professionals because every website, although sometimes similar, has different needs and factors to consider.
Making a good web design is easy, but making a great one takes a lot of thought, effort and experience.
But when we say great, what exactly does that mean?
Your Site Should Have A Clear Focus
An increasingly common mistake amongst web designs is a lack of focus. Your site should be very clear as to what it does and how it fulfils the needs of your visitors.
If your visitors can't work out what your site is about after just a few seconds then you have a problem that needs to be addressed.
The visitors know immediately what your site is about then you put yourself in a strong position and will reduce the number of bounces, I.e: wasted traffic, on your site.
Your Site Should Be Easy To Navigate And Search
Once you have got people onto your site, you should make it very easy for them to search for what they need, or find it naturally through the navigation and subsequent filtering available.
For example, if you run an e-commerce website and have a single category filled with 200 products with no way to filter those choices down then you make it extremely difficult for your visitor to find what they need. They will most likely leave the website unhappy even though you may offer the best service, price and so on.
This is something a lot of people get wrong so it's very important not to over look the navigation and search functionality on your site. Large e-commerce websites have been able to scale to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of products on the strength of their search.
Your Site Should Have A Clear Path To Conversion
Once a user has found what they want then you should make it as easy as possible for them to complete whatever conversion you have set up for them. The most common being making a purchase on a site.
Many sites make it beyond difficult to complete these conversions due to simple mistakes, poor usability/user experience. Correcting these errors and making it easy to checkout or sign up.
These are just a few of the things when done right that can take a good design to great. Understanding visitors is an art form that takes a lot of understanding and experience to get right. That's why it's key for website owners and their web developers to work closely to design and built a site that is not only easy to use but fulfils all the needs of the visitor and makes it easy for them to convert.