4 Things That Make an Awesome Website Design

You may be taking your first steps into creating your first website, or you have had one for a while, Either way we all one thing from a website is results. We want enquires that generate us business and sales that bring in the cash.

You can DIY it by finding a template online that you think is quite nice add some flashy graphics, a bit of stock photography and some words you have cobbled together. It will probably do jack shit for your business.

So how to you make an awesome website?

Great website design is not just a ‘pretty picture’ or template you quite like the look of. A good website design should be on brand and designed to appeal to your customers.

A combination of well-chosen fonts, colours, and images. The chosen fonts should be easy to read, and the information displayed in easily readable chunks that are easy for the customer to digest.

A good designer will understand about typography, spacing and layout. Leading your customer though your website encouraging them to click to buy or enquire about your products or services.

An awesome website design does not mean, all the whistles and bells. Animated text and fancy scrolling may not enhance your visitor’s experience. Only use special effects if they have a purpose and not get in the way of your core message. Use pop ups wisely, I’m not a fan myself. I find them annoying and obtrusive when I’m looking for information. Even more annoying is when their purpose is to push me into into signing up for a mailing list before I have even had chance to.

Sometimes the simplest looking websites can create lots of enquires and sales. It all depends on the audience you are selling to. I have designed websites for all sorts of businesses from manufactures, metal bashers, professional services and retail. All different audiences, all completely different business. Each one designed with a purpose – to attract the businesses audience and make the core message obvious.

You can build a site yourself using many of the off self-website drag and drop solutions. On the surface the site looks great, but they can create slow loading, bulky sites. A site that loads slow will deter customers. On the surface your new self-designed website may look wonderful, but what’s under the hood?

Technical SEO

Are your headings tagged properly, have you filled in your page descriptions and image meta tags? Have you created an SEO-friendly site structure and submitted your site map to google? Just a few things you will need to do make sure your website appears on googles listings.

Mobile Friendly Websites

Mobile websites are now the norm, or at least should be. I still see many businesses who have an outdated website that doesn’t load correctly on smaller devices. Images that don’t resize, text that is difficult to read or a bad layout and poorly designed navigation system. It may work wonderfully on a desktop, but a least 50% of your customers will be viewing on mobile and you don’t want half your audience clicking away to your competitors because your website is difficult to use.

You will also have to spend a lot of your time to learning how to use your chosen platform, not just to get your site built, but the technical SEO side of things.

So how do I achieve a quality-built website?

1. Spend a lot of your time working all out paying with WIX. TBH it will most probably fail and do fuck all for your business.
2. Read lots of books, go on someone courses. Spend a few years learning all the skills you need and become a website designer instead.
3. Hire someone that knows how to this. A good website designer/developer will create a lightweight build that can be easily updated and upgraded as your business grows. They will have spent many years learning and improving their skills and will be able to advise you on how to get the most from your hard-earned cash.

Bad photography will cheapen your brand and make your business look amateur. You can choose to use stock images, but be careful, they can have a negative effect. You may find them on other companies’ websites.

Commissioning a professional photographer may seem an expense you can spare, but who looks more trustworthy, the company who has taken a slap dash, ‘that will do’ approach or the one who has spent time, thought, and invested in presenting a professional image of themselves.

Your profile picture

The same approach goes into profile pictures when it comes to presenting yourself to the professional world. A snapshot taken on holiday may not be the best image. On the flip side a head and shoulders ‘corporate headshot’ may look to stuffy. Think about your customers, do they want casual friendly, stuffy professional.

All four elements are just as important as the other. Don’t try a save a few pennies by thinking ‘I can get away with this bit’. You may be quite good at writing copy – but this doesn’t mean you are good at writing website copy. It is a skill.

If you do write your own wording, look at it and say to yourself. Am I keeping the reader interested? Am I just waffling or am making my product or service appealing to my audience?

So how can you create bang tidy copy?

1. Keep rewriting until you eventually get it right. But you will probably go bust first. If you need help, get it. This is your business and spending a little can bring great results.
2. Find some books on the subject such as How to Write Seductive Web Copy: An Easy Guide to Picking Up More Customers by Henneke Duistermaat available on Amazon for Kindle for around £3. Yep just £3, if you don’t want to even spend that much money apply for a job at Aldi stacking shelves.
3. Hire a copywriter- one that is skilled in writing non salesly sales copy. Not only will you convert more visitors into customers, but you will also save the headache and hours of time trying to create you content. But how can someone else write my content? You ask. A good copywriter does this stuff day in day out and will spend an hour with yourself to get the information they need to create your copy. Headings that draw in the user, copy that solves the customers problem and call to actions that customers will click.

So if you are looking for your first website or have one that you don’t like showing customer’s, as you’re a bit embarrassed about it, hire a website designer. One that can bring you results and help you achieve your goals.

Don’t go for the cheapest option, go for the best option money can stretch too. As my tattoo artist said, ‘good work aint cheap, and cheap work aint good’. Wise words from a man who was about to create permanent art on my skin.