No one wants an ordinary website. That said, in the world of web design, there are a few cardinal rules – and they weren’t exactly made to be broken. Regardless of how innovative and cutting-edge your website is, if you’re not following these web design best practices, you could be losing your audience.
Easy Navigation
Even the coolest designed website is useless if it confuses or frustrates the end user. That’s why easy, error-free navigation is an essential best practice to adopt to your design. Your website navigation is essentially a map, guiding your user to a behavior or action. You’ll know your navigation needs work if you have broken hyperlinks, unlabeled links and zero breadcrumb navigation. If your customer doesn’t know how to navigate your site, don’t expect him or her to stick around.
Good Functionality
Maintaining a functioning website takes work – and maintenance. JavaScript errors, broken hyperlinks and dead forms or links just frustrate your user. A good, well-functioning website enables the user to navigate through content seamlessly and almost innately. Additionally, you should also consider how your website functions across different browsers and critically, on mobile devices. [tweet_box design=”default”]Don’t let your user’s technology stand in the way of doing business with you. #Mobile[/tweet_box]
Awesome Design
Now for the pretty stuff. The design of your website is what’s going to catch your visitors’ attention – and hopefully, maintain it. An awesome design is compelling, and urges the user to explore the site. Your design should include a few basic principles, like a constant logo, good contrast and the optimal balance of text, multimedia and imagery.
Compelling Content
You might not think of content as part of your web design strategy, it’s critical not only to getting your website found by search engines, but also in keeping your user around and engaged. Make sure your content is well organized, and that the content isn’t boring them. Long blocks of content in weird fonts or colors can lose a reader pretty quick, so put some thought into your content strategy.
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