What do you need for a great website design?

A layout that tells a story

When a visitor goes to a website, they don’t want to have to wonder if they are in the right place. A good design tells your visitor who you are and leads them to a call to action in a fast, efficient, and pleasing way. A call to action is an instruction to the visitors to provoke a response, whether it be to purchase a product, call a number, fill out a contact form, subscribe to a newsletter, or to learn more. The main call to action is usually included within the hero space that way it is the first thing that users see. The hero space is meant to be the biggest visual attraction on the site, it is the main vessel in which you lead your visitors. This can be achieved by overlaying text & a button on top of rotating imagery (keep the number of images to a max of 5, visitors do not tend to stick around to read/see everything) or even a background video. For the rest of the layout, most is secondary, meaning its information that is to be included and found easily on the site if the visitor tends to look for it. Just remember that whitespace and organization are your friends!

A Great Logo & Color Scheme

If you have a logo with too many colors it can be difficult to incorporate them into branding and web design, especially if they do not really go together like this one:

Basically you don’t want colors that clash, you want colors that complement each other! Contrast is key to drawing attention, take a look at colors that are opposite one another on the color wheel. We chose blue and orange because they are direct compliments of each other and opposites on the color wheel. For more information on what colors to choose, take a look at one of my older posts where I go over colors and their meanings in more details.

Beautiful & Easily Read Typography

If a font is difficult to read, it is normally a sign to STAY AWAY! There are types of fonts out there that are meant more for experimental graphic design and others that are meant for reading. Just because a font looks awesome doesn’t mean it should be used. If the text on your site is hard to read, I guarantee your visitors are going to skip right over it. In one of my other previous posts I have a collection of google web fonts that pair nicely with one another, this might help you in your decision process. If you take a look you’ll see that headings, buttons, navigations normally can be a little more of a designed font, while the paragraph font should always, ALWAYS be as legible as possible.

Stock Photos vs. Real Photography

Within the past couple of years, stock photography has been a huge business. A library where you can find any type of imagery to imaginable. But to be honest they are on the downward slope, stock photos are really starting to all look the same. It doesn’t take a genius to spot one on a site anymore. It has been proven that some visitors will completely ignore the content if they find the visual to be boring, and that’s what stock photos are. Originality is key, it is important show the world you have a personality, you care, and you love what you do. As humans we can relate that if someone loves what they do, they put more love, care, and professionalism into the work, service, or product that they offer (This is a huge secret ingredient!). Be a champ and get real imagery for your website, you will be glad you did!