Simple Website Design Ideas to Improve the Overall Design

There is no one magic rule to create a rocking website design. In fact, getting to one that is perfect could be really frustrating. It is because there are so many ideas that are revolving around the world of web that picking the ones that suit a particular business website is quite overwhelming.

While there could be no one rule, there is, however, one foundation that each top-notch web design company or independent professional web designer follows: Make it for the user. This user-first approach helps to make things a lot easier as you have a starting point (the user’s preference) and an ending point (the user’s perspective).

So how do you go from here? Well, you keep your user up front and take it from there. Conduct a research upon what your typical user would like to explore? What kind of questions can she ask? What answers is she looking for? How are you solving her problems? If you are unique than the rest, are you telling her that? Is she at great ease while browsing your website for all of the above?

While these could be a few questions you would ask and collect the information on, there are a lot deeper tricks that you need to pull off in order to deliver the best to your users. Many at times you may not be able to achieve them in the first instance. How would you know that? By conducting A/B Testing of the little changes (that could make a BIG difference) and analyzing the fluctuating results.

To make things easier, we did just that for various small business websites belonging to different industries and we found the following changes that worked just right for each of them. So when you are through the research and are looking forward to improve the design for better, here’s exactly what you need to do:

Avoid the JavaScript overdose

When you overuse JavaScript, sure, it provides ways to create a responsive website that is also transparent. But it will also become a problem for the visitors.

Popular web browsers are updating so frequently that it’s harder to keep a check on them all the time. So, there are so many different versions in use at the same time. Many visitors are using outdated versions of those browsers that will not support your code. Your website will not be able to function for these users at all: missed opportunity.

Optimize for older and newer versions

One way to cater to those using older browser versions would be to optimize your website so that it can handle the computers running those older versions. You also need to take this into account that no matter how much you loathe the Internet Explorer; some people still prefer it over others.

So make your website workable for literally all the renowned browsers. Remember, it’s about the users and their preference, not yours.

Keyword research is key

Keyword research is important for two reasons: You really want to be found online and you want to increase a customer base who are looking for those keywords. Search engines crawl particular keywords that they see being looked up most. If you get those keywords and put them to good use, the prospect user will come to you automatically.

Of course, providing the relevant information will do the trick for at the end of the day we all want answers. But don’t forget, not including the keyword will leave you missing out from the search engines and eventually your prospect users’ eyes. So conduct a proper keyword research before you go ahead producing content. So that’s that but no matter what you do, don’t overuse the keywords or it will harm the quality of content. Just enough that it looks like a part of your regular and finely crafted content only.

Photoshop your way to victory

Although there are numerous sources of stock images lying around all over the Internet but at the end of the day, we all want professional looking images, probably with text and with a little bit of changes to match a theme of our website or brand.

Photoshop can help you accomplish just that and this is no news to everyone. But sometimes we rely on stock images so much that we don’t even think about editing them. If you really want them to look a tad bit of your own, edit them. Hire a graphic designer if you don’t have the time to learn the software. Another hack for this is to use other online services for creating visuals if you want to keep it super low on the budget.

Pop-up adverts are overwhelming

Pop-up advertisements are probably the worst things that you can do to your visitors. Especially the ones that have such a miniature or hidden ‘Close’ button or those that continue to appear. They irritate the user and he/she will abandon immediately at the sight of it and probably not return.

It’s alright to have a single pop-up ad but ensure that it is not annoying by having a visible ‘Close’ button and setting a time for it. One of those times is certainly not right when the website is opened. Give the visitor at least 2 minutes to browse and then present a decent pop-up ad, one that does not occupy the entire screen.

Different page for different topic

When different topics inhabit the same page, it creates a confusion within the content. Imagine someone typing their query in the search box and once they hit ‘Enter’, the page automatically scrolls down to a 20^th heading that is the answer. Okay, he’s there. Now what if he wants to type another query? He will go all the way up, then down again for the answer, then up again… It might as well not continue for even the number of times it has been mentioned it will continue for it will immediately frustrate the user.

Therefore, all good brands ensure that they have a separate landing page, with the relevant keywords. It also helps the customer to quickly find the information they are looking for. A dedicated page for their findings is the best treat you can give them.

The simple fixes mentioned above are applicable to all websites regardless of the industry they belong to. If you have a website, or are about to create one, then ensure that you make all those changes to improve the overall design of your website.