9 Principles for a Well-Designed Website

24 Nov 2020

A company’s website serves as the central location for publicly accessible, interlinked web pages and associated digital resources that share a single domain name. Each web page contains a collection of content such as text, images, and videos displayed and accessed across the internet.

What are websites for?

The purpose of a website is to turn visitors into paying customers. Though a website is the primary portal for showcasing a company’s products and services, the main function is to provide visitors with information about your company, its values, services, and products.
More importantly, a website must be designed, structured, and optimized to enable users to be drawn in and connected with your brand in order for them to engage and purchase services or products from the business.

Websites must be easily scannable and clickable for optimal user gratification while webpage content must be simple and intuitive enough to satisfy user expectations.

Here are 9 Principles for a Well-Designed Website:

Determine goals, objectives, and purpose
The website must have a clearly defined purpose and objective. Goals often include increasing brand awareness, user engagement, and sales revenue.
Establish a budget
Various expenses are necessary (e.g. web hosting, programming, web design, etc.) so make sure to set aside funds for the elements you plan to leverage. Resist the temptation of hiring inexperienced website designers who charge little and deliver even less. No visitor to a successful and well-designed website ever says, “Wow this site is great, I bet it they saved a lot of money creating it.”
Know who will work on which part
By assigning roles, everyone on the team will know what to expect from whom, and help them be aware of new developments, deadlines, and changes that should be done.
Form a content strategy
Content must be planned before the website goes live. The content plan dictates not only the design and layout but also the kind of information to be communicated with the target audience.
Decide on the essential web pages
Most websites have the basics: Home, About, and Contact pages but it all boils down to a company’s preference on how many pages are needed to meet the specific needs of the brand and the business.
Build a wireframe
A wire frame is a mock-up of the page and will show everyone on the team how the website will look like when it’s finally live.
Never rush the design process
Aesthetics and functionality should go hand in hand when building a website. Aside from having a user-friendly navigation, make sure colors, style, and fonts are consistent throughout the website. Company logo, taglines, and copy must be placed strategically and prominently across main pages.
Testing is crucial
This will give you time to catch details that were initially missed during the design process and fix all the bugs.
Exercise vigilance throughout its lifespan
The launch of your website is only the first step in a long and exciting journey into the world wide web. Your website serves as a visual representation of your brand and business which is constantly evolving and changing so you must constantly monitor performance, security, analytics software, and content to keep your site and your brand fresh and engaging for your target audience – your customers.

How to get the most out of a well-planned website design?

Consider these top three tips:

Make webpages self-explanatory. Strive for spot on navigation and site architecture so you can get rid of questions marks. Users hate to think so it should be designed to get quickly from point A to point B.
Keep user requirements minimal. The less action required from users, the more effective you can entice them to complete an action without making them feel uncomfortable or impatient.
Improve user experience. Whether you’re offering a tool, service, or product for users to try out, manage to capture users’ attention in a very simple and user-friendly way.

Is your website intentionally structured to convert users and prospects to loyal customers? If you’re overwhelmed with all the steps involved in building a website, ClinkIT Solutions can do it for you. Contact us here.