All posts tagged Web Design

Quite often, web design is used interchangeably with web development, but are the two synonymous? In this article, I take a look at what web design entails in a bid to enlighten those who would like to pursue a career in web development and those who just want to satisfy their curiosity on the subject.

Web development and its 3 heads

The web development process generally involves three main phases. These are web designing, front-end development, and back-end development. Each stage is normally done by a person who specializes in that particular phase of development, although there are some web developers with more than one skill. A person with skills in web design, front-end, and back-end development is known as a full-stack web developer.

Not all developers end up as full-stack developers. If you identify with the philosophy that a jack of all trades is a master of none, then you should be content with specializing in one aspect of web development- like web designing.

A web designer plays a crucial role in the creation of webpages. A webpage is a document you access when you visit a website. The two words-webpage and website- are sometimes used interchangeably, but that is a story for another day. So what does a web designer do?

Designing the web…
The web designer creates a layout of elements that appear on a web page. The elements range from text, images to videos.

A logo and favourite icon (favicon), are among images that can be found on a webpage. The logo and favicon are part of a brand. Sometimes the web designer is tasked to design the brand or to ensure that existing images are in a certain format and size for the best user experience(UX). The logo typically appears on the navigation panel of a webpage while the favicon is visible in a web browser’s history and it may also appear on home screens of mobile devices.

Fonts and colours on a webpage are also chosen by a web designer and they usually resonate with the brand. The web designer comes up with colour scheme codes for use by developers later in the development process since colours are rarely referred with their names in web development. The web designer also makes sure that the correct fonts are used. Now you might be wondering what skills should a web designer possess?

Read more: What Is Web Design?

Do you think of SEO and web design as separate elements of your website?

You shouldn’t.

In fact, to do both correctly, they have to work together. Google cares about how your site looks and feels more than you might think it does. Even if it can’t “see” it the same way a human user can, there are benefits to building a responsive website that will make your SEO more solid than ever.

Building rapport with Google takes more than keyword frequency. Here’s how you can make your website show up higher on search rankings and stand out from the pack:

1. Mobile matters.

At the end of 2017, Google announced on its webmaster blog that it was going to start indexing mobile sites first. Previously, the desktop version of a website was the one that would get indexed. But from then on, Google slowly began rolling out a mobile-first program.

Google knows what it’s doing. According to a Quartz report from media agency Zenith, 70 percent of all web traffic came from smartphones in 2017. And that number is only expected to climb.

Read more: 5 Ways Solid SEO and Web Design Work Together to Build Rapport With Google

Before visitors read anything on your site, they should be drawn in by an attractive web design. Learn how to create an eye-catching website here.

Did you know that 75% of people will judge the credibility of your business, based on the design of your website?

Thus if you want people to take your business seriously, you must give your website a good design. But if you know little to nothing about website design, you’re probably at a loss in terms of where to begin.

Read on, and you’ll learn the basic principles when it comes to creating an attractive website design. Use these tips, and you won’t have to worry about your credibility taking a hit due to a poorly designed website.

Let’s begin!

1. Keep things simple

If you want your website to be appealing, it’s a good idea to make the design as simple as possible.

When your website has a simple design, it will be easier for people to find the things that matter to them. Your website will also load faster on mobile devices, as there won’t be any unnecessary graphics.

2. Choose a color scheme

When designing your website, think about using a color scheme of some sort.

You should do this because the use of colors will make your website more engaging. That’s because you can use colors to draw attention to significant bits of information on your site.

When choosing a color scheme, try to select colors that represent your brand.

Read more: Build a beautiful website: Three tips for attractive web design

Wooing online shoppers can be tricky. While your website may look professional and include social proof and trust badges, you could be overlooking less obvious design elements that can affect conversions. But don’t worry; you don’t have to be a web designer yourself to understand and implement these four simple fixes.

1. Pick the right colors.

When choosing colors for your website, you shouldn’t simply pick your favorite. Instead, you need to consider the emotions each color will convey and if that emotion matches your brand. It’s commonly believed that certain colors affect the way we feel about a business, including whether we decide to make a purchase.

The color blue, for example, is thought to evoke feelings of trust, strength and dependability, which is why companies like Dell, Ford and American Express use it. On the other hand, companies like Lego, Nintendo and YouTube chose red because it tends to evoke excitement and youthfulness.

So consider what your website’s colors are conveying to your audience. Do you sell healthy lifestyle products? Then think about choosing green to evoke peacefulness and growth. And also bear in mind that using high-contrasting colors helps the most important elements, like call-to-action buttons, stand out.

2. Consider typography.
Just like colors stir specific emotions in people, so do fonts, so you need to choose typography for your website that represents your brand accurately. For instance, if your business makes hand-crafted furniture, you might consider choosing a font that tells your audience that reliability and comfort are important to you.

Additionally, creating enough spacing between lines of text will make your content easier for users to read. The magic line-height (the space above and below lines of text) is 150 percent of the font size you’re using.

3. Use negative space.
Negative space (or whitespace) refers to the space between all of the different elements of your website, such as that between header and content. Lots of negative space on your website is actually a good thing, allowing you to focus on the most important elements — like an eye-catching main image and call-to-action — and overall readability.

Read more: 4 Simple Web-Design Tips to Boost Conversions

While B2B sales are typically complicated, your website shouldn’t be (at least not to your user). Below are eight essential things every B2B website design must have:

1. Clear Navigation

Your website’s navigation is not the time to get creative with copy or design. The navigation is a utilitarian element and you want the user to easily find exactly what they are looking for (and quickly) through your main navigation.

2. A Homepage that Tells Your Brand Story

Always assume the user coming to your B2B website knows nothing about your company. As such, you want to take them on a journey, starting with an attractive hero image or video and a short and poignant brand statement. As the user scrolls down the page, engage them with subtle animation, short blocks of copy, and imagery to support it. Your website’s home page must give the user a reason to stay and explore further.

3. Products and/or Services Section
A section of your B2B web design must be dedicated to going into a decent amount of detail about your products and services. This can start with a product or services landing page that gives a quick overview of everything your firm has to offer.

From there, the user should have the option to go one step further and get to a page with more detail. However, when I say detail, I don’t mean a page full of long-form copy. I’m talking about concise, engaging bits of content with imagery, illustrations, photography, and/or videos to support it. You don’t need to tell the whole story, but enough of the story to educated the user so they are motivated to take action, such as filling out a form or picking up the phone.

4. Clear CTAs and Contact Page
Don’t make a prospect or client visiting your website search for how to contact you. Buttons, pop-ups, chat features, and an easy-to-find contact page are absolutely critical to any successful B2B website design.

Read more: The Top Elements of Effective B2B Web Design

A new white paper from Kayo demonstrates how web design and development can drive business growth.

Kent-based technical agency, Kayo, has launched a new report, exploring how effective web design and development can drive business growth.

Entitled ‘The rise of the smart site’, the report demonstrates how your website can act as your most powerful business development manager, if harnessed and optimised correctly as part of a wider web strategy.

The report highlights how against a backdrop of ever-evolving customer expectations, a growing number of channels and routes to market and competitors on all sides, your website is a hugely powerful tool to help build brand awareness and drive business growth.

Read more: The rise of the smart site: How web design is driving business growth

In fact, if you check out Quikclicks, Australia’s leading web design agency, you’ll be able to see what a well designed and captivating web page looks like! It’s important to note that the professionals are there to handle the detail for you, allowing you to focus on the business and your goals.

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design uses the availability of data storage to allow the website to access a multitude of images and potential layouts. This results in the ability, via coding, for the web page to fit the screen it is being viewed on.

You probably know how frustrating it is to view a web page on a cell phone and have to keep scrolling to left and right. The idea behind responsive web design is to avoid this, the page will fit the screen you’re holding, regardless of what size that is.

In the past, this would only have been possible by creating multiple websites. A mobile device would have to visit a different site to the desktop one. This made creating websites more complicated and keeping all sites up to date time-consuming.

Read more: Responsive web design: What it is, and why you need it

Your website design is more important for conversions than you think. You can implement every conversion-boosting tactic in the world, but if your web design looks like crap, it won’t do you much good.

Design is not just something designers do. Design is marketing. Design is your product and how it works. The more I’ve learned about the principles of web design, the better results I’ve gotten.

Here are 8 effective web design principles you should know and follow.

1. Visual Hierarchy

Squeaky wheels get the grease, and prominent visuals get the attention. Visual hierarchy is one of the most important principles behind good web design. It’s the order in which the human eye perceives what it sees.

Exercise. Please rank the circles in the order of importance:

visual hierarchy circles

Without knowing anything about these circles, you were able to rank them

easily. That’s a visual hierarchy.

Certain parts of your website are more important than others (forms, calls to action, value proposition, etc.), and you want those to get more attention than the less important parts.

If you website menu has 10 items, are all of them equally important? Where do you want the user to click? Make important links more prominent.

Read more: 8 Web Design Principles to Know in 2019