Introduction
According to Datareportal, over five billion of the world's population is using the internet. This leaves only 3 billion people left unconnected to the internet. Moreover, the world’s connected population grew by more than 170 million in the 12 months until October 2022. This means that there is an increasing demand for web pages and web resources, and the internet will become a basic necessity for future generations of all of the world's population. This is where the need for effective web design comes in. Web designers are those who create web pages and websites for the consumption of users.
Recent times have witnessed the critical need for expert web designers. Web design is not only about coding or programming the backend but also about the visual aspect of the website. Aesthetics play a major role in the look and feel of the website, which is important in engaging the modern internet user in today's competitive web design industry. Understanding the user experience in terms of visual aesthetics, flexibility, accessibility, and the ready availability of information is the need of the hour in web design and development. And in this article, we will discuss some of the key elements in the web design process that you can apply to your next web design project.
Knowing which backend or frontend elements to include in your website can be complicated, especially if you are a beginner. Even if you are an experienced web designer, keeping up with the latest trends in the web designing world can be quite challenging. The knowledge of visual elements is not the only concern; how these elements are optimised for user experience will also determine the success or failure of your website. According to recent research by Amazon Web Services, a bad user experience (UX) is likely to lose 88% of your visitors. What matters most in the web design process is putting the focus on the user rather than on the company's visual appeal or features.
7 key elements of effective web design
1. User-friendly design
While designing your website, your key focus must be on your users. How your customers or audience reacts to your design will have the final say on the success of your business. According to Pop Web Design's recent research, 3 in 4 customers judge your website’s credibility based on its aesthetics. A good navigation system will encourage your audience to easily access your content, engage with it, and become your customers. More than that, if your bounce rate increases, then search engines like Google will recognise the issue and mark your site as a low engagement site and stop showing it on top of their SERP(Search Engine Result Pages). This can easily harm your website because the SEO for these sites is very important and must not be compromised. As your organic rankings suffer because of your bounce rates, your business will also have a hard time converting your visitors into sales.
To gain better organic rankings and make bounce rates lower, implement these user-friendly elements in your web design project. Add a visually appealing design, but don't make it bulky or complex. Use minimal web design and fewer visual elements. Add a homepage with a clear navigational system. Add a search bar to your menu and a sticky menu both on the desktop and mobile versions. Add contrast to your website's important elements by changing colours, shapes, and backgrounds. You can also add forms for additional functionality, which will boost user engagement.
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2) Mobile responsiveness
According to Statista, In the first quarter of 2021, mobile devices generated 54.8 percent of global website traffic. More than half of website users will use mobile devices while purchasing an item or browsing the internet. Due to their accessibility, mobile or handheld devices dominate internet surfing patterns. This trend will only increase as smartphones become more powerful and inexpensive. As humanity prospers, the internet and smartphones will become a basic necessity, even in poorer countries. Having a website that is designed only for desktops and larger screens will only frustrate the visitor. This is exactly why you must be aware of the possibilities of having a mobile-responsive website.
It goes without saying that your website must be easily accessible via mobile devices. A mobile-responsive website will increase user engagement because it keeps your audience engaged for longer periods (Source: Orchestrate Technologies). Unlike the other, mobile-responsive websites adapt to the width of the screen and present the content of the webpage to visitors in an aesthetically pleasing and orderly manner. This negates the need to constantly zoom in and zoom out to view the text and images, as is the case with non-responsive web pages. As a result, you can safely say that a mobile-responsive website is synonymous with user-friendliness, particularly among smartphone visitors.
3) A focus on SEO
According to BrightEdge research, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. Search engines are the initial touch points for your potential customers. This is why SEO is an important element of web design. More often than not, this element is ignored until the website is at its final stages of development. Some important aspects like page load speed, sitemap integration, enabling access to website crawlers, optimising photos, etc. must all be considered before making the website live.
An SEO-friendly website ranks highly on search engine result pages (SERP) and is easy to find for those who are looking for information. Moreover, the technicalities of SEO make it harder for businesses to continuously optimise their website once it is delivered. While on-page SEO can be optimised by the content teams, technicalities require specialised web developers. This is why developing an SEO-friendly website and offering after-sales services can help your web development company.
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4) Speed
If there is one thing you can be certain of in your web design process, then it is the need for speed. According to recent research by Google and Deloitte, Significant gains in conversion rates were seen when mobile site load times were reduced by just one-tenth of a second, namely 8.4% for retail sites and 10.1% for travel sites. The current generation is always in a hurry to get the required information. Your website might have extraordinary design and aesthetics, a well-designed UI/UX interface, and the highest-quality content. However, if your page loading speed is not above global standards and visitor expectations, you will certainly lose that visitor. In an age where people's attention span is decreasing to historical lows, you must create a fast-loading website.
The speed must also be optimised for both desktop and mobile sites. One research from Google showed that the bounce rate increased by 32% when a page load time went from one to three seconds. The bounce rate increased to 90% when the page load time went from one to five seconds. Furthermore, If a site takes up to 10 seconds to load, then the bounce rate can be as high as 123% (Source: Website Builder Expert). If you have invested in advertising strategies like social media marketing or PPC, then this is a large amount of money wasted. It is a waste of time, money, and commission for PPC if your visitors click on your advertisement link and come to your website, only to leave before the webpage loads. This is why speed must take a higher priority than anything else in your web design process.
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5) Compelling content
Making highly interesting and engaging content will encourage your visitors to stay on your website longer. According to eMarketer, 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content per day. If your content is not interesting or does not appeal to your visitor, they will leave. Providing the right information to the right people with the right authority will make you an expert in your field. Having authority is crucial to making your information believable. Having authentic sources for all your claims, giving credit to other researchers, interlinking your visitors to other valuable sources within your website, and having additional sources will help establish you as an authority in your field.
Currently, web pages and blogs are not the only content forms. Several companies are using TikTok videos to promote their brands (Source: NoGood). There is an ever-growing variety of content forms, like infographics, visual thinking graphics, short videos, disappearing stories, etc. Content is not just a bunch of paragraphs and photographs huddled together. It is providing your visitors with something more. It is giving them value for their time on your website. You can also create content that increases their knowledge or entertains them. Even formatting your content into easily readable chunks helps boost visitor engagement. This is why the majority of blogs on the internet use lists, bullet points, or numbered lists. Incorporating stories, research, and facts can also help make your content interesting to read. Creating compelling content must be a key factor in your web design process.
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6) Calls-to-action
You need to have a clear path towards your end product, which might be a product or service. While a visitor can access your website through a variety of forms and channels, you must ensure that they all end up on your product page sooner or later. This is where the importance of the call to action (CTA) lies. Calls to action are paragraphs, images, buttons, or forms that appeal to the visitor's interest in visiting your end product page. For example, if you have a blog with several articles in it, then you must add a specific paragraph and a link to your end product so that whoever reads those blogs will be informed of your business and take a look at it.
The same can be done on all other channels, like YouTube, social media, email forms, etc. Letting your visitors know that there is some product in which they might be interested in the main purpose of call-to-action buttons. In the case of email forms, you may use a signup button. Even the placement of these buttons or blocks is important. The Average Click-Through Rate of CTAs is only 4.23% according to research conducted by Leighton Interactive. However, this is a rate which has a high probability of sales conversion. This is why placing several CTA buttons at strategic locations is highly resourceful. It must not interrupt your visitors' primary intention or lose its significance after they have found what they were looking for.
7) Aesthetically pleasing imagery
You might have heard a popular phrase in the photography world: "One photograph is better than a thousand words." This is even truer. Even when designing emails, keep in mind that 65 percent of users like emails that are mostly made up of images (Source: Hubspot). Having visually pleasing images throughout your web pages helps you connect and visualise the information they are reading. Having imagesetter articles will help them to break the length down and read without becoming overwhelmed. Integrating high-quality images of your products from a wide variety of angles will help them in their decision-making process. You should also use alt texts, captions, image descriptions, and meta tags to help internet crawlers to the webpage.
While using high-quality images might make it appear good, it can also hurt your page's loading speed. In this fast-paced digital world, you are faced with the dilemma of speed vs. quality. As larger image sizes negatively affect page loading speed, it is hard to choose one over the other. Especially if you consider that data costs are highly variable across countries, it might be tempting for you to use low-quality pictures. However, you can use several simple tricks, like using image compression, having zoom-in options for high-quality photos, and enabling lazy loading of images, to optimise both speed and quality. Balancing between speed and visuals is a major challenge for web designers.
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Conclusion
E-commerce is going to grow and reach new markets across the globe. With an ever-growing user base and decreasing data costs, e-commerce is set to conquer the marketing and sales world. In light of this scenario, the need for highly user-friendly websites is necessary for businesses. This is where expert web designers are going to help build these businesses. The usability and user-friendliness of a website as a whole are key factors in its success. The highest chance for online success is provided by including the aforementioned factors in the planning, design, or overhaul of your website. Mobile-responsive websites must take centre stage in the design process, as you can expect that half the visitors to your website will be on a mobile device.
You should not underestimate the free organic traffic that only SEO can bring. This is where the technicalities come in, and you must be informed of the latest SEO practices. Again, page loading must not be a frustrating factor for visitors. If you consider the decreasing attention span of the current generation, it must be clear to you that you should never make your visitors wait. And finally, making your website a pleasure to look at and visually rich through proper images, illustrations, and infographics should also be a key element in your web design process. So these are the seven key elements of web design you should integrate and master in your process.
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