Life is not easy for a website owner. He / she has to perform various tasks like writing content, moderating comments and managing the design and performance of the website. All this can take up a great deal of your time! However, all this is worth the results. Concentrate on the important aspects of your website and simplify your life. With little tweaks in the website design, your website can be perfect - it will have features like being responsive, usable and impressive looking. This will help you to drive visitors and customers to your website.
Responsive Website
A responsive website design refers to a range of HTML and CSS mechanisms that enable a web page to change the configuration on the basis of the device on which it is being viewed. Especially for the businesses, this new trend in web design is much more than just a trend! It's a necessity!
Customers all around the world are going mobile. Laptops, tablets and mobile phones are used for browsing the internet on a daily basis. As a result of this, customers look forward to mobile internet to adapt to their needs. If your website is not accessible on a mobile device, then your business is missing out on valuable traffic and your brand does not have a competitive edge.
Creating a responsive website design should be your top most priority in 2014.
Usability Should Be A Prime Factor
The previous considerations of internet were focused on page load times, graphic flare, search engine optimization, high-speed internet; changing web design trends and an enhanced Google Algorithm have resulted in these considerations being arguable.
In this new era, what the users are specifically looking for is the usability. The modern visitor is seeking an accessible website that is easy to understand. This enables them to reach to the information they are looking for without any difficulty. The benefit of catering to this need results in happier customers.
Here are some simple considerations to make while designing your website in order to provide with better usability:
* Make sure that an easy navigation is provided throughout the website.
Any important information and 'sign-up' or 'subscribe' buttons should be clearly visible.
* Make use of an average font size and typography for conveying a message without the slow loading times of the images.
* Don't be scared of the white space as it reduces the visual clutter and makes the website more pleasant for the eyes.
* Make it easy for the visitors to get in touch with your team in order to enable the social traffic.
These are just few important ways that you can consider while designing your website. Above everything else, take a look at your website and ask yourself - 'If I was a new visitor, will I find what I am looking for within 10 seconds?'
Optimize The Website
A large component of usability is related to speed. An efficient website that fulfills the customer demands does not load slowly! After all, it is important to consider that the internet user is impatient. It is important to keep up with the competitors who offer browsing convenience and this will result in an improvement in your website and the conversion rate as well.
At present, the primary methods of optimization are dominating the way the web world works. The first method is the basic website optimization in the growing age of visuals. As more and more websites utilize the large scale visuals, the page load time is the first priority.
Here are some basic important rules that you must follow:
* Always use images on your website, make sure that their resolution is properly adjusted.
* Colorful photographs and detailed illustrations must be uploaded in the right format (preferably JPEG).
* Use faint-color graphics and images along with large blocks of identical coloring; upload them in the GIF format.
* Utilize the CSS rules for setting the height and width of the images so that your content properly loads along with the images.
The second method is to improve the page load times through typography. This happens in two ways:
* The First - By utilizing large-format display fonts that creates a visually appealing and interesting web page without the hassle of loading the image.
* The Second - The plain color graphics, icon fonts, fonts used for displaying something specific can be utilized in place of high-resource graphics for reducing the page load time.
By executing the two methods mentioned above, your website will look more impressive and it will load quickly and the visitors will be happy with your website.
There was a time when creating a website was an easy task, however, the time has changed. Many important factors go into the making of a good website. From the initial days of XHTML to the new phase of expressive website design, the users and businesses have got better with time. Get your website in the limelight with a visual and usability overhaul and enjoy the benefits and revenue that this change will bring.