As with most other areas of work, website design is made up of “rules” that are frequently broken. However, we can still identify several things that all website designers need to take into consideration. In a way, these things are the pillars of website design. They act as a sort of foundation that we can use to develop top quality websites, bend the rules and create something new and truly spectacular. Let’s take a look at what some of the main ones are.
Professionalism – Show that you mean business
Whether you are creating a website for yourself or for your business, professionalism matters. This is very often what gets people to take your website seriously, so making sure it has a high quality design and looks as good as it possibly can is essential. This is why professional website design companies will always be so crucial: most people can probably knock together a fairly basic webpage, but putting together a website that is Good-with-a-capital-G takes considerable skill.
From coding to graphic design, there is a lot that goes into making websites look professional, and this is one of the most important aspects of the quality of any site.
Usability – Consider it in your Website Design
Then we also have the issue of usability. It almost goes without saying that if you are going to create a website, then no matter how good it looks, it’s worth nothing unless people are able to use it properly. Usability links to issues such as what type of graphics you should use, how long the images take to load, how many menus you have and how easy it is to navigate the site. Simply put, we’re talking about the user experience – and a good experience for all users surely has to be one of the main goals of any website.
Optimisation – Make your website visible
Search engine optimisation is another important skill – many of us might know a little bit about it, but we need website design companies and SEO specialists to really make the most of its potential. Once you have a website, you need that site to be found. This means it needs to be searchable. It needs to be designed so that search engine bots can crawl it. It needs to be optimised for important keywords and phrases. Tactics such as link building and online ad campaigns can help.
And we can never forget that there’s a lot of competition out there, and so it’s more vital than ever that websites are optimised well. This is definitely an important pillar for all sites.
Relevance – Good quality and relevant content
Something else that is crucial for any website is its relevance. After all, there is only so much a good SEO campaign can do without good quality, relevant content. Plus, even putting to one side the issue of SEO, the relevance of a website is bound up with the issue of usability. If people are going to use your website, they need to know that it will contain the information they are looking for.
The site needs to sell your company and what you do, the keywords you choose should be relevant to what you do, and it needs to give the people who use that site the information that they need.
Adaptability – Taylor to a range of devices
Finally, we come to the pillar of adaptability. We live in a world where websites are increasingly viewed on a range of different devices. A single user might look at a site on their desktop, their smartphone and a tablet. This means that websites need to be adaptable and suitable for all of these different devices, as well as the range of browsers that need to be supported.
It is getting easier to make sites adaptable, but it can still be a tricky and time consuming process. Failing to do it could well cost a business a good opportunity for growth. Making use of the relevant expertise and taking the time to ensure your website is supported across all platforms has got to be one of the crucial elements of web design today.
