Essentials to Know for an Excellent Website Design
Having a website for your business has turned into a norm rather than a preference. The entire world is becoming increasingly digitalized, and, as a result, a business website means more than a simple online presence. It is a handy tool for marketing your business, acquiring leads, selling your products, and generating revenue. Therefore, make sure that your website design supports your business objectives and can help your business grow.
Here in this article, you can find the most crucial elements that you should seek in a website design, explained in layperson terms to avoid the confusion of technical jargon. Enjoy knowing what you should seek while having your website designed.
1. Stellar Domain Name
Domain name is your website’s address that one should type in the browser URL bar to visit your website. Choosing a domain name involves more than simply using your business name. In fact, here’s list of what you should consider while deciding on your domain name:
- Choose a memorable domain name. Try to choose a clear one that you won’t have to spell and keep it as short as possible since long domain names are less memorable.
- Make sure it is relevant to what you are doing.
- Ensure its SEO compatibility. You can check the most searched keywords in your field using Google Keyword Planner and try to use a high-volume keyword in your domain name.
- Avoid numbers and dashes to prevent confusion. Using multiple dashes may also cause your website to be labelled as spam.
- Check the availability of your desired domain name. If available, get both “.com” and your local extension (like “.ca”). If either extension is not available, check the website on that domain to ensure it won’t cause you any harm.
- Check the history of your desired domain name and make sure its previous use doesn’t harm your reputation. You may use The Wayback Machine to check a domain’s history.
2. Sufficient Web Hosting Specifications and Server Location
Every website on World Wide Web is hosted on a server. A hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files. Web hosting is like a house on the web where your website lives, and it makes the files that comprise your website available for viewing online.
Each website requires specific hosting features with sufficient disk space, speed, and traffic limits to function properly. Therefore, make sure you have sufficient hosting features before getting your website designed.
The location of the hosting server is also important. It should be in the country of your business location preferably with proximity for an optimal website speed and effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
For example, for a business website in Ontario, you may use a server located in Ontario, Quebec or in Manitoba but try to avoid a server in British Columbia because of the distance.
So, ask these two questions to your hosting provider or website designer (if they provide the hosting):
- What are the hosting features and specifications you provide and are they sufficient to accommodate my website?
- Where are the servers that will host my website located?
3. Security of Your Website and Email Accounts
You should make sure that your website provides the sufficient level of security. Standard business websites that don’t gather customer data could use a standard SSL Certificate to ensure the basic security.
However, if you will collect confidential data such as credit card information, it requires higher levels of security. You should also note that the Canadian Digital Privacy Act is being updated, and it’s imperative to get it right!
E-mail security is also important to ensure that your email accounts are protected. Securing email accounts also prevents your business emails from ending up in spam folders and junk mails of the recipient. Securing email accounts involves several technical steps that an experienced website developer should be capable of completing.
4. Exceptional Website User Experience
The term “User Experience (UX)” defines the experience of an individual interacting with your business. Website user experience is similarly the visitor’s experience with your website.
UX is important to consider while designing your website because it significantly affects the behaviour of your potential customers. People tend to leave the websites that don’t work properly or hard to navigate. According to surveys, 94% of users distrust a website because of its design.
Website UX can be improved to the highest level only through a 360-degree approach to all elements including:
- High-quality original content,
- Smooth functionality,
- Consistency throughout the website,
- Ease of use,
- Security and credibility,
- Automated communication,
- Load speed,
- Wisely used visual content,
- Responsiveness,
- Avoiding 404 errors.
5. SEO Compatibility
Getting a regular Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service is not a part of the standard website design. However, having your website ready for your future SEO activities from its initial design is important, and will save you time and money in the long run. Therefore, make sure that your website has the basic SEO optimization from the first day.
6. Top-Quality Website Content
Website content is as important as the design. Just as your content cannot stand out without a proper design, the best website design of the world wouldn’t mean anything if it lacks high quality content. High-quality content should be:
- Original—never copy-paste,
- Relevant to your business,
- The right amount – not too little, not too much,
- Proofread for any mistakes—even for the minor mistakes,
- As a bonus, SEO-friendly.
Whether you create the content for your website, or have it created by a professional, make sure it complies with the above specifications.
7. Responsive Website Design
Responsive design is a part of user experience, but it is so important that it deserves its own subtitle. Let me first explain what it means.
Responsive web design makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size. This means a responsive website looks and functions properly on your desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone.
Since 79% of internet users in Canada access internet via mobile devices, responsive design is a must-have. Recently, Google started penalizing websites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices, making the need for responsiveness even more crucial.
8. Website Speed
High speed is another crucial element of a successful website design. We are living in an age of high-speed internet accessible to majority of the population. To keep your visitors on your website, it needs to adapt to such speed. People will just leave your website if it takes more than 4-5 seconds to load.
As important as user reaction, there is another dimension of website speed. Google takes the page loading speed into consideration while ranking your website. However, Google is not as tolerant as website visitors in terms of loading speed. If your website takes longer than 1 second to load, it is classified as slow!
Before having your website designed, remember to ask your designer for speed optimization. With some additional technical steps, they can make sure your website loads at an optimal speed.
Contact us for your questions about our website design services or book a free consulting session to discuss your needs and how we can assist you.