While high-quality and excellent content matters, website design, too, matters if you want to arrest the attention of your website visitors and followers.
How your website looks and how easy it is to navigate through the pages can have greater impacts than you think. One crucial impact is converting readers into followers or customers.
It is, therefore, paramount to be creative when designing your website without forgetting your audience. That’s why we are going to give you 7 crucial principles of web development that you should never neglect.
Navigation
If your web visitors cannot navigate through your site easily, you can as well be ready for a high bounce rate. This is because they will leave your page a few minutes after accessing it. That also means that your visitors or followers will not take the action you intend them to take.
So, use bread crumbs, have a hierarchy page, and ensure that your visitors can find the information they are looking for in just three clicks, also called the “Three Click Rule”.
Apart from that, also ensure there are a couple of clickable buttons.
Balance
Your site, regardless of having the symmetrical or asymmetrical design, should have a balance. In asymmetrical, the right side of the web page is not equal to the left. For example, you may have a large portrait on the left of the page, and have a heavier font on the right.
In contrast, in a symmetrical design, both the right and left halves of the web page should be equally identical. In all these cases, there must be balancing.
Graphics
Graphics are a good way of capturing the attention of page viewers. Nonetheless, ensure that they are not slowing down your page. Slow pages are annoying. Also, do not add graphics at the start of the page. To be precise, avoid having graphics above the fold.
Negative Space
Allow readers some time to look away from the screen. Let their necks relax while they wait to read the next line. How? By having negative (empty) spaces between the paragraphs.
This space allows the reader to comprehend what they just read.
Color
Well, the use of colors can be tricky as different people love different colors. The crucial thing though, is to ensure that readers can read the font without straining. The trick, therefore, is to have a different background color with that of the font.
The graphics, too, should have a different color.
Grids
Grids are essential in that they balance the layouts of a page, thus making visibility easier. How? By splitting it into columns, boxes as well as sections. This balances your content. As a result, readers can navigate through the page easily and fast.
Still, grids give your page a professional look.
Keep It Simple
It is okay to have several pop-ups on your page. After all, apart from providing resourceful information, you probably want to make some money from your site, too. That’s fine. However, be sure of this, too many pop-ups cause distractions that are annoying to page visitors.
Hence, minimize them and, instead, provide what customers want.
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