What Elements Should My Website Have In It?

Successful websites follow some basic design elements that helps to ensure that their website generates organic traffic and is easy to navigate once people arrive at your site.

This post will talk through 11 things to think about when creating your site.

 

11 Design Elements For Your Website

 

Design Element #1 – Purpose

Ensure that your website has a clear purpose.

Make sure that visitors to your website know what that is as soon as they find your website.

Why do you want people to visit your website and what is the outcome that you want out of their visit?

Is the aim to provide information?

Is it to buy something from you?

Or do you want to communicate a vision or message?

This needs to be kept in mind for every page of your website.

 
 

Design Element #2 – Communication

In today’s society, people want things now.

They demand that information be made easily and quickly without having to search for it.

The language on your website needs to be in simple, easy to read and displayed.

For example – using headings to chunk information together, bullet points instead of sentences and large font (14 – 16px).

 
 

Design Element #3 – Fonts

Leave the fancy fonts at home.

Sans Serif fonts (including Arial, Verdana and Times New Roman) are modern fonts without the decorative finishes.

These fonts display much better on a website page than others.

The ideal font size is 16 px – which allows readers to easily scan information on the page.

Sites that you can use to get some inspiration in regards to fonts include:-

• Google Fonts
• DaFont
• Font Squirrel

 
 

Design Element #4 – Colour

The colours that you use in your website will create different moods or reactions in people.

Complimentary colours will create balance and harmony for people.

Contrasting colours will make it easier to read e.g. white text on black background or vice versa.

Vibrant colours will ignite an emotion in your readers.

These colours should be used sparingly, and reserved for things like “Call To Action” buttons.

 
 

Design Element #5 – Images

As the saying goes “a picture paints 1000 words” – great images show your message a lot more than words.

Google loves images.

Use stock images or if you have a budget, use a professional photographer.

There are a number of sites on the internet that provide 1000’s of free or paid stock photos.

Sites where you can get FREE images include:-

• Pexels
• Unsplash
• Gratisography

 

Other sites where you can find stock images at a price:-

• Shutterstock
• Adobe Stock
• Creative Market

 
 

Design Element #6 – Navigation

Ensure that your website has simple navigation is place.

Some tactics to ensure that this occurs is to:-

• Have a logical page hierarchy set up
• Ensure that you have buttons on each page to redirect people to other areas of your website
• Follow the “3 click rule” – people should be able to find what they are looking for on your website within 3 clicks.

 
 

Design Element #7 – Website Speed

Google rates pages higher that are quicker to load.

No-one likes a website that takes too long to load up. If it takes too long, your visitors will just leave and go to a competitor’s site.

There are a number of things that will impact the speed of your site including:-

• Your theme
• Size and scale of the images on your site
• The coding you use on your site

 

There are some great tools out there that will help you assess the speed of your website. These include:-

• Page Speed Insights by Google
• Neil Patel’s SEO Analyzer
• Pingdom

Each of these website will identify the areas of where you need to focus on to improve your speed.

Also available are some great plugins to fix some of your issues.

These include:-

• WP Fastest Cache
• W3 Total Cache
• WP Smush.It

 
 

Design Element #8 – Mobile Friendly

The most common way that people view website is from a mobile device, so you will need to ensure that your website is mobile friendly.

Most themes will give you the option to view your page on different devices so use this tool to ensure that you have a responsive layout that looks great on mobile.

 
 

Design Element #9 – Your Logo

Ensure that your website has a logo – this is a core part of your identity for your business or blog.

If you have a graphic design background or are artistic – this will be easy.

However, if you are a creative nuff-nuff like myself – then you can outsource this at a very low cost.

Sites like Fiverr and Upwork have thousands of designers who can create a logo for you.

You just need to provide some clear instructions as to what it is that you are looking for – people are not mind readers.

 
 

Design Element #10 – Email/Mailing List Sign-Up

As much as social media can add value to your business, algorithms for social media sites such as FaceBook, Instagram and Pinterest can change at any time.

The consequence of this is that people who may be following you, may not be receiving feeds and updates as you post online.

The one list that is truly own and is yours is your mailing list.

You have complete control over the messages that you send the people who have signed up to your group.

You will need to give them something (called a lead magnet, opt-in, bribe) to get them to sign up – a checklist, eBook or fact sheet to get them to hand over their email address and name.

 
 

Design Element #11 – Social Media Links

Despite what is written above,  links to your social media pages – FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc are very useful in helping to promote your business.

Make sure that you display social media links to your site across all of your pages.

There you have it – 11 things to think of when building your website.

Have you considered all of these things when building your website?

If not, that’s ok – there is always time to go in and make changes.