For many businesses, especially ones whose lifeblood is online sales, a great website is an absolute must. Unfortunately, too many companies over look small details which cause their websites to be slow, unresponsive, or difficult to navigate. Here are a few simple tips for web design that will deliver a great user experience and help you convert sales!
Set Your Performance Metrics
Think of your performance metrics as a budget. But instead of measuring expenses or revenue, you need to set measurable goals about how fast and big your site should be. If you want to have optimal speed, you need to look at the number of pages you have or the amount of information they contain and streamline them. If you must convey lots of data, you need to adjust your expectations for speed metrics. The goal should be to find a sweet spot to balance speed and size.
Use an Adaptive Image Tool to Decrease Image Sizes and Enable Compression
The number one web design cause of slow loading and responsiveness is that the pages are loaded with pictures that have enormous file sizes. It may seem counterintuitive to push for smaller files since we’ve been trained to get the biggest, highest resolution images available. They can always be made smaller, right? But they can’t be blown up bigger than their source file. The problem is, many designers don’t take the time to scale them down enough. You either need to take the time to do this or use a third-party adaptive image tool to do it for you.
Get Rid of any Unnecessary Elements
Want to improve your speed and user experience at the same time? Get rid of the clutter! This can be harder than it seems, because you may think every bit of information is critical to your business, but research shows that people want a small number of large buttons or banners on an open, clean design that they can easily navigate. You can always link to another page for more information. Don’t turn customers away by trying to pile it all in one place!
Invest in a Good Hosting Solution
Lastly, your web design can only be as good as its hosting solution. Some are very cheap and skimp on features. On the other hand, the most expensive may not be the right one for you either. Do your homework and investigate hosts that have good rankings and response rates.
