11 Things You Should Know Before Designing Your Website

Have you ever seen a website and thought, “Wow! This is the best website one could have of both worlds”, and then you see another website that looks terrific and you think who may have built such a terrifying website?

We all know the importance of having a website in current times but how many of us really know what we should know before designing and developing a website?

There is a lot more to work on than what it appears to be on the screen. From functionality, user experience, user interface, navigation, and immersiveness – there is a lot to develop for a great website.

There are all kinds of websites in the world. The one thing that distinguishes great websites from poor ones is their user experience and visual appeal.

Moreover, ecommerce website design doesn’t stop at developing, you need to make it visible on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other engines. Develop a website that engages customers, starts a conversation, and improves the conversation ratio.

All of these may sound overwhelming right now but don’t worry we have made it easier for you to understand the process of designing a website.

What You Need to Know Before Starting Your Website Design Project

1. Choosing A Domain And Host

A domain name is your online identity. Your domain name should match your business name as people will be searching for your business with your offline name. You need to make sure that your domain name doesn’t have any misspelled words as it may confuse people. Finding the correct domain is the most important thing for your website. Moreover, it also helps you with SEO purposes.

You can browse multiple hosting options and it is important to consider the nature of your website and business. Do you have technical support for your website? How many people will be visiting your website and how will they interact with your website (watching videos, playing games, reading blogs)? Considering all these factors, you are advised to purchase a hosting subscription accordingly.

2. UI/UX Design

The second most important thing while designing your website is focusing on the user interface and user experience. Users are the most precious asset of your business and so of your website.

Your website should be easy to navigate, and simple to understand. Don’t make your website complex enough to confuse people. Create a clean, appealing, and intuitive website design. The best measure of quality website design is its simplicity and attractiveness. It encourages users to stay on the website for a longer period of time and understand your services.

3. Colour Scheme

Other than UI/UX designs, colour schemes are the third most important factor while designing the website. Your brand colours should be implemented in your website and different colours have the capacity to evoke an emotional response. While choosing your website, consider your target audience, niche, branding, and colour psychology. Research the best colours for your website before you make a decision.

4. Functionality

Functionality is another major factor you need to consider while developing your website. You need to consider if there are loading issues, broken links, security-related issues, operational standards, and usability issues. It is important to see if your contact forms, surveys, and customer feedback forms are working properly.

5. SEO-Friendliness

Your online presence is highly dependent on the SEO-friendliness of your website. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, it works as a guide for search engine spiders by providing a map of your website and letting search engines know what your website talks about.

To make your website SEO-friendly, your site should have shorter website loading times, clear meta descriptions and meta titles, keyword-based content writing, and solve technical issues on your website. The lower the page loading time, the higher the conversion ratio and fewer the bounce rates. CMS services like WordPress provide plug-in designs to simplify the process.

6. Mobile-Friendliness

According to data, currently, 5.27 billion people are active on their mobile devices. This is a huge number. With such a big volume of mobile users, it is important to make your website mobile-friendly. Suppose your website is working great on a laptop but if it doesn’t fit on the mobile screen, it has no meaning. Design your website in a way that it runs smoothly on mobile devices as well.

7. Compatibility With Different Browsers

As technology evolves, the number of browsers is increasing and thus your website should be accessible and adaptive for all kinds of browsers out there – from Internet Explorer and Chrome to Firefox and Safari. Missing any of the browsers means missing a huge pool of audience.

8. Adding Social Media Buttons To Your Websites

Social media is a crucial part of today’s life and thus it is important to add your social media links to your website. When your audience can find your social media presence from your website itself, your website becomes easily reachable to your target audience. Not only adding your social links but also adding buttons to share your website on multiple platforms like WhatsApp, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter improve reach and traffic on your website.

9. Original Content

When designing a website, you will be needing content in written and image/video format. Though you can find all of the images and content free from the web (by duplicating them); it creates copyright issues in the future. Everything that you add on your website, falls under copyright issues that result in a penalty if used inappropriately. If you are using copyrighted content, make sure you have written authority or permission to use the content. Moreover, your site’s written content helps you in getting desired rankings on search engines. Make sure your content has no grammatical mistakes and is plagiarism-free. Adding a minimum of 2 blogs a month helps your site to be updated and competitive enough to rank on targeted keywords.

10. Comprehensive Site Map And Tracking

When developing a website, it is necessary to make a map of how your website looks. In other words, the table of contents of your website. The table of contents provides a snapshot of your website material in a handy manner. Moreover, a sitemap provides structured and simple information to search engines. When you add new pages to the website, it is important to revise the site map. You can use Google Webmaster Tools to simplify the process for you.

11. Cost Of The Website

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to this question. The cost of your website design totally depends on the functionalities and features you need in your website. If you are looking for a simple and sober website, you can expect to get it done from around 400$ to 800$ while a super high-standard website generally starts from 1500+$. If you are looking for a web design company, contact us today to discuss a custom solution based on your requirements.

Wrap Up

Having a website is damn crucial in current times and postponing the idea of having a website for your business is no less than losing a big opportunity to expand your business to the next level. People are shifting online quite rapidly and to keep up with the speed of the change is really needed for your business to survive and grow. The qualities and features we have mentioned in the blog post are handy so don’t forget to save this blog link for your future reference! 🙂

NFlow Technology is a digital marketing agency helping businesses to scale with the latest technologies. Get in touch with us now at info@nflowtech.com, to get the best solutions for your business requirements.