TOP 5 WEBSITE DESIGN TIPS YOU CANNOT IGNORE TO REVIVE YOUR DEAD WEBSITE

 
Having a really awesome website is not impossible; it just isn’t exactly like popping nuts into your mouth.  Good news however, is there is already a result proven blue print to follow, and that is-web design best practices. Web design best practices all over the world follow a particular pattern. This is simply that any success-focused website has to be useful, has a strong relevance value, while featuring a well laid design that simply cannot be ignored. How do I know? During the time I have spent as UX department head in a website design platform that is code-free, I have come to realize that there is a connection between website best practices and awesome designs that speak volumes. One obvious fact is that as different as web projects could be from one another, they all thrive on some basic principles. 

              Plus Dos and don’ts of website design and redesigning
 

1.   MAKE YOUR WEBSITE ATTRACTIVE FOR CONVERSIONS

 
  You should think of adding more value to your website than the beautiful design that greets customers when they visit the site. They would love the beautiful design no doubt but would also expect you to have more to offer. It is extremely important that your website can help customers with their individual needs and make this really easy for them to do. Always remember that CONVERSION is  the key.  Conversion and website success go hand- in- hand. Conversion happens when a visitor has passed the casual visitor level and is now a paying visitor. At this stage, they will be more than willing to become subscribers to more and more information you have for them with time. They could also just give you the much needed you need to get an inquiry form completed.
Why is each design aspect of a website important?  
Simple! Customers need to get to their destination with ease, plus your goal is their conversion, isn’t that right? Now here are your tools to have this done effectively:

• Text layout – how clear are your messages, labels, instructions and descriptions?
• Easy Navigation – helps people to move through your site with no difficulty at all. 
• Images – are your images distinct and of the absolute best quality
• Eye catching colors – do your colors speak attraction to the customers?

Although this is not all, it’s a good place to start. The fact is every single part of a website’s design should be considered with utmost importance. While this is happening on the one hand, on the other hand, you may also want to use a testing method such as the A/B testing that shows which variant of design is giving you more conversions. This method deliberately exposes some users to option A while others only get to use option B. this way you can make the necessary adjustments where necessary. 
 
So how do you know if your site has made the right design choices from the perspective of conversions? You don’t want to just make a decision and hope for the best. No, you need to test your design decisions and be able to pick the better for your design.
 

2.  THE LOUDNESS OF WHITE SPACE 

 When you think of white space, does it just seem to you like a non-utilized area on the site?  This is an impression that is as popular with non-designers as it is wrong. This impression is the reason companies think they have to fill up every single space with call-to-action buttons, text, colors and images. Only the best expert web designers know that this is not too great and would swear on the key role that white space plays in keeping elements spaced out.  This way, web visitors do not struggle to focus on particular individual pieces of information or content because they have so much demanding their attention at the same time. One way to make the best of your web space is parallax scrolling. This effect allows the foreground images your site move at a speed different from the ones on the background. Basically, the customer scrolls across the page and enjoys the appearance of different page elements. These include texts and images popping unto the screen at already programmed times, most effectively done with good spacing and perfect timing. Some parallax scrolling plugins can help you with an easy approach to adding these effects, without writing a single code.This reminds me of a website design company that I dealt with that had an extremely healthy mix of professionalism and fun and we will talk about fun later on.
  

3.  FONTS AND TYPOGRAPHY ARE POWERFUL MAGIC WANDS 

 Do not ever let go of the fact that text content deserves as much attention, if not more than the one you think stunning pictures and videos deserve. What we are talking about here is standard typographical settings with no trace of compromise or substandard. Keep this rule and your website will thank you for it.
Remember how websites have been unable to explore more options than the ones that came already installed on your computer including, Times New Roman, Lucida, Georgia, Tahoma, Arial, Verdana and impact? Well, that ship has sailed. Websites can now have access to a vast number of fonts using  
@font-face which encourage infusion of font files and images for awesome designs. The new list which includes serif, slab-serif, sans-serif and  display demands a knowledge of typographical skills needed to know what font is right for your typographical display or not.    
 
You can tell if the typography of your website adds value to the overall messaging when it is well laid out and perfectly set.

4. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO KEEP ADDING

 Antoine de Saint-Exupery is one expert designer who has successfully carved the right words to describe the magic of less being more. Although successful and world popular fashion designing houses began propagating this gospel a long time ago, it is unfortunate that most web designers are yet to really understand its full implication. The web design expert is quoted to have said perfection for a great designer does not come when there is nothing left to add, it comes at the point when there is nothing else to take away. This means that the effectiveness of a message does not have to depend on how many words are used.  A few well-constructed words might just end up being what you need to perfectly reach the visitors to your website. You would be surprised to find out that they can have more effect on your customers than would long-winding sentences  with words that would probably get them more confused than not. What to do? Fight that voice in your head that keeps telling you to add really unnecessary stuffs. If you can do this, you are going to gain more than you lose.
In the very often instances when Clients ask that  more features be added to their website content or this and that navigation buttons  included, it is usually a pure case of wanting it all. The result is that these additions only clutter up the design. Your focus instead should be on how to expertly manage what you already have to give you optimal productivity. To understand this properly, put yourself in the position of a visitor to a website. Just as it is in very many cases, this visitor has a lot of surfing to do on the internet, and would very much appreciate a situation whereby they can navigate your site more easily. With this attitude, they need to click on a navigational tab or link that would lead them straight to your website and in the process gets as many as 10 links to choose from. How easier do you think it would have been for such a visitor to have to choose only from about, say 7 straight links? The time spent trying to make that decision sometimes is enough to bore a visitor into leaving! Doing as few as 4 or 5 links is equally awesome, and you would be helping your visitors make their decisions way faster. This obviously shows that there is more advantage in doing less than more can offer.
 Consider also a mistake that is often made by  they are doing themselves a lot of favor stuffing the homepage of their website with as much information and content it could possibly contain. Almost all the information they have is promoted on this homepage and it doesn’t help either that this kills suspense. Because all of these  information are emboldened in bright pictures and screaming banners, they all settle  a little below being emphasized They add so much content to that page trying to emphasize all of it by making things big, bright, and bold. At the end of the day, everything has been dished all at once and nothing gets that special emphasis. Allow more elements to shine by adding less to clutter them up. You should seriously consider the white space principle to make this work for you.
If you are still not clear, take a few tips from this website. 

 
5. LEARN TO MIX FUN AND PROFESSIONALISM!

If you feel you need to incorporate fun and excitement into your website, then you already have a good idea. But what would make this a great idea is to have a clear knowledge of the demarcation line between fun and silly. That said, it is possible to leave your visitors with an awesome impression about your website without losing your professionalism. Presenting a fun package along with the experience your visitors get when they visit your website is easy, and can really pay off if done the right way. The best way to do this is to turn something ordinary into something memorable with potential to be stuck in visitors’memory for a long time after the first visit to your website. 

One site you can take notes from is the “The Dangers of Fracking”site.  This site gives you a good example of how fun can be incorporated into the most unlikely of websites. Basically, this site is all about what dangers hydraulic fracking can present. You would agree that this does not carry a lot of fun ideas, at least not to someone who is looking at the topic merely. The surprise?  Well, it actually manages to present visitors with as much fun as is possible. It is engaging, attention- grabbing and memorable. This is achieved with the use of inspiring animation, beautiful illustration and a storytelling effect that is achieved with the use of parallax-style. What this means is that all work and no play would still make jack a dull boy even in website design. The bottom line here is leaving your visitors with a powerful experience that is both fun and business like when they visit your website. 
 
To learn more about the already highlighted points and how applicable they are to your website, contact us here for these resources on 1WD. we, make bold to say, your website would be better for it. You can select from the various results guaranteed resources we have here at 1WD. They can give you the needed boost for your web designing skills and even more. 
 
Start by sampling our recently created Web Design Guide. This guide can hold your hand and teach you what and what not to do as far as web design is concerned.
All said and done, if you have a dead or struggling website on your hands, and you are interested in getting it revived, then we do hope this article has been able to help you. Do share your ideas with your web designer and discuss what goals you have for your website. It is our belief that design improvements can make a huge difference on the vibrancy of your website.  Revive your dead website NOW!!!