BASIC WEB

DESIGN
PRINCIPLES
 Purpose
Good web design always caters to the needs of the user. Are
your web visitors looking for information, entertainment, some
type of interaction, or to transact with your business? Each page
of your website needs to have a clear purpose, and to fulfill a
specific need for your website users in the most effective way
possible.
 Communication
People on the web tend to want information quickly, so it is
important to communicate clearly, and make your
information easy to read and digest. Some effective tactics to
include in your web design include: organising information
using headlines and sub headlines, using bullet points
instead of long windy sentences, and cutting the waffle.
 Typefaces
In general, Sans Serif fonts such as Arial and Verdana are
easier to read online (Sans Serif fonts are contemporary
looking fonts without decorative finishes). The ideal font
size for reading easily online is 16px and stick to a
maximum of 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes to
keep your design streamlined.
 Colours
A well thought out colour palette can go a long
way to enhance the user experience.
Complementary colours create balance and
harmony. Using contrasting colours for the text
and background will make reading easier on the
eye. Vibrant colours create emotion and should be
used sparingly (e.g. for buttons and call to
actions). Last but not least, white space/ negative
space is very effective at giving your website a
modern and uncluttered look.
 Images
A picture can speak a thousand words, and
choosing the right images for your website can
help with brand positioning and connecting with
your target audience. If you don’t have high
quality professional photos on hand, consider
purchasing stock photos to lift the look of your
website. Also consider using infographics, videos
and graphics as these can be much more effective
at communicating than even the most well
written piece of text.
 Navigation
Navigation is about how easy it is for people to
take action and move around your website. Some
tactics for effective navigation include a logical
page hierarchy, using bread crumbs, designing
clickable buttons, and following the ‘three click
rule’ which means users will be able to find the
information they are looking for within three
clicks.
Grid based layouts
Placing content randomly on your web page can
end up with a haphazard appearance that is
messy. Grid based layouts arrange content into
sections, columns and boxes that line up and feel
balanced, which leads to a better looking website
design.
 “F” Pattern design
Eye tracking studies have identified that people scan computer
screens in an “F” pattern. Most of what people see is in the top
and left of the screen and the right side of the screen is rarely
seen. Rather than trying to force the viewer’s visual flow,
effectively designed websites will work with a reader’s natural
behaviour and display information in order of importance (left
to right, and top to bottom).
 LOAD TIME
Everybody hates a website that takes ages to
load. Tips to make page load times more
effective include optimizing image sizes (size
and scale), combining code into a central CSS
or Javascript file (this reduces HTTP request
and minify HTML, CSS, JavaScript
(compressed to speed up their load time).
 Mobile friendly
It is now commonplace to access websites from
multiple devices with multiple screen sizes, so it is
important to consider if your website is mobile
friendly. If your website is not mobile friendly, you can
either rebuild it in a responsive layout (this means
your website will adjust to different screen widths)or
you can build a dedicated mobile site (a separate
website optimised specifically for a mobile users).
 BASIC
ELEMENTS
OF WEB
DESIGN
 Content
There's no denying that 'Content is King'. It plays a
massive role in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),
and is one of the main reasons people visit your
website.
You really need to focus a great deal of effort into
creating first class content for your website, which
should include videos, relevant news/information
and high-resolution imagery to make your website
‘stickier’. This will ensure you keep your users on
your website for longer.
 Usability
Great usability will never be noticed by the end user, but
bad usability instantly stands out. Your website must be
easily navigable, intuitive, accessible and mobile-friendly.
The user should know where they are on the website at all
times and be able to find where they want to go with little
thought. They should also be able to access any page they
need without having to view the whole site.
Your site should try to anticipate what your visitors are
thinking and help them to fulfill their needs with as little
effort as possible.
 Aesthetics
In this day and age, having a visually impressive website
across all devices is crucial. However, you must maintain
your brand image. Your website must reflect who you are
as a business, and visually connect with the audience.
The visual appeal of your website not only contributes to
your brand awareness but also increase your credibility.
 Visibility
If you had the most aesthetically pleasing and user-
friendly website on the web, it would still be unsuccessful
unless it could be found. Your presence and visibility
through digital marketing campaigns including SEO, social
media and email marketing is vital to the success of your
website.
It’s important that you understand how to be found, what
platforms to target and how to utilise your content.
Thousands of factors have an impact on where you appear
within the search engines, so make sure you have a plan in
place!
 Interaction
Our website must engage with your audience, hold their
attention, direct them through the stages of your website
and finally encourage them to contact you.
Your website isn’t just there for show, it is there to help
you generate leads, increase sales and grow your business
so ensure your website engages with your visitors in the
correct way.
 Strong, but Limited, Color Palette
This might sound rudimentary, but color schemes and color usage
are very important when it comes to modern web design. A strong
color palette will help create cohesiveness between everything
your business puts out.
Companies who have both primary and secondary colors have
more wiggle room to work with when creating new elements for
their website, whether it’s the homepage, landing pages, blogs, or
a resource database.
However, the number of colors you incorporate in your design is
also a very important aspect. Too many colors become visually
distracting, so most modern website designs opt for only two or at
the most three in their major design elements.
 Plenty of White Space
White space is a term used for the amount of "empty"
space that acts as a buffer between all the elements on
your page, including copy, sidebar, margins, etc. Things
should have room to breathe; if your website is
crowded, it is very hard to direct the attention of your
visitor's eye.

Purposely designing your website with white space

makes for a clean design that is easily digestible and
organized. As websites are adapting a more minimalistic
style, keeping space open on your page will allow your
reader to navigate their way around page with more
ease.
 Relevant Calls-to-Action
Websites are meant to connect you with the people who are
interested in your content, products, and services. Once this
connection is made, you want to retain some sort of relationship
with these visitors.

Things like email subscription forms, free downloadable ebooks or

whitepapers, free product forms, free consultations, or other
invites are great calls-to-action (CTAs).

These should be strategically incorporated into your website

design and are very important for gathering the contact
information (typically just an email address) of your visitors so that
you can continue conversations with them as leads and convert
them into customers
 Clean Backend Coding
Behind every website is a great deal of coding in the backend
that will dictate how your website performs. At our Tampa,
Florida office, Bluleadz has skilled designers who also know
how to code a site to function flawlessly, load quickly, and
navigate effectively for converting visitors into leads and
customers.
Dedicating the extra time for clean backend coding will make it
easier to write, read, and maintain how your site functions.
Have you ever been digging for something out of your closet,
but it’s just too damn messy to find? Like a cluttered closet, if
you don’t have clean backend coding, it will only be harder to
locate and fix any issues that may come up.
 Design for the User First
A website should be user-friendly before a company
should concern itself with ranking higher on a Search
Engine Results Page.

Google is smart: it can tell when your users are

getting good value from your website because they
keep coming back and spending more time on it.
Place your content above SEO, at least when first
starting off, to optimize your site for the user and
build a group of loyal, recurring visitors.
 SEO-Boosting Elements
While I just mentioned that a website should be
designed for the user first, it doesn't mean that
SEO(Search Engine Optimization)doesn't matter.
Design tricks like meta tags, title tags, heading tags,
and other HTML coding go a long way in helping
your site climb the ranks of Google's search engine.
Make sure you fill out, tweak, and optimize these
elements so they are relevant to your site and
better your search ranking.
 Speed Optimization

Optimizing for speed is an imperative design

element that should not be overlooked. With
today’s technology, people expect things to load
immediately, or they’ll probably throw in the
towel three seconds later and never return. As a
business, you don’t want leads and prospects to
think negatively of your brand just because your
website is slow.
 Speed Optimization
To make sure your website is fully optimized for speed,
here are a few tips:
• Always optimize a photo, no matter how small it is.
• Enable compression so files will be smaller and open
quicker.
• Minimize HTTP requests in Google Chrome’s
Developer Tools.
• Choose the proper hosting options, whether it's
shared hosting, VPS hosting, or a dedicated server.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are modern Website design elements that
can greatly improve the Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) of your site. A lot of these
are invisible to the naked eye, and also appear
in the backed coding of your pages posts. There
are design tricks like meta tags, title tags,
heading tags and other HTML code that can go a
long way in helping your Site climb the ranks of
Google’s search engine.