Your website is your virtual storefront, even if you don’t sell products directly from it. It’s the first thing prospects see before they engage with your brand or convert. Effective website design essentially means that you’re creating a compelling and easy funnel for customers to move through to become paying customers or subscribers. Here are five elements to look for when building your company’s website.

5 Elements of Good Web design

1.       Content is King.

Odds are you’ve heard that phrase so much that it’s become cliche. Sometimes cliches are true, though. Quality, relevant content is the lifeblood of your website. Content educates, entertains and engages visitors while building your credibility. Good content doesn’t just draw visitors to your website, it keeps them coming back. Put in the time and make your content compelling to site visitors.

2.       Make your Site Navigable.

 Clearly label each navigation link. Avoid confusing practices that involve either hiding navigation or using images or icons where text can suffice. Convoluted navigation is the fastest way to get your prospects reaching for the back button. Make it easy for your site visitors to learn about your business and start heading down the sales funnel.

3.       Use Hi-res Images with Caution. 

Every site must have a visual element to it. Using video and images helps keep your site visitors engaged, and high quality photos are great for engagement. However, use large photos with caution. Large files can bog down your host and cause slow load times, which drives away potential customers. Today’s Web users are impatient; they’ve grown accustomed to near instant load times, and you need to deliver just that.

4.       Responsive Design is your Friend. 

Mobile is here to stay, and more people are accessing websites via mobile devices than ever before. Your website needs to incorporate responsive design so it can adapt to any device a user may use to access your site’s content. This means that your site can scale to a wide range of computing devices.

5.       Don’t be Afraid of White Space. 

One clear sign of inexperienced Web design is clunky layout. It’s tempting to cram a bunch of content onto your homepage, but this can be overwhelming for your site visitors. The great thing about the Web is that you’re not limited to pages, and you don’t have to pay extra for more pages.

It’s important to remember that Web design is highly subjective. The end goal of every business website is the same — to grow the business and boost the bottom line. The best way to do this is by making it easy for prospects to find you and convert. If you lower the barriers for contact, visitors will venture further down the sales funnel more quickly. Whether you’re actively selling products on your website, it’s the first things many customers see when deciding whether to do business with you, so you need to make easy for visitors to get around.