Web Design Best Practices for Beginners

More and more people are opt-ing to DIY their business website than ever before.

It’s no wonder. Hiring a developer is expensive.

…it’s still important to educate yourself about design best practices.

While best practices vary slightly depending on the designer you ask…

… and can change as both technology and users become more sophisticated…

Some practices stand the test of time!

Best practice for website design is to have 2–3 primary brand colors and 1–2 secondary colors, inspired by or complimentary to your brand logo.

Best practice for website design is to have 2–3 fonts, inspired by and complimentary to your logo.

Best practice is to include the logo file in the site settings, so that it displays on all pages of the site in the same location.

Best practice is to use the same logo and/or profile picture for all platforms. Similarly, use the same banner style for each platform.

Best practice is to feature the tagline near the logo in the field provided in site settings or in the banner of each page.

Best practice is to keep all photos high quality and relevant to your products, services, and niche.

Best practice regarding footers is to use the darkest brand color and to include a copyright. The footer is also a great place to re-feature your logo.

Best practice is to include “About” page and “Products/Services” page in primary navigation menu. “Home” page is not needed in any menu as clicking on a site logo will take you to the homepage. “FAQ” “Contact” and other parent pages can be linked in the Footer.

Best practice for web design is to have a clear value statement and one call to action button.

Best practice is to have headlines and subheadlines throughout the page.

Best practice is to use a white background for 90% of the site’s background space — usually the exception is page banners, the occasional page dividing block, and the footer.

Best practice is to make your site as scannable as possible.

Best practice is to choose one primary alignment, usually left aligned or center aligned and remain consistent throughout.

Best practice is to avoid situations where text and photographs are competing for attention — rather finding ways for them to work together to tell a story.

Best practice is customize your site title and description. The title should communicate the what, who, and where of your company. The description should expand on this, ending with a (…) which tempts the reader to click through.

Best practice is to link to the privacy policy in the footer of the site, as well as, linking the Privacy Policy anywhere a form is being submitted. This added measure gives people confidence that your site will protect their privacy.

Best practice is to include your copyright information in the footer. Simply Type “© COPYRIGHT [CURRENT YEAR] | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED” in the Footer of your site.

Best practice is to include the “About Page” on your primary navigation menu.

Best practice is to include a “FAQ” page in your footer navigation. An “FAQ Page” is a great way to proactively answer customer questions that when left unanswered may stand in the way of them taking action to buy. “FAQ Page” copy can be hyperlinked to things like a consultation booking engine, sales page, and other vital site actions and resources.

Best practice is to give something away for free — usually advice in the form of a free download or blog. This helps to build trust with your audience, while growing your list.

Best practice is to put clear calls to action above the fold in the banner of each page. For example, “Book a Consultation Today” “Schedule Now!”

Best practice is to put elements of social proof, such as “As Seen On” or client testimonials on the homepage close to the top.

Best practice is to create a custom SEO description vs allow the description to be created by default settings.

Best practice is to add Alt Txt to photographs, which allows search engines like Google to understand what is being displayed — this also makes your site more accessible for seeing impaired visitors. When this data is absent, Google can see that an image is present, but is not able to decipher what is featured in the image, which has a negative impact on search ranking. Add Alt Txt to pictures by editing the image file name and adding and hiding a description/caption of the photo.

Best practice is to add intentional and keyword rich page titles and page descriptions. This allows Google and other search engines to easily determine what is on your page and index it accordingly.

Best practice is to include your city and state at the end of each page title and seo title, as well as, in the footer of your site.

Best practice is to use Header settings as an SEO tool, not a styling tool, this after all is their primary function. Header 1 tells Google and other search engines “These words are top priority to scan!” Header 2 — second priority, Header 3 third priority, then “Normal/Paragraph/Body” text.

Best practice is to use keyword phrases that represent people’s problems vs keywords that represent your brand and it’s solution.

Best practice is to customize your slugs. Slugs are the part of the url that is associated with a specific page. This is your primary URL “https://mywebsite.com/” and your slugs are what appear after that url /about etc.

Best practice is to have a mobily responsive site, in fact sites that are not mobile responsive may be left out of search engine results entirely.

Best practice is to have an SSL Certificate for your site.

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