The Web Design Checklist
Article by Beatrice Aranton
Graphics Design by Ryan Maverick Rivera
Designing websites can be a long road to cross. There’s a lot you need to keep track of, from conceptualization and designing drafts down to the programming and the codes, and everything can be an overwhelming process to handle. To help you make the process easier, we have put together a web design checklist to help you sail smoothly in the online world!
Clear Copy
Good and clear copy needs to satisfy your website’s most important audiences: search engines and your customers. Websites with great content don’t only add value to their brand image and business’ reputation, but also to their respective industries. So, tell the story of your brand through relevant content and taglines that can best showcase to others what your business is all about and what it stands for.
To achieve the best ways to convey your brand message, engage a copywriter who can process your ideas and translate them into effective web copy that appeals to your audience. Good copywriters have the ability to make your brand as relatable as it can be with a consistent tone depending on who you are conveying your message to.
Conform to the conventional web customs
In building your website, you have to know that despite having the freedom to go crazy with how you want your site to look like, there are still certain guidelines and limitations that web developers observe because of its effectivity.
For instance, most websites go for putting their website logos on the upper left side instead of centering them, and the menu bar always goes on the upper right side corner opposite the logo. This has been the norm for web design for ages, AND for a good reason. Since humans naturally gaze from the left side first going to the right when scanning over a page, placing logos on the left side is good for brand recall as compared to when it’s placed on the right.
Original Photos and Videos
While the importance of text in websites holds its own weight, providing original pictures or videos increase your website’s value and gives you the power to evoke an emotional response from your audience. Pictures, after all, are worth a thousand words. They communicate instantly, and our brains can interpret them much faster than text. Websites are dependent on visuals since it is one of the things that make your pages engaging and enticing to look at.
With a professional web design agency, you can have access to photo and video stock banks that can grant you the use of powerful and original visual content for your website.
Mobile Responsiveness
This is another item you need to tick off of your list because your business needs to keep up with the fast-paced world of people on-the-go. The main benefit of a responsive website is the guarantee that visitors can consistently get the best experience on your website any time and using any device.
With Google’s regular algorithm updates, responsive websites are also more visible in search engines since Google prioritizes giving mobile-friendly websites higher rankings than those that aren’t to ensure web users optimized browsing experience.
Coding
A website can be likened to a building. A building may be polished and beautifully designed on the outside, but one of the true tests in gauging how well a building is built is in how strong its foundations are. In web development, a website’s entire structure is in its code. Coding languages are exacting and can be tricky, which is why programmers are essential in the whole web development process to make sure even the simplest mistakes in the code can be prevented.
UX & UI
User Experience (UX) fulfills the needs of users and is one aspect in the digital world that keeps them loyal to your brand. It’s achieved with UX Design, the process that’s aimed at providing people with good experiences whenever they’re on your website.
Whereas UX is all about research and structure, User Interface (UI) is focused more on visual appearance — the colors, fonts, and other visual elements you use on your website. These two go hand-in-hand in the whole web design and development process, which is why UX and UI designers need to work closely together to keep the project’s objectives in mind, and figure out how to best execute the designs with usability in mind.
Search Engine Optimization
A web design that is compatible with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is likely to draw more traffic. Your website can be attractive, but if it is not search-engine friendly, then you are restricting the way search engines discover your business. If your website content is not readily accessible to search engines, it will not have a high ranking in the search results, ultimately causing your site’s poor traffic.
Integrating SEO appropriately in your web design includes aspects such as technology, navigation, linking, and content. In the design process, the user should always be a priority because this helps to determine SEO rankings, and your web designers should be aware of the importance of creating attractive sites with SEO in mind.
Web Hosting
After you settle the initial requirements that you need to get your website going, you need to look into plans on how to handle it in the long run. Competent and reliable web hosting is an important part of building a website, and engaging a trusted web hosting provider is the major step in how you deliver your fast website.
Downtime is when your website becomes inaccessible to users and could stretch for hours if you don’t have a web host catering to solve these problems. Choose reliable web hosts that can handle these setbacks any time so you can prevent losing potential customers due to website downtimes.
Related: How Does Web Hosting Affect SEO?
Achieve Web Excellence with Gotafflair
Now that you’re aware of the things to keep track of thanks to our web design checklist, bear in mind that investing in building your business online also means putting the effort into making sure you find a company with a full team that has a strong background in web development. By combining the resources we have and all the expertise of the professionals who work in our company, we believe that we can work better on achieving the goals of our clients and helping them succeed in their respective industries by providing them quality web development services.
Gotafflair’s got your website needs covered! Contact us at 798 8195 or email us at sales@gotafflair.com for a free consultation!
