8 Web Design Secrets That'll Make Your Website Stand Out

5 MIN READWeb Design
Written By Noé Khalfa

Welcome to this guide on enhancing your website's design for maximum impact and user engagement. These eight web design secrets are specific tools you can apply right away to make your website not just stand out but also resonate with your audience. Let's dive into each secret and optimize your site for better SEO and overall performance.

You have 3 seconds to establish trust with someone who lands on your website. You’ve built a great website if, in those 3 seconds, your visitor can easily answer:

  1. What is it?

  2. Is it for me?

  3. What do I get? (often but not always)

Let me break it down. First, why 3 seconds? It’s enough time for our trained brains to capture the visual information we need to know if this is a site we should explore. Whenever we’re presented with new information the human brain very quickly scans for safety, comfort, and usefulness. It’s essential that the first slide on your home screen communicates those things in an obvious way.

Ok now what about these questions?

1. What is it?

The first thing we all want to know when landing on a new website is: what did I just land on? Is this what I meant to land on? Do I trust that this is what it says it is.

It’s up to us as website owners to clearly display what we’re about. So if you’re a therapist I urge you to forgo the sunset backgrounds and instead show a picture of you or your office, or something related to what you do. Same for any industry.

The next question we ask when landing on a new website is:

2. Is it for me?

We’re trying to figure out who it’s for and if the business serves people like us. This is our check of: Is this useful to me? Is this worth my time? Don’t be shy about it, clearly point out through photo, video, or text who your target audience is. And don’t say everyone. It’s never everyone, even if you’re Oprah.

3. What do I get?

Finally in those first 3 seconds of landing on a website, most of us automatically scan for anything we can get, whether it’s a free consultation, a discount or sale, a downloadable, or something that helps us for free.

What I believe is going on here is that we are seeking generosity in from this new entity in order to build trust. Isn’t that fascinating?! We do it with people all the time to tell if they’re kind, will take care of us, and are worth continuing to be around. If you have anything free, now is the time to offer it to your clients!

Remember to make your design simple and clear. You only have 3 seconds to answer 3 questions!

The menu of your website is like the drawers of a kitchen. If your sponges live underneath the oven and your spatulas live in the top shelf by the sink you're going to live a stressful kitchen life. The same goes for your clients trying to figure out how you've organized your website.

Here's the test:

On first glance is it clear where to find your services and products?

Apply the 3 second rule here. If your client needs more than 3 seconds to figure out how your menu is structured, you've now created a stressful experience.

I invite you to take a look at your website's menu right now and ask yourself these questions:

  • Can you easily figure out what to do in 3 seconds of landing on your site?

  • Is it clear what industry your offerings fit in right from your menu?

Let's make a really great user experience for our websites!

In 2023, 55% of web traffic came from mobile browsers. You'll find the same stats on your website. When people come to your site from social media channels, they'll mostly go through their phones. If you're doing marketing well that's a lot of your traffic!

That means every website now needs to be not just mobile friendly, but built for mobile browsing as well as desktop browsing.

The good news: almost all web design platforms like Squarespace, Weebly, and Wix, offer mobile-responsive capabilities.

The bad news: that doesn't mean those platforms will automatically look good on mobile browsers, you've got to build them with mobile in mind during the design process.

This is why hiring a professional team, like my web design team at Worth The Journey can save you massive headaches and hours of mucking around in code. I encourage you to go take a look at your website right now on your phone and give yourself an honest, but non-judgemental assessment.

Does your website look good on a mobile browser? If not, make a task to go in and fix it up so it looks great! If that sounds like a very unpleasant task, it's time to reach out to a designer to help get you ship shape. My team is here to help!

Think of your most beloved brands. They often feel not just like businesses, but also like friends, supportive figures, or like they have an identity of their own. That's because they do have an identity.

If you're a dry skeptic, you might think there's no way a non-living entity can have a genuine identity. But if you've spent enough time in the creative and artistic worlds of writing, painting, music creation, and so on, you'll understand very clearly that every idea is alive.

Every story is alive, every song is alive, every novel character is alive, and every business is alive. Once you understand this, you understand branding, and branding becomes a whole lot easier. I recommend scheduling time to figure out who your business is, and what their personality is like.

Once you've created your brand identity it's essential that you have your designer make you clear brand guidelines. That includes how to use your logo on photos, how to use text on colored backgrounds, and so on. Brand consistency is like human consistency. If you're consistent as a person, it makes you easy to get to know.

Same goes with brands. So, if you have 3 brand colors, only use those colors! If you have 2 brand fonts, only use those fonts! You're creating an entire story arc over the lifetime of your business, not just one page of the book.

Designing for mobile is super important, and a great tip to help your content look good on mobile is to use one-column designs.

Pro-tip: this also works to make your email marketing and newsletters show up way better on mobile. Think about it, on a vertical phone you can only view one column at a time, so if you have multiple it can mess up the view.

Also on a desktop the human eye reads the middle of the page first, then scans to the right, then back to the left. So even on a desktop Single column layouts can be super effective. That said having multiple columns can be sometimes be helpful or important.

Don’t fret! You can usually edit the settings on your design to have the desktop view display multiple columns and the mobile view resize automatically to display one column. What do you notice about the way you browse websites?

The contrast of dark text on a light background looks the most familiar and spacious to the eye. If possible stick to that. Keep your design as simple as you can, it’s very easy to get complicated and try to add textures, pop-ups, or other fancy elements.

But every time you add visual elements you risk tipping over into clutter-town, where everything looks overwhelming. Dark backgrounds can be claustrophobic, unless very specifically designed. Example: if it’s super on brand for you, like you’re the church of satan or something, then for sure go with dark backgrounds.

But if you’re trying to make a website without any design experience, stick to dark text on a light background.

Photography is the number one most important element in your website from the customers perspective. If you get the photos right, your visitors will be sold before they even make it to the sales page.

Think about photos like a demo of what’s coming. You get to almost experience what it’s like to receive the pictures product or service. It’s important that you take your own photography because otherwise you’re demoing other people’s offerings and just linking them by association.

So use stock photography as minimally as possible, and start to replace the photos on your website with photos that you have taken. Professional photography is great, and will rocket you to the next level, but when you can’t get that just use your smartphone. They all have great cameras nowadays. You’ll just need to learn the basic lighting and framing principles to take good photos.

When you’ve got great photos, your site will really authentically represent you and the work you do. And when that happens you’ll start receiving the perfect clients.

Implementing these eight web design secrets will not only make your website visually appealing but also optimize it for search engines. As you apply these strategies, consider the long-term benefits for your website's performance, user satisfaction, and overall success.

 

Note:

If you get your website built through Worth The Journey or have us maintain your site, we'll make sure each of these 8 web design secrets are set up correctly for you. Even if you don’t get a site built by us, schedule a free website consultation and we’ll give you helpful tips to get these secrets set up.

 
Noé Khalfa

As CEO of Worth The Journey, Noé is on a mission to help the unlikeliest of people to start and grow businesses and to make the culture of business healthier and kinder. Also he dances contact improvisation, trains with movement students of Ido Portal, plays complex board games, and sings Glee covers of pop songs.

https://worththejourney.com
Previous

Seattle Web Design - A Guide to Creating Effective Websites
Next

8 Ways to Tell: Are You a Workaholic or an Enthusiast?