Your website should be a top marketing priority—it’s the foundation of your brand’s online presence, and unlike social media, it is a marketing channel you own and control. A polished and secure site tells your story, guides users toward specific calls to action, and helps turn new visitors into loyal customers. Building a user-friendly site with fast loading speeds and SEO-rich content is essential to building trust and driving conversions. Cluttered content and confusing site navigation can send potential visitors bouncing to competitor sites. If you are building a new website or in the process of a refresh, here is our list of five “do’s” for developing a website.
Do: Create a Clear Navigation
Users who can’t figure out where to go on your website won’t convert into clients. Your site’s navigation should be intuitive and straightforward, following familiar click patterns. Here are a few tips:
- Keep your navigation clean and minimal. Too many landing pages in your main menu can overwhelm visitors.
- Consider using a mega menu, a more extensive dropdown with organized categories, if you have a lot of pages to display.
- Contact information should be easy to find. If users have to hunt for your phone number or email, you’ve already lost them.
Do: Stay Consistent With Design
A website with a mishmash of different styles, colors, and fonts screams DIY. To present a more professional and polished brand:
- Stick to two or three fonts across your site. Using too many different font styles can make your website look chaotic.
- Follow your branding guidelines. Your website should be an extension of the branding parameters established for your logo! Follow your brand guide to determine colors, logo placement, and imagery. This will help keep the design consistent across all pages.
Do: Use High-Quality Images and Graphics
Nobody likes a hard-to-read, text-heavy website. Adding high-quality images and visuals helps break up content and keep visitors engaged. It also ensures that text is scannable so users can find answers quickly. Make sure to:
- Use sharp, high-quality images. Blurry or pixelated visuals instantly make a site feel unprofessional.
- Incorporate illustrations, graphics, or videos to improve flow and highlight key messages.
Do: Prioritize Website Accessibility
Your website should be easy to read and navigate for everyone, including those with visual impairments or other accessibility needs. Otherwise, you’ll instantly exclude many potential clients and customers. Plus, creating a site focused on usability and inclusivity provides a better user experience for everyone – win-win! To start:
- Use high-contrast text and background colors for readability. For example, black text on a red background? Hard to read. Black text on white? Perfect.
- Use simple, easy-to-read typefaces, and avoid overly scripted or small fonts. We recommend 16 px minimum for paragraph/body font.
- Check out Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to view full website accessibility guidelines.
Do: Build & Design for Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile
Ensure your design is responsive and optimized across all devices. What looks amazing on a desktop might be a mess on mobile. To create the best user experience, no matter the device:
- Test your design on multiple devices. Scrollers that stick, too much white space between sections, or broken design features are common when comparing desktop and mobile versions. Luckily, with a few tweaks, you can create readable and functional displays on all devices.
- Use responsive design principles so that content adjusts smoothly across different screen sizes.
- Make sure buttons, menus, and forms are touch-friendly. No one wants to pinch and zoom to click a link.
A great website is functional, user-friendly, and designed with your audience in mind. Make sure to check out part two, five “don’ts” of developing a website in our March 2025 blog release! And if you need help with your website strategy, get in touch! We’d love to talk projects.
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