4 Pillars of Great Website Design

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#1 Purpose

A very common mistake people make when creating a website is they forget to focus on the purpose of the website.

Most websites are informative, but often there are many diverse purposes for having a website:

• Inform
• Make a Booking
• Buy or rent something
• Contact the business
• Donate or volunteer
• Sign up to a newsletter or fill in a form
• Sell or borrow something
• Take a Test/Survey
• Sign up as a Member

These are what we call ‘CALLS TO ACTION‘.

What is it you want a visitor to DO when they come to your website?

The number of times a business owner starts out knowing the focus of their website, only to lose that focus in the process of making the website.

Never lose the focus of the main REASON(s) for the website. Keep asking yourself: “Is the purpose of the website still crystal clear?”

#2 Structure

The structure of your website refers to the way that your content is organized and presented to your audience. This includes the layout, navigation, and overall design of your website. A well-structured website should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and aligned with your brand’s messaging and goals.

To create a solid structure for your website, start by identifying

A. TARGET AUDIENCE

Your target audience and what they’re looking for. Consider the types of content and features that will be most relevant to them, and organize your website in a way that makes it easy for them to find what they need.

B. THE 10-SECOND RULE

Use clear and concise language, and avoid cluttering your website with unnecessary information or design elements that hide the main things.

Visitors that come to any of your pages take about 5-10 seconds on average to decide if they will stay.  In those 10 seconds they will ask themselves about your website things like:

• Who are you: “Am I on the right site?”
• What do you do: “Do I need this business/product/service?”
• Who are you targeting: “Is this business/product/service right for me?”
• Why us: “What’s in this for me?”
• What’s the call to action: “Now what do I do?”

All this in just 10 seconds? Yes!

As users rush through web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text on the pages they actually visit (let alone all those they don’t). So, unless your writing is extraordinarily clear and focused, little of what you say on your website will get through to customers.

The website’s clear, clean, direct branding and messaging should tell the visitor all he/she needs to know as they scan it in 10 seconds.

So a brief, well-crafted positioning statement above the fold (on the first screen or the first paragraph) should answer all these questions.

So that means the Logo, the menu, the Hero-Banner (main banner image),  Titles (Headers) and first paragraph are very important on every page of every website.

C. ELEMENTS

This brings us to the elements or sections of a website.

Before jumping into the individual pages of a website it is useful to define the elements of the whole website. Always start with the

• Call to Action: Buttons/Links

Buttons or links to take a user to the Booking Page.  Remember that a visitor to the website may NOT arrive on the homepage of that website so where to place the important links to the Calls To Action? One the Menu?  On the Footer?

•  Call to Action: Forms

Some may be obvious like, the Contact Us Form, or the Booking Form, or the Room Availability Form, Vision Statement, or What We Do section.

List out all the sections that you think are necessary on the website.

•  Menu

The main menu is probably the most important part of a website for creating a good user experience. Sometimes the best person to develop the menu is someone who does not know everything about the business.  Or ask a few people to try out the menu and get feedback.  People may have different ideas but if you start to hear the same negative feedback, like “I can’t find out  where to book a room” or I had to click too many times to get to what I needed, then change the menu.

•  Pages

Pages are generally referenced directly from the menu, so they should have clear names, be listed in categories hierarchically.

So for example if you have two hotels, then you may need a page for hotel, separate pages facilities, rooms, amenities, excursions under each hotel.

•  Sections

Sections are very useful for dividing up the pages, allowing visitors to see at a glance what the section is about and are often good ways to summarise information with a button to click TO LEARN MORE. Sections can have unique designs like a carousel, or image-grid etc.

In conclusion it is good to make a structured map of how a website content is divided up into calls to action, pages and sections.  The structure is the single most common pillar that is the cause of poorly performing websites.

#3 Functionality

Functionality refers to the technical aspects of your website that enable it to work as intended. This includes the code that powers your website, as well as any plugins, integrations, or other tools that you use to enhance its capabilities.

To ensure that your website is functional, it’s important to work with experienced web developers who can build a website that is optimized for speed, security, and performance. This may involve using responsive design techniques to ensure that your website works well on different devices, as well as implementing robust security measures to protect against hacks and other cyber threats.

#4 User Experience

Have you ever visited a website so intuitive you thought it knew what you were thinking? Or used an online tool so seamlessly it was as easy as wearing a glove? That’s the power of great user experience (UX) design—and, trust me, it’s not a coincidence.

Consider the reverse for a moment. Have you been  frustrated by a disorganized clunky website or a really confusing online tool? You click to leave, don’t you? Your visitors do too, and they might never come back.

The user experience (UX) is perhaps the most important pillar of a great website. But if you have done the work on the first 3 pillars this one is made so much easier! UX refers to the overall experience that your website provides to your visitors, including how easy it is to use, how engaging the content is, and how well it meets their needs and expectations.

To optimize the user experience on your website, focus on creating a clean, intuitive design that prioritizes ease of use and accessibility. Make sure that your website is optimized for speed and performance, and that your content is engaging, relevant, and aligned with your audience’s interests and needs.

UX is also becoming more and more important with the growing influence of AI content.  So we try to make it a priority for all the websites we build.hire