Fundamentals

Readability

Ensure that the text on your website is easy to read, with an appropriate font size and color contrast against the background. Use light colors on a dark background and dark colors on a light background. Readability is key - if your content is hard to read, visitors will leave your website quickly and may not want to visit it again.

Matching Colors

Use a consistent color scheme throughout your website with colors that complement each other well. For example, different shades of the same color tend to go well together, and nearly all colors go well with grey/black. Some color combinations, like yellow and purple or pink and green, do not go well together. Make sure to avoid such clashes to maintain a visually appealing design.

Responsive Design

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes and devices. Test your site on various devices and screen sizes to confirm that readability and clear design remain consistent. You can use free tools like Responsinator to easily check your website’s responsiveness.

Clear Navigation

Provide a straightforward and intuitive navigation menu so users can easily find the information they need.

All Important Information

Clear What You Offer
Clearly state what services or products you offer on the homepage or main landing pages. Make sure this information is one of the first things site visitors will see.

Opening Times, Address, Contact
Check that all relevant basic information, such as your business hours, physical address, and contact information, are prominently visible.

Relevant Further Info
Ensure you have added any other further information that users might need to know about your business.

Regularly check all links on your website to ensure they are working correctly, both manually and with a link checker tool like DrLinkChecker.

Basic SEO

Check if your site implements basic search engine optimization practices to improve your website’s visibility on search engines. This includes:

  • Usage of relevant keywords for your business
  • Meaningful usage of headings, sub-headings, and so on
  • No technical issues on your website
  • Meaningful image names and alternative texts for images
  • Relevant and qualitative content

Loading Times

Optimize your website’s loading speed to ensure a quick and efficient user experience. One key point here is to reduce image sizes. You can, for example, make sure to convert images to a format like webp, which significantly reduces image size while maintaining high image quality.

Slightly More Advanced

Colors Matching Your Branding

Ensure that the colors used on your website align with your brand’s identity and aesthetics. If you have a logo or a certain in-store color design, let your website match this branding.

Psychology of Colors

Utilize color psychology to influence user behavior and convey the right emotions through your website’s design. For example:

  • Red, yellow, orange, and strong pink can convey feelings of urgency
  • Green, blue, white, and subtle pink can provide a feeling of calmness
  • Blue, dark-grey, and light-grey can provide a feeling of objectivity
  • Gold, gold-green-ish, and dark-grey can provide a feeling of expensiveness and luxury
  • Blue, green, and light-grey can provide a feeling of trust

Stand Out from Competition

Design your website in a way that differentiates it from competitors and highlights your unique selling points. If all your competitors use a bright and colorful website, you might consider standing out not only by highlighting what makes you unique but also by using a more subtle and professional color scheme. Conversely, if all your competitors use a professional-feeling and subtle color scheme with lots of black and grey, consider standing out with well-chosen eye-catching colors.

Feeling Matching Your Target Customers

Create a website atmosphere that resonates with your target audience’s preferences and expectations. If you have a business that sells comedy shows for kids, you will want your website to seem funny and easygoing, but still trustworthy and professional.

Social Proof

Include testimonials, reviews, and case studies to build credibility and trust with your visitors. Social proof is one of the strongest influence factors in human psychology, so if you have the chance to use this, make sure not to miss out on it. However, ensure not to use fake social proof!

404 Page

Create a custom 404 error page (“page not found”) that helps users navigate back to the main parts of your website if they encounter a broken link.

Image Quality

Use high-quality images that are relevant to your content and optimized for fast loading. Low-quality, pixelated images leave bad impressions on your website visitors. Also, the saying “a picture says more than a thousand words” is definitely true - so use meaningful, inviting pictures and photos that captivate your website visitors and leave an amazing first impression.

Clear Call to Action

Provide clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs) that guide users towards desired actions, such as making a purchase, contacting you, or visiting your local store.