Kim’s Website Design & Marketing

How to Design a Web Page

Web pages are what make up a website, and if your website has well-built webpages, it qualifies to be a great website. In 2020, you don’t need to be a computer programmer or designer to build a great website. All you need are the right tools and knowing the correct procedures to follow while building webpages and a website in general.

But before going into any details, I would like to share with you some statistics that should give you an idea of how significant it is to have well-built webpages and websites in general.

According to a study done in 2018, 38% of web users will stop engaging with a website if its content and layout are not appealing. The same study also suggests that 48% of users look at website design as the main factor for determining the credibility of a business.

From these stats, we can all agree that the design of your website will affect how your business performs in terms of generating leads and conversions. Now that we know why you need to have well-built web pages and website, let’s get into the details of how you can achieve this. Below are the procedures you can use to build web pages for your website.

1. Choose the right website builder.

The fact that you don’t need to code your website from scratch using tools like HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Python and CSS means you don’t need a website developer or website designer. All you need is the best website builder for your project. The website builder you choose will determine how well and fast it will be for you to build web pages. There are several website builders out there, and the one you choose should largely depend on the type of website you are creating.

Below are some of the most common website builders and scenarios when it is best to use each of them.

• WordPress (open source)

This is by far the most used website builder and one that I would recommend for both beginners and experienced website designers. WordPress is a great website builder when it comes to building blogs, service websites, non-profit and religious websites, news websites, etc. For the best results, you will need to install a website builder like Elementor into your WordPress website.

Another good thing about WordPress is the fact that it has a big userbase that makes it easy for you to get solutions in case you run into trouble.

WordPress has also been growing over years, both as a website builder and content management platform. You can build complex and simple websites using the various themes and plugins that are available for this platform. Those with some coding skills can also go ahead and customize some of your code in the back-end to make it suit the goals of your website.

• Wix (From $15 AUD per month)

Wix is another popular website builder that I would recommend for small businesses that don’t need very sophisticated websites. If you want to build a website that has less than 30 pages, Wix could be one of those platforms you should look into. Unlike WordPress, Wix is not open source, which means you have to pay a subscription fee to start using the platform.

The fact that it is not open source also reduces the level of flexibility you will get while using Wix. Most of the choices are made for you, which means you don’t have to do much while building the webpages of your website.

This is good for beginners who don’t have a lot of experience in creating websites but could be a limitation to experienced web designers who would love to change a couple of things here and there. For instance, with Wix, you don’t have to choose a hosting service provider, your website is hosted on Wix itself. This may be limiting especially now that we have lots of hosting providers that have faster servers than Wix.

• Square Space (from $16 AUD per month)

This platform is also among the most popular website builders on the internet right now. It is known for having some of the best well-designed templates that are ideal for blogging and creating websites where appealing designs are a must. Just like Wix, you don’t have a lot of flexibility with Square Space when it comes to things like determining your hosting service provider and editing code. Your website is hosted by Square Space itself.

• Shopify (from $13 AUD per month)

Shopify is mainly an eCommerce website builder that is ideal for businesses that want to sell stuff online. With Shopify, it is easier to add the necessary features that any eCommerce website would need. So, adding things like payment gateways is much easier with Shopify than other website builders that were not designed specifically for eCommerce websites.

Shopify also has several templates that were designed and optimized for eCommerce websites. These make the work of website designers for such sites easier.

• WooCommerce (open source)

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce website builder that businesses can use to create websites that will involve some bit of selling of products through a WordPress integration. Unlike Shopify, where the hosting is done for you, with WooCommerce, you will have to pay for your domain name and hosting plan. WooCommerce also gives users flexibility when it comes to customizing their stores.

There are several other website builders and content management platforms out there, but the above are some of the most popular that you can choose. Choosing a popular website builder will make it easy for you to find numerous themes and plugins that you can use to make your web pages look better. Another advantage of choosing a popular website builder is that you will easily get solutions in case you get problems while creating your web pages.

2. Choose the right website design template/theme.

Now that you have decided on which website builder to use, the next thing is choosing a theme that you will use for your website. A theme is like the basic structure of the website. It is within the theme that you will create and edit the web pages of your website. If you choose the right theme, creating your webpages will be simpler since the number of changes you will be required to make are fewer.

3. Edit the pages and add content

After choosing a theme for your website, you will have to edit its already existing web pages to add and remove content based on how you want them to look. You will add the content by either editing the existing sections, adding new ones, or both. While adding content to your pages, make sure you follow some of the best design practices that include the following;

• Leave enough white space: For those who may not know, whitespace refers to the blank spaces on a webpage that don’t have any form of content (written, video, or image). Having enough whitespace will improve the readability of content on your site.
• Use two main colors: Don’t mix up too many colors on your webpages as this will make it look disorganized and unprofessional. Using up to two main colors on your website is what is recommended because it will make the site look more organized. You can choose to use the theme colors of your business.
• Don’t use too many images: Unless your website is about photos, it is not recommended to have too many images on one web page. Make sure you only use images where it is necessary and also leave enough spaces in between them.
• Don’t use too many fonts: Just like colors, it is recommended to use about two or three fonts in the written content on your web pages. You may choose to use one font for your main content and then different fonts for special texts like headers and links. This will make your web pages much more organized and the content readable as well.
• Add a call to action: It is always necessary to prompt your website users to take action whenever they get on any of your web pages.

 

4. Optimise the content on your web pages

One of the things that will determine the success of your website is how well the content on your web pages is optimised for search engines. Search engine optimisation is a wide topic, but as far as web pages are concerned, here are some of the things you can do to make the content on your web pages perform better in search engines;

Avoid using heavy images

One of the things that slow down a website is having very high resolution on your web pages. You need to create a balance between quality and speed while choosing the images to use on your website. That’s why it is not necessary to use a 4K image when a 1920 X 1080 image will also do just fine.

Remember, the more the resolution, the bigger the size (MBS) the image will have, which in the end affects loading speeds. However, using low-resolution images is not recommended. So, try as much as you can to create a balance between quality and performance (loading speed). Using image compression sites like tinypng.com and tinyjpg.com can save you heaps of space (and thus load speed time) while maintaining the quality of the image.

Have about 20 to 25 words in a sentence

People don’t love reading long sentences, and neither do search engines. If you want your pages to perform well in search engines, make sure the sentences in your content don’t go beyond 20 words. In simple terms, make sure the maximum size of each is between one to two lines depending on the font size you are using.

Have 3 to 4 sentences per paragraph

Search engines like it when the content on your web pages are easily readable, and having fewer sentences per paragraph does just that. The number that is recommended for the best SEO results is 3 to 4 sentences per paragraph.

Have between 500 to 2000 words per page

Whether it is a blog or a static web page, make sure you have a minimum of 500 and a maximum of 2000 words for each page. There are some cases like blogs where the words can go beyond 2000, but this shouldn’t be the case all the time. So, always stick to this range of words on your web pages to get the best SEO results. (Need content written for your website? We can help).

 

Review and make changes

After creating your web pages, you need to closely monitor how they perform after a certain period and then make changes where necessary. There are lots of analytic tools on the web that you can use to analyse how your users behave whenever they are interacting with the various web pages of your website.  Here are the two most important parameters you should look at while reviewing

Bounce back rate

For those who may not know, a bounce-back rate refers to the percentage of users who leave a webpage within a few seconds or without taking any action. When you realise the bounce-back rate is too high, it means there is some action that needs to be taken on your website. You can make some changes like adding more creative call to action buttons, and also improving the quality of the content on the site itself.

Time spent on the pages

The average amount of time the users spend on each web page is also important since it determines how much your users love the content on the individual pages they visit. Your goal is to make your website visitors spend as much time on your web pages as possible – this is what generates more leads and conversions.

Final thoughts

While creating the web pages of your website, what matters most is the quality and quantity of the content. We shared some of the best design practices that you can follow to improve the quality of content on your web pages which you can read in more depth here.

However, the most important thing in all this is creating content that your potential audience loves. You can get to know whether your users love the content or not by using analytics tools to get feedback on how users interact with your future web pages.

Good luck.

 

If you need help, we are always here to assist in web design, content creation, graphics design, social media and marketing.

Contact us if you get stuck.

Talk to you soon.

Until next time

– Kim