By Jim Hingst

Photo by bongkarn thanyakij from Pexels

In this
article, Jim Hingst provides webpage design tips to aid readability so your site
visitors can more easily find the answers to their search requests. By presenting
text in a format that aids usability, you will increase dwell time and enhance User
Experience. What’s more, satisfied visitors are more likely to bookmark and
return to your site.

 

Very few of your website visitors will thoroughly read
your content. They will, however, quickly scan your copy looking for the
answers to their search. To aid users find what they are looking for, layout of
your content must be user-friendly. It must be easy to understand and the presentation
of your content must be legible. To enhance your website’s usability, User Experience and search engineranking, you can take the following steps in designing webpages:

 

● Paragraph Length. Break up long copy blocks into shorter paragraphs. Each paragraph
should focus on just one idea. Shorter paragraphs are easier to read.

 

● Visual
Consistency. By maintaining visual consistency in your content formatting
will improve legibility and readability. Use the same style, size, and color
for all headers, sub-heads and lists.

 

● Headlines. Use a big and
bold typeface for the headlines of your webpages. My article,  How to Write WebpageHeadlines That Increase Site Traffic, describes copywriting
techniques, which will attract the attention of your website visitors and
entice them to read further.

 

 

●
Subheads. Bold subheads aid visitors in scanning your content as
they search for answers to their questions. 
Bulleted lists, bold subheads, graphs and pictures attract attention as
the viewer scans your content.

 

 

● Body
Copy. Select another sans-serif font for the body copy. To aid legibility
keep font size for your body copy between 12px. and 14px. Column width should
be about 65 characters wide.

 

 

● Font
Options. While visual consistency, focus attention on your key
points by varying the style, color and visual effects in your copy in the
following ways:

 

▪ Italicizing, underlining or
making your text bold;

▪ Presenting your focus points as bulleted or
numbered lists; and

▪ Highlighting or changing the color of your text.

 

 

● Website Imagery. Aesthetically
pleasing photography improves user experience and lengthens the time visitors
are on your site. Displaying samples of your work in the graphics arts market.
It might be worth it to invest in professional photography.

 

That being said, your imagery should
load quickly. Larger files sizes take longer than 3 seconds to load can
frustrate the viewer, resulting on the user leaving your site. By resizing your
images, you can improve your SEO ranking.

 

Another technique to increase ranking is
to rename your images to incorporate a keyword phrase. The image at the beginning
of this article, for example, was renamed “webpage-design”.

 

 

● Image
Captions. Whenever you use photos in your content, always provide a caption that
provides your visitor with a benefit. In scanning your content, visitors are
more likely to read and remember captions compared to the body copy.

 

 

 ● ALT Tags. Anytime you add an
image to your webpage, you should ALWAYS include an ALT tag in the HTML
code for the page. These tags are alternative descriptions to image’s caption.
ALT tags are important because they can improve your search engine ranking.

 

The
purpose of the ALT tag is to describe the content depicted in the image.
Remember, search engines can see.

 

In
writing an ALT tag, be concise. Your description should be no longer than a few
words – fewer than 125 characters. For example, <img src=”wall-graphics.jpg”
alt=“installer applies printed graphics to textured
wall” height=”125” width=”125” class=left” />. If the image used is
nothing more than eye candy, leave the description blank. Example: alt=””.

 

 

● Arranging Design Elements. Where design elements are positioned
on a page is also critical. Components at the top of a webpage, above the fold,
typically command more attention. Internal links to other webpages, contact
information and request for more information forms are best placed at the
bottom of the page.

 

 

●
Whitespace. Many of the design elements, which are effective in
print media layout, are also effective in formatting content for webpage
design. For example, providing sufficient whitespace, which is what I call
“visual breathing room”, is more pleasing to the eye. The rule of thumb is that
whitespace should occupy between 30% and 40% of the design area.

 

 

● Color Considerations. According to an old advertising maxim, color sells. As any
sign professional knows, make your use of color appropriate to your business
and limit the number of colors that
you use on any one page.

 

 

● Internal
Links. Internal links help visitors quickly and easily navigate
your site to find answers to their search questions. Because these links
promote movement from one webpage to another, they usually help in reducing
your bounce rate, which can improve your search engine ranking.

 

More
importantly, internal  links provide a
path for the search engine spiders to crawl from one webpage to another.
Without a link, the spider can hit a dead end, which means that some of your
webpages are not crawled and indexed.

 

 

●
Call to Action. When I wrote advertising and
direct marketing copy, my sales pitch always included a call to action. A call
to action is a request for the reader to do something. The best calls for
action are when you make an offer that the website visitor cannot refuse, such
as call within the next 30 days to receive a 10% discount or a free gift with their
purchase.

 

In
designing your webpages, each page should have a call to action. In creating
your call to action, you should ask yourself: “what do I want my website
visitor to do next?”   Make it easy for your customers and prospects
to engage with you.

 

If
the primary objective of your website is to generate sales leads, your webpages
should provide the user with response mechanisms to easily contact you through
an email link, a form or toll-free number. You can also provide your website
visitor an opportunity to download additional information, such as a free
e-book.

 

Conclusion:
How Good Design Enhances User Experience (UX)

 

People form impressions about your
company during visits to your website. These first impressions are lasting
impressions. Their User Experience (also called UX) colors their decisions on whether
to stay or not to stay on your site and ultimately whether to buy or not to buy
from your company.

 

User Experience encompasses every design
feature that influences a visitor’s emotional and intellectual interaction with
your website. These features include layout of your webpages, color selection,
photography, typography  internal links
to improve navigation and links to video clips on your YouTube channel.

 

Great webpage design can aid usability,
which can create a satisfying and memorable User Experience. By improving User Experience,
you will boost dwell time, generate more responses and increase
revisits, all of which can improve SEO ranking. Dwell time is the length of time that the visitor stays on your website. 

 

 

On the other hand, poor website design negatively
impacts User Experience. Cluttered layout, difficult to read copy, and files
that load too slowly can be downright annoying. What’s more, difficulty in
navigating a site to find answers to questions, result in a higher bounce rate,
reduce dwell time and affect decisions on whether or not to return to your
website. These are critical factors that search engines consider in ranking
your pages. 

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