Website design basics
A good website is clear before it is clever. These are the basics that matter most.
A website has a simple job: help the right visitors understand what you offer and take the next step. Fancy effects rarely help with that. Clear structure, fast pages and readable text usually do. This guide covers the fundamentals, whether you build the site yourself or brief a designer.
Structure first
Before choosing colours, decide what pages you need and how they link together. Most small business sites need a home page, a page for each main product or service, an about page, a contact page and possibly a blog. Keep the main menu short, around five to seven items, and use plain labels people expect.
Design for phones
For many sites, most visitors arrive on a phone. Check every page on a small screen: text should be readable without zooming, buttons large enough to tap, and nothing should scroll sideways. Design the mobile layout deliberately rather than squeezing the desktop version.
Speed matters
Slow pages lose visitors and can hurt search rankings. The usual culprits are oversized images, too many scripts and heavy themes. Compress images and use modern formats such as WebP, limit plugins and third-party widgets, and test with free tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights.
Readable text
Use a comfortable font size, good contrast between text and background, and short paragraphs with clear headings. Write for scanning: people look for the part that answers their question.
Accessibility
An accessible site works for people using screen readers, keyboards or zoom. Basics include descriptive alt text for images, proper heading order, visible focus states and sufficient colour contrast. These steps also tend to help search engines understand your pages.
Trust signals
Visitors look for signs that a business is real and reliable: clear contact details, an about page that explains who is behind the site, up-to-date content and a secure HTTPS connection. Only show reviews and logos that are genuine.
Calls to action
Every important page should make the next step obvious, whether that is calling, booking or reading more. One clear primary button per section works better than many competing ones.
Build with SEO in mind
Give each page a unique title and meta description, use descriptive URLs, link related pages to each other and make sure search engines can crawl the site. Our guide to SEO techniques goes further, and an SEO audit is a good way to check an existing site.
Keep it maintained
A website is never finished. Update software regularly, fix broken links, refresh outdated pages and back the site up. A small amount of regular care prevents most problems.