The design of your website sets the tone for your brand, your content, and your industry. Contrary to popular belief, though, when designing your website, you should not have your own business in mind. Instead, it is the target audience- your perspective customers- that should drive your design decision making.

What do you want your viewers to do once they arrive on your landing page?

In order to design the most effective site for your targets, keep in mind what their needs, wants, and goals would be as they enter your site. Here are 7 strategies we think are pivotal to successful web design:

1. Have a Clearly Defined Navigation: Navigation is crucial because it guides how users will move around your site. You should have a set funnel that you want your users to follow when exploring separate pages. A clear main navigation should include your most important content while the sub-navigation should include the logical details (sub-topics) for your business. 
2. Short and Sweet: One problem many websites run into is content overload. It's natural to want to tell your audience every reason why you're better than the competition or outline every function of your newest product. However, keep in mind that your viewers are people! And people have short attention spans.  Split up your content into more pages in order to maintain a clear layout throughout your site.
3. Include Diverse Media: Few visitors will stay on a page for long if it is inundated with only text.  Embedded videos, photos and infographics will, again, help to break up your content and make for a more interactive site experience. 
4. Contrast: Looking at a screen for long periods of time can strain a reader's eyes. To increase the ease of viewing, remember to use contrasting colors. Pastels may look pretty, but a pastel color on a white background will be difficult to read after a short period. The same goes for graphics and pictures. Add a stroke to your images in Photoshop, Snagit, or any other image editor in order to make your image pop on the page.
5. Top Heavy: Include your best graphics and content on the top 1/3 of your web page. Generally, if the content visible without engaging with the scroll bar does not interest the viewer, they will rarely scroll down the page. 
6. Consistency: Sure, you can have a homepage layout template and an internal page template, but aside from these two slight variations, the pages on your site should all look the same: always. This will aid in your brand identity and fluidity. 
7. Testing 1,2,3: Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: TEST your website! Sure, it looks great on Internet Explorer, but if it looks like a jumbled mess on a Chrome browser than you loose a significant portion of your audience. When designing a website, make sure to test the site in all internet browsers to make sure the layout displays correctly.