Web Design That Sells: 6 Rules Beyond Looking Good

Pretty and effective aren't the same thing

The customer looking for a garage in the rain is not admiring your typography. He has one question — "can they fix it today and what number do I ring" — and he gives you about five seconds to answer it. Good web design is design that answers in five seconds. The rest is decoration.

1. The first screen says who you are and what you do

No scrolling required. Name, trade, town, phone number. It sounds dull, and that dull screen is exactly what brings the work in. A full-bleed photo captioned "Your trust is our priority" tells nobody what you sell or where you are.

2. One button, and you can see it

If there are five equally important buttons on screen, there are none. Decide the main action — call, book, enquire — and make it the most visible thing on the page. Everything else steps back.

On a phone, that button should be in thumb's reach without scrolling back up.

3. Design for the phone first

Not "it works on mobile too." Design it for the phone, then let it grow into the desktop. Most of your customers are on a small screen, on mobile data, often outside in daylight. So: large type, strong contrast, generous spacing built for a thumb rather than a cursor.

4. Empty space is part of the design

Every owner's instinct is to cram everything onto the first screen so nothing gets missed. The effect is the opposite: emphasise everything and you've emphasised nothing. The empty space around a sentence is what gets that sentence read.

5. Trust comes from specifics, not adjectives

"Quality", "professionalism" and "a personal approach" are written by everyone, including your worst competitor. Which is why they mean nothing. These work instead:

• Real photos of your premises and your actual team
• Real reviews with names on them, not anonymous quotes
• A price or a range — silence on price drives people away
• Address, map, and a phone number that dials on one tap

6. Speed is a design decision

The most beautiful site in the world is ugly while it's loading. The intro animation, the background video, the five typefaces — those are design choices, and each is paid for in seconds of waiting. Seconds in which the visitor goes back to Google and clicks the next result.

Design is a decision, not decoration

That's why at WebReady we don't start with colours — we start by asking what the visitor is meant to do. The site comes out fast, readable on a phone, and built around a single action, and it's live in 5 days. How to commission a website covers the rest of the questions, and the plans are here.