10 Web Design Tips for Website DIY-ers

With the emergence and perfection of fabulous drag-and-drop web design tools like Squarespace + Weebly (both of which I am a huge fan!), it's become easier than ever to design your own website.

When I work with solopreneurs and small business owners, I always encourage them to take on this part of their business *IF* they have the time/space to do so and the interest in design and creation.

Let me be clear: designing your own website is not for everyone (that's for sure!), and I've seen many a solopreneur set out to create her own site, only to find that it's not her cup of tea--or she doesn't really have the time to teach herself the ins-and-outs of these programs in enough detail as she'd like--so she hires me to do it (and of course I'm happy to help since I love this stuff so much!).

But, for those who do decide to take on this fun project (and I promise, if you get into it and carve out the time to dedicate to this project, it can be super fun!), I have some advice that I wish someone had shared with me when I first made my own website 6 years ago.

Here goes...

1. Make your homepage shine: if I click on a link to your website on social media and land on your homepage, I should be able to tell who you are/what you do/what your site is about in just a few seconds. This means that your homepage should have at least 1 (if not more) images that convey something about your site, business, or brand, and at least 1-2 sentences about what it is that you do or offer (or are all about). This should be clear, easy to find, and near the top of the homepage.  

2. Stick to a clear color scheme: pick 3-6 colors (including black, white, and/or grey) and stick to using ONLY those colors on your site (and on all brand materials you create that are separate from your site, of course!). Set up a site design outline: all page headers are one color, all subheaders are one color, all links are another, etc., in order to make your site look branded and cohesive. You can get color hex codes from online tools like The Color Picker, Color-Hex, or HTML Color Codes (which lets you pull color codes from an image). 

3. Use only 3 fonts (max!) on your site: again, this will make your site look more cohesive and professional. Sites with tons of fonts look confusing and often a little crazy ;) Easy rule of thumb: use one serif font (like Times, Georgia, Baskerville), one sans-serif, and one flourish font (this might be a cursive font, a handwritten font, or something more fun or whimsical). Again, be clear on where you use these fonts and how, i.e. all page headers are one font, all body text is another, etc. 

4. Include at least one *good* picture on every single page: the online world has become VERY visual (hello, Instagram!), so you want your site to be just as visual and pretty. In order to do this, every page on your site should have a picture on it; if you don't have enough good or professional pictures to use, you can pull free images from amazing free (for personal and commercial use) sites like Unsplash or Death to the Stock Photo. FYI, the image used for this blog post is from a free site like this! They're great ;) 

5. Decide on a tone for your site and stick to it in all body text: do you want your site to feel personal and friendly, so that the visitor feels like she's having a conversation with you? Do you want it to be a bit more professional and distant? Should it be funny and a little kooky? Decide how you want people to feel when reading your body text before you write your text, and then when writing, keep coming back to that feel. If you decide to write in first person, write in first person everywhere. The same goes for third person if you decide to go that route, of course. 

6. At the bottom of every page, tell your visitor where to go next (or what to do next): when someone visits your website, you have a chance to guide them through the experience. This could mean including a "start here" button on the homepage, or linking directly to the most popular pages on your site in a clear, visual way. From there, the bottom of every page should include an ask or a direction, for example: "Interested in my web design services? Contact me for pricing," or "Want to learn more? Visit my About Page to read about my journey." 

7. Make it SUPER easy for people to reach out to you + connect with you: if your ideal client visits your website, you want to make it crystal clear that they can and should contact you--and tell them how you want them to do that. Make sure you have a separate "Contact" or "Connect" page that includes your email address and social media buttons. If you have a business phone number that you want to include, you could also include that here. Include multiple reminders that people can reach out throughout your site. Make yourself accessible! 

8. Don't include any pages that simply say "coming soon!": urgh. This is a pet peeve of mine. If I had a dollar for every site that has a Blog page that says "coming soon" (and has said that for at least a year), I would be able to buy a whole lot of baby supplies (my purchase of choice these days). If you don't have the content ready for a specific page on your site yet, just don't include that page in your navigation bar. Make it on the back-end, if that helps you from an organizational standpoint, but hide it from the public until you're ready to take it live and include actual content. "Coming soon" is the worst! 

9. ALWAYS embed your links: don't know what I mean by this? Here's a quick demo:

• ​DO: You can purchase one of these tanks in my Etsy Shop. 
• DON'T: You can purchase one of these tanks in my Etsy Shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/marycatherinestarr).

Make sense? To do this, highlight the text you want to link, click the little button in your text editor that looks like a chain link, and insert your link. Super easy!  

10. Don't wait until your site is perfect in order to launch, as it will never be perfect [and thus, you'll never launch]: this one is obvious, but I can't tell you how many people wait waaaaayyyy too long to get their site up because they're waiting until it's completely done. My first site was basically a bag of garbage, but I just got it up and tweaked it and redesigned it over the years and it slowly got better. Is it perfect now? Not at all--there is so much I still want to change, but websites are a work-in-progress, just like your business or brand. Get the basic pages up now, get the basic content up now, and then tweak it as much as you want while it's live and being visited by your potential clients/customers/readers.  

So there you go! My top 10 tips; I hope you find them helpful.

{And if you do get stuck and decide you need some help, remember that I'm here for you! Learn more about my web design services here.}