While we may be snobs obsessed with jaw dropping web design, we do know there is a time and place to DIY.
If you’re still in the early stages of your business or just trying to test proof of concept, spending a lot of money on a website designed by professionals (like, um, us) may not be the smartest option.
Despite some decent options available (Square, Wix or easy-to-use WordPress templates), website DIYers often end up with an underwhelming site that looks just like a standard template and is devoid of any brand messaging.
To help those who want their end product to look better, while spending less, we’ve come up with three tactics to help your homespun website look more impressive.
1. Focus on photos.
Use high quality stock vectors, photos, or videos (yes, even if you have to pay for them). Doing so will give a more upscale, customized look to your site, especially if you pick images that directly relate to your copy. Choose bold images with a strong impact and be sure they aren’t the same tired-looking stock photos your competitors are using. If you sell a retail product, take quality professionally styled pictures of your products; it’s worth the investment since they can be repurposed for other marketing material in the future.
Photos via pexels and our work.
2. Stay branded.
Keep all the elements of your site related to the look and feel of your brand. Use your brand to guide every element of your site. If you don’t have a particularly strong brand, imagine the type of mood that your product or service should elicit in your client and choose colors, images and text that will match that. For example, a financial services brand can create a website that looks professional and reliable by sticking with serious colors like dark green, navy, black and gray and using typography that is more traditional and serious. Think of your clients and the colors, imagery and copy that would have most impressed them when they were researching your company.
Check out our Link homecare project
3. Draw some inspiration.
Unless you’re wildly creative yourself, designing a website can be a daunting task. Take some time to browse through Pinterest or Behance to get inspired by a website that speaks to you. Then try to use those very same elements in your own design for a look that is more professional or unique than you would have thought up on your own.
Check out our Boss Brands web inspo on Pinterest
4. Choose the right font pairings.
Another way to elevate your DIY website is to pick fonts that work well together. Choose two fonts that complement each other and use them throughout your site so that there is variety while still maintaing a sense of order. Use a resource like this list of 20 perfect type pairings to find ones that work for your website.
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