Attractive and Professional Branding
The areas of design and brand are ridiculously subjective. What looks great to one person might look aweful to another.
That said, there are some basic principles you should follow and some steps you can take to make sure your site is in shape…
Branding and Design
First off, consider getting professional help in this area unless you’re particularly gifted at it.
While technical tasks (like most of the ones we cover in this checklist) can be mastered by anyone who has the patience to learn them, there’s an artistry to creating a beautiful design that can’t be easily learned.
Before reviewing your site, first take some time to look at competitor sites, both locally and in other cities. You’ll then have a frame of refererence for what you need to do to ensure your site doesn’t look less professional than the typical site you’ve reviewed.
With that done, here are some elements to review:
- Your logo. Is it attractive, professional and readable at the size it gets used at on the site?
- Your font selection. Have picked attractive, readable fonts for your site and have you limited yourself to just a couple variations on them (too many variations gets disjointed and busy). Also, have you ensured they are displayed at a size that will be readable for your audience?
- Your color scheme. Have you selected a complementary color palette of two or three main colours? Note that various shades of these colours is okay! Also, have you ensured there’s enough contrast between background colours and text colors to be clearly readable?
- Photos. Do the photos on your website look professional and appropriate? Professional and approachable photos of yourself and your team is best for service sites. That said, that’s not always practical so make sure if you use stock photos that you’re using ones that work well for your brand and avoid cheesy-looking low cost images.
- Your overall layout. Does your layout and design work and look good on all devices? Have you designed your site in a way the most important information and pages are easy to find and navigate to?
Note to reader: This is an area we’ll be developing further to be able to offer some more practical guidance.
