Web design can be a tricky business. You need to craft a site that not only appeals to your target audience but one that can convert those visitors into sales, and you want it to look good for a visually pleasing yet wholly functional site. Basically, it needs to perform, but we don’t want to bombard you with hundreds of ways to do that. Instead, we’ve come to realise that good web design can be centred around three key areas, so here are the three S’s of good design to help you get on the right track:

SIMPLICITY
Simplicity is key, and although it’ll be tempting to dazzle your audience with your web design skills you’ll have a much higher success rate if you keep it subtle. You need to focus on offering a clear path to purchase with a simple layout, easy navigation and great use of menus to ensure you’re giving customers the experience they want, with simple designs winning the day and being far more effective than a cluttered, chaotic and visually confusing space.

SEO
SEO might seem like an entirely different concept, but the fact is this—if you want to maximise your chances of getting the visibility and sales you want you’ll need to incorporate SEO into any web design project. You can do this by avoiding flash, using search-friendly URLs, properly utilising alt attributes and meta tags with keywords being used sparingly yet effectively, and of course, incorporating social media buttons and blogs will be vital.

STYLE
In this sense style means everything from the layout of the page to the style of content being provided, and make sure to put visual appeal high on the list of priorities. Ideally you want to aim for a sleek, stylish design that perfectly reflects your brand with things like images, white space and suitable fonts being used to great effect, and don’t forget to keep your content in-line with your wider brand values too.

This is just a basic overview of the three S’s of web design, but if you make sure to remember them with your next project you could have a site that works on every level.