Hey there Creator,
Before we get started, it is very important to note that you have approximately 0-8 seconds to get your website visitors to stay on it and interact with it. After these first 0-8 seconds, the majority of visitors leave, but why does that happen?
First impression matters, and in this case, it is the look and feel of your website at first glance.
If you can find a way to create an engaging design for your website, your visitors will not just interact with it, they will explore enough to make them discover your unique selling point, which then makes it way easier to convert and become paying customers.
A well-designed website with a great interface can lead to increased conversions, which is the goal of every business owner, and even though creativity is an important perk here, we also have web design guidelines that are guaranteed to create a better user experience for your website visitors.
So, let’s get right into some of these important guidelines;

1. Use a simple layout for your web pages:
   The first step to creating an engaging website is using a simple layout because they are way easier to navigate than the ones with complicated layouts. P.S: Simple does not in any way mean boring, it just means that it’s clean, and only contains the necessary elements that contribute to the website’s goals and objectives. Website builders like AIWA come with templates that you can easily choose from, so you can get started by browsing through our templates for reference. 

2. Make sure that your contents are engaging:
   Considering that your brand’s USP will be communicated in your website content, you want to make sure that your visitors read the important parts. Now, having large chunks of texts will only tire people. What you need to do is break your contents using section headers, bullet points and numbered lists. The purpose of using all of these, and most importantly, using shorter sentences is to give structure to your content. This will reduce the likelihood of your users getting overwhelmed by the bulky texts. 

3. Use white spaces appropriately:
   It is high time we all get into the beauty of white spaces because more often than not, people tend to believe that every single spot on a webpage needs a design element, and that is not true. Having design on every part of your website just makes it appear messy, and you do not want that. The beauty of white spaces is that you can draw attention to a certain element that is super important, like a feature.  

4. Be strategic about your colour choices:
   There’s something called the psychology of colours, and what this means is that different colours tend to make people feel a certain way. If you study different business niches, you will often find a similarity in their choices of brand colours, so using colours thoughtfully goes beyond just what appears “aesthetically pleasing”. From the design standpoint, it is advisable to stick to a two-colour palette or three at most. 

5. Use fonts that are easy to read:
   Fonts are a great way to complement the look and feel of your brand, but one thing you don’t want to do is compromise the readability of your content with your choice of font. Fonts like Arial are softer to the eyes when used on digital materials like a website. It is also important that you use the correct font size and confirm how it looks on different devices. 

6. Ensure your site is optimized for mobile use:
   About 70% of the time people spend on the internet happens on mobile devices, and what this means is that a lot of your traffic will land on a mobile device. If your website design doesn’t respond to mobile phone screens, then it will be hard to get your website visitors to interact with it and navigate through it. 

7. Make it easy for your visitors to contact you:
   When people visit your website and need to make further enquiries or even go ahead and make a purchase, being able to easily find a way to contact you can increase your conversion rate very significantly. Taking a cue from many other websites that do this, you can decide to use your contact details as the default footer on all the pages on your website. An extra tip is to make sure that this contact info matches all the other third-party sites where your business is listed. 

8. Make use of social media plugins:
   Using social media plugins makes your website content shareable for your visitors, and there are different benefits that this can bring to your website, some of which are; driving traffic, increasing brand awareness and creating organic backlinks. You can also try placing the icons in a unique location on your website that is very easy to spot. 

9. Get creative with your CTAs:
   Please pay good attention to the format in which you express your call to action. The CTAs need to be clear, and very easy to find on your page. Irrespective of the action that you want them to take, make sure that you use a great choice of button, colour and copy that makes it almost impossible for the visitor not to spot it or go ahead with the desired action. 

10. Minimize text and use high-quality multimedia:
    Research has shown that people are 65% more likely to retain the memory of an image rather than a text. What’s even more amazing is that these same people are also ten times more likely to engage with a video rather than a text. So instead of the long how-to texts and FAQs, spice things up by using different media formats like infographics, explanatory videos e.t.c. 

Conclusion
Attention is a very scarce commodity in this day and time, so you want to make sure that anyone who visits your website remembers it.

As mentioned above, a website with a visually appealing design can boost conversions, and all of these ten (10) tips if applied will significantly improve your overall website performance. 

For design inspiration, you can browse through the different website templates on AIWA. All you need to do is type in a keyword, and you’re good to go.