15 Quick Tips to Make Any Website Look Better

You don’t need to be a designer to make your website look professional and visually appealing. With a few simple yet effective techniques, you can make your site more attractive and user-friendly. Using the right images, choosing harmonious colors, selecting readable fonts, and making small improvements to enhance user experience can significantly transform the overall look of your website. In this article, we’ll share 15 practical tips that you can easily apply, even without any design knowledge. If you’re ready, let’s dive into the recommendations that will take your website to the next level!

Images

The images you use on your website are one of the most important elements that shape visitors’ first impressions. High-quality and properly sized images can make your site look more professional and visually appealing. However, large file sizes can slow down loading times, and improperly proportioned images can disrupt the design balance. That’s why we’re sharing some tips to help you maintain image quality while also improving performance, making your site more effective.

1-Prefer Vector Format Images

Using clear and scalable images on your website enhances your design quality. While raster images (JPEG, PNG) lose quality when resized beyond a certain point, vector images (SVG) maintain perfect clarity at any scale. Especially for logos, icons, and graphics, choosing the SVG format provides sharper visuals and typically smaller file sizes, which positively impacts site performance. Vectors also adapt better to responsive designs, ensuring an optimal appearance across different screen sizes.

2-Use CSS to Style Images as Buttons

Using images as buttons on your website can enhance user interaction and improve visual appeal. However, it’s important to maintain accessibility and layout when using images as buttons. You can use the CSS text-indent property to add clickable text over an image. For example, if an image is being used as a menu button, you can hide the text underneath it so that only the image appears as the button. To do this, you can apply a text-indent: -9999px; value to the element containing the image, which moves the text off the page. This ensures that the image is both functional and visually appealing.

3-Specify Image Dimensions to Optimize Load Time

Specifying the dimensions of your images is crucial to improving your website’s load speed and enhancing the user experience. When the height and width of an image are not defined in CSS or HTML, browsers may reflow the page layout while loading the images, leading to slower page rendering. By correctly defining the image dimensions, you allow browsers to display the page faster. This is particularly beneficial for large images. Using attributes like width and height to specify the size of images helps stabilize the page layout and optimize loading times.

Color Usage

Colors play an important role in your website’s design, influencing both aesthetics and user experience. The right color choice can directly affect how visitors interact with your site and how they feel while browsing it. Therefore, using colors strategically ensures that your site looks professional and makes navigation easier for users.

4-Choosing Colors Based on Your Target Audience (Women prefer lighter tones, men prefer darker tones)

Selecting colors based on your target audience plays a crucial role in making your website effective. Research shows that women tend to prefer lighter tones, especially pastel colors, while men lean towards darker tones, particularly deeper and muted colors. If your site is specifically targeting women, using softer and lighter color palettes may capture their interest. For a site targeting men, darker and stronger colors can make your site more appealing and attention-grabbing. Considering color psychology and choosing the right tones can help you create an atmosphere that resonates with your audience.

5-Creating Color Palettes with Tools Like Adobe Kuler or Flat UI Colors

Creating color palettes is an important step in achieving aesthetic balance in your web design. Tools like Adobe Kuler and Flat UI Colors make it easier to select the right color combinations. Adobe Kuler offers preset palettes and suggestions that streamline the color selection process, while Flat UI Colors provides excellent color combinations specifically for flat designs. These tools help you create visually appealing, harmonious, and professional color palettes, ensuring that your website is both visually engaging and user-friendly.

6-Choose Colors for Links That Differ Slightly from the Main Text but Remain Harmonious

To highlight your links, choose colors that are slightly different from the main text but still harmonious. This enhances visual appeal and makes it easier for users to spot the links. To avoid making the main text too bold, design your links with a lighter shade or another color that complements your primary color palette. This won’t disrupt the overall design of the page but will clearly indicate which elements are clickable to visitors. You can also support your links with subtle visual cues, such as underlining, to draw more attention to these interactive elements.

7-Keep Your Design Simple and Effective with a Maximum of Four Colors

To keep your web design simple and effective, it’s important to use no more than four different colors. Excessive use of colors can make the page look cluttered and visually overwhelming. Limiting to four colors helps maintain a harmonious and balanced design. You can select your primary colors and use less contrasting colors for areas you want to highlight. This approach ensures that your site looks visually professional and allows users to focus on the content without straining their eyes. By keeping the color palette simple, you can maintain your site’s aesthetic appeal while also improving the user experience.

Fonts

Fonts play a crucial role in shaping the readability and overall feel of your website. The right typography can enhance your site’s design, improve user experience, and help convey your brand’s personality. Choosing the appropriate font can make your content more engaging, while the wrong choice can make it difficult for visitors to read, ultimately affecting your website’s performance. In this section, we’ll explore how to choose and use fonts effectively to ensure your website is both visually appealing and easy to navigate.

8-Prefer Fast-Loading System Fonts Over Custom Fonts

Using system fonts instead of custom fonts is an effective way to improve the speed of your website. Custom fonts are often loaded from external sources, which can slow down page load times. System fonts, on the other hand, are already installed on users’ devices, so no extra loading is required, speeding up page performance. A fast-loading website directly impacts user experience. Therefore, opting for reliable and fast-loading system fonts instead of custom ones can enhance your site’s performance, especially for mobile users, where speed is crucial.

9-Adjust Line Height to Improve Readability

It is crucial to properly adjust the line height to enhance the readability of the text on your website. Line height ensures that the text is easier to read and reduces eye strain. A very narrow line height can cause the text to appear cramped, making it difficult to read, while a line height that is too wide can cause the text to appear scattered. The ideal line height is generally between 1.4 and 1.6 times the font size. This ensures the text appears visually organized and helps readers follow the content more easily.

10-Select Aesthetic and Readable Fonts from Sources like Google Fonts or FontSquirrel

Choosing the right fonts for your website is essential for both aesthetics and readability. Platforms like Google Fonts and FontSquirrel offer a wide range of free, high-quality fonts that are not only visually appealing but also optimized for web use. These sources provide fonts that are specifically designed for easy reading on screens, ensuring that your content is accessible to all users. When selecting fonts, prioritize clear, legible typefaces that align with your website’s tone and branding. Avoid overly decorative fonts that can compromise readability, especially for body text. By using trusted font libraries, you can maintain both style and functionality on your site.

Enhance the Experience

Enhancing the user experience on your website is key to keeping visitors engaged and ensuring they return. By focusing on elements like intuitive design, fast loading times, and interactive features, you can create a seamless and enjoyable experience. Simple adjustments can have a significant impact, making your site not only more functional but also more appealing to users. In this section, we’ll explore practical strategies to enhance the overall experience for your visitors.

11-Make login and important sections easily accessible (For example, using pop-up boxes).

To ensure your website is user-friendly, it’s essential to make login and important sections easily accessible. Allowing users to quickly access the information or actions they need makes the site more efficient. For example, by using pop-up boxes, you can direct users to sections that might be hidden or difficult to find on the page. This method is very effective in grabbing users’ attention and making important areas more visible. Additionally, pop-up boxes provide quick and convenient access to options when needed, increasing the time visitors spend on your site.

12-Add a Useful Footer to Help Visitors Easily Find the Information They Need

It’s essential to add a useful footer to your website to ensure visitors can easily find the information they need. The footer, located at the bottom of your website, typically contains important elements like contact details, social media links, terms of service, and privacy policies. This section makes it easier for visitors to quickly access the information they are looking for, enhancing the user-friendliness of the site. Additionally, the footer section complements your site’s overall design and gives visitors the impression that your site is well-structured and professional.

13-Define Custom CSS Rules to Ensure Users Can Print Content in an Organized Format

Ensuring that users can print content from your website in an organized format can greatly enhance the user experience. By defining custom CSS rules for printing, you can control the layout of the printed version of your page. For example, you can hide unnecessary elements, adjust text sizes, and optimize the page layout for print-friendly formats. This allows users to get a more professional and readable output while eliminating unwanted elements. By adding custom styles for printing, you can ensure that your site is user-friendly in every aspect.

14-Use Cacheable Redirects to Improve Mobile User Experience

Using cacheable redirects can be highly beneficial in enhancing the mobile user experience. Cacheable redirects allow the redirection process to occur quickly when users revisit a page. This results in shorter page load times and provides a faster, uninterrupted experience for mobile users. Since internet connections on mobile devices are often slower, cacheable redirects speed up page loading and allow users to interact with the site more efficiently. This method not only improves mobile site performance but also increases user satisfaction.

15-Enhance the Speed and Performance of Your Website for a Smoother Experience

Improving the speed and performance of your website significantly enhances the user experience. Pages that load quickly reduce the likelihood of visitors leaving the site, while enabling users to engage more effectively with the content. To boost page speed, you can use methods such as image optimization, caching, asynchronous loading, and improving server response times. Additionally, avoiding unnecessary code and large file sizes helps ensure your site runs more efficiently. These improvements not only increase user engagement but also enhance the overall performance of the website.