DIY Websites 10 Web Design Tips That Make Your Site Look Professional

Building a do-it-yourself (DIY) website provides several advantages. You have complete control over your site, can personalize it to your tastes, and save your budget. However, creating DIY websites that look professional and can compete with developer-built sites can be tricky without any training.Fortunately, if you take the time to learn a few web design best practices, your own site can come out looking top-notch. Even if you have no experience with creating websites, many of these tips are very simple to implement, especially on a platform such as WordPress.In this post, well introduce you to ten site elements you can incorporate to make your online space look professional.Lets get to it! Color can translate a lot about your brand. Too many colors that make your website seem chaotic could project a sense of disorganization and indecisiveness. Instead, pick one main color, an accent color, then stick with neutrals. A tool such as Coolors can help you generate color schemes quickl y and easily.To help you nail your color choices, you can follow our guide to website color schemes.2. Leave plenty of white space to prevent cluttered pages and postsWhite space refers to the blank areas on your sites pages. They may not necessarily be white in color (negative space is an alternative description you can use), but these open spaces help prevent your site from looking cluttered and confusing to visitors:Overall, a cleaner aesthetic helps users easily find what theyre looking for as soon as they arrive on your site. You can also use this design strategy to your advantage by directing users to  Subscribe or  Buy Now  buttons through the use of white space.3. Choose a legible font to ensure readabilityFancy scripts or graphic lettering might seem like a professional element to add. However, dont confuse professionalism with complexity or cost. Just because you have to pay for a custom font and add it to your site doesnt mean its high-end. Instead, prioritize legib ility:If your users cant read your site, it doesnt matter how much effort you put into acquiring your flashy typography. Keep your websites main purpose – to deliver information – at the forefront.For best results, pick two fonts and pair them together.4. Add high-quality personal photos to provide authenticityImages are an excellent way to improve your sites content. However, stuffing your site full of stock photos isnt a smart practice. Quality is far more important than quantity here. Personal photos seem more genuine, and can help build trust with your users:Even so, you dont want to just slap a grainy selfie up on your website and call it good. Low-quality images will also have a negative impact on your users perceptions of your site, so pay attention to features such as lighting and framing when taking and posting photos.5. Include clear navigation and search functionality to help visitors find what they needWhether your site has one page or dozens, your users ne ed to be able to find their way around. Visitors come to your site for a reason, and if they cant find what they need theyre more likely to leave than to go digging. This is why clear navigation is essential:Adding easy-to-use navigation will enable users to quickly get where they want and need to go. Also, including site search functionality can help them quickly find posts or pages anywhere across your site.6. Craft a well-written About page to build user trust and loyaltyBuilding a home page and providing information about your brands products or services are probably at the forefront of your mind when it comes to your sites content. However, your About page plays a key role on your website too:By sharing your brands story, mission, and values, you can humanize it to create a sense of trust and loyalty among your users. This can help give you an edge over your competitors, as people are more likely to stick with brands who share their values.7. Incorporate Call to Action (CTA) bu ttons to boost your conversion rateIf you want to increase conversions, you should make it as easy as possible for users to convert. This is why so many professional sites have CTA buttons that say things such as  Subscribe,  Sign Up,  or  Buy Now:Fortunately, if youre building DIY websites with WordPress, you can now easily add buttons in the Block Editor without the need for a plugin or custom code. This makes it easy for you to add actionable and converting elements for your mailing list, memberships, products, and practically anything else you can think of.8. Keep your headers and footers consistent to build brand recognitionWhenever your users need a product or service, you want them to think of your brand first. This is why brand recognition is key. Consistently using the same header and footer across your site is a smart opportunity to start making a strong impression on your users:Its especially helpful if your brands logo is included in one or both of these content areas. This important piece of your websites identity is key to creating a recognizable brand.9. Prioritize mobile responsiveness to reach more usersIf youve ever pulled up a website on your phone and found you couldnt read it because the text was too large or too small, you know how frustrating a lack of mobile responsiveness is. Your users feel the same way, and will likely abandon your mobile site if it doesnt adjust to their screen size:With mobile search now a significant source of conversions, and responsiveness factoring into Googles algorithm, this isnt an element you want to overlook. While in the past making your WordPress website mobile responsive was tough, practically every theme worth its salt is now ready to roll. For example, our entire collection of themes look great on mobile devices, although there are myriad to choose from.10. Provide easy-to-use contact forms to help users get in touchAnother feature professional websites all have in common is easy access to the brands contact information, such as an address, phone number, and email. However, you can make it even easier for users to reach you by providing a contact form:You might display this form on its own page or in your footer or sidebar across your site for easy access. There are several plugins you can use to create forms in WordPress, such as Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms. Some page builders – such as Elementor – include quality tools to help build forms right out of the box, and plugins such as Jetpack also include basic functionality for displaying forms.ConclusionWith more website-building platforms popping up almost by the day, DIY websites are on the rise. Saving money and taking control by designing your own site may seem attractive, but if your website turns out looking unprofessional and untrustworthy, your brand might suffer for it. These 10 tips will make your DIY #website look like it was built by a pro 🔠¨ #WordPress Click To Tweet Fortunately, the re are a few aspects of web design you can easily implement on your site to up the professional-looking quality. Creating clean visuals with a limited color palette and ample white space, building trust with personal photos and an About page, and adding interactive features such as CTA buttons and contact forms make for high-quality sites.Do you have any questions about building DIY websites? Let us know in the comments section below!Free guide5 Essential Tips to Speed Up Your WordPress SiteReduce your loading time by even 50-80% just by following simple tips.