What To Look For When Hiring A Website Design Company
November 6, 2022
How To Design The Perfect Website Header
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Headers are a crucial element in the success of your website. They help users easily navigate through your website, showcase your brand identity and can help boost your conversion rates through CTAs. Designing the perfect website header is key to increasing the user experience on your site to the next level.
When you visit a website, what is the first thing that you will notice? More time than not, it will be the website header as it’s at the top of the site. A user will normally judge your website in an average time of 2-3 seconds meaning that a poorly designed header can make them exit the site. A good comparison would be just as you wouldn’t start a movie right in the middle, when you enter a website you often start from the top and work your way down.
As web designers, we appreciate how powerful a well-designed header can increase the success of your website. It helps establish your brand identity, and site navigation and can place solid CTAs that can lead your business to get more calls, leads and sales.
Even though your header isn’t a huge part of your website visually, it is arguably one of the important sections of your website and will be one of the highest engagement sections of your site. So, it’s only right that we focus on designing it in a way that helps maximise its engagement with users.
We’ve put together this article to help inspire training web designers, there are a few best practices that you can follow when designing your header and here they are! But before we start, you need to know what a website header is.
What Is A Website Header?
Your website header is the top section which will usually consist of a logo and navigation menu but it has been found to include more features such as social media icons, CTA buttons, taglines and more depending on the design.
The purpose of a website header can vary depending on the website but they will normally always hold the purpose of creating brand identity and helping users navigate through the website easier.
What Should My Website Header Include?
Looking for items to include in your header section? Take a look at some of the features that can increase your header design and boost your user experience further!
Logo
The first thing that should always be in your website header is your logo. Brand recognition is important and an easy way to build it is by having your logo there as soon as someone enters your website. The logo should stand out on your header while remaining properly sized to not overwhelm the other elements that are in your header.
Your logo can often dictate how your website header is going to look depending on your logo dimensions.
The next element that should always be on a website header is navigation links. It will help the user understand the pages on your website better or if you have a landing page it can help them go to the section with just a click of a button instead of scrolling. If a user can get a clear visual of the structure of your website, they get more confidence from being able to easily explore their way around without any problems.
Depending on the size of your website, your chosen navigation links are going to vary depending on what you would like the users to be able to go to. With certain website builders such as Elementor, you are able to create mega menus which allows you to create much larger nav link sections if you have many website pages but can’t afford to leave them out.
Social Media Icons
We are social creatures by habit but the tide has shifted in recent times where a lot of socialising that we do is through the online world. People love to follow family, friends, known celebrities and most importantly businesses they have an interest in. Having a solid social media presence can help bring in new customers and clients and it gives you a chance to share updates on what is happening currently in your business. Not to mention, you can interact back with people to build customer relationships.
People are also curious to see business pages on social media, a good way that you can link your website to your social media profiles is by having icons on your website header for them to easily access and be directed to your pages.
CTA Button
Every website will usually have an end goal of what they want the user to do. Whether it’d be a button to sign up, call or lead them to a booking form. A great way that you can direct a user on your website to your chosen end goal is through CTA buttons and these will usually be strategically placed across pages on your website in your content but another place that you can put a CTA button is in your website header. It could be ‘Book Now’, ‘Call Us’, ‘Sign Up’ and more depending on your end goal.
A CTA button is usually designed to be placed at the right end of the header as it creates a perfect balance between your logo and navigation links while being an extremely helpful shortcut to increase your conversions.
The Best Practices For Website Headers
Keep your header well-organised with a clear structure to avoid any potential confusion which could make a user leave your website. Pick a font and size that is clear to read and it is always beneficial to create a custom header just for your mobile and tablet users as mobile web design is a lot different from building a website for desktop users due to a variety of reasons. Your website should be fully responsive across all devices!
We’ve helped create many powerful websites for business owners, get in touch today and find out more about how we can help your business grow further through high-quality web design.
Riley Williams is the creative force behind The Wolf Of The Web! With over 100+ websites built across diverse sectors. I believe in crafting eye-catching websites that not only look amazing but also generate more calls, leads, and sales for your business.
