10 Website Design Best Practices My Dad Taught Me

TL;DR

• If your site stinks on a phone, it stinks. Mobile-first responsive design is the baseline now, not a fancy bonus.
• Clear navigation beats clever navigation. People should find Services, Contact, Donate, or Book without playing a guessing game.
• Fast, accessible, readable websites usually outperform bloated, pretty ones that make users work.
• Good SEO starts in the design phase, not after launch when everyone suddenly remembers Google exists.
• At Bruce & Eddy, we match the build to the business. BEGO for simplicity, custom development when you need real horsepower, Wix or Squarespace when speed and fit matter.

My dad's been building websites since 2004. Back when the internet made noises like a fax machine getting mugged. A lot has changed since then, but the reasons websites fail really haven't.

We've watched businesses in Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Arlington, Frisco, and plenty of smaller Texas towns wrestle with websites that look fine for about six seconds and then immediately trip over themselves. Usually it's the same stuff. Confusing menus. Slow pages. Tiny text. Forms that ask for your blood type before they'll let you say hello.

At Bruce & Eddy, we've boiled website design best practices down to what helps real organizations. Small businesses. Nonprofits. Churches. Startups. Creative brands. Sometimes that means a clean BEGO site with unlimited updates. Sometimes it means Blake knocking out a sharp Wix launch. Sometimes it means Landon building a polished Squarespace presence. And sometimes it means Butch and Anjo rolling up their sleeves for custom website development, web apps and integrations, and the sort of back-end problem solving that makes normal people want a snack and a nap.

Here's the list my dad has basically been teaching me for years, with fewer buzzwords and more truth.

1. Start With Mobile-First Responsive Design

If your website only feels “finished” on a desktop monitor, it's not finished. It's just dressed up for the wrong party.

Responsive design is no longer the advanced class. It's the floor. One industry summary says an estimated 90% of websites had implemented responsive web design by 2024, which tells you this isn't some trendy feature anymore. It's standard equipment.

What mobile-first actually changes

Designing mobile-first forces better decisions. You stop hiding weak strategy behind giant desktop hero images and start asking useful questions. What matters most? What action should happen first? What can wait?

A practical guide from Sugar Pixels notes that mobile accounts for over 60% of web traffic, and mobile-optimized sites can achieve up to 40% higher conversion rates than non-optimized sites. That doesn't mean every site magically converts because it shrinks nicely. It means usable mobile layouts tend to remove a lot of the nonsense that gets in people's way.

Practical rule: Test on real phones, not just by dragging your desktop browser until it looks skinny.

That's why our team treats thumbs like a design requirement. Buttons need room. Menus need to make sense without hover tricks. Text has to be readable without pinch-zooming like it's 2009. If you want a deeper look at that thinking, our mobile-first design principles break it down.

Real-world version: a church site needs service times, location, and livestream access fast. A local service business needs tap-to-call, clear service pages, and a contact path that doesn't require acrobatics. Different goals, same rule. Mobile comes first.

2. Build Clear Information Architecture and Navigation

A bad sitemap usually starts with good intentions.

Butch has been building websites for more than 20 years, and he's watched the same problem show up in every era, from brochure sites with splash pages to modern builds packed with dropdowns, popups, and “creative” labels nobody would ever search for. A business wants to say everything. A visitor wants one thing in ten seconds. Those goals only work together if the site structure does its job.

Clear information architecture means people can predict where things live before they click. If someone lands on a nonprofit site, they should spot About, Programs, Donate, and Contact right away. If it's a service business, Services, Pricing or Get a Quote, Service Area, and Contact should be obvious. Cute menu language usually tests well in internal meetings and fails during user interaction.

Here's the standard we use at Bruce & Eddy across BEGO sites, custom builds, Wix projects, and Squarespace setups:

• Use plain-language navigation labels: Call the page Services, not “How We Help Bold Brands.”
• Group pages by user intent: Keep decision-making pages together, keep trust-building pages together, and don't mix careers, case studies, and contact under one catch-all tab.
• Keep top-level navigation short: A few strong choices beat a crowded header every time.
• Make search visible on larger content-heavy sites: If a church has years of sermons or a retailer has a large catalog, search saves people from hunting.
• Repeat key paths in the footer: Visitors scroll first and orient themselves later.
• Limit submenu depth: If important pages are buried three layers down, the structure is doing too much.

That last point matters more than clients expect. Deep menus feel organized to the team that built them because they already know where everything is. New visitors do not. They're guessing.

I've seen this play out on redesigns where the fix wasn't “make it prettier.” The fix was admitting the homepage was trying to act like a junk drawer. Once we simplified the structure, pages started getting used the way they were supposed to. Contact pages got more visits. Service pages held attention longer. Support questions dropped because answers were easier to find.

Platform choice affects how far you can take this. A Wix or Squarespace site can handle clean, straightforward navigation very well if the content strategy is disciplined. A custom build gives our team more room to shape complex user paths, search behavior, filtering, and mega menus without turning the experience into a maze. BEGO sits in the practical middle for businesses that need a polished structure and a sane editing experience.

Our team tends to divide this work by strengths. Butch is great at spotting bloated sitemaps before they become expensive. Josh can map the technical structure cleanly. Our SEO work also benefits here because better architecture gives search engines a clearer path through the site. If your pages are hard for humans to find, they're usually not set up well for Google either.

One practical test beats a long debate. Ask someone outside your company to find three things fast: what you do, who it's for, and how to contact you. If they hesitate, the architecture needs work. We use the same logic in our guide on improving site loading speed without hurting usability, because structure and performance usually succeed or fail together.

Butch's version is simpler. Don't make people think harder than necessary. Good navigation feels obvious, and obvious wins.

3. Obsess Over Loading Speed and Performance

Speed is part of design. Not a side quest. Not a developer-only concern. Design choices create performance consequences.

The Marq guidance on web design best practices highlights a problem a lot of businesses feel but can't always name: the core issue isn't whether a site looks polished, it's how to balance visual richness with speed, mobile usability, and conversion outcomes. That tradeoff matters more than ever, especially when teams keep adding videos, animations, popups, sliders, trackers, and seventeen fonts because each one seemed harmless in a meeting.

Here's a quick primer before the nerdy part:

The tradeoff nobody likes admitting

Some visuals help. Too many visuals, giant files, and unnecessary scripts hurt. We regularly tell clients that a website can look premium without hauling a digital piano up every staircase.

What usually works:

• Compress images early: Big images are a common performance killer.
• Lazy load below-the-fold media: Let the page load what users need first.
• Be stingy with third-party scripts: Every extra widget wants a slice of speed.
• Test on real devices and normal connections: Office Wi-Fi is a liar.

Fast websites feel more trustworthy because users aren't waiting around wondering if something broke.

When Anjo builds custom website development projects or web apps and integrations, performance gets baked into the planning. And if you're trying to improve an existing site, our guide on how to improve site loading speed gets into the practical fixes.

Wikipedia is a good reminder here. It's not flashy, but it respects the user's time. That lesson applies whether you're serving a nonprofit donor page or a product catalog.

4. Prioritize Accessible Design

Accessibility is not “nice to have if there's room in the budget.” It's part of whether the website works at all.

A lot of website design best practices articles stop at color contrast, alt text, and calling it a day. Those matter, sure. But accessibility also affects keyboard navigation, predictable menus, semantic structure, captions and transcripts, form errors, and whether assistive technology can understand what your page is doing. The Uizard summary makes that point clearly in its discussion of accessibility beyond checkbox advice: accessible design changes page layouts, forms, menus, and calls to action in practical ways.

What accessible design looks like in real life

Accessible design is concrete. It shows up in things users can feel right away:

• Keyboard operability: Can someone tab through the site and use it without a mouse?
• Predictable navigation: Do menus behave consistently from page to page?
• Clear error recovery: If a form fails, does the site explain what happened and how to fix it?
• Semantic structure: Are headings, navigation, buttons, and landmarks coded correctly?

This matters for everybody, not just users who identify as disabled. Better labels help rushed people. Better form errors help annoyed people. Better contrast helps people on bright phones in parking lots. Accessibility tends to improve the whole experience.

Government sites and public-service organizations are good examples because they usually can't get away with building for only one kind of user. Churches and nonprofits benefit from the same discipline. If someone is trying to find service info, request help, register for an event, or donate, the website shouldn't put up extra barriers.

I've found that accessibility work also has a nice side effect. It exposes lazy design decisions fast.

5. Weave In SEO-Friendly Design and Structure

A beautiful site nobody can find is still lost.

SEO works best when design and development respect it from day one. That means clean headings, sensible page structure, readable URLs, strong internal linking, useful content hierarchy, and code that search engines can crawl without needing a rescue team.

If you want to check whether your copy is staying natural while still covering important terms, tools like Humantext.pro for keyword analysis can help keep things from drifting into robotic repetition. Which, for the record, is how many websites end up sounding like a spreadsheet wrote them.

The stuff that helps before content marketing ever starts

The biggest SEO wins in design are usually not flashy. They're disciplined.

• Use one clear H1 per page: Give the page a point.
• Write descriptive URLs: /services/web-design tells a better story than /page-7.
• Build heading hierarchy properly: Don't style random text to look important and call it structure.
• Use descriptive anchor text: “See our web design services” is better than “click here.”

At Bruce & Eddy, SEO services for businesses are often the entry point. Sometimes a company in Houston or Fort Worth comes to us because rankings slipped. Sometimes a business in Austin or Frisco needs blog strategy, technical cleanup, or a site rebuild that stops fighting search visibility. Either way, SEO is not a sprinkle-on topping after launch. It belongs in the foundation. Our take on SEO-friendly website design gets into the overlap between structure, content, and technical setup.

This applies whether we're building WordPress websites, custom web apps, or supporting a builder platform. The platform matters less than the discipline.

6. Design a Strong and Clear Call to Action

Your website should not be shy about what comes next.

If the page did its job, the CTA should feel obvious. Not aggressive. Not weirdly vague. Just clear. “Get a Quote” beats “Submit.” “Schedule a Call” beats “Learn More” when the primary goal is a conversation. “Donate Now” beats making people hunt for generosity in the footer.

Clarity beats style points

Strong CTAs usually share a few traits:

• Action-first wording: Start with a verb people understand.
• Good contrast: The button should look clickable without screaming.
• Helpful placement: Put the main CTA near decision points, not only at the bottom.
• Mobile visibility: If the button disappears into the layout on a phone, it's not doing much.

Slack does this well. Charity: Water does too. They don't make users interpret poetry before taking action.

I've seen this matter a lot for local businesses. A roofer in Katy, a consultant in Dallas, a nonprofit in San Antonio. Different industries, same behavior. People land on the page with a question in mind. A good CTA closes the gap between curiosity and action. A weak CTA just stands there in loafers and hopes for the best.

7. Use Professional Typography for Readability

Typography is one of those things people notice most when it's bad. Like hold music or airport carpet.

Great type choices make a website feel credible, readable, and calm. Bad typography makes even solid businesses look a little accidental. Tiny body text, low contrast, walls of all-caps, five font families fighting in the same header. That's how you end up with a website that feels like a garage band flyer.

Readability is the real flex

Landon, our Squarespace guy, is excellent at this because he doesn't treat fonts like decoration. He uses them like structure.

A few rules tend to hold up:

• Pick readable fonts: Style matters, but legibility matters more.
• Use contrast wisely: Text should separate clearly from the background.
• Control line length: If paragraphs stretch forever, reading gets harder.
• Build hierarchy with size and weight: Headings should guide, not yell.

Medium is a good reference for readable content. Apple also tends to handle typography with discipline. Different aesthetics, same respect for legibility.

This matters a lot on content-heavy pages, especially for SEO services for businesses where blog articles, service pages, and resource sections need to carry weight. It also matters on small screens, where a font that looked “sleek” on a giant monitor suddenly becomes a squint test.

Typography should help people understand faster, not admire your font menu.

8. Display Trust Signals and Credibility Elements

People decide very quickly whether your website feels legitimate. You can thank years of spam, scams, fake gurus, and suspiciously enthusiastic popups for that.

Trust signals aren't decorations. They're proof. Real contact info. Team photos. Clear policies. Testimonials that sound like actual humans. Review profiles. Security basics. A believable About page. These details help visitors feel like there are competent adults behind the curtain.

Credibility is built from specifics

The best trust elements are concrete:

• Show names and roles: People trust people, not faceless brands.
• Include usable contact details: Don't hide your phone number like state secrets.
• Use testimonials with substance: Specific feedback beats “Great service!”
• Keep security and maintenance current: Broken forms and browser warnings ruin trust fast.

For us, being a family-run shop offers distinct advantages. There's Butch, steady as ever. Amy making sure clients feel taken care of. Blake handling Wix builds. Landon shaping Squarespace websites. Anjo making difficult development work look rude to complain about. You can meet the humans on our About page.

And because trust also includes the technical stuff, our website security checklist covers the less glamorous details that still matter a lot. Visitors may not compliment your DNS settings, but they definitely notice when a site feels sketchy.

9. Maintain a Consistent Visual Brand

A website shouldn't feel like five different people built five different pages on five different Tuesdays.

Consistency is what makes a site feel intentional. Same button styles. Same spacing rhythm. Same tone. Same color logic. Same image treatment. It doesn't mean every page looks identical. It means every page feels related.

Why consistency makes websites easier to use

Consistent branding reduces decision fatigue. Users learn the pattern once, then move faster. They know what a button looks like. They know what a section heading feels like. They know how cards, forms, and links behave.

That matters whether you're a creative brand in Marfa, a local business in Sugar Land, or a regional company serving clients across Texas and the U.S. It also makes development cleaner. Reusable components save time, reduce mistakes, and make future updates less painful.

Mailchimp is a strong example of a company with recognizable visual rules. Google's product ecosystem is another. You may not consciously think about their consistency, but you definitely feel it when you use their products.

At Bruce & Eddy, consistency matters across all our build types. On BEGO websites, it keeps updates clean and manageable. On WordPress websites and custom builds, it helps us create systems instead of one-off page experiments. On Wix website design and Squarespace websites, it keeps the platform from turning into a junk drawer.

10. Simplify Your Forms and Content

Butch has a line he's repeated to me for years: every extra field is a tiny argument with your customer. He was right at 25, and he's even more right now that people fill out forms with one thumb while standing in line for coffee.

Long forms create friction. Bloated copy does the same thing. If a visitor has to work too hard to contact you, request a quote, donate, or figure out what you do, the site is asking them to be more patient than they need to be.

Simplifying does not mean starving people of useful information. It means cutting anything that slows a decision and keeping the parts that help someone act with confidence. On service sites, that usually means fewer form fields, clearer page structure, stronger headings, and copy that answers practical questions fast.

A good rule is simple.

Ask only for information your team will use.

That usually looks like this:

• Keep fields tight: Name and email are often enough. Add phone only if someone will call.
• Use labels above fields: People should still know what they're filling out after they start typing.
• Write specific error messages: Tell them what needs fixing, in plain English.
• Break long copy into sections: Short paragraphs, useful subheads, and bullets help people scan before they commit.
• Cut filler copy: If a sentence sounds impressive but explains nothing, delete it.

The trade-off is real. A shorter form can bring in more leads, but sometimes with less detail. A longer form can pre-qualify better, but it will usually reduce submissions. We make that call based on the job of the page. For a BEGO site, a lean contact form is often the right move because speed and clarity matter more than elaborate intake. On a custom build or a WordPress project with a sales team behind it, we might add a few qualification fields so the handoff is cleaner. Wix and Squarespace projects benefit from the same discipline. Those platforms are easy to clutter if nobody acts like an editor.

Typeform is a strong example of low-friction form design. Charity: Water keeps donation paths focused. Basecamp has long been good at writing copy that is easy to scan without talking down to the reader.

At Bruce & Eddy, that editing mindset shows up in the work as much as the design. Butch has spent two decades trimming pages down to what helps people act. I've learned that a simpler site usually performs better than a clever one that makes visitors hunt for the point. For smaller organizations, BEGO websites often fit that need well because the structure stays clean, updates stay manageable, and the site does its job without turning into a digital junk drawer.

10-Point Website Design Best Practices Comparison

So, Is Your Website Held Together With Duct Tape?

Look, getting your website right is hard. There are a lot of moving parts, and most business owners have better things to do than argue with plugins, image sizes, mobile menus, DNS records, and a homepage headline that somehow became everyone's personality test.

That's a big part of why Bruce & Eddy exists. We've been doing this since 2004, and we've learned that the right solution depends on the business, not on our ego. Some clients need BEGO because they want a professional web presence, unlimited updates, and less stress. Some need custom website development because the business has outgrown off-the-shelf tools and now needs web apps and integrations that fit the operation. Some need Wix website design for a quick launch. Some need Squarespace websites because presentation matters and the content structure fits the platform.

SEO is often the other significant benefit. A site can look sharp and still underperform if the structure is weak, the content is thin, or the technical setup is sloppy. That's why we help with audits, strategy, content planning, and ongoing optimization for new and existing clients. Sometimes the answer is a rebuild. Sometimes it's cleanup. Sometimes it's just finally fixing the stuff everyone kept ignoring because “it mostly works.”

We also stick around after launch. Hosting, DNS, maintenance, updates, security, domain issues, weird support requests, and those mysterious website problems that appear at the least convenient possible time. We handle a lot of that so clients can focus on running the business instead of becoming part-time accidental webmasters.

And yes, we serve all over Texas and beyond. Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Arlington, Frisco, Bastrop, Lockhart, Fredericksburg, Marfa, Wimberley, Glen Rose, Midlothian, and anywhere else a business needs a website that does its job without drama. Bruceville-Eddy is also a real place, which still sounds made up, but I promise it isn't.

If your website feels like it's held together with duct tape and hope, maybe it's time to talk.

If you want a team that can handle strategy, design, development, SEO, hosting, and the less glamorous technical stuff without acting like robots in expensive shoes, take a look at Bruce and Eddy. You can browse our services or just reach out. You'll probably end up talking to me or Amy, which is a pretty decent place to start.