The most successful websites use sans-serif, primarily Open Sans, Helvetica and Arial. They are small and have a load time of no more than 1.36 seconds. These facts are based on a recent study to try to determine what goes into online business success.
First impressions matter — a lot — especially when you’re trying to drive traffic to your website. That’s why it’s essential you create an impressive homepage for your website — because it’s the first thing prospective customers see.
But what makes a homepage great?
Creative Market Survey
To find out, design marketplace Creative Market analyzed 1000 company websites from the 2016 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing companies.
Here’s a look at what the research revealed.
7 Website Homepage Design Tips
Here are the tips for you to consider when you design your homepage:
- According to data, 71 percent of the top 1000 fastest growing companies in America use sans-serif.
- Sans-serif is also a good choice for readability on low resolution screens and modern draw makes it the most desired typeface for websites.
- The top three sans-serif typefaces of all the website copy analyzed in the study are: Open Sans, Helvetica and Arial.
- Because font color plays a major role in legibility, you should attempt to determine the perfect contrast. Often pure black is the most popular option, along with various shades of grey.
- When choosing a font size, it’s important to consider text readability on various devices. The most common font sizes are: 14px, 16px and 13px.
- Choose your messages carefully and convey them in fewer words to captivate audience attention. The average word count on most fast growing companies’ homepage is 605.
- Load time determines whether visitors stay on your site or not. So create a fast site, which has a response time of 1.36 seconds.
- Simpler homepages are smaller in size and load faster. So aim for a site size of 66970.928 bytes, depending on the layout and features.
For more information, check out the infographic below:
Images: Creative Market