A well-designed website isn’t just about looking good—it’s about creating an experience that’s seamless, engaging, and, most importantly, effective. If visitors don’t find what they need within the first few seconds, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “back button.” So, what separates great website designs from forgettable ones? It all comes down to strategy, functionality, and user experience.
A great website should feel intuitive. Visitors shouldn’t have to dig to find the information they need. A clean, well-organized navigation menu ensures users can easily explore your site without frustration. Ideally, your main menu should be simple—no more than five to seven core sections like Home, About, Services, Blog, and Contact. Dropdowns can help organize additional pages without overwhelming users.
Consistent design is key here. The menu should stay in the same location on every page, and clickable elements—like buttons and links—should be easy to spot. If visitors can’t figure out where to go next, they won’t stick around to figure it out.
It’s not just about desktops anymore. Great website designs should adapt seamlessly to any screen—whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Mobile-first design isn’t a trend; it’s a necessity. With most web traffic coming from mobile devices, your site should load quickly, be easy to navigate on a smaller screen and adjust without awkward resizing.
Google also prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in search rankings. If your website design and development aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re not just frustrating users—you’re losing valuable search visibility.
A beautiful design is nothing without strong messaging. Your content should be clear, engaging, and relevant to your audience. Great website designs balance visuals with well-structured copy that speaks directly to visitors’ needs.
Headlines should be bold and attention-grabbing. Paragraphs should be short and easy to scan but optimized for search engines. Calls to action (CTAs) should guide users toward the next step, whether that’s filling out a form, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter. Every word should have a purpose.
If users have to hunt for your contact details, your website isn’t doing its job. Your phone number, email, and location should be easy to find, whether in the header, footer, or a dedicated “Contact” page (or all of the above).
And don’t forget social media. Linking to your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or other platforms helps users engage with your brand beyond the website. Adding these links to your footer ensures they’re accessible from every page.
Your website should be more than just a digital business card—it should be another team member helping with engagement, conversions, and brand credibility. At Cork Tree Creative, we specialize in great website designs that don’t just look good but actually work.
Need a site that stands out and performs? Let’s make it happen. Contact us today to discuss web design, SEO, and everything in between.
One of the best ways to capture your audience's attention and keep them scrolling is by producing a landing page. When businesses add this to their websites, it immediately leads consumers to a certain product or service they are trying to sell.
A successful landing page generates sales and engages your audience. According to research, the average landing page conversion rate is around 10%. This is why creating and updating your page to feature new items and showcase any specials, coupons, or deals will drive sales. Although this may sound simple, building one takes research, planning, specialized insight, and a little intuition. Here’s how to land a landing page.
A web page needs to inspire your target audiences to take some form of action. This is referred to as a “call to action”, or CTA. A CTA can be as simple as clicking on a link to learn more about a service or walking into a store to buy a product. Even uploading a social media post encouraging your followers to comment and tag a friend to score a free product is a CTA.
To maximize your visibility and rankings, integrate technical SEO techniques into your landing page and website. SEO gives your website a clear structure and makes it easier for Google to rank your page. Creating your landing page alongside a trusted marketing firm will elevate your brand awareness to advertise events, products, and services throughout your website. At Cork Tree Creative, we craft each page with marketing strategy and verbiage that will keep viewers engaged.
Here are some helpful tips we recommend when making an inspiring landing page.
How well do you know what’s going on? Do you have any pages or posts that customers respond to more than others? Do a little digging, AKA market research. Search for high-performance pages and critically assess your audience’s actions. Use data tracking platforms like Google Analytics 4 to find important metrics like conversion and bounce rate, average session times, and the number of users visiting your landing page. Make sure to divide metrics by traffic source, so you can also pinpoint what’s really driving your sales.
After talks with the financial, sales, and marketing departments, pull together a workable plan to reel them in. This can involve exclusive coupons, timed discounts on new product or services, or even just concise, helpful information they really need. If you want to build a newsletter or blog, the landing page can entice visitors by offering exclusive information about a product or service they may not know about yet, or that audiences tend to struggle with. If they’re intrigued by the content, odds are they’ll subscribe.
Some businesses with one product or service may build a landing page that is the entire website. This appears as unreliable and a potential scam. Try to give your website depth. Make supplemental pages that go into detail about your product or service. Develop a simple blog that can stir awareness or provide helpful information that customers need to know. Landing pages are never supposed to replace the entire website, they’re more of a branding supplement to structured information, marketing, or sales campaigns.
Many people do not take the time to fully read websites, so the moment someone clicks on your website, you must hook them in. You essentially only have a few, crucial seconds (less than five) to get your target audience’s attention and keep it. Make sure your message is clear and concise. When you think you’ve finished crafting the messaging on your landing page, give the draft to a few people to edit and look over. Something you may find easy to understand may be confusing to someone who isn’t familiar with the digital marketing industry. Think of a landing page as a virtual flyer or sign, don’t bog your clients down with blocks of text or wordy descriptions.
Images and videos are here to stay, so get used to it. Use visual elements in your landing page, because only text will send them away. Most people prefer visual over text. Make sure your graphic designer shows the landing page all the tender love and care it deserves.
If you’re unsure which words to say, colors to use or images and videos to display, join the club. Narrow it down to two pages and AB test. Promote both equally, track metrics, and discover what your audience truly wants.
Building a cohesive, relevant, and attractive landing page that converts the customers you want takes some well-directed and skilled effort. If you’d like specialized guidance backed by experience, our team at Cork Tree Creative can help. We have an analytical bunch of creatives that can swiftly draft and design a stellar landing page you can bring home to your parents. Just reach out, and we’ll get something started.
Image alt text, which is short for alternative text, describes image details and its purpose on a website. It is also referred to as alt attributes and alt tags. You can find the alt text code within your website’s HTML code.
An image’s alt text may look like this:
<img src=“image.jpg” alt=“image description” title=“image title”>
or this
<img src="image.gif" alt="Image">
Alt text was initially created for the visually impaired to help identify online images. Screen-reading software reads this text aloud to its users. Alt text also appears in place of images on browsers that block them and shows up in place of its image when pages don’t load correctly.
In addition to making your site more accessible, alt text is read by search engine crawlers. It is important to develop a web design and format that optimizes SEO and crawlers. When ranking websites, crawlers view your images using this portion of code. It then decides the value of the image in relation to its page and your site overall.
Whether you Google “Bluetooth speaker” or “Benjamin Franklin,” images appear in the search results. For years, Google has increased the importance of visual media for several reasons:
Ultimately, good alt text should be descriptive. In a few words, describe what’s in the image and include any related keywords. If you’re unsure whether or not your alt text makes sense have it read to you with your eyes closed.
<img src="speaker.jpg"/>
<img src="speaker.gif" alt="">
These are examples of bad alt descriptions because they don’t include any actual alt text. If your image doesn’t need any alt text, consider adding it to your CSS.
<img src="speaker.gif" alt="speaker speakers small speaker home speaker wireless speaker Bluetooth speakers black speaker buy speaker">
This is an example of keyword stuffing in alt attributes. Keyword stuffing is widely regarded as a bad practice because most search engines evaluate it as spam.
<img src="speaker.jpeg" alt="black speaker">
This is a better example of alt text because it includes a one-word description of the speaker.
<img src="speaker.png" alt="small black wireless speaker sits on table">
This is an even better example of an alt attribute for the speaker image because it provides a brief illustration of the image. A few, wisely-chosen words can detail even simple pictures.
Writing better alt text is a key on-page SEO tactic that improves online users' access to your site and experience. Use the tips below as guidance when writing alt titles and descriptions for your site’s images.
At Cork Tree Creative, we are skilled and experienced in writing for SEO to optimize alt text, improve user- experience, and gain higher search engine rankings. Our SEO and strategic planning services work together to successfully optimize your images.
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