how to nail your website branding

Want to make your website look professional and cute but freeze at the blank template? It’s totally normal to feel overwhelmed at all the cool options for colours, fonts, layouts and so on. It can feel like there’s endless possibilities (and there kind of is) but decision paralysis is real! 

So to shine a little light on how to actually make these important decisions for your website branding, we asked an expert for her top tips. Enter web designer Katie Zana. She runs her own studio Pearler, and has developed a DIY branding tool that can help small businesses work all this stuff out. We recently asked her to share her website branding tips in a webinar as part of our Strictly Business ‘Lunchbreak Lessons’ series in partnership with Squarespace (which you can catch up on here).

FIND YOUR RAINBOW You’ll have a spot for up to five colours in Squarespace, and Katie recommends separating the colours you choose into base colours and accent colours. She says your base colours are typically black and white but she never uses them! She recommends choosing a colour that’s “almost black, or almost white, but is a little bit different – like a really deep, dark green”. If you’re unsure of what colours to choose, Katie recommends connecting with your inner child – what colours have you always loved? It’s a great place to start! 

FONTS TO THE FRONT Next up, you’ll be choosing three fonts: heading, paragraph and accents. “Single font websites are not good for text readability,” Katie says. You can easily set up your fonts using the ones available in Squarespace, but if you want a custom font without breaking the budget, Katie recommends taking a look on Creative Market. Katie recommends being bold with the size of your headings: “By making your headings un-ignorable, people will actually read them and then they’re more likely to read the smaller text below it.”

BUILD YOUR LOGO You don’t have to overthink your logo. Perhaps you found a font you really loved while choosing your fonts? That can be used as your brand wordmark for your website. You need to check it looks good zoomed in and zoomed out, plus that it’s different enough from your headings. “It’s hella important they don’t compete,” Katie says. 

PRETTY PICTURES Considering what images you’ll use on your site is often overlooked, Katie says. Of course, you can use photos of yourself and your products, but there’s also lots of cool stock photos you can use to help communicate your brand (her fave site is Death to Stock). If you’re selling designs, digital products, beauty or food and beverage products, Katie recommends looking at a site called Bendito Mockup: “It’s worth having a look at how your stuff could look added to their mockups.”

PLAY AROUND As you decide on these elements, you can play around with how they look using a pre-made Squarespace template. If you want something in particular you can’t find on a pre-made template, never fear! Katie says there are endless resources out there for this platform. “Just Google terms like ‘squarespace wavy section borders’ or ‘squarespace drop shadow buttons’ and usually there will be an answer to achieve the looks you want,” she says.
 
These helpful tips were brought to you in partnership with Squarespace, providing entrepreneurs and small business owners with the tools they need to bring their creative ideas to life, online. Using their all-in-one platform, you can claim a domain, build a website, sell online and market your brand. Use code ‘STRICTLYBUSINESS’ for 20% a monthly or annual subscription.