An excellent website design does not always mean expensive or fancy - it just has to have proper design principles and elements in it that makes for a good user experience. Think about what you do - when you hit a website as a first time visitor what do you think about or feel? We all take note of the site design even if we are not actually thinking those words "What is this site design all about?". There are tons of things that affect conversions and one of the very first things is the impression they get after they arrive. We cannot discuss all aspects of site design but here are just a couple that you need to think about in relation to your site.
The Right Graphics: It is important to be consistent with your graphics so make sure that they are sized and defined properly. This way you'll optimise your sites design for the best performance and make it stand out from the crowd. Webpages that have good and consistent images are going to load a lot more quickly. A good graphic setup will not just boost the look of your website it helps it work perfectly in all of the browsers. Images that are properly sized will reduce the web browser workload and enhance the overall loading time. Some of the sites that get a ton of traffic are very simple with their designs. You will be faced with a greater challenge when you attempt a highly complicated web design. If your design skills are up to the task then you will have a better chance of making a site with more elements in it. One of the main reasons as to why you should have a simple design is because people tend to leave sites quickly when they don't really look appealing. If you put a lot of ads on your site in the future then that can really play havoc with design. You do not have to do a very simplistic type of design but you can explore the possibility.
If you're including pictures and images on your website you shouldn't forget to use Alt tags to describe these images where you use your primary keywords. You really should think about people with disabilities such as those with vision problems. If you do SEO then you probably know that the alt tags should contain the appropriate keyword for that page. Yes your on page factors for optimization makes use of the alt tag. What you want to do is put a little description of the photo in the alt tag. Any time you have a graphic including your header if there are pictures in it then you really should fill out the alt tag. If your goal is to give your visitors the best possible experience on your site you have to keep in mind that every feature button color font choice etc. will have some impact on the way your site looks and how people react to it.