Modern Website Design – 10 Must-Know Elements

Modern website design is a key element that no website owner can ignore. It plays a vital role in establishing your trustworthy presence online. People may have different things in mind when they think about design components. Some may consider old website designs as modern because they were neat and clean. Others probably want to see fascinating new features across webpages. How do you select the best web design elements? Don’t worry. We have short-listed the ten most important elements that can help you shape up a meticulous website design to make the most of your internet existence.

  1. Easy Navigation

Easy navigation is definitely one of the most significant elements of any website design. Users should be able to easily navigate through website options and get what they look for. Try to facilitate users when they move around your website. The main menu should provide links to all relevant pages and minimize distractions. Sometimes people focus on creating a smart design and ignore the important element of simplicity. Don’t try to be impressive while leaving behind the ease factor. Your visitor should be able to find the required information without having to reach the chat support staff. Remember, a clear website design helps you lower the bounce rate because a visitor is likely to spend more time on a simple website.

  1. Sufficient White Space

White space doesn’t mean to have everything white on your website. It’s a specific design term used to refer to ‘empty’ space that makes different website elements easy to comprehend. Studies have shown that white space has great importance. It makes everything clean on your webpage including, menus, search bar, header, footer, etc. Don’t overload your visitor for excessive information. Give them some space to let them breathe. Crowded websites cannot direct visitor’s attention to specific actions. Eventually, he is going to feel helpless and leave your website. So, make sure to employ plenty of white space in order to make everything look obvious.

  1. Content

Content is the real backbone and the main reason why a website is created. Imagine a website without having content. You’ll never want to stay on a page that has nothing to share. Remember, content is king. You can seek help from assignment online service to get flawless content or advertisement copies to use on different webpages. You can sell your products or services and deliver necessary information to visitors through professionally written content. The modern website design must provide adequate space to present the content in a decent way.

  1. Color Palettes

The modern web design elements don’t need to be too vibrant. The color palettes should be simple, yet effective. Never overlook the significance of being consistent with the color palette you select for the website design. Give yourself plenty of time to decide the color scheme. It will become a part of your brand identity. Go through other websites to get an idea. Most of the big internet giants use simple and consistent color palettes.

  1. Typography

Typography has an exclusive significance because it plays a key role in readability. You can get fonts in all kinds of sizes and shapes. There are different websites that allow you to see and download different typefaces. Check out all of them and see which font category looks feasible for better visibility and legibility. Information presented in the form of text should be pleasing to the reader’s eye.

  1. Top Quality Images

A website without quality images looks lifeless. The correct use of nice images can help you derive good traffic to your website. People who use images in an appropriate way can definitely achieve their conversion goals. Always try to upload images having good resolution. You can always look for the best quality images online using different stock photo websites. Make sure that the alignment of pictures is in line with your theme and design.

  1. Call to Action

A modern website design should never forget the main goal of converting visitors into customers and leads. One of the core purposes of a site is to establish a connection with people who are interested in your products and services. Stuff like free consultations, downloadable eBooks, email subscriptions, free product forms, downloadable whitepapers, newsletter invites are proper call to actions (CTAs). Use CTAs across your website design where suitable.

  1. SEO Elements

Users should be the main focus while finalizing the website design. However, it doesn’t mean that one should completely ignore the SEO factor. Ask your website designers and developers to make a room for the search engine optimization. Most of such elements are not visible to the naked eye. Things like title tags, Meta tags, heading tags, and other forms of HTML coding can do the job.

  1. Hero Images

The trend of using full-size images in sliders is getting traction. You can use more than a couple of images along with a brief copy and CTA to appear on the homepage. They can tell visitors about the latest news about your products or services. You can feature hot stuff like new arrivals and clearance sales in there to make the best use of your offers.

  1. Website Speed

People have become impatient today and they don’t have time to stay and wait for your webpage to load properly. Don’t let your visitor wait for over five seconds. Create your website design in such a way that it doesn’t take time to load completely. You can use compressed images and other speed boosting apps too.

Conclusion

These were some of the most common practices that you should employ in modern website design. Of course, you can use any other design suggestions as well. However, focusing on the aforementioned design elements can help you get a fabulous start. In short, a good website design should be equally beneficial for both, the visitors and the Search engines.

Author Bio for Sandra Larson:


Sandra has great experience in technical writing and website designing. She loves spending time in searching for new and intuitive ways to improve website design. Larson has written several guides on optimizing webpages.

Simple Yet Effective Designer Tips for Beginners

Web design refers to the overall design of a website, which is displayed on the Internet. Usually, it refers to the user experience aspects of web development rather than just mere themes, background images, and colors. Nowadays, web designs are highly favorable, especially if such designs accelerate user experience. More than the design itself, users must be able to navigate through the entire website without much hassle going on. This is when you’ll know your web design is at a competitive edge.

Meanwhile, web designers are IT professionals who design the entire layout of a website, its visual appearance, and usability. For one, competent web designers must possess both creative graphic skills and technical skills to be able to come up with a website that looks aesthetically pleasing but also promotes usability. If you’re unfamiliar with anything related to coding, HTML, or web design in general, you can hire professional web designers, like Carl Ocab Digital Marketing, to help you out in organizing and improving your website, which, in turn, can hit two birds with one stone by generating higher profit and accelerating customer experience.

If you’re not much of a tech-savvy, or you might be a newbie in the digital world, such as web designing, you might want to read on a bit more to learn and understand these simple yet effective designer tips for beginners. Who knows, you might just learn a thing or two that can help you build your website shortly after.

Tip #1: Always Look at The Bigger Picture

In this case, the bigger picture is a visual design in mind. Just like how the saying goes, “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” Photos, images, or visuals have the power to convey or deliver a brand’s real value, grab the user or customer’s attention, and explain complex ideas.

Humans are very visual creatures; hence, use that to your advantage. Put yourself in the user’s shoes. How would you want to view a marketing ad? Or simply, how would you want a website to convince you to purchase their products or avail their services? Think about it; what do you first notice in a blog or a website? The entire text or the photos? Humans are easily drawn by visuals, especially images, and that helps a person retain information longer. Here are a few other good tips to help you with this visual dilemma:

  • your image should immediately depict the goal of the product
  • integrate high-quality images
  • the product photo should stand out
  • incorporate pictures into the entirety of your (visual) web design

Always keep in mind that irrelevant photos are up to no good. Users are most likely to ignore them. Instead, include photos that you know will bring much of an impact on the user’s attention.

Tip #2: Use No More Than 3 Fonts

The more fonts you use on your website, the messier it’s going to look. Make sure you incorporate different or separate fonts for your header, body, and another element but make sure that these fonts look neat enough for users to read through them. Most of the time, users or clients feel a bit of distaste when web designers try to incorporate all fonts into one page. Make sure to keep everything short, neat, and simple as much as possible.

If your client decides you stick with one font, then that’s better! Just make sure that the font is readable and in the right size.

Pro tip: 14 to 16px is always perfect for your content’s size.

Tip #3: Mobile-Responsive Design

Nowadays, a lot of people use smartphones more often than they use laptops or desktop computers. As a web designer, you have to keep this in mind at all times. Your website should be mobile-responsive as well as it is web-responsive. When a user views your website through a desktop computer, he expects to see the exact same content and responsiveness when he switches to mobile. Failure to optimize your site into a mobile-friendly one can cause you to lose visitors, or worse, potential customers.

Tip #4: Treat White Space As if it Was Your Friend

When it comes to web design, white space is your best friend. If you think about it, a house with bold and loud colors will make it hard for you or your visitors to notice the entirety of your home’s features and furnishings.

The same is true with websites. Don’t try to fill every corner of your page with bold colors and popping images; embrace white space as much as possible. Incorporating white spaces on your website allows you to draw your visitors’ attention to somewhere or something you want them to focus on, such as your products or services, and other features. On top of that, it makes your whole website look more neat and uncluttered, which ultimately beats any type of design.

Tip #5: Use Clear Navigation Designs

One of the essential elements of a website includes the navigation design because this is the only way for users to browse through your site, explore, and learn more about the products and services that you offer. With that, navigation designs must be simple yet functional. Here are a few more tips on how to design or create navigation buttons:

  • use non-complex, readable copies or designs

  • using simple designs doesn’t have to be boring; make sure you add a touch of the brand’s personality into it while still focusing on the product, what it is, and how it works

Wrapping Up

Web designing is fun, especially if you have enough creative juices for it! However, creativity is not all that matters. When thinking of web design, make sure to incorporate all important elements (such as those mentioned above) to guarantee its responsiveness and improve user experience. More than anything, always make it a point to design through the eyes of users or visitors. That way, you’ll know which ones to include, which ones are necessary, and which ones are not.

 

Author’s Bio:


Edwin Deponte is a motivational writer who is also passionate about Social Marketing. He believes in others’ abilities and tends to bring out people’s hidden potentials through his words of inspirations and motivational articles.

5 Rules to Hiring the Best Graphic Design Company in Kentucky

Kentucky is the 34th most populous state in the US currently with an estimated growth rate of 0.47%. Over the years, the state has demonstrated a gradual urban growth even though half of the population live in the rural areas.

If you’re among the growing small businesses, then you’d likely be considering how to expand your enterprise online and otherwise. The first step is of course finding the right skills, in particular a graphic designer, who can help you transition to the online space and establish your brand.

By finding the right graphic designer who can capture your company’s voice, standing out becomes easy. But that means you have to do the research to find the right one for you. It takes a bit of work but if you follow these rules you’ll be working with your designer in no time.

Check Out Their Portfolio

Before you even begin working with a designer, you should ask to see their portfolio. By seeing work they’ve done before, you can decide if they’ll be able to represent the image you want to portray with your business. Ask yourself:

  • Can they capture your voice?
  • Do they accommodate a Kentucky audience?
  • What clientele did they work with before? And do you think they’ve represented these companies well?
  • What’s their success rate?

Based on these answers, you’ll be able to see if their work will rival other designers’ work in the Kentucky urban sphere as well as online.

Simply looking at their design portfolio isn’t enough either. Ask your designer where they got their inspiration from. By doing this, you can evaluate whether their ideals match with your own. If they do, your designer will be better at representing your company’s brand image.

Ask to See Their Contract

Contracts often contain small details that could land up damaging your company if you don’t understand them properly. Even if you need to discuss the contract with a legal advisor, make sure you understand every word so that it doesn’t cause any issues in the future.

If your designer doesn’t have a contract, you should write one yourself or hire a professional lawyer to create a contract. It’s for both parties’ benefit. This will help to cover any additional costs that you might face and will protect you in any legal situation. It’s also an effective means of clarifying Copyright Laws at the beginning of your collaboration so that everyone is on the same page.

Research Their Skills

Before you employ a designer, it’s useful to research skills that one should have so that you can be ensured that your designer is up to the task. The more knowledgeable the designer is about marketing trends, the more likely their work will appeal to your target market. As a business designer in Kentucky, your designer also needs to have an understanding of the state’s diverse culture and incorporate it into your design such as people’s faces, art form, or images.

Various skills can add to a designer’s talents, such as:

  • Sales intelligence
  • Math marketing skills
  • Awareness of social media trends

When it comes to your website design, it’s important that your designer has enough training to make it visually appealing. He or she must be skilled enough to capture the image of your business in its Kentucky environment and translate that into beautiful graphics for marketing channels.

You Must Be Prepared to Do Some Work

Even the best designer in the world can’t create branding for your company if they don’t know anything about your business. Before you meet up with potential designers, write up a brief that states exactly what you’re looking for from your designer:

  • Do you want your business to be more professional or quirky?
  • Must it capture the online audience only?
  • Or perhaps you want to cater to the laid back rural community?

If your graphic designer understands the values and image you’re trying to portray, he or she will create designs that capture this image more successfully.

Start with a Trial Project

Creating logo designs are small projects and often inexpensive so a useful way to test potential designers is to ask them to create one for your business. Your logo is very important because it’s what most people associate with your company and its values. If a particular designer is able to capture your company’s image perfectly in a logo, they’re very likely to tackle your other design projects as effectively.

This is a simple way to determine the differences between designers. It might cost a bit of money but it’s better than losing even more cash when it turns out your designer isn’t suited for your company.

Conclusion

Because the online and offline audience are in the millions, your website and logo need to make an impact otherwise you’ll be lost among the other startups and boutiques. By finding the right designer, your marketing needs can be sorted. Are you ready to see magic happen in the state of Kentucky?

 

Author’s Bio:


Alicia Rother is a freelance content strategist who works with small businesses and startups to boost their brand reach through creative content design and write-ups. You can connect with her here.

Come Visit Design Web At Fandom Fest!

We love comic conventions and art at Design Web. We’re taking a break from making websites to hang out at Fandom Fest. You can find us at the Fair and Expo Center from July 28th – 30th, 2017. We will be selling some super-cool artwork! Come say hello and check out our selection of custom, professional artwork.