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The best elements that you need to include in your web design

 

The phrase ‘modern website design’ is a moving target as what creates customer engagement is always evolving and depending. Right now video rules, but there are clear rumblings that augmented reality is hot on videos heels!

However the one thing all web designers agree on is that simple, clean design is key in all modern websites.

Clean, simple web design that quickly articulates your business to a potential customer in 5 seconds or less translates into a great user experience, increased customer engagement and higher conversion Clean, simple web design that quickly articulates your business to a potential customer in 5 seconds or less translates into a great user experience, increased customer engagement and higher conversion rates.

If you’re looking to upgrade your website, here are the seven elements that you must include in your web design to create a high-performing, gorgeous website today:

Use A Strong Color Palette

Color schemes are extremely important when it comes to web design and is an element that creates cohesiveness between everything shared on the website.
 
Most businesses prefer using primary and secondary colors on their website, as this gives them more room to work with when creating new elements for their website. However the key is to work within a color palette that suits your industry & use a max of 4 colors in your primary design that harmonize vs. distract. This is a fantastic quick lesson to help you select the right colors for your brand!

Use White Space

Adding white space in your website design makes it appear cleaner and more sophisticated. White space is an excellent tool for web design as it acts as a buffer for elements on the webpage like your sidebar, copy, and margins.
 
Users will quickly bounce off your site if it is crowded with text or confusing navigation – making use of white space in your design ensures that customers can easily find the information they are looking for, will actually read and engage. Shoot for a minimalistic look, less is truly more these days and your users will thank you.

Call-to-Actions

Every modern website needs to have relevant call-to-actions smartly sprinkled throughout so that you can continue conversations with your visitors and more quickly convert them into customers. Try adding CTAs at strategic places throughout your website like your above-the-fold image, your resources page, the sidebar and at the end of your blog posts.

4 key elements in creating call-to-action buttons that engage:

  • add a gorgeous image that will resonate with your target customer
  • write action-oriented text
  • add a sense of urgency or time-limit
  • free trials are always a great engager if you have a service where you can offer this

Clean Backend Coding

You won’t notice this element, but it is one of the most important ones for your website. All the best websites are powered by brilliant coding on the backend, which dictates the performance of the website.
 
Ensuring that your website’s backend coding is clean will make managing and maintaining the website easy.

User-Friendly Design

The design of your website should be made for the user – not just for touting your product or service or boosting your rankings on search engines. A website needs to be user-friendly before you start worrying about rankings and visibility online – did you know that website visitors judge your site in under 2 seconds and decide if they will work with you? Clean simple navigation is key to ensuring they engage!
 
It doesn’t matter how high you rank in search results if your website is confusing, doesn’t provide great high-quality content and a clear picture of what you do – and yes, Google will penalize you for that.

Great SEO

Every great website requires outstanding SEO and you can’t compromise in this area. Adding meta tags, meta titles and descriptions, heading tags, and HTML coding will help your website climb the ranks of search engines. If you want to learn how to do this on your own, here is a fantastic blog series by our SEO experts that will help you dive in and start ranking!

Speed Optimization

One overlooked tactic is optimizing the website for speed. Users today don’t have the patience to wait around for a website to load and 79% will jump to the next ranking competitor if your website doesn’t load within 5 seconds. Your website needs to be fast, so first, check your speed at GTMetrix and if your site takes longer than 5 seconds to fully load, it is time to get optimizing to reduce the load speed and engage your potential customers! Check out this great article from MOZ to learn even more.