There’s a lot of value in a good website. This why the web design industry is worth over twenty billion dollars.
But if you don’t understand modern web design principles, you can’t take advantage of quality design. This because a good website needs to follow the right rules and a firm strategy.
Customers are fickle. A bad website will do nothing but drive them away. Follow these ten tips to keep them interested.
Modern Web Design Principles Are Clean
Food bloggers talk a lot about clean eating. Wasting the space of your body on empty and processed calories is incredibly harmful.
Well, there’s a similar concept in web design.
We’ve all seen outdated websites in the past. These sites feature loud fonts, too much information on one page, and (regrettably) play annoying music unexpectedly.
There’s a reason why these websites are so outdated. It’s because they aren’t following the basic but essential principle of clean design.
Clean design is one of the most important of modern web design principles. It means avoiding the use of unnecessary space in favor of a conservative and smooth aesthetic.
Above all else, your site needs to be clean. If you put your customers into a state of sensory overload, you can be sure they’ll lose interest in your brand. So remember that less is more.
You Need a Fast Website
SEO is one of the most important parts of modern web design. Every site is designed for two purposes.
The first is helping people stay interested. But the second is getting them there to begin with.
To do this, you need a fast website. And that’s becoming more important than ever.
Both desktop speed and mobile speed is becoming crucial parts of any SEO strategy. You need a fast site to bring visitors to it.
This crucial to your SEO strategy for two reasons. The first is the impact of page speed itself.
Like we said, having a fast site is crucial because search engines consider it. In that respect, the slow site itself will harm your SEO rankings.
But site speed isn’t the only thing search engines consider. They also look at your bounce rate. This refers to the number of people who click on your site and leave without hitting a second link.
A high bounce rate is bad for SEO, and a slow site builds a high bounce rate. So make sure you keep customers interested.
Learn Where to Draw Attention
Ultimately, quality web design principles involve keeping customers interested. But they also involve directing that interest. If your site is confusing and distracting, it can be impossible to do this.
Think about the parts of your website that make you money. CTA buttons, contact forms, and subscription feed. And then think about what is and is not prominently displayed on your site.
Ideally, you need to draw the attention of your customers with a clear path to purchase. While customers are easily distracted, they’re also easily convinced.
It’s not hard to turn a click into a buy. And modern web design principles make it even easier.
That being said, you need to know what the ideal roadmap for your website is. Then, work on making it as easy as possible to travel.
Every customer has a unique journey. But you have a role in crafting it. So when designing your website, embrace that role and that responsibility as a gift.
Easy-To-Read, Professional Typeface
We all know about the importance of good typeface. But it can be easy to make a bad or oversimplified decision around your website’s typeface.
Just as SEO professionals don’t consider what they need to do, web designers don’t consider typeface that works and typeface that does not.
With that in mind, it’s easy to know what fonts are obviously bad. You don’t want to use comic sans or wingdings while designing a website.
But it’s a lot harder to understand the fonts that work best. Because while we see ourselves as capable of reading all fonts, it’s more difficult to understand how we read them.
Some fonts make words take a small fraction of a second longer to read. These font choices make it more difficult to attract customers as efficiently as possible.
And because modern web design principles are based on these subtle shifts, it can be hard to figure out exactly what you did wrong. But more decorative or flowery fonts are always more difficult to read.
This means that you should always design your site using sans serif fonts. While these fonts are still attractive, they also emphasize minimalism and simplicity: both important concepts in today’s world of web design.
Some great examples of sans serif fonts include Helvetica, Arial, and Geneva. Make sure you take advantage of them while designing your website.
Display Information in an “F” or “Z” Pattern
You’re reading this article in English. That means that you’re reading it from right to left and top to bottom. While this obvious, it can be more difficult to understand exactly what it means for your site.
There are two patterns to consider when taking advantage of modern web design principles. These are the “F” pattern and the “Z” pattern.
The “F” pattern inv
Don’t Rock The Boat
displaying more prominent information on the left-hand side of your site. This pattern takes advantage of the fact that, when reading, people generally pay more attention to the left side of the page.
Instead of forcing the eye to move a different way, it involves taking the path of least resistance. That path is allowing the eye to scan naturally.
The F-pattern is most successful in blogs and wordy-sites. It’s important when considering where to put your headlines and other information.
If your site is more link-and-button than text-based, then the Z pattern is more successful. This pattern works best by allowing the eye to scan enticing visuals on the top and bottom rows, along with diagonally in the center.
Consider what the most appealing element of your site is. Then, use modern web design principles to draw people to it.
Don’t Exaggerate
Web designers are artists. That means we like to take advantage of the artful nature of our words and writing. But today’s content creation and web design principles involve resisting this temptation.
Avoid flowery language, especially on CTA buttons. Indeed, a successful design of your site involves taking advantage of the principle of “show, don’t tell.”
You can’t hide the fact that your site is commercial. So avoid dressing it up with hyperbole. Instead, be open and honest.
Use Visuals
Human beings are visually oriented. Make sure you take advantage of that fact on your site.
The fact is people respond better to visual impulses. Things like pictures and videos are more likely to get clicks on your site.
You should embrace simplicity and avoid overloading your site with pictures. But using images near your CTA is a vital part of building interested visitors. Make sure you understand the way people are while designing your site.
White Space Works
It’s tempting to fear empty space. After all, for a while, people were afraid of any part of their site being left empty.
But modern sites take advantage of well-designed minimalism. And that means allowing white space to be a vital part of your site.
A website with a lot of white space can make it easy to guide your customers to the necessary content. As a matter of fact, it may be essential. So make sure you take advantage of empty space on your website.
Test Your Site
A lot of tests can make it easier to build a functioning website.
As we’ve said, there are a lot of features that impact your SEO rankings. Modern web design principles are dependent upon your ability to make these features as strong as possible.
Testing your site will help you make sure your website is running fast and staying online. In addition, you will be able to perform a full SEO audit.
Don’t Rock the Boat
Rocking the boat is something you need to avoid. This means that when you design a site, you shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel.
People have expectations from a website. If yours doesn’t deliver upon those, they probably won’t be impressed.
More likely, they’ll just leave confused. This will take away a customer and increase your bounce rate.
The classic web design principles are classic for a reason: they really work. So make sure you use them.
Get SEO Help
Web design is complicated. But even with a good website, you can be harmed by bad SEO.
We can help you build a winning SEO strategy to go along with your site. It can be difficult, but our strategy works.
If you want to take advantage of it, contact us today.
