Regarding site design, there are various styles and directions your site can go, from classy to minimalistic, to a more sleek and modern style.

 

Although your site's final look and feel is a display of your personal style and brand identity, there are a couple of things that you need to consider when designing and developing your site this 2023.

 

In this post, we've come up with ten simple design tips to make your site compelling this 2023:

 

1. Have Website Objectives

Like the objectives in your strategic plan, the objectives of your site will outline your website's primary goals.

 

What specific actions does your target audience need to take when visiting your site? What actions does your organization need to perform when they visit your site? See that you review your objectives during the design and content creation process to ensure they're being met.

 

2. Consider Functionality

There are a couple of things you need to consider when it comes to functionality. Is your site functional in the literal sense, or are there broken links and loading issues? Are the features of your site enough to fit your business needs? Aside from these operational issues, viewing your site's features from the user's perspective is essential.

 

Do the contact forms, surveys, and customer feedback sections work well? Having one or more of these functional issues can prompt users to leave your site.

 

3. Make Your Site Mobile Responsive

Mobile responsiveness is crucial for your site to be effective. Most American adults spend more than five hours on their phones daily, and more than one-third of their online shopping is done using a mobile device. Regardless, your business's mobile site should provide a positive user experience.

 

If prospective customers that land on your site find it challenging to read or navigate on a mobile device, they may simply leave it in favor of your competitors.

 

A negative user experience will also hurt your site SEO-wise, making it more challenging for users to find you when they do a quick Google search. Moreover, your mobile site should be more manageable than the desktop version.

 

So, make sure you minimize page elements and scale down some assets, such as your menu. There are also unique mobile features that you can use to enhance your site design.

 

4. Improved Native Cybersecurity

The number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is rising. This eventually leads to a significant revenue loss and hours of downtime and could damage your reputation. With the alarming increase in cyber crimes, web development has made safeguarding our company and customer data easier.

 

Fortunately, there's also a shift to application multi-factor authentication such as patch management, Security Operation Centers or SOC, and Google Authenticator.

 

5. Make it Engaging With Animation

Previously, animations are only made for decorative purposes. However, this 2023, more fun and functional animations will be introduced. For instance, an animation will indicate that the user has completed a task and give feedback on their input.

 

You can also tailor animations to the needs of the user. The designer must consider the user's age, preference, and other factors to create more user-friendly animations.

 

The rise of virtual and augmented reality also contributed to the increased use of animations. Animations can create a more immersive experience for the user. They help develop a sense of depth and realism, making the user feel like they're part of the site they're using.

 

6. Keep Your Homepage Minimalistic and Free of Clutter

The homepage of your site should communicate your core message. That's because users need help reading every word on a website. They will scan the page and pick keywords, images, and phrases. Keeping these things into consideration, it's so much better to appeal to the user's emotions instead of the word count.

 

Moreover, the fewer users have to read, click or remember, the more they can take in and process your content. If you design your site for short attention spans and opt for a more modern site design, users will likely do what you intend them to do.

 

So, when designing your site, make sure that you:

 

• Keep your content above the fold: Users should understand what your site is all about as soon as they arrive without having to scroll or click anywhere else.
• Space out your content: Make sure that you use whitespace between elements. With whitespace, you can give your design a much more spacious, well-balanced feel. Make sure you come up with bite-sized and legible paragraphs for your texts.
• Provide imagery: High-quality images in the form of high-quality visuals, icons, and vector art can work wonders to help you communicate your point.
• Include a call-to-action: From making users buy to signing up, make sure that you encourage them to do the action you intend them to do by putting a call-to-action or CTA button on your homepage.

 

7. Respect the Need for Speed

Akamai, a digital marketing company, found that 88.5% of website users leave a site if it loads slowly. The time it takes for your site to load affects the purchasing decisions of up to 70% of online shoppers.

 

So, ensure that your site runs smoothly by keeping your software up to date and optimizing your videos and images for quicker downloads. You also need to ensure that your site host can help you handle bandwidth demands.

 

8. Keep Your Site Copy Customer-Oriented

Prospective customers will go to your site to get information that's useful for them. They often come for educational content in your blog, and there are also times when they are focused on looking up products and services you’re selling.

 

Either way, give them relevant information that engages them, gives something of value, and help them trust your expertise. When planning your site's content, think about it from the point of view of your customers. If you were a prospect, what information would be helpful to you?

 

What level of knowledge or experience do you already have, and what are the things that are still to be explained to you in detail? When you focus on content from the customer's perspective, you could keep them on your site longer, and you're more likely to create a long-term relationship that will lead to a sale.

 

You can outsource a professional copywriter to get the work done if you're not a writer.

 

9. Incorporate the best SEO practices

You may have the best website, but it will only do well if other people can find it. That’s why you should adopt the right SEO mindset to help make your website more discoverable. While you can spend money on ads to bring prospects to your site, it's more cost-effective if you bring free organic search traffic.

 

When people are searching for information online for designing matters, they typically use search engines such as Google. If they need help finding what they're looking for in search results, then that's where you want your company to show up. Google and other search engines have their own algorithm to rank a site for specific search terms, also known as keywords.

 

10. Design your site with visual hierarchy in mind

One of the most important principles of design is a hierarchy, as it displays your content clearly and effectively. By properly using visual hierarchy, you'll be able to lead the attention of your visitors to specific page elements in your site, starting with the most important piece.

 

Here are the main components of visual hierarchy:

 

• Size and weight: Make sure to highlight your site's top assets, like your business name and logo, making them more visually prominent. People tend to naturally gravitate to large and bold titles before moving to smaller paragraph texts.
• Element placement: Make sure you use the proper site layout to steer your visitors' eyes in the right direction. For example, you can place your most prominent CTA buttons at the center of the screen or position your logo at the header.

 

As soon as you've created a hierarchy for this information, users can't help but follow the breadcrumbs you left for unconsciously. To further accentuate your point, ensure that you follow the right color and contrast, staying mindful of the things that draw the most attention and ensuring that they're always intentional.

 

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. There are plenty of factors that you need to consider when designing a website. Aside from boosting site traffic and generating leads, your site design, content, and navigation should entice customers, inspiring them to interact with your brand.

 

As you build your site, make sure that you review the following tools and information that we have outlined in this post. It ensures that your website will be equipped with all the necessary tools to help you succeed. This also allows you to stay ahead of the game in website design conversion, and you’ll also feel a lot more confident of what needs to be done. Good luck!