Your website serves as the digital door to your business. Thus, it must create a significant impact at first sight.  

Did you know that it only takes 0.05 seconds for people to form an opinion about your site that will determine whether they will stay or leave— a few milliseconds to impress your audience, or you might lose them for good.  

Hence, you need a well-designed website to help you form a good impression on your prospective customers. If you’re looking to revamp and future-proof your website this year, here are six essential design tips to help you create a lasting impression and bring more value to your customers:

  • Keep Your Navigation Organized

Navigation is a vital consideration in web designing. Your website navigation is like a map that shows the needed information and pages that users can visit. With a confusing or disorganized navigation interface, your users can be frustrated. Poor navigation design, such as using unclear hypertext, overstuffing your navigation, and a lack of organized information structure, can make it difficult for visitors to find what they are looking for.

So, what do users do when they can’t find what they need? They click on the back button and go to another website that can provide what they are looking for and a better experience.

There are several ways to improve your website navigation. You need to plan for your website information architecture and navigation hierarchy, including streamlined content and a responsive design that allows a seamless change on various devices.  

You also want to spend more time on the design aspect of your navigation. Ensure you have enough space to have a clear separation between navigation items. Some websites provide a short description via hover effects to give an idea of the purpose of a specific page. 

  • Go Bold, Go Big

Bold fonts and big headlines are not new, but they have recently grown in popularity in terms of website design. This is because they are quite effective in drawing the visitor’s attention

Using bold lettering on your web content can add emphasis to striking and significant messages, prompting users to take action. In addition, it is known that we subconsciously read big headlines first. Thus, this strategy can play a critical role in making a lasting impression.  

Also, using different section titles and fonts creates a visual hierarchy, promotes variety when you have a lot of information displayed, and ensures readability. Moreover, strong typography such as vintage fonts can provide a modern look to your website.  

However, regardless of your style and size, you want to make sure that the font can properly scale on various devices. 

  • Don’t Fear The White Space

In the cluttered and information-dense Internet world, you want to make your website a place that doesn’t add to the noise. In this case, whitespace can help you break up your content and improve readability. 

Also known as ‘negative space’, white space refers to the areas around page elements that are blank or lacking visual items. Whitespace gives readers a breather from the overcrowded information, allowing them to concentrate on each part of your webpage.  

In addition, white space also helps guide a user’s eyes to critical information, for instance, a value proposition or call-to-action.

  • Mobile Optimization Should Be A Priority

According to statistics from the BankMyCell website, over 80% of the world’s population, or 6.64 billion individuals own a smartphone device. Likewise, over 90% of the worldwide internet population uses mobile devices to surf the internet.  

With that said, it only makes sense to prioritize optimizing your website for mobile devices. Google reveals that over 61% of users won’t return to a website that doesn’t provide a great mobile experience and will head over to a competitor’s website instead.

So, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile yet, you must consider doing so. A responsive website ensures user-friendliness and the readability of your content. Not only that, but mobile optimization is also a key ranking factor for Google itself. So, make sure that you take the time to create a seamless mobile experience for your users.

  • Think Accessibility

A rising trend in 2022 is the increased focus on designing accessible websites. With over five billion users online every day, it’s important that your website is inclusive and accessible to everyone.  

Web accessibility means designing your websites, tools, and technologies in ways that people with disabilities can easily use them. If your web design adapts to all visitors, you can reach a wider audience willing to stay on your site for a long time and engage with your brand.  

An accessible website is not only beneficial for your visitors. As you provide easy access to interaction and information for people with disabilities, you also increase your website’s conversion rate and improve your overall SEO standing. 

  • Test And Tweak

Like your business, your website should also evolve as time goes by. You may have implemented the best practices for web design right now, but there will always be room for improvement, especially with the changing trends and technology.  

Nonetheless, knowing what part of your website you should tweak and improve can be tricky. This is where running an A/B test comes in handy. It involves comparing to versions of the same category, may it be a landing page or page element. With testing, you can determine which pages perform well and those that don’t.  

A/B testing can reveal various data on how users interact with your web pages. It also allows you to see if the design updates you made on your website could affect its performance and conversion. Moreover, testing enables you to spot several issues on your website. As a result, you can adjust problems earlier and ensure that you’re heading in the right direction.

Take Away

Your website is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools in the modern world. Thus, optimizing it to the latest design trends and fixing any issues you encounter can significantly help your business.  

Implementing the above design tips and emerging trends on your website can bring change to help boost its performance and improve customer experience as they navigate through the digital front door of your business.

Also Read: Basic Guideline for Web Design Services