Website design tips for 2021

Driving traffic to your website is one thing – keeping people there is another altogether.

That’s where great website design comes in and is why we’ve put together our top website design tips for 2021.

Follow this advice and adapt it for your own site in order to get more value from each and every one of your hard-earned website visits.

1. Make your homepage headline as powerful as possible

When someone lands on your website, what’s the first thing you want them to see?

If you don’t know the answer, we’ll tell you.

It should, quite simply, be a highly powerful, descriptive headline that instantly tells your visitor what it is you do.

Not only that, but it’s also the first chance (after your URL) to include a target keyphrase that will drive even more people to your site.

2. Use a clean, simple design

People don’t like clutter.

They want a site that is great to look at, easy to navigate, and has lots of white space.

This was proven in a 2012 survey conducted by none other than Google which revealed complex designs are less likely to be viewed as beautiful by the user.

It concluded that ‘designers should regard not only visual complexity but also the factor prototypicality very carefully when designing a website ‘.

In plain English, that means keep your website in line with what a visitor would typically expect from it, i.e. clean design, easy navigation, and digestible information.

3. But, make sure your website is more than just a pretty face

While a great design is important, it’s not the be-all and end-all.

Most people have landed on your website because they want to find information or buy something.

If you make it easy for them to do that, they’re going to stick around for longer and potentially even return in the future.

But, if you focus all your attention on your design and don’t give a second thought as to how easy it is for people to get what they want, they’ll be heading elsewhere.

In fact, a survey by Hubspot proved that a whopping 76% of people said finding what they want is the most important factor when it comes to website design.

4. Avoid using a ‘false bottom’ on your homepage

A lot of websites are built-in blocks, which complements that simple, clean design we talked about earlier.

However, some sites fall into the trap of creating what’s known as a ‘false bottom’ simply by picking the wrong color for one of their blocks.

Footers generally have a darker background, so people naturally recognize them as the bottom of the page.

Therefore, if you color your block with a dark background, chances are people will reach it and stop scrolling, thinking they’ve reached the end of the page.

It may not sound like a huge deal, but you’d be surprised by the number of drop-offs caused by false bottoms.

5. Try to stay away from stock images

Stock images undoubtedly have their place, but if you stuff your entire website with them you lose your brand’s personality.

If you’re selling a physical product, organize a photoshoot to show it off.

If you’re selling a service, the same thing goes. Have some shots staged of you at work, your office environment, etc?

Pepper your website with a mix of stock photos (though avoid stock photos of people – they’re the worst) and your own product/service images.

6. Write meaningful subheadings

By this, we mean avoiding bog-standard subheadings such as ‘products’ and ‘FAQs’.

Instead, think of this as another chance to insert target keywords.

For example, rather than ‘products’ why not say ‘Baby changing mats’ or ‘Decorative throws’

7. Use calls to action regularly

People generally need to be told to do something before they do it.

Which means you need to know where and when to tell them to do it.

Make sure you have buttons included at regular intervals throughout your website page guiding people to take action.

This could be as simple as getting in contact with you, or you can be more direct by sending them to a specific product or service page.

8. Check your copy carefully

Okay, this one might not sound like a design tip per se, but it does affect the way your website looks.

Big lumpy paragraphs of text are not appealing to the eye, whereas snappy one-liners are.

As well as being unappealing, it’s also incredibly hard to read.

As a general rule, keep paragraphs to no more than three or four lines long.

9. Embed an email sign up form on your site

If people like your product or service but perhaps aren’t quite ready to buy yet, they’ll likely want to sign up for your newsletter.

Make it easy for them to do so by either embedding an email sign up form on your homepage or including a pop up (but beware, pop-ups are pretty annoying).