A well-designed website is more than just your digital storefront — it’s a powerful tool that can make or break your online presence and how well you attract new customers!
No matter what size or how long your client’s business has been around, having a stunning website is crucial for attracting and retaining visitors and turning those visitors into loyal customers.
So, what makes a stunning website?
We’re glad you asked! Whether you’re designing a brand-new website from scratch or on a mission to revamp an existing one, today’s blog is exploring our top 10 creative web design tips to help you create an online presence that not only looks great but gets your client (or you!) the results you want.
Let’s dive in!
The Benefits of Good Web Design
So, just why is good web design so important?
Beyond just looking great, a well-designed website has a huge impact on your client’s online presence and success. Let’s take a closer look at how good web design can give a business or freelancer the edge they need:
- Boosted User Experience — Good web design makes it easy for users to navigate the site and find the information they need, which leads to a positive user experience.
- Increased Conversion Rates — An intuitive and pleasing design can guide visitors toward taking desired actions, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
- Improved SEO — Well-designed websites usually perform better in search engine rankings due to their better structure, faster load times, and optimized content.
- Stronger Brand Identity — A consistent and visually appealing design helps to build and reinforce a brand’s identity, making a business more recognizable and memorable to its visitors.
- Greater Credibility and Trust — Professional and polished web design boosts your brand's cred and builds trust with your audience. All of that encourages them to engage with your content and services again and again.
- Better Accessibility — Good web design uses accessibility features that make your site usable for all visitors, including those with disabilities, widening your audience as much as possible and ensuring inclusivity.
- Increased Engagement — Engaging design elements, like interactive features and high-quality visuals make it easier to capture a visitor's attention and encourage them to spend more time looking around your site.
Top Tips for Creative Web Design
And now that you know the benefits that good web design can bring to a brand, we’ll show you how you can use your creativity and UX/UI know-how to create a website that stands out and gets your client (or you!) the results you’re looking for!
1. Prioritize User Experience (UX)
The heart of any UX/UI design project is user experience (or at least it should be!).
Creating an intuitive, easy-to-navigate website that meets visitors’ needs is the goal of any good web designer and should be the number one priority.
Think about how the website users will interact with the site, from the layout of the pages to the functionality and placement of the buttons. Make sure the site loads quickly, is accessible to all users, and is set up to provide a pleasant and seamless experience from the moment a visitor clicks over to the second they finish what they set out to do and click away.
2. Use Your White Space
White space, or negative space, refers to the empty area around any of the design elements on your page.
Sometimes less is more, after all, and this white space plays a huge role in your final design by helping to reduce clutter and making your content more enjoyable and easier to read.
Use your white space to guide users’ attention to the most important parts of your page and to create a clean look that conveys the professionalism they want to see!
3. Choose a Consistent Color Scheme
You want all pages of your website to be a part of a cohesive experience for your visitors.
So, unless there’s a good reason, your web pages should all have a consistent color palette that reflects your brand’s personality, resonates with your target audience, and works well with your content. Refer to the client’s brand guidelines (and if they don’t have brand guidelines, be a pal and refer them to our branding services page!) and use their primary color for key elements like headers and CTAs.
Secondary and tertiary colors can be used for accents and to keep things interesting and add some variety. Just remember, however you use your colors, keep your color scheme consistent from page to page and make sure the colors you’re using don’t wash out any important elements or make your content hard to read.
4. Responsive Design
These days, it’s all but guaranteed that as many people visit your site from computers, even more are visiting from a smartphone.
Responsive design is what keeps your website looking great and functioning properly on device screens of all sizes, whether it’s a desktop, tablet, laptop, or smartphone.
This means using fluid grids in your design, flexible images, and media queries that will keep your site adjusting smoothly to whatever size screen and orientation your visitors prefer.
5. Typography
Typography is more than just fonts! It plays a huge role in how your website communicates its message.
To ensure that your typography is delivering, choose fonts that are easy to read and vibe with the style of the brand you’re designing for. You should also limit yourself to two or three fonts to keep things consistent and avoid overwhelming visitors with too many different elements.
Pay attention to the size of the fonts too, as well as line spacing and contrast to keep your text legible, visually appealing, and conveying the message you want to convey!
6. High-Quality Visuals
Visuals are everything when it comes to your website!
Don’t settle for generic, stock, and low-resolution visuals; invest in content that represents your brand’s quality and creativity. Be sure to use only high-quality visuals — images, videos, GIFs, graphics, whatever you have — to boost the appeal of your website.
These crisp and clear visuals not only look great and grab attention, they also showcase your professionalism and a sense of trust in your brand. A shoddy, poorly designed website with low-quality visuals turns visitors away, but stunning visuals make a strong first impression, invite your visitor to stay, and leave a lasting impact that keeps your brand top of mind.
7. Simplify Navigation
No one wants to spend time on a website that’s difficult to navigate.
Chances are, if a visitor can’t find what they’re looking for, they’re going to click away in frustration and perhaps give another freelancer or a competitor of your client a try instead.
To avoid that and to ensure a positive user experience, be sure that your website is well-structured and organized. Use a navigation menu and a search bar that makes it easy for your visitors to find the information they’re looking for. Avoid overwhelming your visitors with too many options as well — stick to the basics and use dropdown menus and a clear hierarchy (more on that in a second!) to keep your content nice and organized.
8. Visual Hierarchy
The way the elements are arranged on a page makes a huge difference in keeping your visitors’ attention.
By creating a clear visual hierarchy with your design, you can guide your visitors’ eyes to the most important parts of the page first and make sure that they’re paying attention to key messages.
Use size, color, contrast, and placement to highlight the elements of your site that you want to stand out. This includes creating bold and prominent headlines, easy-to-find and easy-to-click calls-to-action buttons, strategically placed copy, and images that complement the content instead of competing with it.
Well-structured visual hierarchy helps visitors navigate your site, better understand your message, and take the actions you want them to take.
9. Interactive Elements
Once your website has the basics down, consider taking it to the next level with interactive elements to make it more engaging, memorable, and user-friendly.
Elements like buttons, forms, transitions, and hover effects are excellent ways to differentiate your website from others and add a dash of your own personal creative design skills.
Just be sure that the interactive elements you implement into your design are intuitive and responsive so that they perform well on devices of all sizes.
10. Add Storytelling
Storytelling in web design is all about creating a narrative that draws an audience in.
Whether you’re telling a brand story through your visuals, the copy, or a combination of both, a compelling story helps to create an emotional connection with your visitors, making it more likely that they’ll stick around and keep exploring your site.
In turn, that positive experience will also make it more likely that your visitors will remember that brand later, increasing the chances that they’ll be back for a second visit and perhaps a conversion!
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Looking for an Outlet for Your Stunning Web Design Skills?
Do you have any go-to web design tips for creating stunning websites?
If you do, we’d love to hear them.
And if you’re full of amazing web design tips and you find yourself in need of an outlet for your talents, then we have one more tip for you.
Why not join Designity’s creative community?
Designity is made up of the top 3% of all of the talented designers who apply each year and we’re always looking to add more top-tier talent to our ranks. So, if you’re looking for a gig that will get you competitive pay, a 100% remote environment, flexible hours, a consistent workload, and the opportunity to work with a variety of different clients and learn from the industries’ best, then we might have what you’re looking for.
Why not put your skills to the test with our one-of-a-kind application and let’s see where Designity can take you?
Are you ready for the next step in your creative career?
