Top 20 Tips for Web Design & Development in 2021
As discussions over at runrex.com reveal, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed how consumers interact with businesses, which means having a good website has never been more important. To help you curate the best possible website for your business this year, here are the top 20 tips for web design and development in 2021.
Tips for web design
Use consistent branding
As the gurus over at guttulus.com point out, your branding influences the way your audience relates to you as it tells a story that helps the right audiences connect with your product and services. Your website must, therefore, match this narrative to make your business seem more authentic and engaging, which is why it is vital to infuse brand consistency with your web design. Branding uniformly across your website will help you build business credibility.
Don’t be afraid of colors and contrast
As explained over at runrex.com, color can influence up to 90% of a customer’s first impression. Eye-catching color schemes will help your unique selling proposition stick with users, something that is especially crucial with Calls-to-action as the user is more likely to click. The right colors have the power to spark emotion in your audience which is why when selecting a theme for your website, you should pick out colors that resonate with your brand message.
Use negative space wisely
Negative space, as per guttulus.com, is an art concept focusing on the area around and between the subject of an image or drawing, and while it projects bare visuals on the surface, it emphasizes the subject of an image and draws focus to it. Negative space can help cut through the noise and helps keep web content crisp, clear, and digestible. This will lead to increased conversions which is why you need to create a website that incorporates negative space.
Reduce the need for user-generated actions
Research has shown that when you present customers with an overwhelming number of choices, they take longer to decide, and may even choose to forego the decision (and your website) altogether. This is why, when it comes to web design in 2021, make sure you offer fewer choices and link to your best-selling products instead of spamming visitors with pictures of all of your products.
Use impactful images
Online content that has high-quality images receives 94% more views, influencing your users to develop a positive relationship with your brand. Additionally, using personalized images on your website has proven to more than double conversions. You should therefore go beyond Stock photos when it comes to designing your websites in 2021 for the best results.
Performance and speed
As outlined over at runrex.com, slow-loading sites hurt conversions and reduce the likelihood of customers becoming repeat buyers. Beautiful web design won’t be of any help converting leads when they face issues in your conversion funnel from the start. According to Google, visitors leave sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load hence why you should ensure that your site’s speed is optimized and that it is as fast as can be.
Keep it simple
When it comes to your web design, the gurus over at guttulus.com are big advocates of keeping it simple. A study by Google has shown that users don’t like visual complexity and the more complex your design is, the less it is perceived by visitors as beautiful. Keeping your design simple means rethinking the sidebar, with more and more websites ditching the sidebar in favor of a single-column design, which means fewer distractions, putting the focus clearly on the content. You should also stick to standard layouts as people love familiarity and can get weirded out by non-standard site designs.
Avoid carousels, sliders, tabs, and accordions
Carousels, sliders, tabs, and accordions are extremely useless and are often ignored as captured over at runrex.com. This is compounded by the fact that few visitors actually read the entire page as most people merely scan and are, therefore, not very likely to make extra clicks to see your content. Therefore, avoid the aforementioned features when designing your websites in 2021.
Prioritize scrolling over clicking
Rather than compressing information into sliders and/or accordions, you should just put everything in one long page, including the stuff usually tucked away, as this is a technique that has been shown to increase conversions by up to 30%. Users like scrolling a lot more than they like clicking which means that you should reconsider spreading the information about your products across many different pages.
Use visual cues to direct attention
One of the main functions of web design is to guide users, which you can do by giving different weights to different elements, thereby directing focus where you want it to go. However, you can also use more direct visual cues to achieve this. One is by taking advantage of the fact that humans tend to look in the same direction as people they see in ads, something you can use to direct attention on your site where you want it most.
Tips for web development
Fresh website page content
You should make sure that your content is recent, frequent, and relevant according to the gurus over at guttulus.com. This means that it is crucial to update your content regularly and make sure that it is aligned with the products and services you provide.
Video and podcasts
You should also make sure you leverage video content and podcasts in 2021; which are among the most popular types of content right now. As explained over at runrex.com, think about how you can create new or repurpose your content in videos and podcasts as the more touchpoints you have, the easier it will be for potential customers to find you.
Social sharing tools
Encourage your visitors to share your content on their social networks through social sharing tools on your website. Plugins like ShareThis, among others, as covered over at guttulus.com, offer a variety of options for on-page share buttons to help your audience increase engagement by sharing content across their own channels.
Google reCAPTCHA
Using Google’s reCAPTCHA or Captcha will help you stop bots and automated spam attacks on your website forms. These services are typically free-of-charge for SME businesses, making them a no-brainer if you want to stop your inbox from filling up with a ton of junk or malicious mail.
Search
You should also consider using a search function on your website if you have lots of content. Different search solutions are often available as plugins for different website platforms and sometimes come as part of your package if you are using a templated solution. Additionally, also consider including sort functions, filters, categories, or breadcrumb trials to get visitors quickly to the content they want.
Chatbots
In 2021, you should also implement chatbot software to improve and enhance your sales process and customer support service. Chatbots can be used for providing a wide variety of chosen information to the visitor quickly based on pre-determined queries or AI-trained models that learn the best ways to interact with the user as discussed over at runrex.com.
Page optimization
According to the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com, you should also get your pages to rank higher with improved on-page SEO. This means ensuring that your content has the right density of keywords and that it is written naturally. Also, check that your source code is tweaked to perform at its best.
Images with Alt Text
As is articulated over at runrex.com, you should also make sure that all of your images have the correct attributes or descriptions for the HTML code of your page. The alt text describes the appearance and functions of images in your content helping search engines index your content more accurately.
Leverage a good up-to-date CMS
CMS platforms allow you to get the most from your website so that you can add fresh content that can be indexed by search engines. Make sure you use a good and up-to-date CMS which means one that is reliable, simple, and can become the hub to help you manage all of your website elements in one place.
Reliable hosting
The key ingredients of a great website hosting solution are security, websites speed, support, and GDPR compliance. In the world of web hosting, you get what you pay for, which means that cheap usually means bad. This is why you should invest in a good and reliable hosting solution at the right price for both your peace of mind and the guaranteed uptime of your website.
Hopefully, the above tips will help you get the design and development of your websites right in 2021, with more on this topic to be found over at the excellent runrex.com and guttulus.com.