20 responsive website examples to help you design for perfect performance

Each website here uses a particular creative strategy, like flexible grids, multiple columns, or zigzag layouts, to perform on all screens.

As a web designer, the last thing you want after spending untold hours building out a site that looks great on your screen is for it to look like it’s glitching on someone else’s. (And with the number of devices there are in the market lately, your site is pretty much guaranteed to load within some unexpected screen size you can’t anticipate.)

In this day and age, a responsive web design approach that ensures websites look and behave well on a variety of screen sizes and resolutions is pretty much table stakes.

With that in mind, we’re sharing a curated collection of responsive websites from a variety of sectors that you can pull inspiration from when deciding how to design a website for your next client.

Each example of a responsive website on our list uses a particular creative strategy, like flexible grids, multiple columns, and zigzag layouts, to ensure their design looks great and can be viewed quickly on any device. But before we dive into the examples, let’s answer a few popular questions about responsive design.

What is a responsive website page?

A responsive website page is a page that adjusts its layout and content based on the size of a viewport. A responsive web page looks equally good on a small screen of a mobile device and on a large TV screen.

Why should websites use responsive design?

Almost 60% of website traffic in 2023 comes from mobile devices, so it’s essential to optimize your sites for small mobile screens. But it’s still also vital to ensure that it will scale well to larger screens, like desktop or even TV. Responsive design allows a single website to be optimized for all devices, rather than maintaining separate websites for desktop and mobile.

Where can I find responsive website templates?

Creating a responsive website from scratch can be challenging because you have to arrange site information for each category of device it will be viewed on. So with this in mind, using a website template can be a real time saver, since it allows you to fine-tune and customize a ready-to-use solution.

Wix Studio offers an excellent collection of responsive website templates that feature unique visual attributes, such as crisp typography and well-crafted animated effects.

So how do you make a great responsive website?

The first thing that you need to do is to learn the principles of good website design. Those principles are universal and apply to any type of website, including responsive websites. After that, you can dive into the specifics of responsive design. Below are a few several specific steps that you should follow to create a responsive website:

  • Practice mobile-first design. Start your design process with the smallest screen size in mind. It will help you identify and prioritize the most important content for your web page.
  • Set media queries. CSS Media Queries define different screen sizes and make a webpage adapt its layout to different screen sizes. Among media queries, a category of breakpoints defines the widths of devices. Commonly used breakpoints are mobile (480px), tablet (481px – 7689px), desktop (779px – 1024px), and TV screens (201px+).
  • Optimize images. You need to make sure that the images you use are optimized for different devices, so they look great and load quickly no matter where a user comes across them. That’s where image optimization comes in—it’s the process of resizing images for different viewports. This helps to reduce page load time and improve the site’s performance (especially on mobile devices).
  • Test your design on multiple devices. You have to test your website on various devices to ensure it looks good and functions properly on different screen sizes and resolutions.

Check out this guide on how to make a responsive website for the full rundown on responsive design.

1. Testaccio Chicago by The Real Agency

A good restaurant offers a lot more than a good meal. It takes diners on a culinary journey. In the case of Italian restaurant and wine bar Testaccio, the journey starts even before you visit the actual brick and mortar.

Their website acts as a navigation hub allowing visitors to choose between making reservations, browsing menus, ordering to-go, and more.

The navigation menu looks equally well on any screen and resolution by distributing the navigation options in a grid, or a two-dimensional structure that lets you arrange content in columns and rows. Notice how the multi-column layout can shrink to a single column where the items in the menu are represented as rows, depending on your device or browser screen size.

A screenshot of the Testaccio Chicago responsive website example

2. Melitas Ventures by SM-Creative

Melitas Ventures is a venture capital fund located in New York that invests in food and beverage companies. Following a fullscreen image slideshow in the first fold, you can read more about the company’s mission, portfolio, and team as you scroll down.

In the site’s portfolio section, the items are cards that contain an image and display text on hover. The cards serve as navigation options—once clicked, they lead to the clients’ website design. (Related: How to make your web design portfolio stand out)

A screenshot of the Melitas Ventures responsive website example

3. Geologists by Alex Chu and Cindy Chau

The eComm design of beauty product retailer Geologists uses earth tones and well-lit product photography to create a calming and inviting browsing experience.

No matter what device you use to access the website, once you scroll down, you can see the section with best-selling products first. This section gives the user a clear idea of which products are most popular among customers, simplifying the process of finding the right product. Subtle animated effects such as the “Quick view” CTA that appears when you hover over a product item create a positive impression for visitors and add a sense of motion to the site.

A screenshot of the Geologists responsive website example

4. Stern Import by Ambizy Agency

Stern Import specializes in selling luxury and sports cars, and the brand needs to give visitors a clear idea of the quality of the luxury cars they offer up high in order to encourage potential sales. This brand does this with a video in the hero section, right away.

On top of creating a fully responsive browsing experience, this website design by Ambizy Agency also makes small adjustments to perfect the UX for each viewport. For example, some elements are hidden on mobile, like the “scroll more” button at the bottom left corner of the screen, since it’s assumed that users will naturally scroll on mobile to learn more about the service. Such small differences help cater to the needs of users, without detracting from the page’s content on any screen size.

A screenshot of the Stern Import responsive website design

5. Jax Harney by Jax Harney

Jax Harney is an award-winning colorist based in London. Jax lets her work speak for itself, allowing the colors of her video clips to pop against the black background of the page.

This design is a prime example of a responsive website. Almost all pages in this website follow the same structure—a flexible grid with cards, where each card leads to a full clip. The informative yet unobtrusive card captions look great on all screens, retaining the same relationship to the card itself using stacking. Stacking keeps a consistent vertical margin between elements so that they look great on every screen size.

A screenshot of the Jax Harney responsive website design

6. Ikira by White Stone Atelier

Ikira is a South African producer and supplier of exterior soft furnishings. The look and feel of Ikira’s website, created by White Stone Atelier, stays consistent across all devices, but they offer some minor changes to optimize the experience to each device.

For example, when shifting from desktop to mobile devices, the page layout changes from a two-column to a single-column layout. This allows the mobile version to use all available vertical space and show the content in an easy to digest format.

A screenshot of the Ikira responsive website design

7. Primer by FLSY Studio

Primer is the website of Melbourne-based DJ duo, Florence Brown and Robbie Ingram. The website, designed by FLSY Studio, releases DJ mixes by guest artists, alongside interviews with them.

With eye-catching details like animated typography, 3D illustrations and transparent videos, this responsive website design example creates a digital aesthetic that truly encapsulates the duo’s music. And more importantly for our purposes, the layout is optimized for fast scanning, making it easier for users to navigate the website from mobile and desktop devices.

A screenshot of the Primer responsive website design example

8. Adam Marsh by Adam Marsh

Adam Marsh is a digital brand designer from London. His graphic design portfolio is dedicated to his projects, diving deep into multiple case studies that walk visitors through his creation process from brief to final design.

Good readability is an essential property of good design, the font sizes here scale proportionally to fit any device with key messages displayed in a bold font against a contrasting background to grab visitors’ attention. (Related: the differences between typefaces and fonts.)

A screenshot of the Adam Marsh responsive website design example

9. Alt-Trap by Ylimay Zavala

Designed by Ylimay Zavala, Alt-Trap is the website of Ja1da, an artist, producer, and songwriter from Savannah, Georgia, whose work we discover through photos and video clips.

The website has a multi-column layout on desktop, which converts to a single column on handheld devices. All visual elements scale proportionally to better fit the available screen estate and the images are slightly resized, yet the focused area remains the same using the focal point tool.

A screenshot of the Alt-Trap responsive website design example

10. Boutique Le Diamant by Félix Duchesneau

Boutique Le Diamant is a cultural center at the heart of the historic city of Quebec. The homepage of this website is full of visual and textual information, but the content doesn’t feel overwhelming because of its zig-zag layout they use on desktop to balance visual elements with text. The relationship between the text and visuals ensure that the user’s eye will travel naturally from one section to another in a Z-pattern.

A screenshot of the Boutique Le Diamant responsive website design example

11. Yulari Films by Ofir Design

Yulari Films is a documentary film company with a focus on social issues. The typography in this website, created by Ofir Design, uses the modern and easily legible Futura sans-serif for both headings and body copy. Media coverage of the company’s films is displayed using the more traditional Garamond serif, adding credibility to the reviews. The site utilizes a two-column zig-zag layout for desktop that turns into a single column on mobile, making it easier for visitors to navigate and consume information.

A screenshot of the Yulari Films responsive website design example

12. Blue Monday by Blue Monday

Blue Monday is a creative studio telling stories through digital film and video production. Their website is bright, loud, and energetic, full of illustrations, video clips, and interesting statistics.

Blue Monday’s vivid color palette is balanced out by a dark gray background and white typography, that together, help ground the poppy visuals in a reliable, professional environment. The great thing about this design is that all visual effects work equally well on desktop and mobile screens. Designing a nice parallax effect on mobile can be challenging, but Blue Monday implements a parallax transition that’s smooth on both mediums.

A screen grab of the Blue Monday responsive website example

13. Urban Umbrella by Piranha NYC

Urban Umbrella is a sidewalk scaffolding company. The website, designed by Piranha NYC, welcomes you with a captivating hero video that immediately draws visitors in.

As you scroll down the homepage, you’ll notice a masonry grid of cards that proudly display the sidewalks they’ve designed. The caption is always positioned at the center of the card no matter the screen size, due to their use of the Wix Studio docking feature, which docks an object to the closest edges of its container.

A screenshot of the Urban Umbrella responsive website example

14. Alejandro Largo by Alejandro Largo

Alejandro Largo is a U.S.-based creative director. His work page features a two-column layout and a vertical header menu on the desktop, with ample amounts of white space. On mobile, the page uses a single-column layout and switches to a hamburger icon, achieving the same results with a more streamlined organizing structure.

A screenshot of the Alejandro Largo responsive website example

15. Urban Solace

Urban Solace is a development company with projects in Brisbane and broader South East Queensland. Imagery takes central stage on this website. Visitors are welcomed with a background video that communicates the idea of Urban Solace. High-quality real estate photos showcasing the company’s portfolio appear once the user starts to scroll. The website uses a relatively simple layout with a limited number of columns that scales well on every screen size and resolution.

A screenshot of the Urban Solace homepage.

16. Startup Starter

StartupStarter is a media platform dedicated to entrepreneurship. Although the website provides a lot of information to visitors, it is organized in clusters, making it easier for users to scan and comprehend it. This approach also works well for responsive design—it’s easy to optimize the layout to different mediums when content is organized in individual blocks.

A screenshot of the Startup Starter homepage.

17. Petitmoulin Studio

Petitmoulin is a French contemporary design studio that works on branding projects. The studio’s website showcases the studio’s most notable projects. The website uses a relatively simple two-column layout, but it effectively incorporates a lot of visual effects—from parallax scrolling to on-mouse-hover animated transitions for images, that introduces a dynamism in interaction and makes the websites more memorable for visitors.

A screenshot of the Petitmoulin homepage.

18. HYD Studio

HYD Studio is a brand & design boutique for high-end beauty and fashion clients. The website utilizes the style of printed glossy magazines (fine imagery paired with crisp typography) to convey an impression of luxurious design. When it comes to layout design, these web designers effectively utilized all available screen estate with a three-column layout on desktop and a one-column layout on mobile.

A screenshot of the HYD studio homepage.

19. Aad & Nief

Aad & Nief is a concept store in the heart of Diest, a Belgian city. A store’s interior helps visitors immerse themselves in a world of handmade, vintage, and local products. The site follows the same approach for web visitors—it utilizes a lot of white space to focus visitors’ attention on photos of products.

A screenshot of the Aad & Nief homepage.

20. Desa Studio

Desa is a design studio that offers end-to-end branding solutions for companies. The site lets the work created by the agency speak for itself by trimming all visual decorative details to an absolute minimum and putting the studio’s works front and center. Typography plays a vital role in communicating the meaning of this website—it utilizes fine typography for sections that describe what the studio does.

A screenshot of the Desa Studio homepage.

Why Website Design is Important

You may ask yourself why seek help updating your current company website? Yes, your current company website looks outdated compared to the competition but does a credible, compelling website design really matter? Reluctantly, you seek out a design firm to give your firm’s website a facelift, but you are not completely convinced that a new design will generate new business. Despite your skepticism, a plethora of studies show a well-built website will generate better customer traffic and an improved user interface will increase conversion – generating new business at an exponential rate. But how? How can something as superficial as your company’s website design impact the success of a business? There are many reasons why a well designed website will attract your ideal customer and prompt dialogue with your firm. The following highlight the five key components that a web designer should keep in mind when designing a website:

Navigation
Possibly the most important part of a website is the navigation. The navigation of a website can make or break a site, which is especially true for robust websites with many pages. Website navigation typically includes a navigation bar or list of labels that differentiate the pages of the website. Good navigation should be easy to find and comprehend – making for quick and easy travel throughout the entire website. When designing navigation, web designers sometimes get carried away with designs and fancy typefaces. In most cases, over-simplified navigation maximizes ease of use for a wider range of customers. A good tip is that your firm’s website navigation should be so intuitive even your grandmother can understand it.

Brand Consistency
If your company has a logo and that logo is utilized frequently in print materials (i.e. business cards, pamphlets, letterheads, etc.), then the logo, logo/brand colors, brand messaging and imagery used for print must be carried over into the website design. It is important for your customers to be able to recognize your brand in all forms of communication so they associate your brand position and promise with your business. Often when the visual communication changes with a brand, it can cause customers to feel uncomfortable, which can cause them to create a negative association with your company.

Reading Patterns and SEO
Most people are comfortable reading a web page the same way they read a book, from top to bottom, left to right. Web designers also take this into account when designing for a website. Many designers make sure to place the most important information on the upper left hand column. This will help get the message across more effectively for website visitors who could be current or potential customers. But what many people do not know is that placing important information in these areas of a website also improves search engine optimization (SEO). When you include important company-related keywords into the html-based text, search engines such as Google and Bing are able to crawl your website easily, increasing your search engine placement and giving your website and firm more overall visibility.

Content
The content of your site is important for reasons besides the fact that it literally communicates your company’s brand position and promise. There are other very important elements that are considered when a copywriter creates the content and the designer creates the complementary visual environment for the content. Making the message short and to the point, yet warm and welcoming (depending on the industry) helps the reader to remember the message easier. Also, when there is too much text on a page, the page becomes visually cluttered making it more difficult for a reader to physically read the page, let alone remain interested in reading the page. By streamlining the content, the designer is then able to insert the text into their design, which typically includes plenty of negative space. This empty space lets the reader’s eyes rest so they do not tire of reading.

Trust
Building trust among your customers is extremely important, but will not happen unless you really get to know them and what they value. Marketing tactics can act as a dialogue with potential customers, which will be a great way to discover more about your clientele’s needs. By strengthening dialogue with customers, you can implement what positively resonates with them in your new design. By making your website look more welcoming and trustworthy to visitors, you will see the traffic to your website increase, and an improvement in new business leads through website conversion.

The Internet can be a scary place for people who are more accustomed to doing business face-to-face. It can bring back haunting scenes from the movie The Matrix, which might be great for certain industries. Most businesses are looking for something more welcoming than a confusing labyrinth of letters and numbers. Website design is a great way to create a user-friendly environment where people come for helpful tips and best practices. If a website is designed and managed properly, customers will continuously return to your site and do business with your company.

Why Web Designing is An Essential Way to Promote Your Business?

75% of users evaluate the company’s reliability only based on visual design. There are several things to consider when highlighting your presence on the web. What does this mean for internet marketers? In principle, your company on the web is not just about creating an essential website for your business. 

If not all, most websites have been successful in their internet marketing by assimilating the right SEO tactics and continuously feeding it with the right elements. It may not offer you immediate positive results, but it will undoubtedly progress over time. You can start this journey by understanding how to create a website from scratch.

Your website should be designed with your audience in mind and ensure that it enhances the user experience.

Why Web Design is Important?

The web design of your website is important because your customers will be interested in the design. We all react, consciously or unconsciously, to visual elements, and people are naturally drawn to good design. When it comes to the creation of your website, research has shown time and again that users are quick to judge your business based on just graphics and often stop using your website if it is poorly designed.

38% of people stop interacting with your website when your content and layout are unattractive.

Bad web design not only erodes your credibility, but it can scare off potential customers. Users prefer to display content on well-designed websites. If your content is unattractive, you are likely to lose over a third of your visitors.

Top 5 Reasons How Web Designing Can Promote Your Business

We’ve already proven that your customers care about good design, but how does your website design affect their experience? Let’s take a look at how good design can improve your website design.

1. Navigation

This is essential, especially if your site has so many pages. It includes a well-marked navigation bar or menu that displays a list of different web pages. With well-developed website navigation, users can easily explore and understand your site. It does not need to have advanced fonts. Install simple yet intuitive navigation to help visitors return more.

Here, many designers consider the psychology of the project through the application of Hick’s law. Hick’s law says that the more choices someone is given, the longer it will take to make a decision. It’s often summed up like this: “Keep it simple, stupid.”

So if we apply Hick’s law when it comes to web browsing, we want to keep the options as simple as possible to make it easier for users to decide where to go. As a good rule, try to limit the number of opportunities to seven or less.

2. Usability

The design has a significant impact on how easy it is for visitors to find what they’re looking for in your website design. Research shows that 86% of your website visitors want to see information about a product or service, 65% for contact information, and 52% for an info page.

Your web design should make it as easy as possible to find these things. Otherwise, you will frustrate your users and potentially alienate them. Consider using standard conventions such as placing key services in the main navigation and listing your phone number in the website’s top right corner.

Even if your site is working fine, poor site design can make it users feel harder to use or find what they need. Two Japanese researchers have researched this. They created two ATMs that worked the same way, but one had an attractive design, and the other didn’t. Users reported that the aesthetic ATM works better. So, good web design affects both usability and our perception of usability.

3. Content and Visual Elements

Even if your website works well, a wrong website design can make it difficult for users to find what they need. Two Japanese scientists have studied it. They created two machines that worked the same way, but one had an attractive design, and the other didn’t. Users have reported that an aesthetic ATM works better. So good design affects both credibility and our perception of usability.

To avoid this, smoother content is best suited for web designers to add text to their design easily. Also, designers can add negative or empty spaces that allow readers to rest in the middle of their reading.

Designers can add multiple plugins that smoothen the navigation process and ease the difficulty of the customers. WordPress supports such plugins whether they’re for WooCommerce or not. One of the plugins is WooCommerce pre order, which will help create customize orders according to the client’s requirements.

4. Brand Professionalism & Trust

As mentioned earlier, 3 out of 4 users rate your business reliability based on your website design. The modern and professional design creates trust. In the meantime, a poorly designed website can make someone question your legitimacy.

Another way to add credibility to a good web design is through brand consistency. If you have a well-established brand, your customers will likely recognize things like your logo, colors, or style. Your website design should reflect your brand and convince the people you know are in the right place.

Your target market needs to recognize your company’s brand in all types of media. For example, if your brand and visual communications change slightly, it can confuse your customers and make them feel like something is wrong with your company.

5. Conversion

Web design is important because good web design helps focus users’ gaze and guide them where they should look. Your design can draw attention to special offers on your website, highlight calls to action, and help users identify buttons and interactive elements. All of these can help users make the right move.

There are many different ways you can optimize your visual design for conversion. One of the most effective ways to get users’ attention to the action you want is to use a white or open area around the call to action.

It’s hard to talk about spaces without mentioning Apple. They are known for clean designs and simple, bold imagery surrounded by lots of white areas. The message here is obvious: you want you to click on this phone – and since almost nothing on the page distracts you, it’s almost hard not to.

Final Thought

After all, great website design isn’t just about visuals. How designs are created behind the scenes can have a significant impact on things like search engine optimization.

A website design may look great on the outside, but if it has awkward code or too many large images that slow it down, it can alienate visitors and negatively impact SEO marketing. Also, web designers can sometimes get carried away with smart designs or technologies that look great but ultimately affect the website’s optimization.

Top 3 Reasons Why Web Design is Important

1. BUILD A BETTER USER EXPERIENCE – TO IMPROVE WEBSITE USABILITY FOR YOUR VISITORS.

When a visitor has just engaged your website, the navigation or workflow will lead to an emotional experience.  A site that is difficult to navigate, slow in loading or is structured with too much / too little content will turn off the majority of users. The main reason to improve a site is to update the usability and flexibility of the user. Internal marketing teams will benefit as well by improving the bounce rate, eliminating outdated 3rd party tools. When you do this try to understand your customers’ behavior, as in what action you would like them to complete, along with a guided call to action. A typical user journey takes into account your customer’s path through your site and keeps them moving along the sales process.

2. REBRANDING – UPDATE YOUR BUSINESS AND MARKETING GOALS THROUGH WEB DESIGN.

If your website is 3-5 years old, you’re likely behind pace on optimization and design trends. If your website is not your main marketing tool, it could be a sign that you’re not connecting with your audience.  Above all, rebranding or a web design update could help re-align the website with new marketing goals. Being able to communicate brand values better can also help the perception of your company.

3. SEO STRUGGLES – NOT LISTED ON 1ST PAGE / INCREASE THE VOLUME OF LEADS AND SALES

An updated modern design should be a key factor in why your customer makes a purchasing decision.  Understanding how online algorithms and placement work is one of the main ways to optimize your presence. There is of incredible importance to an organic SEO strategy. The context of the website matter and subtopic themes along with a powerful blog can work wonders. Try structuring strategic content throughout the overall architecture of the site. As in URLs, titles, meta tags, readability, alt text, and H-tags will dictate how efficient the rankings will be. Having a plan during staging and coding prior to launching will help with the way search engine trackers position your site on its ranking.

WHY IS WEBSITE DESIGN IMPORTANT?

As a business, your website is one of your most important assets. Not only does it showcase the services or products you provide, it also gives new and existing customers the opportunity to engage with your brand. If customers are getting their first impression of the business from the website, it’s important that your website design is appealing and reflects your brand personality and ethos.

Website visitors will react to visuals immediately and quickly form a judgement of your business and its values within the first few seconds. According to Adobe 38% of people will stop engaging with your website if it contains unappealing content and an unattractive layout, meaning it is vital to get it right.

If you want to maximise your website, our website designers, based in Sutton Coldfield, have the expertise, skills, and equipment to bring your business’ website to life.

HOW DOES WEB DESIGN IMPACT YOUR BUSINESS?

As your website is the first thing people see, the design is responsible for creating first impressions of the business and can be a deciding factor for customers on whether you are the right partner for them.

A visually appealing website creates a positive image for your brand and an engaging experience for visitors, encouraging them to spend more time on the website. On the flip side, an outdated website creates a negative first impression on your audience and acts as a deterrent, driving potential customers away from your website and onto that of your competitors.

This first impression also reflects your brand image and what the business stands for. Colours, images and fonts all contribute to how your business is recognised, so it’s important that this is selected carefully and remains consistent.

Consistency is key in ensuring your audience becomes familiar with your brand, ensuring your branding is synonymous with your business. If your web design is inconsistent and unprofessional, it will be challenging to build up brand recognition.

Inconsistency drives customers to competitors whereas consistency creates reassurance, allowing you to earn more leads and keep customers on board.

Trust is another important factor in your website’s design – if a visitor doubts the website’s legitimacy due to the site being poorly designed, they will not engage with the content. Build trust with your audience through a design that is modern, professional and feels reliable. This will attract new customers and engage existing ones.

Web design also aids your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy as your web design influences how you publish content, affecting how your website is indexed.

Your code needs to be SEO-friendly, so don’t get carried away with intricate designs and clever technologies. They may look good, but they could also negatively impact your site’s optimisation and ranking.

Your online presence can make or break your business, so it’s important that you optimise what you have and showcase what is special about you.

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE’S DESIGN?

It’s simple really!

  1. Improve its usability.

Your web design influences how well customers can find what they are looking for, make things easy to find and draw your customers in with helpful information that is easy to find.

2. Make sure it’s easy to navigate.

Keep the choices you offer the audience simple and easy to use, making decisions of what pages to go to and what buttons to click as simple as possible by limiting the number of options as too many choices can be confusing.

3. Ensure mobile friendliness.

Most online searches happen from a phone or mobile device, so it’s important that your website is tailored to this. Make sure your website is responsive, relevant and easy to use, regardless of device.

5 reasons why good web design is important

5 reasons why good web design is important

As you look into redesigning your website or even creating a new website for your business, it can be challenging to know which areas to focus on, given the choice of options available.

The truth is, good web design is an holistic thing. You need to be able to please both your audience and Google, while also ensuring that all of your business information is portrayed in a coherant, attractive way.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to invest in the help of web design experts – they understand the importance of good web design, and know exactly how to deliver it. 

These days you can create a website from templates in a few hours or work with an agency to guide you through the process. We take you through five reasons why web design is important, and what to consider at each stage!

1. First impressions MATTER

Think of your website homepage as the front page of a newspaper. It needs to be enticing, it needs to draw people in, and it needs to encourage people to delve deeper into your business and its services.

Your website is also the first impression people recieve of your company, so it’s imperative that it’s a good one. Incorporate your branding, and make sure you tell your potential customers what you stand for. They will judge you within seconds, and once they’ve clicked the back button, that’s their business gone for good. 

If your website looks outdated, is slow to load, or doesn’t have a cohesive user experience (UX) that makes it easy for your audience to find the information they need, your users will make assumptions about your business before they have even made contact.

TIP: make sure your website – and in particular – your homepage quickly tells people what your business does and reassures visitors that they are in the right place to meet their need at that moment. Google will reward you for it and your visitors will stick around and explore further.

2. Your SEO strategy will love you for it  

The most effective SEO strategy starts at the beginning. Web designers will be able to factor in both off-page and on-page elements that can have an impact on your site’s visability to Google when they build your website. 

For example, Google factors in multi-media page elements in its ranking algorithm, while there also needs to be the option to add relevant tags and coding elements to your pages to maximise their visibility.

Well-structured and optimised code combined with an SEO strategy that encompasses frequently published, good quality content can affect how search engine spiders crawl and index your website. If your website is well built and kept up to date, you won’t need to fight as hard for visibility. 

TIP: It’s important to ensure your coding is SEO-friendly. If you’re looking to ensure proper web design practices and subsequent search engine visibility, get in touch with us today.

3. Build trust

We are, quite rightly, brought up to not judge a book by its cover, but it is important to know that people WILL subconsciously make judgements about your business by how your website is designed. If they feel your website is poorly designed, they may question your reputability.

By creating a clean, intuitive user experience that allows your potential customers to filter down the sales funnel, you gain their trust with every step, which equals that all important sale. Combine fabulous web design with punchy, accurate, and audience-specific copy, and you have a sure-fire recipe for success.

TIP: A professional-looking site is one of the biggest trust signals, and means your audience will feel comfortable to continue their journey with you. The longer your visitors remain on your site, the more chance you have to capture those leads. 

4. Consistency is key 

When you’re looking for new leads, you need to build up your brand! You want your audience to instantly recognise you across a range of platforms, with your website at the forefront.

Just think, you’ve invested time and money on a snazzy marketing campaign, but when the natural action for an interested party is to head over to your website to find out more, you need it to draw them in further, rather than feed doubts into their mind.

TIP: From fonts to layouts across each page, ensure your site is consistent which will improve your brand recognition. If you’re looking for a consistently designed website to build brand recognition, get in touch.

5. The competition will continue to grow 

We’ve left the biggest reason for why web design is important until last. Your competitors will be and are already utilising good web design! 

To remain competitive, you must ensure your website is up to scratch. Covid-19 has had a huge impact on consumer behaviour, with more people shopping, accessing services and booking appointments online. 

You need to make sure you transition your business to the new e-commerce reality. 

TIP: You’re going to want your website to stand out amongst the competition. If you have an old, slow or a low-quality site, your competitors will likely outrank you in search results, meaning you’ll be losing out on those precious leads. 

THE TOP 10 MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF A WEBSITE DESIGN

1  Navigation

The website design should be easy to navigate and the menu items should easily accessible from any page. The viewer should always know exactly where they are on the website and have easy access to where they would like to be. A site map is a great idea and will be used if available. This sounds elementary but most websites could be improved in this area. Remember, there is a fine line between an interactive menu and an annoying one, so functionality should be the idea.

2 Visual Design

People are visually oriented creatures, and utilizing great graphics is a good way to make your website more appealing. Your website has about 1/10th of a second to impress your visitor – and potential customer – and let them know that your website – and business (by proxy) – is trustworthy and professional. However, it’s important not to go overboard with too much. Scrolling text, animation, and flash intros should be used sparingly in your web design and only to emphasize a point for maximum effect.

3 Content

This is the backbone of your website. Not only does your content play a major role in your search engine placement, it is the reason most visitors are seeking from your website in the first place. Your website text should be informative, easy to read, and concise. Well thought out web content and copy will do more than anything else to make your website design engaging, effective and popular.

4 Web Friendly

No matter how informative, beautiful, and easy to use your website design is, it’s useless unless it’s web-friendly. It is important that your web designers know the keys to making your website work on all the major browsers, and that they utilize meta tags, alt tags, are fully versed in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Many factors effect your search engine placement and visual appearance of your site, so make sure your web designers know their stuff.

5 Interaction

A truly effective website design engages your visitors immediately and continues to hold their attention through EVERY page, as well as influences them to contact you. This is called ‘conversion’, and is probably your website’s ultimate goal. Again, there is a fine line between ʻinteractionʼ and ʻannoyanceʼ, so the level of interac- tion should never outweigh the benefit.

6 Information Accessibility

Not all visitors to your website are interested in, or have the time to peruse the entire site. They may need to access only a phone number or address, or just a certain bit of info. For this reason itʼs important to place key information in plain site, in an area thatʼs easily accessible. Weʼve all had the experience of not being able to locate some needed information on a website, and the result is always a frustrated visitor. The experience is annoying at best, and a disgruntled visitor wonʼt stay on your site very long and is unlikely not to return, much less do business with you.

7 Intuitiveness

A great website anticipates what your visitor is thinking and caters directly to their needs, and has elements arranged in a way that makes sense. If a visitor is searching for one of your products or services on a search engine or directory where your site is listed, it’s important that your website have a landing page that is directly relevant to what they searched for rather than forcing them to filter through all of your information. Remember, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

8 Branding

Your website should be a direct reflection of your business and your brand. Your visitor should immediately make a visual connection between your logo, print material, and brick-and-mortar location. A website that does this not only contributes to the memorability of your branding, but adds a level of credibility and enhanced image of that of your overall business.

9 Turnaround Time

The number one complaint of website design customers is the time it takes to get the site up and running. Unfortunately, a firm that takes unusually long to complete your website is par for the course. The longer it takes to complete the website, the more business – and value – you lose. A website that isnʼt on the web isnʼt and working properly isn’t going to bring you any business!

10 Conversion

Your website can be the most important client generator your business can have, and must place the primary emphasis on bringing in new clients and making additional services available to existing clients through increased awareness of all the services you offer. Providing them with the tools they need to do business with you in an easy and enjoyable way will increase your website conversion and bring you the kind of success you seek.

6 Professional Website Design Tips and Ideas for Beginners

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When creating and designing your website, the user experience must be considered throughout the entire building process. This is especially true with its design, as a poorly-designed website could leave your visitors confused, frustrated and unlikely to revisit your website.

Even if you wouldn’t consider yourself someone with good eye for web design, you can still build a beautiful, user-friendly website that visually stands out. From our design gurus, here are the top web design tips for all levels of designers to create a stunning website.

1. Use No More Than Three Fonts

The more fonts you incorporate into a website, the messier it will look. Aim to have a separate font for your headers, your body content and one other element (either your logo or calls-to-action).

If your brand guidelines insist you stick to one font, that’s perfectly fine! Just make sure the font is legible and a good size (14-16 point font is the sweet spot for your content’s size).

2. Selecting the Best Colors

Your website should have a cohesive color tone to it. Just like fonts, don’t include a ton of different colors; select a consistent color scheme. Strive to keep all major call-to-action (CTA) buttons the same color (make this color pop on the page), so visitors can recognize each CTA.

If your logo has a primary color, select two or three complementary colors with an online tool. Paletton.com and Coolors are great tools to help you find the best supporting colors for your website.

3. White Space is Your Friend

Do you have a room in your house with neutral-colored walls? Our guess is you probably do; it would be very distracting to have a crazy-printed wallpaper all over your home. Think about it: if your home was filled with bold, busy walls, no one would ever notice your home’s features or furnishings!

This same principle is also applied to websites. Don’t try to fill every pixel of your pages with something; embrace the white space. By leaving white space on your website, you’re drawing your visitors’ attention to areas that you want them to focus on. Plus, it also helps your site look cleaner and uncluttered, which is design 101.

4. Get to Know a Grid System

A clean website design means every text block, button and section is aligned perfectly. This is where a grid system comes into play. Not only does this make your design easier, it’s also better for users to navigate through.

This may be a more “intermediate” tip but it will make a big difference with your website’s design. This corresponds to the next tip, so keep reading.

4. Design with Mobile in Mind

Responsive web design is today’s norm for website design. A grid system is important to learn because you will not be able to design a responsive website without one.

Check out our post all about responsive design and keep these tips in mind.

5. Implement Content Hierarchies

Often, a page full of text can leave users clicking the back button of their browsers.

For your blog posts or any pages that will have a list (i.e.: your products or services page), use subhead hierarchies with short body copy to follow (hey, that’s kind of like this post). This breaks up the text, which will make it easier to read and scannable for visitors.

6. The Easier the Navigation, The Better

Don’t make it hard for your visitors to surf around your site; keep your navigation simple and visible on every page. Make your logo a part of your navigation and have it be clickable to the homepage. As long as your navigation is simplified as much as possible, you’ve hit “web design gold.”

Ready to Take Your Site to the Next Level?

Website design can be as fun as you make it! A good first step to website planning is to design your website through the eyes of your audience.

Think about how they want to perceive your website and what elements they want to see. If you can strive to design your website using the tips above coupled with the user experience, your website will naturally become a well-designed website.

To learn more about website design or if you need help with your website’s design, contact ATI web design.

5 reasons you should hire a professional web design company

Any business that wishes to be competitive in the online or offline market must have a professional website. Internet has become the leading resource for people to find information, with business research being a leading reason to perform a search on the web.

Businesses that do not have a professionally created website risk losing potential customers on the Internet and in their storefronts. Consumers are evaluating products and companies long before they decide to make a purchase, and if your website does not seem professional or secure, they will simply move on to the next vendor.

While sales and credibility are the two main factors for having a professional website created for your business, the following 5 reasons will help you understand why a professionally created website is crucial to your business.

  1. Custom design
    When you hire a professional web agency you know that your site will be created to suit your business. The web designer will evaluate your business and products, and work with you towards your goal is for the website. Do you want to generate online sales? Walk-in sales? Will your site be for informational purposes only? Once these and other questions are answered, your site will be designed to meet your specific needs. DIY site builders limit the capabilities of their site and often restrict graphics and text. A professional web designer is not captive to these restrictions.
  2. Visual properties
    The way your site looks, the way it navigates, and the colors and graphics used are very important. Visitors do not like to search for information, nor do they wish to be barraged with loud colors and crowded text. A professional designer will make sure that your color scheme, text and navigation are designed to be user-friendly.
  3. New technologies
    The Internet changes on a daily basis. New technologies, new computer code, new ways to draw visitors to your site happen each and every day. When using a professional web designer, you can be assured that the site is being created with the latest technologies and according to the latest trends, for optimal success. Many DIY site builders will not allow video, RSS feeds, or links in your website, which can adversely affect your site.
  4. SEO compliance
    SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique used by professional web designers to make your website receive great rankings from search engines. If search engines cannot find your site easily, your potential clients will not either. Your site must be optimized in order to be found.
  5. Webmaster services
    Contrary to what many people believe, a website is never complete. Websites must have continual maintenance to keep them current and relevant to their industry. Technology is continually changing, and for websites to remain popular and successful, they must remain up-to-date with these trends. When using a professional web design service, you benefit from their webmaster services to keep your site updated and fresh.

Many people do not realize the importance of web design, nor do they see what damage a poorly constructed site may cause to their business. There is no reason for taking such a risk with your business when professional website creation is cost-effective and easily accessible.

What Does a Web Designer Do?

In many ways, web design goes hand in hand with marketing. Many experienced marketers frequently discuss how important it is, how much it costs, where to get it…these are all pertinent topics and questions. But few people actually take the time to explain exactly what web design involves.

We think the best way to approach the question of “what” is to outline what web designers do over the course of a project.

On this page, we’ll cover everything that goes in to a web design project, so you know exactly what you’re paying for the next time you outsource web design work.

Keep reading to learn more, and contact us!

Whether you’re looking for a web designer, or a web design company , ATI Web Design has you covered.

Design vs. development

As a quick preface: you’ve probably heard the two terms web design and web development used together frequently.

The two definitely do go together, as all websites require some work in both areas to be fully functional and streamlined.

For the purpose of this article, you can think of web design primarily as the visual aspects of a website, and web development as the backend, more technical work.

So…what does a web designer do?

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

These three “languages” are the backbone of most websites, and are the three biggest tools in a web designer’s toolbox. They’re all technically “languages,” although HTML and CSS are not technically considered to be true programming languages.

HTML

HTML (Hyper Text markup Language) is a set of “markup” tags that are responsible for structuring all the various elements of a webpage. It designates headers, footers, paragraphs, links, images, and everything in between. HTML is what search engine crawlers “read” when they index your website.

Proper HTML is critical to a professional, functioning website. HTML mistakes will almost universally result in visual anomalies on a website, apparent even to users. At worst, improper HTML can essentially break an entire website.

CSS

You can think of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) as supplements to HTML. CSS is responsible for the styling of HTML elements – in other words, CSS controls how website elements look to end users.

For example, HTML uses the < p > tag to designate paragraphs, or general body text. Using CSS, a designer can make all text designated as a < p > element a certain color, a certain font size, a certain font type, and so on.

CSS can be very simple and accessible in the context of small, static websites, but can quickly grow to thousands of lines of code when dealing with bigger, more complex websites.

JavaScript

JavaScript is yet another supplementary language to HTML and CSS. It’s considered fairly easy to learn, as far as programming languages go. JavaScript also straddles the line between web developer and web designer.

To put it very simply, JavaScript allows for the enhanced manipulation of website elements. HTML and CSS are not necessarily “programming” languages, in that they essentially serve just to structure and style web pages. You can achieve some semblance of functionality with them, like causing an element to change color when it’s hovered over, but JavaScript is required for anything beyond that.

JavaScript gives designers advanced control over the elements of a website. For example, designers can use JavaScript to define that “when the user does X, Y will happen,” where Y is a functional complexity that can’t be handled by simple HTML and CSS.

A very basic usage of JavaScript is something like hiding or showing a certain element when the user clicks a specific button.

There are various implementations or “versions” of JavaScript, with jQuery being the easiest and most common for web designers to learn and utilize.

Graphical elements

It’s a web designer’s responsibility to construct the overall look and feel of a website, using images, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to do so.

Designers are typically creative in nature, and have a knack for picking aesthetically pleasing color palettes.

Designers structure websites so that the flow of information is intuitive and comfortable to users. They’re responsible for creating a cohesive user experience, whereas developers create the user interface itself.

Collaboration with developers

Again, it’s important to note that a fully-fledged website is the product of hours and hours of work put in by individuals with many skill sets, from design to development to copywriting.

Designers often work closely with web developers to achieve polished, industry-leading functionality and overall user experience.

Are you looking for professional web design services?

Now that you have a better idea of what web designers do, you can move forward knowing exactly what you’re paying for. And if you’re looking for professional design services for your website, we’d love to help!

ATI Web Design is a full-service digital marketing agency with an expansive design department. Our team of expert web designers has years of experience crafting custom websites for clients in all industries and across the country. We know how to make stylish, functional websites, and we’d love to work together with your business.

Contact us today for more information or a free quote!