Modern Website Design

About 59% of the earth’s population uses the internet, that’s 4.57 Billion people. Statistica data reports that 92% of those internet users surf their favorite sites on mobile devices. However, more than three-quarters of internet users in the world’s wealthiest economies are going online via computer. This data is important because, in 2020, it is essential to design a website that caters to mobile users without sacrificing the personal computer experience. 

Internet users are increasing by 7% each year and these digital natives will judge the legitimacy of your business based on your website’s design. In fact, it only takes 50 milliseconds for someone to make a judgment about the value of your company based on your website’s design. Consider that more than 50% of people will search your business online for product recommendations before considering making a purchase, and half of all small businesses don’t have a website. 

Keeping up with modern website design trends will help your business’ website drive engagement, properly represent your brand, tell your business’ story, and generate leads. 

Modern Design Trends

Website design is constantly evolving because it is being influenced by what’s happening in graphic design, art, fashion, branding, marketing, advertising, and social media. Banner ads and billboards were marketing trends in the 90s and 2000s but have now been replaced by social media influencers and paid per click advertisements. 

Optimizing your website’s user appeal, speed, usage of space and color, and telling your story will help your business to grow. We at On The Map Marketing have pooled the internet’s resources for some of the leading modern website design trends to help grow your business through search engine optimization.

A great place to start updating your design is upgrading your logos. Here’s a free Icon maker by HubSpot to create a new set of icons for your brand.

Minimalism and White Space

Website design in the year 2020 is about decluttering the webspace by making websites more minimalistic and carefully using white space. White space opens up the flow of your website allowing users to purposefully engage with the material without distraction. 

By using a minimalistic approach, website users can comprehensively follow your website’s visual hierarchy. Separating your page elements avoids muddying your page because white space allows users to differentiate between sections. 

Using white space can also help users quickly determine the important information on your site. The minimalist space in between allows visitors to rest their eyes while digesting all of the information that your site has to offer to create a comfortable user experience. 

If your website contains too many colors, graphics, images, and data, then it will deter users from getting all the important information, and becoming more familiar with your brand’s identity. Overwhelmed visitors will leave your site and develop a negative perception of your business. 

White space and the proper usage of minimalism could help your website’s first impression positively correlate in better engagement. The proper usage of white space can help users focus on what’s important, make your business look more professional, and highlight your content to ensure it’s not overshadowed by your website’s design.   

Muted Colors

2019 designs used lots of bold colors but as modern design trends to a more minimalistic approach, colors are becoming more minimalistic by implementing muted colors. Muted colors are bold colors with white or black mixed in to reduce its flair. 

Muted colors work really well with neutral colors like white or black and fit in well within white or dark spaces. Muted colors enhance your website’s flow and using bold colors for Calls To Action (CTAs) can help highlight important content within the flow of your website. 2020 websites are trending towards using soft and muted colors for background information and bold colors for CTAs. 

Gradient Colors

Gradient color schemes have been trending in modern website design for the past three years and continue to be a trend in 2020. Gradient designs have become an industry standard among designers. Gradient color schemes can be incorporated within the minimalistic usage of space and with muted color schemes. 

Gradient designs aren’t the focal point of the design but a tool used to enhance the graphics. Gradient colors can add depth to your website’s illustrations, especially when used with a muted color pattern so that it does not strain the eyes. Simple gradients can make a design feel more fantastical, and incorporating muted colors can make your brand appeal more modern, professional, and sophisticated. 

Visual appeal was found to be one of the most important first impressions potential followers of your business will notice. 94% of people will develop their initial impression of your business solely based on the design and navigation of your website. 

Large Typography

When you’re designing your website it’s important to make sure that the fonts you use are legible and clear enough for everyone to digest. Readability will make a big difference in the user experience for your site. Bold fonts are growing more important as users migrate from personal computers to mobile devices. Bolding your fonts and using the outlined type can make your content more readable for mobile users on smaller, high definition phones. Bold fonts can draw attention to a particular area and when used tastefully, can be very impactful in contrast to a minimalistic background. 

The fonts and typeface you choose will communicate certain ideas about your brand. It is in your best interest to choose a typeface that accurately represents your brand, just as much as your colors, and logo. Almost half of all consumers (46%) determine a website’s credibility based on typography, font size, and other design elements. 

Using bold fonts with muted color palettes will help your website stand out in 2020. Google fonts provide over 800 fonts and the majority of them free and can be assimilated into your website flawlessly. Bolder fonts can help break up long texts and make any of your content more legible and enjoyable. 

User-Centered Layout Design

Full page headers are a trend of 2020 because consumers’ eyes are drawn to the information at the top left of your website first. Website designers are learning to use bold headers toward the top left of their websites congruently with CTAs and eye-catching images on the right. Designing your website in this manner can help your website remain sleek while offering your users options as quickly as possible.

Bold fonts, flowing gradient images, and the proper usage of minimalistic space can provide a stark contrast. Contrast, when used in tandem with other design functions can keep consumers engaged in your content. 

Modern web designers are using grids and an asymmetrical design to capture the imaginations of their users while using space that encourages users to flow uninhibited between pieces of content. By using grid designs web developers can create designs that are responsive for all browsers. Although almost half of all browser users use google chrome, having a webpage that works well with all browsers could be the difference between securing a new consumer or losing them to a competitor. 

Customization

Modern websites are finding new and inventive ways to use custom elements throughout their websites to establish their brand identity, tell a story, and further ingratiate potential customers with their mission and vision. 

Cursor Design

Changing the cursor on your website can bring new life to your minimalist backdrop, making your website more engaging and exciting. Some sites have used custom images, or cursors that change depending on where you are on the page. These types of customizations, when used correctly with spacing without clutter, can provide more depth to your website enhancing your user’s experience. Playful cursors can encourage your site’s visitors to interact with your website in a fun and creative way.  

3D Scrolling

Playing with the scrolling speeds of your text and images can give your website a three-dimensional scrolling effect. Changing the scrolling speeds of the information and graphics in the foreground and background of your website can give your website more life without adding too much clutter. Background videos can be synced up so that when a user scrolls over a certain area of your site the video begins to play. Dynamic scrolling can help you make these videos appear on the website magically, catching your visitors by surprise and encouraging them to take notice without being rambunctious. 

Custom Illustrations

In order to grow a following, you have to get customers thinking about your brand. Custom illustrations, graphics, videos, and GIFs will help your potential customers get engaged with your brand and champion your story to others. As more individuals flock to the internet, not only as users but as creatives now, stock images are becoming overused. In order to stand out from the pack, your brand needs to have custom images that fit your particular market.

As coding capabilities evolve, so do the creator’s abilities to impress users with 3D like designs that exceed the traditional website experience. Customizing features, like having your website’s gradient color scheme change as you scroll through the page, is growing in popularity. Customizing your bold font’s scrolling speed can give your website a three-dimensional effect. Using customized cursors will help keep your users engaged due to its quirkiness and enjoyment. 

Taking the time to make a custom image communicates the effort that your business is willing to do to put into all of the details. Customizations add a level of authenticity to your brand that stock images and cookie-cutter templates won’t be able to provide. 

GIFs 

GIFs have become an accepted form of communication nowadays and lots of users spend their time sharing GIFs and memes on their favorite social media platforms. Smart web designers have found ways to tinker with the most popular GIFs and repurpose them as branded content for their website and/or business.

By replacing stock images with GIFs, this can transform your content into something more meaningful and interactive, without the clutter of using multiple images. GIFs can be very helpful for “How-To” features by demonstrating how products and services can be used. Using your brand’s image, logo, and colors with GIFs can be a great way to break up your website, add something dynamic, while preserving space and efficiency. 

Animation

Innovative websites are finding creative ways to animate their homepages in order to attract the user’s attention and make their CTAs more effective. Animation loops, like GIFs, can pull users in and they become fascinated watching the animation over and over again. Beware that animations can slow down your website so feel free to contact our team at OTM about how to properly integrate animations into your web page.

Social Media Integration

As social media gains more traction for some brands it’s important for their consumers to see other consumers using, interacting with, and embracing their brand. It really helps to build community while fostering growth and reaching new potential target audience members. It has been a modern design trend to add a business’s social media feed to their website. 

Modern website design is all about displaying an authentic experience, less flash, and more substance. By integrating your social media into your website you can show potential consumers that your brand is user friendly, other people love it too, can upsell more products because you can display how well they work together, inspire creativity about how to use the product or service, and makes your brand more relatable. 

Storytelling

Compelling stories can help you drive more sales, gain more followers, get more engagement, and find your niche audience. What problems does your business fix? How did you notice the problem and how did you develop your company to alleviate this problem, while filling a gap in the market. When consumers learn why they need your business, then they’ll become more dependent upon it. 

You can use infographics, timelines, audio, video, GIFs, animations, and images to help users see your business in action, relate to your content, and understand why the world is better off because of your business. Telling your story will separate you from your competitors and inspire others to develop brand loyalty.  

Branding 

Brand Identity was identified as one of the six most important factors in building trust with an online business. If your site can’t be differentiated from your competitors then why would potential users check out your products, use your services, or encourage others to learn about your brand?

Building a website with a modern design will differentiate your website with other internet users allowing your business to gather more attention. A sleek website that utilizes modern design techniques will be found to be more trustworthy and generate more opportunities. Brand identity isn’t all about innovation but finding ways to use trends to support your brand’s identity. Visual consistency with colors and fonts can help your brand to stand out.  

User Experience Design (UX)

Your website needs to clearly communicate the value that you offer to your consumers by considering the following design elements:

• Usability: The usability of your site is based upon the responsiveness and structure of your site. 
• Design: Using proper spacing, navigation, animations, and design elements can help your clients get answers they seek from your site. 
• Function: It’s important that every element of your website makes sense and serves the purpose and identity of your business. 
• Adaptation: Potential consumers could be using your website on a mobile device so it’s important for your site to be adaptable. If there are inconsistencies between the desktop, tablet, and mobile versions of your site, then it could negatively impact your site’s appeal, bounce back rate, and sales. 
• Layout: By reducing the number of clicks a potential site visitor needs to make to find relevant information to less than two could optimize your website’s potential impact. 

Investing in the user experience of your website can help you generate more revenue, and grow your brand loyalty by meeting the needs of your consumers. 66% of users prefer websites that are beautifully designed to enhance their user experience. More than a third of people will stop engaging with your content if images won’t load or take too long, content is too lengthy, and deemed to be unattractive according to its layout. 

Future of Modern Web Design

Businesses that successfully integrate voice commands into their online experience will begin to see growth in their business. Voice shopping will be a $40 billion business by 2022. You could start optimizing your website for voice search to get ahead of the next boom.

Mobile responsiveness is vital to the life of your business. If you’re unable to adapt to mobile devices, then your website will get fewer visits, engagement, and you won’t generate as many opportunities as your competitors.

Chatbots and other artificial elements have grown traction in website design and the technology is improving as algorithms develop and get more and more diverse user feedback. If your website can successfully subsume artificial intelligence into its design it will be able to grow as the amount of internet users increases. 

When you work with On The Map Marketing we can assist you in building a website that’s trendy, functional, modern, and enhances your consumer’s experience. We have a diverse team dedicated to providing value and use their experience to meet the needs of our clients.