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Operating a successful online business means staying ahead of competitors offering similar products and services. Marketing your business to consumers involves researching trends that make your website appear more frequently on search results. Your website design should appeal to people finding your site in their organic searches. Researching trends will increase the amount of traffic that stays on your website, and you should also see an increase in your conversion rate.
Similar to what Forbes wrote about the best design choices for 2018, there’s more to making a unique website than making everything look aesthetically pleasing. This still holds for website design standards in 2023. While many concepts will make your website stand out among competitors, many practical techniques you should employ are focused on functionality and search engine optimization (SEO). After all, the main reason you have a website is to sell products and services that your business offers, so you need to be sure that your information is optimized to rank high on search engines. The following list of the top 11 website design elements is picked for aesthetic value and functionality.
Best Practices and Design Standards
In the business world, people often look at best practices to get a good idea of what direction to take their company. If you’re new to marketing, looking at best practices will help you understand what the online business community deems as the best course of action for helping get your website onto more search engine results pages (SERPs). We’ll be going through a list of design and development ideas that experts have discussed throughout the marketing community because these ideas have been proven successful. The items on this list are best practices because the experts in the industry have deemed them to work, so we’ll be sure to mention where each course originates as we make our way through the list.
#1: Choose Bold Colors
Sondora Marketing recommends using bold colors and simple design elements on your website. These experts make a good point that many companies rely on safe color palettes, so a new trend in web design for 2023 will be choosing colors that attract a lot of attention. Sonora also points out that our digital devices are evolving to make bright colors more impressive to those visiting our websites. So will you dare to be bold by choosing bright colors in 2023?
#2: Chatbots
This chatbot’s best practice comes from the folks at Medium. Have you been trying to collect more information from users who visit your website? Complicated forms and newsletter opt-ins are the tired old ways to do this. Instead, people would rather speak to a representative of your company. This web design best practice will give your business a digital interface that speaks to visitors.
#3: Collages of Photos and Art
When keeping people interested in your website, you should incorporate eye-catching images that make readers want to hang around. You will have trouble satisfying your users if you rely upon stock and royalty-free pictures. When users notice that you’re using free images, they begin losing interest in your site. The web design and development trend for 2023 includes photographs incorporating artwork, such as doodles and collages.
#4: Monochrome Will Be Popular
This tip is among the top recommendations for web design and development for 2023 from Graphic Mama. Graphic Mama reminds their users about the popularity of color schemes that relied upon two colors (duo color) frequently used for websites in 2017. They believe that the trend for website design is becoming even more simplified. Monochromatic filters rely upon the use of just one color. You can create stark contrasts for the images you put on your website by applying a monochrome filter. Many popular editing applications come with this feature, making it easy to implement this new trend in web design.
#5: Asymmetrical Layouts
This is another tip from Sondora Marketing designed to push your visitors’ buttons. If you want your visitors to notice your pages in place of your competitors, you need to do something to make your content look different. Even if you’re writing stellar copy to put on your pages, your website looks the same as your competitors. Sondora Marketing points out that most companies use a grid-based web design platform, so the average company has kept its web pages symmetrically balanced. However, one of the trends in the next year will be to make pages look unbalanced. This doesn’t mean you need to go crazy with your layout, but you should take risks to make a big splash among your visitors.
#6: Earth-Tone Colors
The folks at Graphic Mama recommend earth-tones because these colors are associated with vintage fashion.
#7: Dynamic Content
According to Medium, dynamic content impresses new users because it appeals to the specific interests of each individual visiting your website. Even if you are appealing to a target demographic, you are likely dealing with multiple segments of consumers, so you need to have content designed to appeal to various interests. Use SEO keywords and dynamic range changes to appeal to the users visiting your website, so your website will look different for each segment of consumers.
If you think dynamic content is a web design and development tactic that will help your business, you should consider detailing your target consumers. Then, break your target audience into segments based on the interests of each consumer who visits your website. To capitalize on this idea, Medium suggests creating an area specifically designed for members.
#8: Artistic Typography
Many brands rely upon pictures to show their visitors information about their brand, and they include lengthy articles to drum up interest in their products. However, this new trend in typography will set you ahead of your competitors. Artistic typography combines the information contained within words with the design of simple graphics. Graphic Mama notes how this new trend incorporates beautiful flowery designs and interesting geometrical shapes.
#9: Metallic Pictures
Another top trend that Graphic Mama recommends is using shiny metallic pictures on your website. They claim that this trend works best when applied to simple images of products, and they also recommend using gold metals because of the implied relationship with luxury.
#10: Augmented Reality (AR)
Another trend from Medium is this unique offering that few businesses use on their websites. To appeal to consumers who enjoy high-quality technology, you should invest in a website design that includes some elements that classify as augmented reality.
What is augmented reality? This trend in website design allows your customers to test how products will appear after they purchase something from your online store. AR incorporates either pictures or videos to showcase your products to consumers. For example, selling clothing with AR allows consumers to see what it will look like on them before they purchase it, or a consumer might use a picture of their home to see what a new paint color will look like.
#11: Use Drawings From a Real Person
This last best practice in web design is from Sondora Marketing. Instead of relying upon digital graphics and fancy computer animations, you can appeal to consumers with artwork made by a natural person. The pros at Sondora point out that hand drawings will significantly impact the upcoming year because they remind users that a natural person is behind the digital representation that is appearing on their devices; people like to see something that’s handmade.
Putting These Best Practices to Good Use
Thoughtful marketing experts have developed these trends, but actions speak louder than words. In other words, it’s great that you’ve taken the time to read through this list of the best practices for 2023; your business will only benefit from this knowledge by putting it to work. Industry professionals have shared their advice on the best website design and development practices so that you can take advantage of their sage advice. Of course, it might take time to see actual results from these tactics; you might even need to work with a marketing team to accomplish some of your goals for your business. However, you will be able to reap the fruit of your labor if you remain steadfast in your pursuit of appealing to new customers.
Feel free to reach out if you need help creating a professional website design that follows design and development best practices.