25 Website Design Best Practices to Rank Higher in 2021

As reported by Adobe not so long ago, 48% of people believe that the design of a website is the prime factor in precisely determining the credibility of your business. No wonder searches like website design best practices are Googled by young entrepreneurs and businesses across the globe.

A well-designed website helps generate sales, traffic, business leads, and also ranks higher on search engines. That’s why Upreports will tell you about the best design practices to rank higher in 2021. Let’s get straight to the point:

Leverage visual hierarchy

Every single webpage of your website has its own visual hierarchy. Craft a strong visual hierarchy that leads your visitors to a webpage’s functionality and gives them the right visual cues. Use visual hierarchy principles like contrast, scale, and balance to place each element in its rightful position and make important elements stand out. 

Responsive design

Given the increasing number of people using smartphones to browse a website or do online shopping, your business can’t afford to have a non-responsive website. Use the best practices to convert your traditional web design into a responsive one. Optimize images and add a trigger keyboard in forms. Ensure buttons can be clicked easily on smaller screens. Optimize the website’s typography as well. 

Keep structure in mind

The structure of critical site pages like the homepage, category, and product pages needs to be planned with much care and thought. Put the most important information at the top and the less important at the bottom. This web design practice will greatly help you boost conversions and get sales.  

Eye-pleasing color palette

Your website’s colors directly influence your customers. When choosing your color scheme, think about your brand. Instead of putting 5-6 colors at work, pick an eye-pleasing 2-color palette. The point being your visitors shouldn’t have to work very hard to process what’s going on your website.  

web design best practices

Aligned elements

Consider it to be one of the most crucial web design practices. Your website elements need to be completely aligned for full functionality. If your visitor is pressing a button or banner, and it is not properly aligned, they might think it is broken and immediately leave your site. Use grid systems in your web design to ensure proper element alignment for your web pages.

Tall pages

Nowadays, tall pages are the new sexy! A tall page means the use of more pixels. And more pixels mean more space to add business data, answer questions, display services, show photos, and testimonials. It will make your website more effective and emulate sales conversions. Check out this report by Crazy Egg to know why to go for tall pages that address everything.   

web design best practices

One thing at one time

Imagine yourself looking at a small painting that is filled with hundreds of shapes. We bet it will make no sense. You will get confused. Your users feel the same when you show too many elements on a small screen. While using a clean modern design, pick a tall, single-column layout that displays one thing at one time. Keep the visual complexity as low as possible. 

Standard website layout

A website that follows modern web design standards is likely to be loved by both customers as well as Google. Keep the logo in the top left of your screen. Put important links at the top of each page. Place the search bar at the top of your website. Put social media icons either in the sub-header or at the bottom of the website. 

All these web design practices will give your visitors a predictable experience and make navigation easier and more intuitive. 

22 SEO and redesign considerations to keep in mind while upgrading your website in 2021. 

Avoid false bottoms

For those who don’t know, a false bottom is a point on a webpage where a customer assumes it will not scroll further, despite the fact that there is more content below that point. Ask your web designer to avoid a false bottom at all costs. If you have a huge hero shot, add a strong directional cue to bring visitors down the page. Use the heatmap tool to make scrolling and clicking throughout the website easily. Develop a visual pattern or rhythm to set expectations for your visitors.

Avoid accordions for less content

Another best website design practice to rank higher in 2021. Accordions are one of the most useful web design elements that solve the problem of displaying too much content in too little screen space. However, if you have less content or if your customers want to see all content at once, avoid using accordions. It will make your website browsing more effective. 

Fewer carousels and rotating sliders

Here’s a hard-to-swallow fact: a lot of internet users skip carousels and rotating sliders because they look more like advertisements. That’s why a lot of website designers are minimizing carousels and rotating slider usage. Use these elements only to put content that is not so important for your visitors to see. 

Check out this list of top SEO companies for small business to hire!

Color-changing hyperlinks and buttons

Your visitor will get lost and move in circles if the link color of your visited and new web pages is the same as that of the site’s text. Use different colors for hyperlinks. Make sure they change their color whenever someone hovers a pointer on them. This best website design practice will make it easier for your visitors to navigate throughout your site and increase user satisfaction.  

web design best practices

Clean dropdown menu

Ask your website designer to create a dropdown menu that fits perfectly into your site design. Make sure it has a readable font, clear typography, enough spacing, and a neat layout. A drop-down menu that doesn’t seem like part of the website leaves a very bad impression.  

Use real images

Real photos of people, nature, and teams make a positive impact on site visitors. Stock photography on the other hand looks unreal and belongs to the early internet era. Therefore, choose high-quality photographs of your team, products, and property to make a maximum design impact. 

Add 360° panorama viewer

70% of marketers who have used 360 panorama view say it has increased business engagement for them. This website design practice will put your customer in control of what they want to look at. Highly recommended for real estate and travel businesses, 360° can be a game-changer from an audience engagement point of view.   

Use arrows as visual cues

Using arrows in a website design is an explicit way to draw visitors’ attention. They can help visitors interact with the site and guide them on what to do next. If you want your visitors to look at something, whether a product, service, or content piece, point at it with an arrow! 

Social media

 While to some of you, this website design element may look neutral but adding social media elements to your website is the best way to add social depth. Facebook’s like button, Twitter’s retweet button, and Pinterest’s Pin button make it easy for visitors to share products and content in their circle. 

10 social media post ideas for businesses to get maximum likes and shares.


Countdown timers

Countdown timers work like magic for e-commerce stores. It helps create a sense of urgency among visitors and hype about upcoming discounts, sales, and offers. This web design tactic can greatly help boost product sales by nudging shoppers to take action quickly. 

Add testimonials

According to BigCommerce, 92% of customers read online reviews before buying a product or a service. So, it makes sense to encourage your customers to leave a positive review on a website or social media. Use them as artwork to display positive statements made about your business. Make sure that your testimonials page/section is clean, straightforward, and skimmable.

web design best practices

Eye-pleasing website logo

A logo adds professionalism and brand recognition to your website. Design an eye-pleasing logo that reflects your business in a unique and honest way. Avoid adding too many details to the logo though! Remember, your goal is to present yourself clearly and dynamically. So, get a logo according to that. 

Use grid view

Gone are the days of listview supremacy. In the modern virtual world,  grid view is the new sexy! Grids help your audience predict where elements and information are, making it easier for visitors to find information and navigate the website. Ask your website designer to use unique grid spaces for organizing space, text, images, and other elements. 

Add videos

Videos are the key to get high website conversions. Visitors stay engaged longer with video than text and are more likely to convert. Add video content regarding your services, products, and processes to your website. 4k videos are good but we recommend compressing videos down to at least 720p to check the site performance. 

Find and fix 404 errors

Not many articles have talked about this website design practice. 404 errors can harm your brand and negatively impact your SEO by making it difficult for search engines to crawl your website. Use tools like Screaming Frog to find broken links. Modify the URLs if you have misspelled them.

web design best practices

Make white space your friend

We know many of you think of whitespace as a foe. We don’t blame you as many businesses think the same. But the reality is somewhat different! White or negative space gives business websites a simple, clean, and minimalist look. It makes your website content more digestible and accessible to the user. 

The correct use of white space in a text can increase readability by up to 20%. So, make it your friend. Keep the amount of white space between your content balanced! 

Theme-matching CTAs

Not a lot of experts talk about this website design practice but we will! Consider your website theme while designing CTAs. If your website has a light background, use dark colors for the CTA button to maintain balance and simplicity. Double-check text size and button size to make sure that they deliver optimal performance on all devices. 

web design best practices

Above are the best practices in website design. Now that you understand these aspects, put them to good use either by taking a good look at your old website design or developing a brand new website from scratch.  

Got any queries to ask? Send them to hello@upreports.com and have them answered by our experts. 

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