If you have decided that 2022 will be the year that you finally take the plunge and design a website for your business, you may be wondering where you should begin. It may seem like a relatively simple and straightforward process from the outside looking in but by failing to consider a number of key factors, you run the risk of driving customers away and inadvertently hindering your business’ reputation and, perhaps most importantly, profits. If you are in this position, continue reading to find out how to design a great website in 2022 by taking inspiration from some of this year’s most popular trends to emerge so far.

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Keep things simple

It can be tempting to match the excitement you feel at launching your first website by including as many colours, images, and graphics as is humanly possible on a single webpage but this is only likely to spell disaster for you and your business as visitors are intimidated by the sheer number of elements demanding their attention as they arrive on your website. To prevent this from happening, you must keep things simple by only including basic snippets of information that a customer may need to know in order to proceed with any additional or specialist information available by personally getting in contact with your brand through your business email address or telephone number. It may also be worth taking the time to establish clear branding and theming ahead of time to ensure your website flows and transitions seamlessly from start to finish and that, as a result, customers can instantly recognise your brand from afar.

Proceed with accessibility in mind

In 2022, your website must not only be fully customisable but also fully accessible to ensure customers with visual or auditory impairments are able to enjoy the same user experience as they browse the various goods and services listed on your website. It has become something of a recent trend within the wider web design world to focus solely on mobile compatibility and online safety and security and whilst these remain important concepts, ensuring your intended target audience can freely browse your website with ease should top your list of priorities. The web design stage is, after all, one of the most important steps throughout the entire process of launching your website as it is where your content and technological needs can converge to meet long-term goals as a business with accessibility deserving of equal weighting when it comes to compatibility, safety, security, and design.

Look around for inspiration

If you have little to no experience when it comes to designing a website, you must look around for inspiration with e-commerce platforms showcasing the latest fashion trends and crazes and cryptocurrency sources illustrating industry jargon, such as the hanging man pattern, great examples of websites that know exactly how to cater to their intended target audience whilst still remaining fresh and interesting enough for unfamiliar visitors to find out more. If you have always loved a particular website for its ability to expertly display product pages or images or always find yourself drawn to the same website despite not necessarily believing their goods and services are the best, for example, it may be possible to borrow a number of basic web design elements to be used in your website so long as you have not stolen original ideas or copied their entire website before replacing their logo with your own.

Think about navigation

It is a common mistake for first-time website owners to focus on the aesthetic appeal of their website and neglect a number of functional aspects such as navigation. This can, however, lead to you having a website that may look great from afar but performs poorly with customers abandoning their purchases before they have even had a chance to input their payment details. If you are worried that this may happen to you, navigation should remain at the forefront of your mind throughout the entire process with regular tests carried out on an ongoing basis to ensure customers are likely to be happy from the second they land on your website until the second they leave. Navigation is, put simply, a customer’s journey through your website from landing page to checkout with you responsible for ensuring that the steps that are taken in between are as streamlined as possible for both experienced and inexperienced internet users. Implementing calls to action can also allow customers to find exactly what they are looking for without having to spend time searching for a specific webpage to complete a simple request.

If you are in the process of designing a website for your business in 2022, there are a number of factors you must consider before you can begin. This includes keeping things as simple as possible from start to finish and remembering that less is more, proceeding with accessibility in mind to cater to your intended target audience, looking around for inspiration from suitable examples within your chosen industry, sector, or niche, and thinking about navigation as opposed to focusing solely on its aesthetic appeal.

About the Author

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Mirko Humbert

Mirko Humbert is the editor-in-chief and main author of Designer Daily and Typography Daily. He is also a graphic designer and the founder of WP Expert.