Creating a unique website doesn't necessarily mean confusing end users with out-of-this-world elements and concepts. Ideally, your website will have an interesting take on classic concepts that combine creativity, uniqueness, and functionality.
As a digital marketing professional, I've worked with numerous clients looking to optimize their website design and aiming for a unique UX that sets them apart from their competition. There are tons of great ideas to get inspiration from, but all those won't do your site much good if it lacks the essential concepts that make it functional.
In this article, I'll share the key concepts to keep in mind in creating a unique website, how to ensure functionality, and why these concepts are a must for any website looking to connect with an audience through a digital experience. Ultimately, you’ll know which concepts to incorporate into your website design process.
Let's start.
7 Essential Website Design Concepts To Apply For An Exceptional Website
Conceptualizing a balanced and unique website requires good planning and research. Still, you don't need to go crazy with the design. The easiest way to create a unique website is to keep a clear plan, stick to it, and add creative elements to spice up the UX.
1. Plan Out A Clean Concept
A clean design is an all-encompassing concept that covers a handful of bases. However, it should be the foundation of any website as it makes it easier for users to navigate your website and gives them a better idea about what they can expect from your content.
Designing a unique website without considering its conceptual balance could create a messy and confusing experience. The main goal of a clean design is to ensure that the most critical aspects of your website are easily accessible and are not overwhelmed by any distracting or confusing elements.
There are thousands of free website templates to choose from, and the best one for your website will depend on your industry, target audience, and business goals. You don’t have to take ages customizing your website too. Strikingly comes with an intuitive website builder. It’s easy to make your chosen template like it’s made just for you.
From a website's template, elements like the color scheme, typography, images, and other graphic assets also play a crucial role in ensuring your website has a clean and cohesive theme. Wisely choosing all these elements will help achieve the website's goal and purpose.
In deciding on your website color palette, keep it at 3 to 5 colors with no more than 3 being based colors. Too much variety in color choice results in clashing and confusion, especially if not used properly. Recent design companies often lean towards using subtle pastels and muted shades to accentuate a modern and professional look.
Additionally, using too many base colors makes a website feel overwhelming for users leading to fewer conversions and leads opting into your calls to action.
Next is typography. The typography of a website has an emotional impact on readers. Some typography styles add more personality and drama to text than others and often determine how a reader feels about reading through the content.
A website needs to be easy to read. Choose one font size for headers and subheaders and another for normal text. To make sure the typography remains appealing, test out their look compatibility and see if the fonts match or clash with the other elements on your site. For all your web pages to make it easier for your customers to understand your message.
When choosing typography, stick with two to three fonts and use them throughout your site. In addition, consider the size and weight of each typeface, as they affect how well a user reads your content.
The same concept of typography applies to graphics and images as well. Graphics and images should supplement a website's content to make it valuable and appealing to users. With that, choose assets that encompass your brand's message and compel users to act on your chosen action buttons.
Perfectly balanced, all these elements create a unique website that captures and holds attention long enough for the audience to know what your brand is about and what it offers. The clean design mixed with unique elements will create a unique site that users will appreciate and resonate with.
2. Never Compromise On UX
After conceptualizing a clean design for your website, the next concept to keep in mind is the UX. The UX or user experience is the end users' ease or difficulty in interacting with a website. A good website's UX contributes to its uniqueness by giving users a one-of-a-kind experience when navigating and browsing through all the elements and components on the site.
Websites with good UX often see a higher conversion and traffic rate than those without. However, compromising good UX to make way for high bandwidth elements will deter users from exploring further, and they will likely jump to a competitor site. Therefore, it's essential to use optimized elements with smooth transitions and flow from one section to the next.
No matter how stunning your colors, typography, images, and graphics are, a bad UX will only render useful if you can optimize it. Here are the core elements of good UX to keep in mind when creating a unique website:
It may seem difficult to encapsulate all these elements into your website while also ensuring it contains unique elements that make it eye-popping and engaging. Fortunately, service providers let website owners have the freedom of creativity in designing a website while maintaining great UX functionality for the end user.
Using simple website-building editors, you can create a stunning website in minutes without compromising on the end-user experience. It minimizes the negative impact of bad design on a website's overall conversions and drives up sales.
This is especially crucial when designing an eCommerce store. But with Strikingly, Even adding payment options, discount coupons, and membership logins are made extra easy. They’ve created the Simple Store feature so your online store fosters the best user experience for your customers.
3. Fresh And Connected Content
A unique website is more than a visual appeal. It also has excellent, relevant information, and compelling written content that ignites the audience to take action. Content is not limited to headings and subheadings in the website copy but also streamlines into the blogs, product descriptions, and featured testimonials, to name a few.
Website copy with a compelling story goes a long way in creating a unique website that supplements good design. Looking at a few popular websites like Nike and Apple shows just how powerful good copy is in driving home the point in conjunction with the website's layout, visual elements, and interactive experience.
Unique websites know how to tell a story with interactive content seamlessly connecting with current interests, trends, and audience desires. It also goes a long way in creating an engaging experience. With that, the audience will want to explore the rest of the site and dive deeper into what your brand has to offer them.
4. Use White Space Strategically
It's hard not to get lost in the idea of filling up every corner of the screen with bright colors and animated graphics. However, strategically using white space does more good for a unique website than a chaos of colors and elements.
White space in web design is the "empty space" between content. It's where designers can combine fonts, images, and other elements, adding interest and style to a page.
A properly executed white space strategy will create a visually inviting environment that allows users to explore a website without feeling overwhelmed by visual clutter. Here is an excellent example of the strategic use of white space from goaura.com's comprehensive guide to Amazon repricing tools.
This blog post aims to inform website visitors about the essentials of a great Amazon repricing tool while also promoting the site's service. The use of white space ensures that readers stay focused on critical information while also making the CTA constantly observable.
Complemented by a relevant and striking image for a header, the whole page informs and convinces the reader of the tool's usefulness. The white space leaves little distraction from the intended purpose, so it's easier for readers to locate essential information.
5. Keep The Layout Organized
How the content and elements are organized on each section and page makes a unique website. An organized website layout creates the impression that every element is essential.
A well-organized layout ensures the content is easy to understand and digest, thus giving users the feeling that they can explore the website easily and quickly. A stunning execution of a pleasant navigation experience provides website visitors with a chance to place their focus on the content of the site.
Take the example of the Menlo Coaching website with MBA programs from US universities. The site includes quick links to all the universities they partner with, making it easy for users to browse the course offered. They won’t waste time searching the whole site for specific institutions they want.
It's the ideal way to streamline the application process and show interested students that starting a path toward their MBA is straightforward. Additionally, adding a summary of each university with an easily seen "Learn More" button simplifies choosing the best institution to enroll in through an easy-to-compare layout.
The simple improvements to layout and organization let website visitors take quick and decisive action that may have otherwise gone to a competitor should the site present a less-than-organized structure. Here are a few common layout structures that web designers use.
Image Source
Lastly, using a creative blend of layouts offers a modern twist to traditional formats. You can also add interactive backgrounds that complement the layout and content to give the site a more sophisticated and on-brand personality.
While you may feel this needs a lot of coding knowledge, it doesn’t have to be. Using Strikingly, you can organize your layout with just a few clicks. You can literally click on anything to edit. Best of all, everything gets done fast. You could get your website ready in as fast as 30 minutes.
6. Properly Placed Elements
No matter how unique a website design is, neglecting to properly and cohesively place your elements in the right places can hurt its potential to get a high click-through rate. Some of the most successful websites today use the same or similar rules when it comes to element placement.
As an example, here are two websites side by side for comparison. The left shows the seemingly random placement of elements with no clear indication of what the website is trying to accomplish. On the right, the elements are clearly aligned, spaced, and set, which makes it easy to read and decide where to start browsing.
Following simple element placement structures in design decisions have a handful of benefits. The most significant advantage is that website visitors will easily find the information they need without having to navigate back and forth through the site.
Having properly placed elements is essential for websites that offer products or services. These offers should stay close enough to the top of the page so visitors will see them soon after reading what it's about.
The same concept applies to infographics, videos, testimonials, and contact information. Placing them in the right areas on a web layout creates a unique website where the user is placed first. The best way to go about this is to place yourself in your customer's shoes and prioritize the elements that best drive home your goals for the website.
My favorite example of properly placed elements is this landing page for Zirtual’s email management service. Right above the fold, you get a bold but concise USP followed by two CTAs to move the user to action. To add a ‘convincing element’ even before deciding to scroll down, you also get a captivating testimonial from one of their satisfied clients.
You can use methods such as surveys, focus groups, and brainstorming sessions to decide what the crucial digital design elements should be. The analysis can also tell you which elements should be at the top and which additional elements are to place closer to the bottom. All in all, this creates a visual experience that blends well throughout the site.
7. Keep Your Website Updated
Keeping a website updated is just as important as the initial designing process. An outdated website won't attract new leads and updates to search engine algorithms will render certain aspects obsolete or inefficient compared to the latest changes and advancements.
Unique websites constantly update their content, functionality, capabilities, and device compatibility to meet current trends and technological advancements. For example, an outdated website that does not have a responsive design will likely lose out on making it to the top of search engine result pages even if it releases a blog post consistently.
Similarly, a website with an interactive design will only drive traffic if the content is updated and relevant. Knowing that, maintaining a unique website requires regular updates and checks to make sure it stays on the radar of its target audience.
After all, what completes a website's uniqueness is how people interact and engage considering their needs as a consumer.
Why Is A Unique Website Design Important For Business Success?
It's easy to create a unique website using online tools and features. With a unique website, there is more potential for higher sales, more leads, and a sustainable way to achieve a sizable return on investments for a business.
Here are 3 reasons why a unique website is a must for businesses today:
I. It's Your 24-Hour Emissary
A unique website is ideal for promoting your business, even during closing hours. Because anyone can access your website from anywhere, those looking for information on your business can quickly look into your website to find the answers they need.
What's more, a unique website design presents your business just as well (or better) than a personalized sales call or customer service query. Adding a unique touch of elements enables your business to stand out.
The unique look of your website then creates a lasting impression that shows you value your business and the relationship it builds with those it engages with.
With that in mind, creating a stunning website becomes a surefire way to ensure your business is properly represented whenever and wherever your customers are so that your earning potential does not stop once you close shop for the day.
II. It's The Best Way To Show People Your Brand Identity
Part of what makes web design so significant is the ability to personalize and customize the elements to mirror your brand image and personality. A business's brand identity is crucial in connecting with its target market on a meaningful level, making customers more likely to buy products and services from your brand.
Websites with a uniquely immersive experience directly reflect a business's core values, vision, and mission and how they conduct themselves. Think of a business website as a well-put-together outfit. An appropriately dressed professional is more likely to make a lasting impression than a professional with the same aptitude but under or over-dressed for the situation.
Likewise, the design decisions made for a website accentuate what your business is about and how it plans to achieve its goals in the industry. Showing your business personality through a website can mean something other than working with a top-of-the-line creative agency. You can also explore do-it-yourself website creators available online.
There are tons of pre-built website templates that showcase brand personality just as well. All it takes is an eye for creativity and a surefire goal on what the site aims to accomplish. Once those are ironed out, your business's personality will definitely find a way to shine through in the web design.
III. A Unique Website Drives Traffic And Conversions
Unique and well-thought-out websites drive traffic and conversions left and right. Investing time and effort into designing a clean, crisp, and functional website makes visitors more likely to respond to your CTAs and attract more potential customers.
Business websites are the new advertising mediums for both small and large businesses. Nowadays, your business website is the first place most people look at when they decide to buy something.
So, it's essential to have a unique website design that checks off all the components that make it functional, appealing, and engaging to your target demographic. Fortunately, it’s much easier to find creative, functional, and aesthetic business web design packages that make it easy for entrepreneurs to make their perfect site.
Conclusion
The digital age has brought about a highly competitive business environment where everyone is vying for attention and recognition from the same groups of people. Because most markets are saturated with similar products and services targeting a specific demographic, a unique website is a significant aspect of setting your business apart.
Combining all the critical components like navigation, functionality, color, layout, and theme functionally places your business in the spotlight and blows away the competition.
Take the easy route in designing your business website at Strikingly. You can access hundreds of website templates with easy-to-edit elements. Plus, you'll have the freedom to personalize each template to fit your business personality and goals.
Author Bio
Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. He helps innovative B2B companies implement revenue-driven SEO strategies to scale their organic traffic to 1,000,000+ visitors per month. Curious about what your true traffic potential is?
