First impressions go a long way. This applies to meeting new people, but also to business interactions between a brand and its clients. In ecommerce, a prospective customer’s first impression of your business often stems from a visit to your website, so your web design choices profoundly impact how your brand is first perceived.
Research suggests that website visitors form opinions about web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds. Creating a solid first impression with fresh web design ideas is quite simple and achievable. Here are a few website design ideas for inspiration and tips for making it happen on your website.
10 well-designed websites to be inspired by
There are two main steps to building a website: inspiration and execution. In terms of execution, you can create your own site using consumer design templates, or hire a web designer to build one from scratch. Regardless, you need solid web design ideas to start building the best website for your business. Here are 10 beautifully constructed websites, built using Shopify themes, for web design inspiration:
1. The Sill
The Sill specializes in plants and plant accessories, and it subtly informs visitors of this with its site color scheme: a white background with muted, earthy colors.
2. Allbirds
Allbirds peppers its site with words like “sustainable,” “tree,” “lighten,” and “breezy,” which it pairs with photos of natural materials and innovative construction, demonstrating how some of the best website designs blend words and images to tell a unified story.
3. Away
Luggage maker Away greets website visitors with multiple calls to action, using clickable text with phrases like “Shop now” and “Learn more.” Away spends little time on brand backstory and gets right to the point of selling luggage.
4. Brooklinen
Brooklinen’s site navigation groups all of Brooklinen’s offerings into four categories: Bed, Bath, Robes & Loungewear, and Home & Decor. This minimalist approach aligns with Brooklinen’s business model: simplifying the process of buying bedding.
5. Mejuri
Mejuri, which sells everyday fine jewelry, bucks standard web design trends by placing its options menu in the homepage’s center. The site is forward in its invitation to engage with products and become customers.
6. Glossier
Beauty retailer Glossier sells products “designed with your real beauty routine in mind.” Unlike many other ecommerce sites, it lists prices directly on its home page. Glossier highlights the affordability of its products and demonstrates how they can fit into a person’s everyday routine.
7. ThirdLove
ThirdLove’s website greets visitors with oversized text reading: “It’s not your boobs. It’s the bra,” immediately followed by two calls to action—“Shop all bras” and “Find your fit”—for quick customer conversions.
8. Outdoor Voices
Navigate to the Outdoor Voices homepage and you’ll find a full-screen video of a woman wearing a comfortable dress as she happily goes about her life. Without reading a line of text, you’ve already beheld the company’s central sales proposition: to sell you stylish dresses that you can wear anywhere, not just to the office or a formal gathering.
9. Casper
Casper’s website offers an interactive quiz inviting visitors to describe their sleep style, which it uses to suggest mattresses and bedding products. By offering a selection of products customized to the visitor’s unique preferences, the site prompts greater customer engagement.
10. Ritual
Ritual’s website stands out for its clear, consistent yellow, navy blue, and white color scheme. This pairs with headings like “You deserve traceability” and “Skeptics Speak.” The message is clear: Ritual’s vitamins and supplements are safe and trustworthy.
8 elements of good website design
Whether you’re revamping your own website or building a new one from scratch, you can apply fundamental design elements to help your visitors learn about your brand, engage with your products, and make purchases. Here are eight key features:
- Simple and clean design
- Easy navigation
- High-quality product photography and video
- Mobile-responsive design
- Search and filtering options
- Smooth shopping cart and checkout process
- Visual hierarchy
- Search engine optimization
1. Simple and clean design
Web development tools offer all kinds of design capabilities, from background videos and splashy animations for your landing page to color schemes and font styles. However, veteran web designers know the risk of overloading users with too much visual information. Many of the best website design ideas feature plenty of white space and negative space around text and images to keep site visitors engaged and focused on the essential information.
2. Easy navigation
Once site visitors are in your ecommerce store, they should have no problem navigating to its various sections and product pages. Most website templates feature navigation menus that are organized and consistent across all pages.
3. High-quality product photography and video
When you sell merchandise online, your photos and videos convey the value of your products; customers can’t pick up or try your goods. The quality of each image could be the difference between a sale and a customer looking elsewhere. Be picky about the photos and videos you post, and consider investing in professional photography or videography if you can afford it. (Images should also be optimized for web use, meaning they should balance file size and quality to ensure fast load times without sacrificing image clarity. A resolution of 72 pixels per inch [PPI] is for standard web use.)
4. Mobile-responsive design
With each passing year, consumers make more online purchases on mobile devices. Responsive web design adapts to different screen sizes, ensuring that your site is easy to use on a touch screen. Your ecommerce store will be more accessible to customers if it properly loads all page elements regardless of the device, be it a phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
5. Search and filtering options
As your website grows and your store expands, it might include more product pages—too many for a straightforward navigation menu. Add a search tool to your site to help customers find the pages they’re looking for. The search function should be prominently placed and easy to use. Depending on your website-building platform, you may be able to include a filtered search that lets visitors hone in on a specific price range, color, size, or other criteria.
6. Smooth shopping cart and checkout process
If the goal of your website is to sell your product or service, make the checkout flow as simple as possible. Many ecommerce web designs display the shopping cart status on every page to help visitors keep track of their pending purchases. The checkout flow should feel friction-free and highly secure, allowing customers to quickly enter their payment and shipping info to complete their transactions. Forms are critical to this process but can be frustrating if they’re too long or complicated.
7. Visual hierarchy
Visual hierarchy is the practice of arranging visual elements in order of importance. In ecommerce, the most effective kinds of website galleries are those that emphasize the products you most want to sell, whereas you can find other products further down the page or by entering keywords in a search bar. Give certain products a more prominent position based on popularity, price point, or novelty.
8. Search engine optimization
Ecommerce vendors depend on search engines to attract new website visitors. Many of the most effective website designs include content designed for search engine optimization (SEO). Adding elements like meta descriptions and image optimization can help prospective customers find you on a search engine results page (SERP). The content on your website should be easy to read and understand. Use clear and concise language, and break up long paragraphs with headings and subheadings to make the content more scannable.
Website design ideas FAQ
What are the key elements of good website design?
When designing a new website, hone in on key elements like a unified color scheme, fonts, ease of navigation, fast load times, and an intuitive checkout process. These help you state a clear brand identity and improve a customer’s journey on your site.
How important is responsive design for a website?
Mobile-responsive design is a must for today’s ecommerce websites. While many customers shop on laptop or desktop computers, an increasing amount make purchases on mobile touchscreen devices, like smartphones and tablets. When your site renders quickly and properly on these devices, you increase your odds of landing a sale. If you choose to build your ecommerce site with Shopify, you have access to its suite of Shopify themes, all of which automatically respond to desktop and mobile browsers.
How often should I update my website’s design?
Many brands update their website design to help mark the launch of a new product or a new sales period (such as the summer fashion season or holiday shopping season). If you’re confident in your web design skills, you can update your site on your schedule. If you prefer to enlist a professional’s web design services, get on their calendar well in advance to avoid peak rush times, like the lead-up to the holidays.
