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Professional web design: inspiration, trends and tips

Design

Written by Niek van Son MSc on January 22, 2025

Niek van Son

Last updated January 28, 2025

Introduction

Want to have a new Web site created or give your current Web site a new design? Many business owners build their website themselves or have a student or cousin do it for them. Although building a website indeed does not have to be difficult, we still recommend choosing a professional web design. In this blog post, we'll explain why.

What are the benefits of a professional website?

First, let's list the benefits of professional web design.

  • Fast loading time. A professional website is lightning fast. This will make your visitors happy, but also ensures a higher conversion rate. The slower your website, the fewer leads and/or sales.
  • Higher conversion. Good design also takes into account conversion optimization (CRO) to get the maximum return from your website.
  • Website compatibility: your company's website is viewed by visitors on a variety of devices. Your website must also be easy to use and read on a cell phone or tablet. A responsive website adapts to the screen size on which it is viewed, without sacrificing user-friendliness.
  • User-friendly. Your Web site should have a good user experience (UX). Visitors should be able to easily navigate through your website and quickly find what they are looking for.
  • Trustworthiness. People have more confidence in a professional website than in one that looks less professional.
  • Visible in Google. When designing a professional website, search engine optimization (SEO), or your findability in Google, is taken into account. If people are searching for your service or product then you want to rank high, you naturally want them to find your website. We'll explain more about SEO to you later in this blog post.

What are the components of a professional web design?

Hopefully you are convinced that you should have your website created by a professional web designer. Now we will explain to you the components of web design.

  • Website layout. How is your website structured? Think about navigation menus, sidebars, footer, images and text. Layout on large screens is different than on smartphones.
  • Color scheme and fonts. These have a big impact on how visitors feel when they visit your Web site. The color scheme and fonts should match your corporate identity and are part of your brand identity. Haven't established one yet? Then read our article on brand identity.
  • Website structure. How is the content of your website structured? The structure should be logical and you need to consider SEO (more on that later).
  • Functionality. What do you want visitors to do on your Web site. Do you want them to contact you? Then you want a contact form on your Web site. Do you want to sell products? Then your Web site should offer the ability to order and pay for those products.

Why is SEO important?

When (re)designing, you must consider SEO. After all, Google is still by far the largest source of traffic for websites. When designing a website, you make choices that impact the organic visibility of your website in Google. If you make good choices, you'll reap the benefits with free visitors through Google. However, if you make bad choices, you won't be able to reverse them easily. We therefore recommend the following.

  • Have a search term study done. This examines what terms your potential customers are searching for in Google. With these search terms, you want to take into account the content on your website. It also gives insight into the questions and problems your target audience has.
  • You use this keyword research for the structure of your website. This provides a logical structure for your visitors and for Google.
  • To make your Web site highly visible in Google, it is important that your Web pages are properly indexed. Several things are important for this, such as creating a sitemap.
  • Are you going to migrate your website, for example, to another domain or content management system. This is always a risky operation for SEO. If not done properly, you risk losing your valuable rankings in Google. If you do it right, the SEO value will be carried over to your new website.
  • The above things are not usually done by a web designer. We recommend enlisting the help of an experienced online marketing agency for this purpose.

Where do you get web design inspiration?

Before your web designer gets to work on your new website, we recommend getting some inspiration on your own first. It will save you money and time if you have already thought about what your website design could look like.

 

Web design trends

Of course, you want your new web design to follow the latest trends. In 2024, we see several web design trends coming along:

  • Less-is-more is over. Instead, it is more-is-more, with overstimulated, busy and screaming images and fonts. Maximalism, in other words!
  • The Y2K era makes its reappearance with retro futuristic designs, neon and metallic colors that clash and give the "low-fi" feel.
  • Almost tangible interactions: textures in typography, fluid-like backgrounds and moving images.
  • Rounded corners appeal to the Apple-focused Gen Z generation.

 

Sources of inspiration

Online you can find plenty of web design examples and inspiration. For web design inspiration, for example, go to:

  • Web design inspiration: a free inspiration platform for UX designers, marketing teams and entrepreneurs.
  • Awwwards: this is where the best web design examples judged by a professional jury are displayed.
  • Smashing Magazine: perhaps the greatest when it comes to web design inspiration.
  • Pinterest: follow (web) design agencies or designers that appeal to you and save beautiful designs on a board of your own.
  • Look at what competitors are doing: what appeals to you about their web design? Is it the font? Is it the buttons or the headers?

How to choose a good web designer?

You have good, concrete ideas for your new, professional website, but how do you choose a good web designer? How do you know if a web designer is good? Every designer says they are good and from the outside it is very difficult to judge whether a web designer is really good. It starts with asking the right questions?

  • Ask what Web sites the Web developer is proud of. Then ask why and what choices and trade-offs were made.
  • Also ask how those websites contributed to the goals of the website and what tactics were used. Most designers can create a beautiful Web site, but this is not the same as an effective Web site.
  • Ask about what content management system (CMS) the Web site builder uses. Ask if the CMS generates canonicals, a sitemap and robots.txt. It is a red flag if a Web designer answers no to this or cannot give a clear answer right away.
  • Ask in your own network for good web developers. Preferably ask entrepreneurs who understand (online) business.
  • Also, listen carefully to the questions the web designer asks you. Does he understand your business well and does he think about how your website can grow your business. Does he come up with good ideas himself or does he simply implement what you ask. A professional web developer is proactive and uses his experience to create a website that helps your business move forward.

 

Also, before talking to a web designer, we recommend that you educate and read up on yourself. For the choice of CMS, we can recommend WordPress . This CMS is user and SEO friendly. If you want to start an online store, read our blog post about starting an online store. Still unsure which e-commerce platform to use for your webshop? With our article on the platforms WooCommerce vs Shopify we will help you make a choice. Good luck!

Niek van Son
THE AUTHOR

Niek van Son MSc

Marketing Management (MSc, University of Tilburg). 10+ years of experience as an online marketing consultant (SEO - SEA). Occasionally writes articles for Frankwatching, Marketingfacts and B2bmarketeers.nl.

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