Ever found yourself on a website thinking, “What the heck do I look at first – this design is so cluttered and crazy?” Unfortunately, not every website is well designed.
This is why the concept of “clean” website design plays a huge role in how your audience reacts and interacts with your brand.
Representing your business with a clean, professional website is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience while also separating yourself from the competition.
Clean, nonintrusive page layouts, alignment choices, stylistic fonts, and colors all work together to improve your user experience and build viewer trust in your company; this trust fuels lead generation, and it can eventually bring more customers to your business.
Powerful website design doesn’t have to be flashy or even striking to viewers. Some of the most effective modern website designs actually make use of open space, fluidity, and simple organization to connect with visitors.
When building a clean website to represent and promote your business, you’ll first need to understand what cleanliness is as it pertains to web design. Website cleanliness is rooted in meticulous refinement.
Clean website design takes the functionality of minimalism and improves upon it with effective stylistic and visual choices. Cleanliness isn’t about keeping information and content to a minimum, but rather streamlining that content for an optimal and engaging user experience.
Every individual component of your new website should be carefully considered: from graphics and word spacing to color, layout, and more. The information presented on your website should flow smoothly and reach your visitors with ease.
Clean website designs offer page visitors a full presentation and limit user frustrations with simple navigation tools.
Here are seven elements that work together to create a cleaner website design that will improve the look, functionality, and user experience of your website.
Clean website design uses not only powerful content to build user trust, but it also thrives with micromanagement of spacing, color schemes, sectional alignments, and even typefaces (fonts).
All of these components come together to create a strong image of professionalism; visitors are more receptive to and trustworthy of clean, accessible web layouts, as they appear more put together – which is how they will perceive your brand.
Your website’s visual elements should be perfectly placed and managed, down to the individual pixels that make them. Even minor visual elements, such as shadows and borders, must be considered with the same scrutiny as larger elements.
Individually, these subtle refinements and stylistic choices may seem insignificant, or even frivolous; however, these choices work together to greatly improve the final webpage product.
When seeking cleanliness with your website’s visuals, the end goal should always be perfection, down to the last tiny pixel. Placing text right on top of other elements is not the best way to achieve this.
Eliminate text clutter and graphic cramping from your webpage. Make use of white space, letter and line spacing, padding, and proper margins.
By tweaking the format and placement of your font, you can really open up your website pages to have more “breathing room”; plus, your website will look much more balanced, and content will be significantly easier for visitors to digest.
Your website’s alignment should be smooth and consistent; visitor’s don’t want to see sections jutting into one another or varying sidebar sizes. Even the slightest alignment changes can change a viewer’s impression of your website and your company as a whole.
To avoid this issue, we suggest using a grid layout when designing your webpages. This way, you can be sure every element is aligned and the dimensions of your elements are equal.
Plus, it’s the best way to ensure your website is responsive. A grid layout can help you better understand how things will break/stack responsively instead of things jumbling everywhere.
We know there are millions of different fonts out there – and yeah, some are pretty freaking cool.
However, the best way to build a cleaner website is to choose simple fonts for the bulk of your textual elements. Your headers can definitely be a little more fun and bold as it can grab attention quicker; however the standard font style for the site should be readable and easy for the user to digest while reading paragraphs of blocks.
On that note, we suggest finding a strong pairing of a sans serif font and a serif font. That way, different elements on your page can stand out, but one won’t suck up all the attention from another.
Another typography tip is to stick to a few variations of a font. While different font choices can help users distinguish between different areas on your website, avoid using too many varying fonts. Having many different font sections can make a website look sloppy and unorganized.
When building your clean website, you’ll need to make effective color scheme choices. Like most other components of a clean website design, your color combinations should be easy to digest, flow together, and properly direct visitor focus.
Color schemes should not only be easy on the eyes but also place emphasis on certain sections of your website and page components (e.g., bolder colors for CTAs and other callouts).
For a clean, professional website look, limit the use of bold colors on your website, and instead opt for lighter or neutral color palettes.
Too many colors can take a visitor’s eyes away from where you want them to go, which could ultimately ruin the smooth flow of your website. If you do have a bold color in your company color palette, be sure to use it with purpose. Let its boldness do the talking!
If you want to break up your website somehow, incorporate solid color sections into your design. Solid color backgrounds work with effective page layouts to help distinguish your webpage sections, thus making pages more accessible for visitors.
Clean website designs can also improve the lifespan of your website, as they have proven to date slower than disorganized, unbalanced websites. The unsightly, bulky webpages of a decade ago are the result of time-sensitive technology and design trends.
By focusing on the basic principles of clean webpage design, you can greatly mitigate website aging. A powerful combination of minimalist web design and clear-cut style choices can keep your website attractive for years to come.
When creating a clean website design, streamlined navigation is the key to turning your visitors into leads and leads into customers.
Ideally, your web visitors should know exactly where on your website to click to get the information they desire. Effective website navigation is intuitive and fluid and connects visitors with the appropriate supplementary pages and resources they want.
Naturally, you’ll still want your website to sell your products and services; but how can you possibly promote your offers while chasing style and minimal distraction?
It’s really quite simple.
Your calls-to-action should follow the format of your webpages, using the same color schemes, typography choices, and spacing elements. For websites with a clean design, converting your visitors into leads is all part of a functional, seamless user experience.
Make optional offers, such as downloadable material, simple yet attractive to your audience, and keep calls-to-action consistent with your website’s layout.
Another great way to include attractive conversion elements on your website is to include forms directly on a site page. Not only does this streamline user experience – eliminating the need for a landing page – but it can also wrap up the message of your website page and encourage your users to convert right then and there.
AirBnb knows what its doing. It lets the images do the talking and simplifies the rest with white space and simple typography.
As you scroll, you'll allow your eyes to latch onto a fascinating image, which will then, in turn, inspire you to read the text that accompanies it. Genius!
Talk about clean – Everlane's simplistic website design is truly captivating. They utilize strong imagery as their color elements and leave plenty of breathing room for text. Nothing is cramped, and everything is aligned beautifully.
Since there is a lot of text on Medium's website as you continue to scroll, they do a great job of keeping the rest simple.
Black and white give the page a minimalist aesthetic while allowing colors to pop through the small squarish images. When you have a lot to work with, take notes from Medium.
Kind is a fabulous brand of scrumptious treats, and their website is just as fabulous!
Their use of imagery with transparent backgrounds adds to the simplicity of the page, and they break up different elements by swapping the featured image location or switching to two columns. Plus, their black CTA button really pops against the stark white background of their homepage.
Ellevest is able to break up each section of their pages with different colored backgrounds. With its clean-cut lines, simple typography, and cohesive imagery, this page really flows together as you continue to scroll.
Their two main colors, a sort of teal and chocolate brown combo, are really noticeable throughout, which builds upon the cohesive brand they are trying to present.
With these tips and some website inspiration, it's time to take a step back and ask yourself if your website could use a little refresh.
And, if that is the case, it might be time for a website redesign. With a redesign, you can follow all of these best practices and grab some inspiration of your own. A clean website design will keep your visitors on your page, and with the right elements and content, convert them into potential customers!