6 Tips to Make Your Site Look Modern

Did you know it takes on average .05 seconds for a visitor to form an opinion about your website’s appearance? That’s not very much time to win ‘em over.

Hopefully, people’s first impression about your website is a good one. If your site looks outdated or not purposefully designed, it could effect how visitors perceive your business’ credibility, or the products or services you provide.

Having a modern-looking site is a great way to wow your visitors in those first few seconds. Modern sites are visually engaging, attention-grabbing, and easy to read. Here are 6 tips to make your site look modern.

A website we designed for The Friday Habit, a podcast for business owners

1. Good use of space

Modern sites have intentional breathing room around text and images. They are minimalistic, meaning they don’t have clutter or excess content.

A good example of this is The Friday Habit, a podcast site we built. The negative space around the text and images makes the site feel spacious and modern, which ideally will engage visitors and make them want to interact with the content.

A website we designed for Eyeful Media, a marketing agency

2. Beautiful typography

Modern sites are designed with type in mind. The headlines are typically larger and are paired with easy-to-read, bite-sized body copy. Some of our favorite modern fonts are:

In the example above, Eyeful Media, we’re using Ivy Presto and Poppins.

A website we designed for EST Creative, a copywriting agency in Boston

3. Strong color palette

Your color palette can be the first thing to sabotage that modern style you’re going for. But how do you know if it’s dated? Something I like to do is look through Pinterest for modern color palettes, artwork, websites or even home interiors. You should notice some common trends. If your color palette seems dated in comparison, it’s probably time to explore a new one.

Keep in mind, your color palette should elevate your brand and make your site feel fresh and inviting. Also, colors should be applied in a balanced and tasteful way. For EST Creative, we came up with a combo of navy and reddish/pink, with bright yellow accents.

A website we designed for Health Grizzly, a health care providers resource

4. Dynamic layouts

Spruce up your sections with dynamic layouts. Not only does this make your site look more interesting, it will also keep your visitors engaged. Dynamic layouts can include staggered images, text that overlaps an image, or an image with a unique cutout shape next to some text (to name a few). Try to avoid full-width, large blocks of text, which can look crammed and dated.

An example of this is Health Grizzly. We use curved transitions and unique image shapes to make the layouts dynamic.

A website we designed for The Ashby Firm, a legal firm in Georgia

5. Full-width photos or videos

High quality photos and videos can be a great way to make your site look modern. Here are two examples of ways we like to incorporate this:

A background video on your homepage that shows you or your team in action
A full-width header image that provides good negative space for text

A website we designed for Motivated Mornings, a coaching company

6. Subtle animations

Modern sites often have subtle and tasteful animations as the visitor transitions through the site. For example, images sliding up, icons fading in, or numbers counting up from 0.

Make sure the animations are subtle and provide some movement, but are not distracting. Big animations, like a giant image sliding in abruptly, probably won’t feel very modern.