10 Useful Techniques To Make Your Site Stand Out

Gone are the days when having a website would be sufficient, now you have to not just make a website, but make an awesome one that has an upper hand over your competitors’ sites.

But there are only so many ways designers can creatively design a website. Sometimes, as a designer, you run out of creative juices. And the end result is a boring dull website that would die a slow death in the dark corners of the internet.

While the objective of the website and the maintenance part comes into play too, design is on of the most important aspects of a website. And when a client comes to you with expectations of getting a stunning website created, you have to live up to it.

Let’s look at some of the ideas that are changing the designing landscape and giving designers tons of tools and concepts to include in regular design work.

1. Video Background

It’s the new in thing. Video backgrounds are a great way to captivate your audience within a short span of time. And, it’s an excellent way to give a chance visitor a reason to linger for some time more.

Backgrounds are often left blank, at most people would put a pattern on it but the video background  is perfect for telling your brand story. If you have this on your own website, then use this to creatively showcase your designing prowess too. There are so many ways you can use a video background to work in your favour. It’s easy to create them and easier to integrate them.

2. Pay special attention to the images

A website without images would be so bland, not that there could ever be a website without an image. Images are pretty much a part of the basic recipe of a good website, but good images could be the deciding factor.

Most designers turn to Shutterstock and other such websites to source high-resolution images but do these resonate with your audience? The generic and rather a fake feel to it just don’t cut it.

Use professionally shot pictures or enhance what images you already have with some awesome effects on it. Effects can drastically improve an image, and context-specific images work so much better than the generic ones.

So if you have a business retailing turf grass and associated items, go for good landscape picture  or if your website is more on the high-end side like a fashion e-commerce, then glamorised pictures  will add a lot of face value to your site.

If you don’t want to invest in getting professionally clicked pictures for websites, it would come to a lot handy if you learn how to click images. You don’t have to do a full on a professional course, there are a lot of tutorials and e-books available online that you can start with, here’s a good one we picked for you.

3. Parallax Effect

The Parallax scrolling, although has been around for years, is now being implemented in web designing in a big way. You see websites like ihatetomatoes celebrating 25 years of Nintendo’s and a lot of other websites also have this on in some or the other way.

The Parallax scrolling — with the background and foreground being loaded at different speeds — can add a charm to your site without you having to put in a lot of work. It has a sophisticated and unique feel to it and it not just works with the designing aspects, the 3D effect of it can make your product appear in 3D.

Besides increasing the visual appeal of a site, you can also increase engagement by using this effect.

4. Do what others don’t

There are a lot of minute things that most other websites don’t have, like a timer plugin when the website is down for maintenance or when you’re launching a new website and want to intimate the readers about it. Not only is this a great marketing tactic but it also keeps existing visitors in the loop.

And a timer plugin also comes into work when you want to announce a sale or countdown or up to the end of one.

5. Sliders aren’t your worst enemy

So designers don’t agree with the concept of sliders on a website, we get that. But this is a great move to showcase the client’s products and to capture the visitor’s attention in one go. The aim of a website is to meet its objectives, and the aim of a designer working on a website is to keep it functional while maintaining its aesthetics.

A slider does just that and perfectly well. Whether you choose it to showcase the products or portfolio elements, sliders are attention-grabbing and helps with conversions. When you look for sliders, choose one that stands apart, like this one that has KenBurns Effect making not just the slider different (in a good way) than the other sliders but also giving the website an overall superior feel.

6. Mundane things that can make a great difference

While the aforementioned ideas are unique on its own accord, here’s a list of small mundane inclusions on every website that you can play with to create a consolidated superior look.

7. Fonts

Have you ever decided to look beyond the list of fonts that are available. There are fonts that can work wonders for the theme and brand image of a website. High-end websites should choose classy fonts while one with a fun element to it should go for quirkier ones. Or if you can’t find anything at all, go for calligraphic font , these look good on almost everything it is used to write.

8. Menu options

The boring bland menu options are what every website would have by default. Why not do something different, make it look better, add a stylish element to it? Use semi-circular or circular menu options when you don’t have a lot of options to display. This is a great freebie for the circular menu option that you can include and that would instantly be the centre of attraction on a dull boring website.

9. Icons

Another must-have on every website, icons can do so much more than just the regular social ones they are used for.Use business-specific icons for business websites, food ones for a culinary website, and fashion specific ones for an apparel retailing website, when you look for and include icons that match the theme of the website, it only adds on to its value.

But yes, icons are important for social sharing as well, so make sure you have a set of generic ones for these too.

10. Ribbons

From making a website look happy-go-lucky to using it in smaller subtle ways can create a bigger impact. Ribbons can be a quick way to redo something on the website, whether it’s the header section, a product page, or simply an entire web page, you can use ribbons to create a good change.

More than efforts, it takes creativity to make a website stand out. Hope this idea helped fuel your creative juices and equipped you to create stunning websites.