When Less is More: An Introduction to Minimalist Website Design

Minimalism is a trend that garners a lot of debate and discussion in the website design community. As a result, chances are good that you’ve heard of minimalist design and seen its principles in practice on sites that you visit day in and day out. But what exactly is minimalist design? And is it the right choice for your site?

Minimalism defined

In website design, minimalism can easily be construed as plain, lackluster or easy to accomplish. However, that is quite far from the truth. To the contrary, minimalism is a philosophy of web design that strives to eliminate all unessential features and elements in order to enhance usability by providing a clean, streamlined browsing experience that is absent of unnecessary distractions and clutter.

Focus

Every successful minimalist design starts with a crystal-clear vision of the purpose of the site and the key messages it needs to convey. Before any design choices are made, it’s critical to outline the goals and content of the site. This requires determining what information is most vital to visitors and arranging it in order of significance. You might actually be amazed to discover how little information is actually required to help users make decisions or accomplish their goals.

Typography

Because minimalist design is reduced to only its most essential visual elements, the site’s content takes center stage. As a result, typography is key to capturing the user’s attention. The choice and usage of typefaces in minimal design is critical to creating a unique look and feel that makes a lasting impression on visitors. Therefore, it’s important to choose a combination of typefaces that both reflect the personality of the brand and provide a clean, pleasurable user experience. Yet again, restraint is key, as using too many different fonts can make the site feel unorganized and chaotic. Beyond the choice of typeface, attention to detail in size, color, spacing and weight is important to ensuring readability and defining the overall aesthetic of the site. The WPShower website offers a good example of the role typography plays in setting the tone for minimalist design, with an easy-to-read yet somber font for the main caption and a quiet font for the menus.

Color

A common myth of minimalism in website design is that it entails a lack of color. While many minimalist websites do feature a color palette that is limited to black and white, this is merely an aesthetic choice, not a requirement. Instead, just as with all other elements of minimalist design, color should be deployed in ways that emphasize focus and restraint. Minimalist sites commonly employ a single continuous background color that sets the mood or tone for the site. A carefully chosen accent color is then employed to draw the user’s attention to key features of the site, such as navigational elements or important points within the content. It’s important to ensure that the accent color is not used to excess, or else it will lose its impact. For instance, take a look at authentic style, the design portfolio of William Smith. The background is brown, with another shade of that very color used as accent, yielding an overall effect that is minimal, clean and neat.

Layout

Layout is a make-or-break element of minimalist design. It requires proper execution and an absolute lack of ambiguity. All elements should work together to keep the primary focus on the site’s content. Minimalist design requires special attention to certain key elements. For example, the company name and logo should be in a prominent location in order to establish the site’s identity and promote the brand. Next, as with any site, ease of navigation is critical. Navigation menus should be convenient to locate and use on any device or platform. If visitors are forced to scavenge for information, the website will not be popular, no matter how beautiful it is. For instance, take a look at the website of The Mavenist – a minimalist design featuring awesome typography and a user-friendly layout. Also, it is often incorrectly assumed that a minimal website design excludes images and graphics. After all, we are concentrating on good typography, few colors and highly structured layouts, so images will only introduce chaos, right? Actually, no. Images are an important component of any website’s content, and in minimalist design, images can be used to powerful effect in the absence of other competing graphical elements. For example, take a look at the Clean Dessign theme. It is loaded with images and yet maintains restraint in terms of layout and design.

White space

White space – also known as “negative space” – simply refers to the area on a web page that is not occupied by any design elements or text. Even though it is called “white space,” it does not actually have to be white. This term merely refers to the space that exists between content. White space is a critical element of any design – not just minimalism. It can be tempting to fill this empty space in order to make the best use of the available real estate on the page. However, in fact, it is this space between content that helps users make sense of the page and understand which elements are most important. In minimalist design, white space is used to help lead and direct the user’s attention. For example, content that stands alone will draw focus immediately. Furthermore, white space can also be used to group similar items together as well as to create separation and differentiate between elements of various levels of importance.

Getting started with minimalist design

While minimalist design is appealing in its simplicity, it’s not the right choice for every site. It works best for those sites that are centered around serving a singular purpose – whether that’s selling an app or presenting a portfolio of work. So how can you determine whether your site would benefit from being redesigned with a minimalist approach? The answer is more simple than you might think. No matter what business you’re in, your website exists to help that business grow. Therefore, every decision you make with regard to your site should be based on whether it will help to advance your business growth objectives. A good place to start is by evaluating your current website. Make a list of its various features and components. Now arrange that list in order of usage, with the most commonly used ones on top. From there, go down the list and eliminate any that are not often used or are not essential to supporting the business objectives of your site. If what remains on the list reflects a few relatively simple ideas and functions, your site could be a good candidate for a minimalist redesign. Further exploration with an experienced website design firm will help you identify the ways that your site could be simplified and streamlined. As always, usability trumps all, so any changes must be driven by the goal of providing the best possible experience for visitors that motivates them to take action. Implementing minimalism just because it is a popular trend could ultimately undermine your site’s ability to help you capture and convert new customers. But if your aim is to present a focused message in a powerful way, minimalist design will provide a stage where those ideas can shine.

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Buyer Beware: Your CARFAX Guide to Choosing a Web Domain Name

After days of brainstorming and hours of searching, you’ve finally found the perfect domain for your business – and it’s even a “dot com.” Win! Before you hit the checkout button, be forewarned: the domain you’re about to purchase may a cesspool of spam and other nasties. And don’t count on your registrar to tell you that in advance. Unlike the purchase of a vehicle, used domains don’t come with a Carfax to tell you its mileage, provide insight into its value and essentially advise how well the previous owner treated his or her property. In fact, you won’t even necessarily be notified that the domain has a previous owner! So, how do you determine whether your domain is pre-owned? And if so, how do you uncover any potential SEO risks? Here’s your “Carfax” guide to buying a web domain name:

Start with WHOIS

When you register a domain for the first time, the information you furnish to the registrar is stored in a database. Except in the case of a private registration, that information is publicly available and accessible using a query called WHOIS. When used, WHOIS returns database information so that the site’s domain name, owner, creation date and expiration date, for example, can be viewed. If you’re purchasing your domain from an auction or directly from another consumer, then your domain was obviously pre-owned. However, if you are utilizing a registrar like GoDaddy or NameCheap, then you will need the WHOIS from domaintools.com to pinpoint the domain’s birth date. Enter your newfound domain into http://whois.domaintools.com WHOIS LOOKUP. If the domain has had one or more previous owners, you will see a Registrar History, NS History (Name Server), IP History and Whois History. Next to Whois History is the domain’s “birthday.” If no Whois or Registrar history is shown, then you are the first person to register this URL. But don’t get your hopes up too fast. Even new, unused domains can carry a shoddy SEO history.

Provide some context with web selfies

In its WaybackMachine, web.archive.org provides website snapshots over time. These selfies can provide contextual understanding of how your website was used as far back as 1996. This is particularly useful for understanding anchor text and backlinks.

New or used, check for backlinks

Backlinks pass link juice to a website, which can positively or negatively affect a site’s SEO metrics including PageRank (PR), Domain Authority (DA) and Trust Flow. Even domains without a birthday may have inadvertently acquired links. This is particularly common if a website’s name is close to the spelling of another more popular site. So with each domain purchase, you may be inheriting a blank slate, a goldmine or a deathtrap. As a starting place, OpenSiteExplorer.com or BulkDaChecker.com will provide a quick DA check. DA is Moz’s “best prediction for how a website will perform in search engine rankings.” Many elements, including the domain’s age and its backlinks, are factored into determining DA. And, the higher the DA the more likely you will rank highly in Google SERP. A DA of 1 (out of 100) usually suggests a site has done no link building. However, the only way to be certain is to investigate further with MajesticSEO.com (in both Fresh and Historic Indexes) or ahrefs.com – both websites offer free and paid subscription options. At first glance, the information can be overwhelming.  So, here are the tabs/pages you need to explore:

Anchor Text

The purpose of anchor text is to give readers clues about a link’s content. When a site has been spammed or intentionally implemented Black Hat SEO, the anchor text is usually a dead giveaway. Irrelevant anchors If the domain you’re interested in purchasing is cell-phone-provider-online.com, for example, “Versace shoes” anchor text does not make sense. If you happen to purchase this domain, you’ll want to disavow or manually request removal of these links. Poker, porn, payday loan or prescription anchors Usually bad company does not come alone – if you see one Viagra or Online Poker anchor text, you’ll see another. Also watch for unexpected women’s names like Lucinda and Lolita; this typically indicates pornography backlinks. Non-English anchors Unless the site previously targeted non-English-speaking customers, you should not see any foreign anchor text. Repetition of exact-match anchor When a site acquires links naturally, it is rare to find repetition of the same anchor text over multiple sites.  For example, if you sell desk chairs, one website may link to you from their content using your domain name, another will use “office chairs,” and a third may lead in customers with the word “website.”  If the occurrence of a single anchor text over multiple sites stands out to you as appearing unnatural, then it likely is – and this may have been the result of old-school link building tactics that are now being penalized.

Referring Domains

A referring domain is a site that links to your domain. On both MajesticSEO and ahrefs.com, referring domains are sorted in order by number of links for your convenience. Unnatural distribution of links As a general rule of thumb: if greater than 50 percent of your links come from less than 10 percent of your referring domains, then this is a red flag. As an example, let’s say you have 5,000 total links. Of that 5,000, 3,000 come from a single domain, another 1,000 are from a second domain followed by one, two and three links from a series of other domains. This concentration of links from one or two domains may indicate the presence of a link network or site-wide links – two things that will position you for Google penalties. Foreign top-level domains (TLD) When in high volume, foreign TLDs like .ru, .br, and .fr will point to spam. You will likely want to disavow these domains.

Follow-to-nofollow ratio

A quick check of the follow-to-nofollow ratio (available from MajesticSEO and ahrefs dashboards) will help identify if your site has accumulated comment, forum or user-generated profile spam. A link portfolio of more than 50% nofollow links is worth additional investigation. In such a case, dig deeper into the actual nofollow links to determine their origin.

Check for Google penalty indicators

SEMRush is a favorite tool among many Internet marketers. It’s known primarily for its support of keyword research. However, with a little deductive reasoning, you can use those same tools to identify if a site has been penalized. Here are the dates you’ll need from the exercises above: From WHOIS:

• Use domain birthday (creation) as your starting point
• Note dates where there were changes in domain ownership

From the WaybackMachine:

• Note any redesigns or periods of maintenance

From Moz:

• Note dates of major Google algorithm changes

From the SEMRush.com home page, enter your domain. In the traffic viewer, select “2 years.” A normal traffic pattern for a website will appear similar to sine wave with natural dips for seasonality and having an upward-and-to-the-right trend. If your two-year view does not show enough data to see this, expand to “All Time.” Dips in organic traffic are expected when a site is down over along period for maintenance, for redesign or for change in ownership. If in addition to these natural changes you still a significant drop in organic traffic, Google may have penalized the site. And while there is no way to confirm the penalty without access to the site’s original Webmaster Tools, traffic patterns have historically proven the best litmus test – rapgenius.com is a recent example.

Is the website safe?

Worst than penalties is malicious content. A site marked for hosting malware will have been blacklisted by search engines, Internet browsers and the like – and is therefore not a domain you should invest in. Use Google’s Safe Browsing to determine if your future domain has been sited for hosting malware in the last 90 days. To inspect, replace yahoo.com in the link below with your domain. http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=yahoo.com If you decide to take on a site with a soiled SEO history, get ready for many rounds of research, link removal requests and inclusion requests. Based on your findings, you’ll have to determine if it’s worth it. If it’s the domain of a lifetime, then maybe it is.  But if not, there are many more domains out there, and with a little bit of time, you can find the right one for you.

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