Tag: HubSpot

HubSpot : 34 of the Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2022

Your website inspiration journey starts here.

Deciding to create a web presence is a big decision, but the best websites are a culmination of many small decisions. But one major decision that takes time, diligence, and a great deal of inspiration is the design of your website.

In this article, we’re sharing a few dozen of the best website designs we’ve seen. Click the links below to jump to explore website designs that crushed it in the last several years. We’ve also included a bonus section of designs that are just plain cool – so check them out, too!


Where to Get Your Design Inspiration

If you want some design inspo, the good news is that you can find it just about everywhere.

One of the best ways to get inspiration for design is through travel. When you visit new places, you’re forced to get out of your comfort zone and experience something foreign.

What makes design so interesting is that everyone sees it differently and so, there’s always more to discover.

Another way to get design inspiration IRL is through the media. Every day, we are inundated with visual content. We make decisions about what we like, what we don’t like, and continue on our day.

But what if you were more intentional about how you viewed those interactions? You could come out of it with valuable insights.

You also can’t forget to leverage design communities. From design conferences to Reddit forums, there are hundreds of groups out there that can offer inspiration as well as advice.

Now that we’ve covered some IRL design inspiration sources, let’s cover the digital ones.


Website Design Inspiration Sources


1. HubSpot’s Asset Marketplace

HubSpot’s Asset Marketplace houses hundreds of website templates that you can sift through to get inspired for your own website.

The best part of the marketplace is that you can narrow down by industry and feature, allowing you to see the templates that are most relevant.

Once you find a template you like, you can view a live preview of the site to get a full experience then download it if you decide to use it.


2. Dribble

Dribble is where designers go to get inspired and to share their work. The website has everything from animation and branding to illustration and mobile.

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Once you navigate to the “Web Design” tab on the homepage, you can filter results by color scheme, editing software, timeframe, and tags.

Furthermore, if you find a designer whose work you like, you can save the design for future reference and follow their work to see other designs on their profile.

This is an incredible resource to use whether you’re starting from scratch or already have a solid plan in mind.


3. Bēhance

This is another digital platform full of creative inspiration to leverage ahead of your website design project.

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One of the best features on this site is the ability to filter by location. This allows you to see how designers in different regions differ in technique and style.

This can be particularly helpful if you are designing a website for a foreign, unfamiliar market. You can gain interesting insights by evaluating the decisions made by Behance designers.


4. Pttrns

Want to focus on mobile web design? Pttrns is the place to go.

This subscription-based platform allows you to gain access to thousands of mobile design templates and get advice from top designers all over the world.

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Additional features on this platform include:

  • A favorites and collections folder to store your favorite designs.
  • A studio to interact with other designers and get advice.
  • A design guide to understand the strategy behind the designs.

Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2022

  1. IBM
  2. Superlist
  3. Hyer
  4. Swab the World
  5. Newest Americans
  6. Spotify Design
  7. Andy Warhol
  8. Human Interaction Company
  9. Garoa Skincare
  10. 1917: In the Trenches
  11. The Octopus
  12. Nomadic Tribe
  13. Diana Danieli
  14. George Nakashima Woodworkers
  15. crypton.trading
  16. Southwest: Heart of Travel
  17. Overflow
  18. Frans Hals Museum
  19. Simply Chocolate
  20. NOWNESS
  21. Rainforest Guardians
  22. Protest Sportswear
  23. The Teacher’s Guild
  24. Virgin America
  25. Feed
  26. ETQ
  27. Mikiya Kobayashi
  28. Woven Magazine
  29. JOHO’s Bean
  30. World of SWISS
  31. Guillaume Tomasi
  32. The District
  33. Tej Chauhan
  34. Amanda Martocchio Architecture

Free Resource


Free Website Design Inspiration Guide


Fill out this form to see 77 more examples of website design.

From familiar corporations to small businesses, to international organizations, the following sites push the status quo on the web. Whether it’s the design aesthetic, usability, interactivity, sound design, or value that the site provides, each one is a masterpiece in its respective industry and something to aspire to.

Not surprisingly, many organizations exist to highlight these sites and the contributions they make to the web. To help surface some of the most inspirational designs, I gathered several award-winners that have made their way through several key awards organizations – including Red Dot, Awwwards, UX Awards, The Webby Awards, SiteInspire, Best Website Gallery, and FWA.

As you browse through the list, know that each site excels in its own way and seeks to serve a unique purpose. While one site may be an excellent example of visual design, another may be an excellent example of interactivity.

This means that not all of these sites may be “conversion machines” or blueprint ideas that you can easily copy over to your site. Rather, they’re great ways to gain some website design inspiration and see the cutting-edge marketing that’s happening in the different corners of the web.

Keep in mind that web designs are fluid and change often. Some of the designs in this list have changed since they were awarded, but we do our best to keep them up-to-date. We’re confident you’ll find a design here that sparks your creativity.


Read More: 77 Examples of Incredible Website Design

Download this free guide to see even more examples of website blog, homepage, and landing page designs.


Beautiful Award-Winning Websites


Best Website Designs from 2021


IBM’s The Harmonic State


Award: Site of the Month (July 2021), Awwwards

When you land on this IBM web page, it’s clear to see why the design won an award.

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The best way to describe the website is as an immersive experience. In fact, IBM uses both visual and auditory elements to draw the visitor in and keep them engaged.

When you first land on the web page, you’re prompted to put on headphones to get the full experience. Even if you skip this step, you’re drawn in by the interactive background that reacts as your mouse navigates on the page.

In addition, the page is well balanced with a large title that grabs your attention across from a small description with a bold blue CTA.

With a topic as complex as AI, IBM then uses visual storytelling to explain how its Watson tool works in the real world. Visitors can explore three stories through video game-like functions and learn more about the tool.

It’s a fun and effective way to get users engaged in a topic that can be complicated and dry.


Superlist


Award: Site of the Month (April 2021), Awwwards

Superlist is a productivity app that helps teams and individuals change the way they work.

Too often, you land on a website and have to figure out what the brand is about. With Superlist, you know exactly what to expect as soon as you get to the homepage.

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The interactive homepage shows common work accessories, like headphones and keyboard with clear, to-the-point copy.

Superlist effectively uses white space to keep the focus on its copy. However, to facilitate navigation, they include a small button with an arrow icon to indicate that there’s more to see on the page once you scroll.

From there, the fun visuals continue – keeping you engaged as you learn more about the brand.


Hyer


Award: Website of the Month (2022), CSS Design Awards

Want to make a strong impression on your website visitors? Take a page out of Hyer’s book.

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This striking illustration of the airplane, as it slowly moves across the screen, is sure to grab website visitors’ attention.

This page has everything you need in an effective homepage: An image that tells a story but isn’t too distracting, use of white space, easy nav bar, a tagline or slogan, and a clear CTA.

It’s a clean design that’s free of any distractions and invites visitors to learn more about the brand.


Best Website Designs from 2020


Swab the World


Award: Site of the Day (2020), Awwwards

Parallax, bold colors, and negative space shape the design and experience ofSwab the World’s website. The organization brings awareness to stem cell donations. Their mission is to “Make sure every single patient finds their match. Period.” Photos of couples exhibiting love and emotions bring a human element to a historically complex and scientific process.

From a technical perspective, the design makes moving down the page feel natural, ensuring the readers reach each point of copy and every CTA on the homepage.

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Newest Americans


Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

An organization with a responsibility as large as honoring past, present, and future migrating identities needs a beautiful and functional website to help spread the word.Newest Americans champion immigrant experiences in cities across the state of New Jersey. The website uses beautiful imagery of people, places, and items that represent this experience in a way that flows cohesively down the homepage, telling the story of this group of America’s newest citizens.

The website is both visually appealing and functional with a simple navigation menu, stories organized by photos, and a clean press page that puts the most recent articles front and center.

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Spotify Design


Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

Spotify is known for accomplishing its fair share of amazing feats, and its latest iteration ofSpotify.Design is no different. Serving as the hub for all things visual and creative for Spotify, the music and podcast giant gives listeners a look into the who, what, why, and how of what makes the app so sensational.

Bright colors, drop shadows, and smooth animations give this website character and depth. The flat geometric designs with abstract accents make albums and artists practically jump off of the screen.

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Andy Warhol


Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

Artist, film director, and producer Andy Warhol’s life will forever be encapsulated in asplendidly designed website that captures his art style in a digital format. As you peruse the page, your cursor becomes a spotlight that converts every image you hover over into a negative image or inverses the colors of the text you’re reading.

The big, bold text makes a statement and emphasizes just how important copy is to website design. Subtle animations help pace the site and set the tone for each section as you peruse the home page.

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Human Interaction Company


Award: Corporate Website (2020), Red Dot

To see video done right on a website, look no further than theHuman Interaction Company. From the moment you click on the site, the experience is lightning fast. You’re dropped directly into the action – the why, what, and how of Human Interaction and exactly what the team does.

ThisRed Dot Design Award winner aims to bring the study of human interaction to the masses, and in the process, show us just how engaging it can be to learn about it. Don’t get discouraged by their award status though – none of the photos on this site are photoshopped, so it’s a practical example of building quality with the resources you have available.

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Garoa Skincare


Award: Site of the Day (2020), Awwwards

How do you transform the feeling of luxury and practicality into a website?Garoa Skincare provides a blueprint. Whether your product costs half the price of your closest competitor or twice the price, your site can bring a sense of extravagance to just about any product you sell.

High-quality visuals, typefaces that complement each other, and a balance of negative space with useful copy can bring a simplistic elegance to your website.

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Best Website Designs from 2019


1917: In the Trenches


Award: Awwwards’ Best Website of the Day (2019)

This website, made to promote the film 1917, allows you to walk around the trenches and perform the same mission that the characters did in the film. You can also see their maps or access other tools.

This is a great example of a site that went above and beyond with interactivity as well as a site that leverages its content and prewritten storyline to market its film. This website won Site of the Day byAwwwards, which allows designers to vote and nominate great websites they see daily.


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The Octopus: A design blog by IDEO


Award: Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award

IDEO, a global design company, won the Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award for itsOctopus blog, and for good reason. The blog features a sleek, black-and-white Octopus drawing as its homepage design, and uses yellow, black, and white to create a cohesive theme as you scroll.

If you hover over a blog post, the title is highlighted in yellow. If you hover over an image, the image is pulled towards you – two small features that make a big difference in terms of creating a unique and engaging user experience.

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Nomadic Tribe


Award: Awwwards’ Site of the Year nomination (2019)

This site, which was nominated forAwwards’ Site of the Year, is one of the more engaging sites I’ve seen.

Thehomepage immediately begins playing a stunning video featuring a man walking across a desert, followed by gorgeous landscape scenes and text like, “Are you lucky enough to call yourself an adventurer?”

The text throughout the website is playful, with colorful pinks and oranges and yellows, and the homepage is logically designed, with CTAs placed throughout that range in commitment-level from “Read More” to “Watch Now” and, finally, “Download the App”.

Ultimately, the website is beautifully designed with strong attention to detail, and tells a compelling story throughout.


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Diana Danieli


Award: Webby 2019

This 2019 Webby-winning site shows off imagery of art and architecture with either high contrast or heavy exposure. As a website visitor, you can click and drag your mouse to change the photos and variations. Each image shows a piece of work that highlights the artist who owns the website.

A cool plus about this website is its incorporation of audio and music. Clicking on certain buttons on the screenplays a piano note and truly immerses you in the Diana Danieli experience.

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George Nakashima Woodworkers


Award: Webby 2019

Thiswoodworking website emphasizes nature and care for the woodworking trade. It’s essentially a slideshow of beautiful forestry and farming images. As a new image comes on the screen, a new quote related to wood or trees also comes up.

This is incredibly relaxing to the visitor and shows that the woodworkers recognize the beauty of trees and the environment. This website alsowon a Webbie in 2019.

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Best Website Designs from 2018


crypton.trading


Award: Site of the Day (4/3/2018), Awwwards

Meet crypton.trading, your robot accountant.

Crypton.trading is a trading hub for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, using artificial intelligence to predict changes in a currency’s value and identify key buying and selling opportunities. The website was rated high for its development and design, as it gradually explains more of the developer’s methods the further down visitors scroll.

This award-winning website makes tech-savvy visitors feel right at home the moment Crypton’s greeting appears across the homepage, one letter at a time.

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Southwest: Heart of Travel


Award: Best Visual Design – Aesthetic, 2018 Webby Awards

When Southwest Airlines wanted to prove that its customers were “more than just a dollar sign,” the company created a website where the design was assembled using the shapes of their customers’ flight paths.

The website, called Heart of Travel, even allows visitors to create their own artwork out of a trip they might plan on taking. In this way, Southwest’s website is a product of their most loyal passengers.

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Overflow


Award: Site of the Day (3/20/2018), Best Website Gallery

Overflow is a design tool that allows people and businesses to create story-like flow diagrams of their ideas so they’re easier for others to understand. Aside from this being just a good service, the Overflow website practices what it preaches: Along with vibrant red call-to-action buttons for downloading the tool, this website promotes its product the best way it knows how – using a flow diagram.

The website delivers this flow diagram in the form of a video. While embedded videos can look rather clunky sitting in the middle of a website’s other design elements, Overflow’s is perfectly placed and exactly what you’d want to see when landing on the site for the first time.

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Frans Hals Museum


Award: Site of the Year (2018), Awwwards

It can be tough for a museum to present all of its artwork together on a cohesive website. That’s what makes the website of theFrans Hals Museum so impressive.

Located in the Netherlands, this museum has created a website that uses a combination of digital design elements and its own exhibits. This mixture helps visitors understand what they’ll see, when they can see it, and where else they can get a taste of what this museum has to offer.

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Best Website Designs from 2017


Simply Chocolate


Award: Site of the Year (2017), Awwwards

You’ll get a craving for chocolate just looking at this website – and in a way, that’sSimply Chocolate‘s website working as designed.

This appetizing website is that of a Denmark chocolate maker Simply Chocolate. Its website uses a variety of colors (and creative product names) to promote each chocolate bar. And as you scroll from one product to the next, they all seem to remain consistent in brand.

The three-dimensional appearance of each chocolate bar makes you feel like you can grab it off of your computer screen, while the “Add to Box” CTA to the top-left is ideally placed for users to select the products they want while browsing.

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NOWNESS


Award: Best Cultural Blog/Website, 2017 Webby Awards

NOWNESS is perhaps the coolest crowdsourced video blog on the internet. That was a mouthful…what does it all mean?

NOWNESS‘ crowdsourcing is part of what makes it an award-winner. This means most of its content comes from independent creatives – an increasingly popular way for businesses to publish content.

NOWNESS is also a video channel, meaning all of its blog content is in video format. Together, these qualities help make Nowness a captivating hub for the stories that brands everywhere strive to tell.

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Best Website Designs from 2016


Rainforest Guardians


Award: Best Activism Website, 2016 Webby Awards

Rainforest Guardians became one of the most immersive nonprofit websites of 2016. Seeking to build awareness around deforestation, the site allows users to “visit” the various villages, natives, and waterways that make up the Amazon Rainforest.

The site puts interactivity at the center of its user experience – a wise choice if your goal is to get people to connect with your cause and convert into volunteers.

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Protest Sportswear


Award: Site of the Year (2016), Awwwards

The Awwwards callsProtest Sportswear a “shoppable lookbook,” and that’s exactly what this site is. As a clothing outfitter, this company has reinvented the way they market its product: Rather than promoting garments of clothing, Protest Sportswear promotes “looks.”

This makes the company’s product the most appealing part of the website itself, using a collage of styles to design a homepage that changes as often as its customer’s styles do.

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The Teacher’s Guild


Award: Best Association Website, 2016 Webby Awards

The Teacher’s Guild is a professional community of educators that addresses some of the most critical challenges in education. What makes this website award-winning is how it balances diverse content types – programs, solutions, approaches, and collaborations – without overwhelming visitors.

Not only are the background visuals prominently placed, but they also use white space to emphasize the written calls to action at the center, as shown in the screenshot below.

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Best Website Designs from 2015 – 2014


Virgin America


Award: Most Significant Industry Evolution, 2014 UX Awards

In a world where airline websites are known to be riddled with major usability issues,Virgin America has one of the best websites that pushes usability, accessibility, and responsive design forward.

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Feed


Award: Site of the Day (6/6/2015), Awwwards

Not only isFeed an interesting concept, but it also has a stunning execution that challenges our understanding of what is possible on the web. Through a creative blend of animation and video, the site immerses the user in an engaging experience.

As an atypical site, it contains several unique usability elements, including navigation that doubles as a scroll progress bar.

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ETQ


Award: Site of the Day (5/19/2015), Awwwards

ETQ takes a minimalistic approach to ecommerce with a stripped-down site. Big, compelling visuals of their product lay against simple, flat backgrounds accompanied by strong typography that keeps the focus on exactly what the user came there to see: shoes.

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Mikiya Kobayashi


Award: Site of the Day (7/4/2015), Awwwards

Mikiya is a Product Designer with a minimalistic portfolio that showcases his work through strong photography and subtle animations. His full site was originally created in Japanese and then translated into English, helping demonstrate the international scalability of his design.

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Woven Magazine


Award: Site of the Day (4/4/2015), Best Website Gallery

Woven is an online publication that celebrates artists, crafters, and creators alike. They confirm that publications can (and should) have beautiful, engaging sites with easy-to-read content. Free of distractions like pop-ups and intrusive ads, this site is all about the experience of the content itself.

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JOHO’s Bean


Award: FWA of the Day (8/7/2015), Favorite Website Awards

The website for JOHO’s Bean has incredible imagery, interactivity, storytelling, visual design, and most of all, sound engineering. These all come together to create a compelling, emotional, and engaging site that tells the story of a coffee bean’s journey.

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World of SWISS


Award: Best User Interface, 2015 Webby Awards

Another airline? Yep.SWISS airlines built an incredibly immersive site that tells the story of what it’s like to fly with them – and they did too great of a job to be ignored. Strong visuals and animations introduce the user to different sections of the site that are packed with information beyond the usual sales and marketing pitch.

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Other Cool Website Designs


Guillaume Tomasi

As a Photographer in Montreal,Guillaume Tomasi has built a portfolio that’s truly fit to house his unique and awe-inspiring photography. His surreal photo style is juxtaposed by his simple, flat, empty, and minimalistic portfolio design that places all of the focus on the work itself.

His unique series navigation coupled with art-gallery-inspired work introductions and perfect scrolling interactions yield an experience reminiscent of that of a real gallery.


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The District

This branding agency takes its imagery seriously, and it should – it handles all channels of media for its clients.The District’s website alone is a journey through some of the most beautiful artwork and photography you’ve ever seen.

These provocative tiles change rapidly as you explore the website, and the wackier they seem, the more interested you become in learning about their past work.


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Tej Chauhan

Tej Chauhan has turned impressionist artwork into a business model with this intriguing website. Each image on this product developer’s homepage slides out to cover the previous image, offering little context around the object you now see in front of you. But it’s that lack of context that makes you want to learn more.

Plus, the tagline, “Souvenirs of The Near Future,” suggests these objects are a part of their product line – and an opportunity for you to bring these innovative objects into your life.


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Want a similar look for your website? Check out the newCMS Hub theme collection on the Envato marketplace.


Amanda Martocchio Architecture

An architecture firm might not specialize in web development, but its website should still demonstrate its commitment to visually pleasing design. Amanda Martocchio took that to heart with this gorgeous website.

It’s no secret thatAmanda Martocchio Architecture loves its work – each picture on the homepage of its website is an enchanting shot of the houses the company designs. The website labels every house you scroll through with the type of design that was intended, along with numerous angles to each building.

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Website Design Ideas

Now that you’ve seen a number of beautifully designed and award-winning platforms, keep these potential ideas in mind as you create your own.

  • Consider ways that you can make your website interactive, like the 1917 example.
  • Make a website thatemphasizes the mobile experience, even while it still has a good UX on desktops.
  • Create a website that tells a story about your brand with photos, text, or video.
  • If you can’t create a heavily interactive site, consider drawing in eyes with a site that presents a slideshow of your photos.
  • Ensure your call-to-actions are easy to see and encourage visitors to continue exploring your site
  • Keep navigation clean. Ensure your visitors always know how to get back to the homepage.
  • Integrate your social media sites via social embed buttons, so site visitors can easily follow you on your various social channels.
  • Keep each of your web pages consistent in design – including font, colors, images, and messaging.
  • Test your website’s usability with aheat map, which will show you on which web pages your visitors are most likely to bounce.
  • Include a live chat or chatbot to give visitors the option to engage with you directly on your website if they prefer live chat to phone calls.Live chat can automate functions for your sales and service reps and create a better communication experience for the customer.
  • Get anSSL certificate to ensure your website is secure.SSL is part of Google’s search ranking algorithm, so an SSL certificate can help you rank higher in search.


Build a Beautiful Website for your Business

Designing a website can be simple once you have a look and feel in mind. Use these examples as a springboard to develop the layout, color palette, imagery, and animations on your website.

Once you’re ready to start coding or dragging and dropping, you’ll have a beautiful website that your visitors will enjoy.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Feb 22, 2022 7:00:00 AM, updated February 22 2022


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HubSpot : 28 of the Best SEO Tools for Auditing & Monitoring Your Website in 2022

There’s nothing quite like a sudden Google algorithm update to leave you feeling equal parts confused and concerned. It seems as though search engines like Google wait for you to get all of your ducks in a row and then unleash an update that makes your efforts instantly obsolete.

Plus, there’s still some secrecy behind how Google evaluates websites and determines which sites appear – and how they appear – on the search engine results page (SERPs) for different queries.

The good news is that there are several search engine optimization (SEO) tools out there – some free, some paid – that can help you view

your website the way search engines like Google see it – this way, you can improve your ranking and relevance for your target keywords.

Note: Some of the free tools below also offer paid plans while some of the paid tools also offer free plans – so, we recommend you check out the pricing pages for the tools you’re most interested in to determine which plan is ideal for your needs and goals.

For universal SEO tips, you can use today to grow your business, check out our video guide below.


Best SEO Tools

  1. HubSpot Website Grader
  2. Google Search Console
  3. Google Analytics
  4. UpCity Free SEO Report Card
  5. Internet Marketing Ninjas
  6. Bing Webmaster
  7. Google Trends
  8. Seolyzer
  9. SEOquake
  10. Seobility
  11. Check My Links
  12. BROWSEO
  13. HubSpot SEO Marketing Software
  14. Ahrefs
  15. SEMrush
  16. KWFinder
  17. GrowthBar
  18. Woorank
  19. BuzzStream
  20. Moz Pro
  21. Linkody
  22. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
  23. Remove’em
  24. AnswerThePublic
  25. Keyword Hero
  26. SpyFu
  27. Seomater
  28. ContentKing


Free SEO Tools

These tools are free to use, but you might find a paid option that has more features. We’ve shared some of the best features in each tool as well as how you can get the most out of them for your SEO strategy.


1. HubSpot Website Grader

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The goal of marketing is to generate traffic and qualified leads via the company’s website. That’s why, as marketers, we need to understand exactly what we can do to improve the SEO of that website.

With HubSpot’s Website Grader, simply enter the URL of your website to automatically receive a report card with actionable insights about your SEO efforts. From there, you can sign up for the HubSpot Academy SEO course that teaches you how to improve your website’s SEO, user experience (UX), and more.

With the HubSpot Website Grader, you can:

  • Website performance: Learn about your website’s performance in seconds, and identify specific performance issues and receive clear, actionable feedback on how you can fix them.
  • On-demand support: Receive how-to education on how you can improve your website.
  • Improve specific website issues: Gain access to a five-lesson HubSpot Academy course on Website Optimization so you can understand how to improve upon your website’s specific problem areas.
  • Optimize for mobile: Discover how to optimize your website for mobile.
  • Boost web security: Learn how you can implement website security best practices.
  • Enhance the user experience: Personalize your website’s UX to create a delightful experience for users.


2. Google Search Console

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Google Search Console has a number of tools available to help you appear in the SERPs for the search terms and phrases your target audience is looking for.

If you’re the owner of a business or an SEO on your marketing team, Search Console can help you conduct an initial SEO analysis from scratch or update your existing SEO strategy with fresh keywords. Google Search Console monitors, debugs, and optimizes your website – and you don’t need to know how to code to benefit from this tool.

Here are some examples of website elements Google Search Console will teach you about and help you optimize:

  • Keywords: Learn about the keywords your webpages are currently ranking for.
  • Crawl Errors: Identify any crawl errors that exist on your website.
  • Mobile Responsiveness: Understand how mobile-friendly your website is and discover opportunities to improve the mobile experience for your users.
  • Google Index: See how many of your web pages are in Google’s Index (if they aren’t in Google’s index, you can use the tool’s URL Inspection Tool to submit a page for indexing).
  • Analytics and Metrics: The website-related metrics that matter most to you, like clicks, impressions, average click-through rate (CTR), and average position.


3. Google Analytics

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Although Google Analytics has a paid version, the free version of the product can help you manage your website’s SEO – this is especially true if you pair Google Analytics with Google Search Console. In doing so, all of your website’s SEO data will be centrally located and compiled, and you can use queries to identify areas for improvement with the keywords and phrases that you want your website and web pages to rank for.

Other ways that you can use the free version of Google Analytics to understand and improve your SEO are:


4. UpCity Free SEO Report Card

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The Free SEO Report Card by UpCity lets you analyze your website to determine how it stacks up against the competition.

In exchange for your email address and a few data points, SEO Report Card will serve up a report that covers the following:

  • Rank Analysis: A snapshot of where your website ranks on the most popular search engines.
  • Link Building: A detailed account of the number of websites that link back to your site.
  • On-Site Analysis: A look at how successful you were in incorporating your main keyword throughout your site.
  • Website Accessibility: Information about your site’s load time and accessibility.
  • Trust Metrics: An overview of your site’s level of trust or authority.
  • Current Indexing: An indication of how many of your site pages have been indexed.


5. Internet Marketing Ninjas

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Internet Marketing Ninjas is an SEO-focused company with a variety of free tools you can use to compare your website against the competition, optimize web pages for certain keywords, generate meta tags, and increase organic traffic to your website.

Here are some examples of the free Internet Marketing Ninja SEO tools you can take advantage of:

  • Broken link tool: Identify broken links and redirects and use the site crawl feature to generate an XML sitemap of your website.
  • Image metadata: See all of your page links (external, internal, etc.) on your web pages to review what’s working well and what’s broken or needs an update.
  • On-page optimization tool: Use this to evaluate your web page content, meta information, and internal links.
  • Side-by-side comparison: Compare the SEO of your web pages versus a competitor’s web pages.
  • Page load time: Analyze page-load time and how long each component of a web page takes to fully display.


6. Bing Webmaster

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Microsoft Bing Webmaster gives you access to many tools that offer insight into your website such as reporting, diagnostic, and SEO tools. The SEO tools that you can use for free have the power to help you analyze your website, manage backlinks, and review keywords to ensure your site is well-optimized for organic search.

Here are some of the other things you can do with Bing Webmaster’s SEO tools:

  • See backlink profiles: Learn about your backlink profile to understand referring pages, domains, and anchor links.
  • Perform keyword research: Determine which keywords and phrases your audience is searching for as well as the search volumes of those keywords and phrases.
  • Use the site scanning feature: Crawl your website and identify technical SEO errors.
  • Get SEO reports: Review any errors that are on your website and individual site pages.


7. Google Trends

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Traditional SEO tools like the ones we’ve already discussed are great for conducting research and audits when your business is already established. But what if you’re starting a new business venture and want to know what popular industries, topics, and ideas people are exploring? Google Trends is a great place to explore untapped potential that can yield a large keyword landscape for your website.

You’ll want to note that Google Trends isn’t where you’ll get granular data. This tool performs best when you use it as a compass to set a direction for your SEO strategy, and then pair those insights with a more robust software like HubSpot’s SEO Marketing Tool.

Here’s what you should look for in Google Trends:

  • Trends: Look for trends in specific countries or regions of the world.
  • Popular topics: Find popular people and long tail keywords related to them.
  • Comparisons: Compare and contrast trends over time.


8. Seolyzer

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Seolyzer is a free site crawling, log analysis, and SEO tool that helps you determine how search engines like Google view your website. Seolyzer pulls information that crawling bots leave in your server’s log files while browsing your site to identify and create your SEO KPIs. The tool also identifies error codes, redirects, and page speed performance.

Additionally, Seolyzer can help you:

  • Monitor SEO issues: Identify poor response time, error messages, and crawl volume so you can resolve them before serious damage is done.
  • Manage your unique KPIs: Analyze page performance, crawl volume, HTTP status codes, active and new pages, and desktop versus mobile responsiveness.
  • Segment web pages: Determine what your most crawled pages are.
  • Compare web pages: See what Google deems as the most important to the pages that are crucial to your business’s bottom line.
  • Measure SEO impact: Understand the impact of your SEO efforts on a page-by-page basis or by the category of the page.


9. SEOquake

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SEOquake is a Google Chrome extension that automatically checks a web page’s SEO parameters quickly for free. This includes on-page SEO audits, internal and external link reviews, real-time URL and domain comparison, and data file export.

Other things you can use SEOquake for are:

  • Link Analysis: Get a detailed description of how all of your links are doing – including URLs, anchor text, and other link types – with the tools Link Examiner feature.
  • Focus on metrics that matter: Adjust the SEOquake reports you receive to display only the parameters and metrics that you care about.
  • Audit your website’s SEO: Identify any SEO-related issues that would be findable by search engines.
  • Share your findings with stakeholders: Export the results of your SEO analysis into an adjustable and shareable report.


10. Seobility

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Seobility is a free SEO-checker tool. With it, you can test your website’s level of compliance with today’s SEO guidelines. By simply entering your URL, your site will be analyzed and you’ll receive tips on how you can better optimize your website.

In addition to a detailed SEO audit of your website, you’ll gain access to 1,000 subpage audits, email reporting and alerts, and keyword monitoring.

Here are some more advantages of using Seobility:

  • Find technical errors: Resolve on-page SEO issues quickly to recover lost traffic and prevent future traffic dips.
  • Accurate SEO scoring: Receive an SEO score that accounts for various website factors including meta-information, page quality, link structure, and more.
  • Meta information analysis: Understand the specific SEO issues with your meta information such as meta titles/ descriptions, meta tags, and invalid or incorrect domain names or page URLs.
  • Optimization opportunities: Identify areas for improvement regarding your page speed and quality (related to text, duplicate content, responsive design, and alt attributes for content).
  • Link structure suggestions: Understand how your page and link structure can be improved by getting data about your headers, internal links, and incorrect anchor text.
  • Server error fixes: Identify specific server errors related to any redirects, HTTP headers, or CSS and Javascript files.


11. Check My Links

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Check My Links is a Google Chrome extension that you can use to ensure your links on both internal or external web pages work. For instance, if you were to search a term on Wikipedia, Check My Links would be able to tell you how many links that Wikipedia page has in total and how many of those links are broken.

This is helpful because you can make corrections to broken links immediately (or hopefully, before a page goes live). Check My Links is ideal for developers, content editors, and web designers according to its creators.

Here are some more examples of what Check My Links can do:

  • Identify broken links: Check each link on your webpages and identify all invalid links.
  • Auto-highlight issues: Quickly see the good links in green and the broken links in red.
  • Export broken links for further analysis: Copy all of your bad links to your clipboard in one click.


12. BROWSEO

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BROWSEO is an SEO browser that allows you to review your webpage in a limited format so you can analyze its UX and content as well as gain insight into its SEO. Once you input the URL, the output will hone in on your HTML so you’re able to understand the page’s structure, optimized search terms, and other SEO-related factors.

Examples of what you can do with BROWSEO include:

  • See the number of words on the page: Find the sweet spot for copy length on your webpages.
  • Determine the number of internal and external links on your page: This allows you to see how your linking strategy is working on each page.
  • See all of your meta information: Review title tags, alt text, and meta descriptions.


Paid SEO Tools

Next, let’s look at some paid SEO tools. (Note that some of these tools have free trial periods. Some also offer entirely free plans but with restrictions in terms of flexibility and customization.)


1. HubSpot SEO Marketing Software

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Price: $45/ mo for the Starter plan, $800 for professional, and $3,200 for enterprise.

HubSpot’s Marketing Hub includes an SEO marketing software tool that’s perfect for helping you build authority across your website. Since this software is integrated with HubSpot landing pages, webpages, and blog posts, you’ll never miss an opportunity to optimize your content for traffic and conversions.

No matter if you’re creating your first content strategy or you’re an expert in all things SEO, HubSpot’s SEO Marketing Software gives you the tools and the confidence to rank in the SERP and report on your performance.

HubSpot’s marketing software doesn’t keep SEO in a silo. This tool works in conjunction with:

  • Email: Send professional emails using your own branded designs.
  • Marketing Automation: Create dynamic campaigns for segmented audiences.
  • Lead Management: Track leads through each stage in your sales process.
  • Analytics: Review your campaign to identify success and opportunities for improvement.


2. Ahrefs

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Price: Seven-day trial for $7, $99/ mo for Lite, $179/ mo for Standard, $399/ mo for Advanced, $999/ mo for Agency

Ahrefs is an advanced SEO resource that examines your website property and produces keyword, link, and ranking profiles to help you make better decisions on your content.

Some of Ahrefs’ main features are:

  • Site Explorer: Shows you the performance of specific webpages on your website.
  • Content Explorer: This allows you to search high-performing webpages under specific keywords and topics.
  • Keywords Explorer: Generates the monthly search volume and click-through rates of specific keywords.
  • Site Audit: Crawls specified verticals within your domain and reveals a number of technical issues at the page level.


3. SEMrush

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Price: $119.95/ mo for Pro, $229.95/ mo for Guru, or $449.95/ mo for Business

SEMrush is an elaborate dashboard that reports on the performance of domains as a whole and their specific pages. SEMrush offers numerous resources, one of which is the SEO Toolkit.

Toolkit allows you to track a website’s visibility improvement over time as well as identify which keywords it’s ranking for, what the page’s rank is for a keyword, the keyword’s monthly search volume, and more.

SEMrush also allows you to:

  • Build links: Analyze backlinks from other websites to your site.
  • Use the Keyword Magic tool: Identify all keywords you need to successfully build an SEO strategy.
  • See your competitors’ strategies: Identify the paid keywords or ad copy used in the PPC ads of your competition.
  • Receive recommendations: See how you can increase your organic traffic by optimizing your content.


4. KWFinder

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Price: 10-day free trial; $29/mo

Sometimes you don’t need an SEO tool with all the bells and whistles if you only need to do keyword research. KWFinder is a great software that fills the gap between nuts-and-bolts SEO work and copywriting. You’ll find keywords that aren’t too difficult to rank for but still carry the potential to bring in traffic.

What makes KWFinder unique is how seamlessly it shifts between languages and regions so that you can serve your audience no matter where in the world they are.

Some of the top features KWFinder offers include:

  • Hidden long tail keyword insights: Find long tail keywords that give you more opportunities to acquire traffic.
  • Competitor keyword insights: See how your competitor’s keyword strategy compares to your own, plus find more keyword opportunities.
  • SERP analysis tool: Analyze competition in the SERP to understand what elements readers are looking for on your pages.
  • Local keyword research tool: See what searchers are looking for locally and appeal to local markets for more niche traffic.


5. GrowthBar

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Price: Free five-day trial, $29.90/ mo for Basic, $39.90 for Premium, and $79.90 for Agency.

GrowthBar is a Chrome extension that can help you perform keyword research, competitive analysis, and track SEO rankings. With the GrowthBar, access data points about any website directly from the search engine results pages. This allows you to assess your competitors’ performance and view the growth channels, keywords, backlinks, and ads that are working for them.

Here are some more key features of GrowthBar:

  • Use the Top Keywords and Backlinks feature: See which paid and organic keywords are driving the most traffic for your website and get a list of the most authoritative backlinks pointing to your site.
  • Get your Keyword Difficulty Score: Quickly assess how hard it would be to rank for a particular keyword based on the strength of the domain authorities of the URLs ranking on page one.
  • Use the Word Count tool: View the word count of any page directly from the SERP.
  • Run Facebook Ads: Get a visual of what they look like from a search engine’s perspective.
  • Use the Keyword Suggestions tool: Get a list of related keywords you might want to rank for along with their Search volume & CPCs.


6. Woorank

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Price: Free 14-day trial, $79.99/ mo for Pro, $199.99/ mo for Premium, or contact for Enterprise quote

Woorank’s in-depth site analysis helps marketers reveal opportunities for optimization and improvement. This analysis takes into account the performance of existing SEO initiatives, social media, usability, and more.

Each report is divided into sections to help you easily analyze your site and identify targets for optimization. Here are a few features of the report:

  • Marketing Checklist: Review common marketing tasks that you can complete as part of your SEO strategy execution.
  • SEO: Analyze your SEO metrics against your goals.
  • Mobile: Decide which mobile optimization tactics to employ based on the mobile data.
  • Social: Get insight into how social media is playing a part in your traffic and SEO goals.


7. BuzzStream

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Price: Free 30-day trial, $24/ mo for Starter, $124/ mo for Group, $299/ mo for Professional, $999+ for Custom

Although backlinks to your website are critical to ranking well on Google, the outreach you do while link building can feel a lot like cold calling. BuzzStream makes it easy to research the appropriate people, come up with effective email messages, and track who’s accepted each link request.

BuzzStream also helps you:

  • Identify candidates for outreach: Find them based on their industry and how engaged they are across various social networks.
  • Identify candidates for backlinks: These are individuals who will likely be receptive to your backlink request for other reasons that are unique to your business’s niche.


8. Moz Pro

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Price: Free 30-day trial, $99/ mo for Standard, $149/ mo for Medium, $249/ mo for Large, $599/ mo for Premium

The Moz Pro subscription serves as an all-in-one tool for increasing your business’ search ranking. Moz’s collection of research tools provides subscribers with the resources they need to identify SEO opportunities, track growth, build reports, and optimize their efforts.

Moz Pro also includes:

  • Website crawler: Analyzes up to 3,000 links on a given URL.
  • Email report: Details that crawl data for the pages your site links to.
  • Insight into various “crawlability” factors: These include duplicate content and redirects that could be influencing your SEO performance.


9. Linkody

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Price: 30-day free trial; $14.90/ mo for Webmaster, $24.90/ mo for Advanced, $49.90/ mo for Pro, 99.90/ mo for Agency, and $153.90 /mo for Agency XL

The best way to understand the performance of your off-page SEO is by having a good overview of your backlinks. Linkody allows you to discover, track, analyze, and disavow backlinks all from an easy-to-use interface.

Aside from that, the tool checks your links 24/7 and informs you of any changes so you can take immediate action in case a link is lost or broken.

Other Linkody features include:

  • “Spy” on your competitors’ backlinks: Simply enter the URL of your competitor and let the tool pull all the links and metrics. The information returned will help you discover niche-relevant, high-quality backlink opportunities for your brand.
  • Gain useful insights: See your most important metrics when it comes to backlink tracking, such as the ‘rel’ attribute, Google indexation status, the website’s Domain Authority, Spam Score, Alexa rank, and more.
  • Create white-label reports: Download reports that can be shared with your team and/or clients to get a better idea of your backlink distribution and link-building progress.


10. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

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Price: Free or €149/ year

Designed specifically for the SEO-minded, this program crawls the websites you specify, examining the URLs for common SEO issues. This program simplifies and expedites an otherwise time-consuming process – especially for larger websites. (It could take hours or days to manually evaluate the same URLs.)

Other notable features of Screaming Frog SEO Spider are:

  • Java Program: Screaming Frog includes an intuitive Java program with easy-to-navigate tabs.
  • Easy export to Excel: Further analyze your SEO data.


11. Remove’em

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Price: $249 one-time payment for Life-Time plan, $99/ mo for Subscription (one website), or $899/ mo for Agency (10+ websites)

If you’re buying a website domain that has been used in the past, or you’re rebuilding a poor SEO strategy, you may discover some problematic backlinks while conducting your audit. Artificial or unnatural links have the potential to seriously hurt your search ranking. Remove’em helps get rid of those links.

This tool has the ability to:

  • Scan your backlink profile: Discover a list of contact information for the links and domains you’ll need to reach out to for removal.
  • Export a list of backlinks: If you wish, you can disavow backlinks by telling Google not to take these “bad” links into account when crawling your site.


12. AnswerThePublic

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Price: $99/ mo for Monthly plan, $79/ mo for Annual plan, $199/ mo for the Expert plan

AnswerThePublic is a search listening and keyword tool that listens to autocomplete data from Google and other search engines, and then provides you with a list of phrases and questions that people are searching for around your keyword. This allows you to craft your website and content to your audience to increase traffic and conversions.

With AnswerThePublic, you can also:

  • Receive updates: See when people are talking about your most relevant keywords.
  • Monitor keyword trends: Understand keyword research behavior among your target audience and customers.
  • See real-time searches: View the keywords and phrases that your audience is researching in real-time.
  • Get ideas for your website and blog: Discover new content ideas based on relevant keyword research.


13. Keyword Hero

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Price: 14-day trial for any plan, Free for Little Hero, $9/ mo for Big Hero, $49/ mo for Giant Hero, and $149/ mo for Ultimate Hero

Keyword Hero pairs your visitor’s sessions with the keywords they used to land on your page, all within your Google Analytics account. In other words, this tool gives you an understanding of the search intent of your organic traffic.

Here are some more actions you can take with Keyword Hero:

  • Identify the organic traffic and conversions: Uncover the success you receive from your intended keywords.
  • Separate traffic: Identify brand versus non-brand search traffic.
  • Optimize your position in the SERPs: Optimize your website for specific target keywords.
  • See query details: Understand whether your visitors used informational versus transactional queries to find on your website.


14. SpyFu

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Price: $39/ mo for Basic, $69/ mo for Professional, $129/ mo for Unlimited.

SpyFu is a competitor keyword research tool for Google Ads. In addition to keyword research, it helps with PPC competitive research, SEO competitive research, and the creation of custom lists and domains.

The tool helps you drive traffic to your Google Ads campaigns and website, monitor both paid and organic rankings on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and obtain reliable and accurate contact information for leads.

With SpyFu, you can also:

  • Download a competitor’s PPC keywords: Use this insight to develop more competitive PPC strategies that can compete in the ad space.
  • Download a competitor’s SEO keywords: Use this insight to develop more competitive organic keyword strategies that can compete in the SERP.
  • Review ranking trends: the ranking of a page or website for a keyword over time.
  • Discover keyword ideas: Keyword advice for your Google Ads to increase chances of conversion.


15. Seomater

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Price: Pay as You Go (starting at $5), $19/ mo for Small Business, $49/ mo for Professional, $179/ mo for Unlimited.

Seomater is an SEO auditing and website crawling tool. It assists with technical SEO analysis and SEO on-page optimization testing. Once the tool crawls your site, you’ll receive an SEO report that explains your website’s various SEO-related elements including internal and external links, backlinks, page quality and speed, social media, organic presence, and more.

Your analysis will also come with tips on how you can improve each of these SEO elements. In addition, you can:

  • Use the SEO Monitoring Alerts feature: Your website will be automatically crawled and you’ll get an immediate notification if something is problematic in terms of SEO.
  • Get detailed reports: Find insights about your on-page and off-page SEO elements.
  • Use the Domain Comparison tool: Compare two competitors’ websites to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their SEO (such as broken links, content quality, HTML tags, and more).


16. ContentKing

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Price: $139/ mo for Basic, $319/ mo for Standard, $449/ mo for Pro, or $1,279 for Enterprise.

ContentKing is a real-time SEO auditing and content tracking tool – it tracks your website 24/7 so any issues related to SEO don’t go unnoticed for too long. The tool is cloud-based, meaning there’s no installation required and your data and reports are available whenever you need them.

With ContentKing, you can also:

  • Improve your SEO: Use ContentKing’s 24/7 website audits (and algorithms) to gain insight into your SEO and receive tasks that will help you optimize your webpages.
  • Get alerts: Get notified whenever something on your website is broken or is no longer well-optimized so you can efficiently fix the issue.
  • Track Changes: Follow the history of all your content changes on your site (such as changes on individual web pages and changes in robots.txt) and search the history of your changes.
  • Visualize data: See real-time dashboards and reports.

Now that you’ve learned about some of the best free and paid SEO tools on the market, determine which option will help you achieve your SEO goals and get started auditing, optimizing, and monitoring your website, individual web pages, and content.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Dec 6, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated December 06 2021


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HubSpot : The 22 Best Conference Website Designs You’ll Want to Copy

A conference website is a powerful way to generate buzz about your event, answer commonly asked questions, and boost ticket sales and attendance.

Since 2020, the majority of events have been hosted virtually – and this trend will likely continue in 2022 and beyond. In fact, the global virtual events industry is expected to grow 23.7{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} each year from 2021 to 2028, according to data from Grand View Research.

In an increasingly digital-first world, a conference website is more important than ever. As many people’s first introduction to your event, it can influence whether someone buys a ticket, or abandons the page entirely.

Below we’re going to explore over 20 of the coolest conference websites we’ve found. You can use these examples as inspiration when designing your own site.


Conference Website Design Best Practices

Before we dive into the examples we’ve collected, let’s explore some best practices to keep in mind when designing your own conference website.

A good conference website design should follow these best practices:

  • Put your location and date above-the-fold: People should know immediately where, and when, your event is taking place. If they can’t find it easily, they could abandon your website. Before you dive into speakers or any other information, ensure your visitors know whether they can attend in the first place.
  • Use interactive elements: Videos or animated graphics can go a long way towards making your website look sleek and professional. Plus, video is a good opportunity to showcase highlight reels from past events.
  • Center the page around your visitor: What’s in it for them? Great speakers to inspire their work? A chance to network with industry leaders? Ensure your copy outlines – clearly and concisely – how your website visitor will benefit from your event.
  • Have a clear call-to-action: Your page is ultimately meant to convert web visitors into event attendees – so make this easy to do. Create a bold “Register Here” or “Buy Tickets” button so your visitors can easily convert when they’re ready.
  • Include fun visuals: One thing that’s apparent in all the conference web designs we chose is interesting, unique, fun visuals. Too much white space will likely bore visitors and not pique their interest enough to purchase a ticket. Use visuals to grab your visitor’s attention, and communicate through images what your event is all about.
  • Create time-pressure by including a countdown feature: In a few of the websites we’ll look at below, you’ll see a countdown that outlines how many days, hours, or minutes visitors have left to sign up for the event. This is a fantastic way to create a sense of urgency and encourage visitors to sign up immediately – or risk missing out.
  • Align with your brand identity: A conference is a great way to generate brand awareness to a much larger audience. With that goal in mind, you want to make sure your conference website aligns with your brand identity. Using the same or similar typography, color schemes, and logos can ensure you achieve a consistent look and feel across your marketing collateral.

Now that we’ve covered some conference website best practices, let’s see how these 20+ conferences put those ideas into practice.


Best Conference Website Examples

  1. FloQast’s Take Control
  2. Leading Design Festival
  3. Canvas Conference
  4. UX Fest
  5. GOTOpia Chicago
  6. Consumer Technology Association
  7. UX+ Conference
  8. Chargebee User Conference
  9. Circles Conference
  10. Collision Conference
  11. An Event Apart
  12. Startup Grind Global Conference
  13. The Martech Summit Singapore
  14. React Day New York
  15. INBOUND
  16. ProductCon
  17. NRF 2022: Retail’s Big Show
  18. AdWorld Conference
  19. Growth Marketing Summit
  20. Design Thinkers
  21. From Business to Buttons
  22. Red Hat Summit


1. FloQast’s Take Control

Less than three months before Floqast’s annual user conference was scheduled to take place, it had to shift from in-person to virtual. Using CMS Hub, FloQast and its web design partner agency Aptitude8 was able to deliver a seamless conference experienceand website.

FloQast’s Take Control conference website revamps its well-recognized green and navy blue colors in a unique color scheme, using brighter and more analogous colors. It also has two clear CTA buttons above-the-fold encouraging visitors to watch the event on demand.

What we like: The website design is unique, but consistent with FloQast’s branding.

Pro tip: Expand your color palette with analogous colors to provide your conference website with an enhanced look and feel.

Great example of: Consistent brand identity


2. Leading Design Festival

Color is an important factor to consider when designing any web page, and this homepage for the Leading Design Festival does a good job using complementary colors to evoke a sense of warmness. Additionally, you have everything you need at the top of the page – including a button to purchase tickets, the date of the festival, and what you’ll get for attending (a month of design leadership activities). This page proves that oftentimes, less is more.

What we like: This website clearly provides visitors with all the information they’re looking for about this year’s Leading Design Festival.

Pro tip: Use one accent color to highlight important elements on the page, like the date of the conference and CTAs.

Great example of: Minimalist design


3. Canvas Conference

To underscore the value of the Canvas Conference – insider stories from product people – an image of people chatting and networking at a previous event serves as Canvas’ backdrop image for the 2021 conference homepage. Additionally, the page doesn’t shy away from bright, vibrant colors – like purples, greens, and blues – to attract the visitors’ attention.

Plus, the price is clearly stated front-and-center, which helps visitors know whether they can afford the event before exploring anything further.

What we like: Everything on Canvas Conference’s homepage – from the background image to the copy – emphasizes that the event is community-centric.

Pro tip: Try to center your website around your event’s value proposition so everything from the layout to the copy is emphasizing the event’s benefits for attendees.

Great example of: Copy that underscores the event’s value


4. UX Fest

This scroll-triggered, interactive page is so fun, I scrolled it a few times. As you move down the page, you’re introduced to new information about the conference, with fun, unique design elements, like the “Stay Home and Level Up” image to the right of the first Conference box. Best of all, the page is incredibly simple, with plenty of blue space on either side, to evoke a sense of calmness as visitors learn about the conference.

What we like: UX Fest’s interactive website invites users to scroll and click on different CTAs to learn more about the speakers, masterclasses, and festival and purchase tickets.

Pro tip: Use animations and other interactive elements to guide the user down the page to the “Get Tickets” CTA button.

Great example of: Interactive design


5. GOTOpia Chicago

One of the best features of this conference page is the “Early Bird Ends In…” countdown that appears above-the-fold as soon as a visitor enters the site. The sense of urgency encourages visitors to sign up immediately, or risk losing out on a good deal. The page also does a good job outlining all the critical information you need to know in just a few words – including “Engaging Talks”, “Keynotes”, and “Trivia + Happy Hours”.

Plus, who doesn’t love the bright vibrancy of a red-and-white color scheme?

What we like: The countdown timer shows how much time is left before early bird registration ends. It’s a subtle but effective way to generate ticket sales.

Pro tip: Use a countdown timer to encourage visitors to buy tickets as soon as possible, but keep the design simple and unobtrusive so it doesn’t seem overly promotional.

Great example of: Creating a sense of urgency


6. Consumer Technology Association

The CES conference page combines bold colors with interesting visuals to grab a visitor’s attention immediately, with a simple “Beyond the everyday” tagline. The page offers all necessary information, including date, location, and a CTA, from the very top of the page, ensuring CES-fans can sign up immediately.

What we like: Consumer Technology Association’s CES 2022 homepage provides users with an immediate event registration path.

Pro tip: Make registering for your event as easy and quick as possible.

Great example of: Signup flow


7. UX+ Conference

The UX+ Conference website is an excellent example of using interactive elements to engage and delight visitors. There’s a background animation and several text and hover animations that immediately grab visitors’ attention.

Combining past attendees’ testimonials with an animated speaker lineup, this is a powerful page that makes the most of its real estate to demonstrate why the UX+ Conference is a must-attend event for anyone in the UX industry.

What we like: The UX+ Conference home page uses interactive and visual elements to engage and impress the UX professionals visiting the site.

Pro tip: Create a website that will attract and delight your unique audience.

Great example of: UX design


8. Chargebee User Conference

This sleek-looking homepage uses bold colors, typography, and animation to evoke a futuristic vibe. What I loved most about this conference website was the moving, interactive elements they’ve used to keep your interest as you scroll the page, including spinning visuals and continuously-moving text. This also reinforces the theme of the conference – “change is essential” – and its calls-to-action to adapt, evolve, and innovate.

Visit and scroll through the site yourself – it’s more entertaining than you might think.

What we like: Centered around the conference theme – “Change is essential” – Chargebee’s website is thoroughly dynamic and interactive.

Pro tip: Your theme should inform the color scheme, animations, CTAs, and every other part of your website design.

Great example of: Theme-centric design


9. Circles Conference

When attendees are choosing which conferences are worth their time and resources, one of the first questions they’ll ask is, “Why this conference over all others?”

This question is answered immediately on the Circles Conference homepage, and it’s answered using powerful, engaging text. For instance, the first sentence you’ll read in response to “Why Unmasked?” is “Shed layers of fear and doubt, and reveal your inner creativity” – convinced yet?

What we like: Circles Conference does an excellent job of persuading visitors to attend their 2022 event by clearly explaining this year’s theme and speaker lineup and displaying highlight reels from previous years and recordings of past sessions.

Pro tip: Clearly explain why visitors should attend your specific event.

Great example of: Answering “why this event?”


10. Collision Conference

Seeing Seth Rogan at the top of the page is undoubtedly reason enough to pause on the site for anyone who’s a fan. Plus, “The Olympics of Tech”, a quote from Politico, does a good job demonstrating the value of the conference.

But what impressed me the most was the slider right below the hero image and “What Others Say” testimonials section. The slider displayed how many attendees, countries, startups, journalists, partners, and investors were represented in the event. For anyone whose unsure whether to attend, this is a compelling argument to not miss out.

What we like: Collision Conference uses a carousel slider to display impressive stats about its audience.

Pro tip: Instead of telling website visitors how large your conference is, show them in terms of real numbers to persuade them that they can’t miss it.

Great example of: Creating FOMO


11. An Event Apart

Consider standing out from the crowd by using in-house designs on your homepage, like An Event Apart does. The page is cheerful and colorful, and provides all critical information in only a few words. Before a visitor has even scrolled, they’ve learned where (online), when, and for whom the conference benefits.

For those that need more convincing, they can visit the “Why Attend?” page to see attendee testimonials (displayed as text messages), key reasons to attend, and answers to common objections.

What we like: An Event Apart clearly explains where, when, and who the event is for, and why UX and front-end designers should attend.

Pro tip: Consider how to say more with less.

Great example of: Concision


12. Startup Grind Global Conference

Using a mixture of photography and unique design shapes works well in this case, and the bright purple, pink, and green colors you see at the top of the page contrasts well against a simple off-white backdrop. The page is sleek and uses three bold CTA buttons above the fold to provide all information a visitor will need to attend the event, either as a startup, “scale up” business, or individual attendee.

What we like: Startup Grind Global Conference provides clear and distinct paths for different groups, including startups, scale-up businesses, and individuals, as soon as they land on the homepage.

Pro tip: Clearly explain how different segments of your audience can participate in your event.

Great example of: CTAs


13. The Martech Summit Singapore

If you’re hosting a conference in a unique or exciting location, consider using an image of that location as a compelling backdrop. In this case, The Martech Summit used an image of Singapore to remind website visitors of the other benefit they’ll get if traveling from another location for the conference – a trip to a vibrant city. Plus, the attendee count helps persuade hesitant buyers who likely don’t want to feel like they’re missing out.

What we like: The Martech Summit clearly emphasizes that its location is another benefit of attending the event.

Pro tip: Identify what will excite attendees about your event and showcase it in your design and copy.

Great example of: Emphasizing location as an event benefit


14. React Day New York

First off – who doesn’t love hot dogs?

This React Day page does a great job using humor to stand out. Not only is there a big illustration of a hot dog – which hooked me immediately – but there are multiple mentions of hot dogs, including below Buy Tickets (“Psst: There will be hot dogs”), and used in response to “Why” to the right of the page.

What we like: Humorous illustrations and copy about hot dogs makes this conference website about a slightly intimidating topic – React – more accessible.

Pro tip: Use humor on your own conference website to surprise and delight new audiences.

Great example of: Humor


15. INBOUND

Okay, okay – I might be biased, but hear me out.

This INBOUND page does an excellent job of exciting visitors about INBOUND 2022, even thought INBOUND 2021 just happened. It shows a video outlining this year’s speakers to excite and impress visitors with the possibilities of similar popular speakers in 2022. This is a good idea if your conference has pulled in some big names in conferences’ past, to give visitors a sense for what they can expect at an upcoming conference if you haven’t officially released upcoming speakers.

The rest of the page also effectively outlines all necessary information, including prominent CTAs to view the 2021 Content Library and sign up for a newsletter to get the latest INBOUND announcements.

What we like: HubSpot generates excitement for INBOUND every year by making past content and future announcements accessible to existing and prospective attendees.

Pro tip: Add elements like a highlight reel, email opt-in form, and content library to get people exciting about next year’s event.

Great example of: Generating excitement for an annual event


16. ProductCon

One element that made this #ProductCon page, a conference held by the Product School, stand out to me was the easy-to-find “Get Free Ticket” box, which is front-and-center for new visitors. Particularly if your conference is online and free – which creates minimal barriers to entry – it’s a good idea to make it easy for prospects to sign up instantly.

What we like: Product School encourages prospective attendees to get their free tickets to #ProductCon as soon as they land on the homepage.

Pro tip: If pricing is a competitive differentiator of your conference, emphasize that in your design.

Great example of: Emphasizing free admission as event benefit


17. NRF 2022: Retail’s Big Show

One of the cleaner, sleeker designs in this list, NRF’s Conference Website employs a bold background image and minimal text to simplify the user experience. You’ll find everything you need to know at the top of the page – including the theme of the conference, location, dates, and how to register.

If you need more convincing, then you can scroll to the “Why Attend NRF 2022” to learn four key reasons this event is so valuable for retailers and vendors to attend.

What we like: NRF’s conference is designed to “not just to help retail move forward, but speed ahead.” This idea is captured not only by the theme (“Accelerate”) and copy, but also by the graphics used throughout the website.

Pro tip: Pair powerful and concise language with visuals to tell new visitors what your conference is all about.

Great example of: Copy and visuals supporting the theme


18. AdWorld Conference

If you’re going to have some impressive companies attending or sponsoring your event – including Google, Facebook, and IBM – it’s a good idea to showcase them on your conference’s homepage, like AdWorld does in the example above. Plus, what really stands out about this example is the small videos of various speakers that move across the page, creating a dynamic and unique experience.

What we like: AdWorld Conference showcases its speakers in a completely unique way, displaying video thumbnails of speakers moving across the screen.

Pro tip: Re-think how to display common sections of a conference website – like the speaker line-up or agenda – to create a unique user experience.

Great example of: Showcasing speakers


19. Growth Marketing Summit

One element I appreciated about this page was the clear, “No Risk. Order Can Be Cancelled Free of Charge…” text right below the CTA, which helps dissuade any visitors’ concerns over being unable to attend and losing money. The page effectively leverages bright colors and a futuristic-looking heart to grab visitors’ attention from the get-go.

What we like: Objection handling is a common term in the sales world and applies to conferences as well. The Growth Marketing Summit anticipates and resolves one common objection of prospective attendees – non-refundable tickets – immediately on the homepage.

Pro tip: Identify and alleviate common concerns of your prospective attendees on your homepage.

Great example of: Objection handling


20. Design Thinkers

Design Thinkers begins its DesignRethinkers conference home page with a fun, interactive section. If you click inside the hero image banner, you can add sticker elements to change words like “Define” and “Consider” to “Redefine” and “Reconsider.” The homepage is modern yet retro-looking, particularly with the black-and-white images and what looks like scrapbook materials in the corner. The unique combination of muted and neon colors also helps.

What we like: Users are invited to re-examine and re-work parts of the website design by clicking and hovering over different elements on the page.

Pro tip: Invite users to engage with your site by clicking on CTA buttons and other design elements, scrolling, and more.

Great example of: User-centric design


21. From Business to Buttons

Since From Business to Buttons took place in a never-seen before digital platform, their website design had to strike a balance between distinctive and familiar. The website, which reminded me a little bit of a carnival ride, uses bright colors and an unusual typography to stand out. The page is fun and unique, and has a clean navigation menu at the top to help visitors find exactly what they’re looking for.

What we like: The website design is unusual but still user-friendly.

Pro tip: Pair non-traditional typography and image overlays with traditional navigation menus and links to make your website one-of-a-kind but still easy to navigate and use.

Great example of: Unique design to reflect uniqueness of event


22. Red Hat Summit

We round out this list with an incredibly simple yet sleek page from Red Hat Summit, which states the theme – “Open Your Perspective” – and a brief summary of the conference above-the-fold. The use of white space and minimal design elements helps to highlight this minimal copy, which piqued my interest in the conference. Plus, the “Register” button is clear and easy-to-find.

What we like: Red Hat Summit’s theme, “Open your perspective,” informs every part of the design, from the logo to the layout to the use of whitespace.

Pro tip: Reflect your conference theme in your website’s design.

Great example of: Conference logo


Conference Website Templates

Ready to create your own?

Fortunately, there are plenty of templates available to help you craft a compelling conference website.


1. WordPress Conference Templates

If your website is hosted on WordPress, for instance, you can use one of WordPress’s themes to create an inspiring, sleek, professional website to attract and convert event attendees.

Best of all, you can start with a pre-designed theme, and then use WordPress’s easy website builder to add unique features to make your conference stand out. WordPress offers a free version, and the Business plan is $25/month.

Take a look at 21 Best Conference WordPress Themes of 2021 for more WordPress theme inspiration.


2. Wix Conference Templates

Another great option is Wix, which has a large compilation of clean, interactive conferences and meetups website templates. Wix has a free option available, and the Professional version is relatively inexpensive at just $23/month.

You can also edit your site for mobile, ensuring your mobile site visitors will want to attend your conference just as much as your desktop visitors.


3. Canva Conference Templates

Finally, take a look at Canva’s conference and event program templates. Canva is incredibly easy-to-use, with drag-and-drop features, color schemes, and high-quality stock photos, illustrations, and graphics.

Best of all, if you’re designing with your team, you can easily share your editable file from Canva and then place your colleagues’ suggestions right into Canva.


Building Your Conference Website

And there you have it! Now you’re ready to begin creating your own conference website to attract visitors and increase attendees to your own branded event. Who knows – maybe your company will make it on this list in the future. Good luck!

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Oct 19, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated October 19 2021


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Disclaimer

HubSpot Inc. published this content on 19 October 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 19 October 2021 15:50:10 UTC.

HubSpot : 16 Web Design Trends to Watch in 2021

The landscape of web design is always evolving.

Something that looked modern and fresh yesterday can appear dated seemingly overnight, and trends once dismissed as irrevocably passé can unexpectedly cycle back in vogue.

Still, one thing remains constant: Websites are the most important marketing channel for many businesses, and the second most popular marketing channel among businesses according to HubSpot research.

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Given the importance of websites to most businesses and the fact that half of consumers think website design is crucial to a business’s brand, it’s worth the effort to make your own website that matches today’s trends.

However, this doesn’t mean you need to scrap your site’s vision to engage visitors. There’s plenty of room for stylistic choices across the spectrum. As HubSpot Senior Product Designer Dan Hartshorn notes, “I’ve noticed lately many SaaS offerings go either monochromatic or black&white in their UI, or go the opposite direction, and just COVER their UI in color, shadows, gradients, skeuomorphic, etc.”

To help you prepare for wherever the web design tide takes us, we’ve put together a list of 16 trends to keep a close eye on. Check them out below, and get inspired to tackle your web design projects this year with style.

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77 Brilliant Examples of Hompages, Blogs & Landing Pages


Website Design Trends to Watch

  1. Bold Typography
  2. Cinemagraphs
  3. Brutalism
  4. Saturated Gradients
  5. Vivid Layers of Color
  6. Text-Only
  7. Illustration
  8. Ultra-minimalism
  9. Mixing Horizontal and Vertical Text
  10. Geometric Shapes and Patterns
  11. Serif Fonts
  12. Overlapping Text and Images
  13. Broken Grids
  14. Organic Shapes
  15. Web Textures
  16. Hand-Drawn Fonts


1. Bold Typography

More and more companies are turning to big, bold typography to anchor their homepages. This style works best when the rest of the page is kept minimal and clean, like this example from Brooklyn-based agencyHuge.

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2. Cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs – high-quality videos or GIFs that run on a smooth, continuous loop – have become a popular way to add movement and visual interest to otherwise static pages. Full-screen loops, like this example from French creative agency Social Brain, create immediate interest on an otherwise simple page.

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3. Brutalism

To stand out in a sea of tidy, organized websites, some designers are opting for more eclectic, convention-defying structures. While it can seem jarring at first, many popular brands are now incorporating these aggressively alternative design elements into their sites, such as Bloomberg.

Brutalismemerged as a reaction to the increasing standardization of web design and is often characterized by stark, asymmetrical, nonconformist visuals, and a distinct lack of hierarchy and order. In other words, it’s hard to describe butyou know it when you see it – like with the below example from Chrissie Abbott.

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4. Saturated Gradients

Gradients have been all over the web for the past few years, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going anywhere just yet. Copywriting agency Monograph Communications illustrates a perfect example of how to make this effect look fresh and modern, with its full-screen, gradient-washed homepage.

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5. Vivid Layers of Color

Staggered, stacked layers of color add depth and texture to a simple site layout, as seen in this stylish example from the snack food brand Pipcorn. A vibrant color palette like this one instantly distinguished itself from competing sites.

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6. Text-Only

Some websites are cutting out images and prominent navigation sections altogether, relying on a few choice lines of straightforward text to inform visitors about their company.

Danish agencyB14 uses their homepage real estate to simply describe their mission statement and provide links to samples of their work. It’s a modern, uncluttered approach to presenting information.

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7. Illustration

More companies are turning to illustrators and graphic artists to create bespoke illustrations for their websites. After years dominated by flat design and straightforward minimalism, adding illustrated touches to your site is a great way to inject a little personality, as seen in this charming example fromNewActon (designed by Australian digital agencyED).

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8. Ultra-minimalism

Taking classic minimalism to the extreme, some designers are defying conventions of what a website needs to look like, displaying just the absolute bare necessities. The site from designerMathieu Boulet is centered around a few choice links to their social profiles and information.

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9. Mixing Horizontal and Vertical Text

Freeing text from its usual horizontal alignment and placing it vertically on a page adds some refreshing dimension. Take this example from action sports video producers Prime Park Sessions, which combines horizontal and vertical text alignments on a minimal page.

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10. Geometric Shapes and Patterns

Whimsical patterns and shapes are popping up more frequently on websites, adding some flair in a landscape otherwise ruled by flat andmaterial design. Canadian design studioMSDS uses daring, patterned letters on their homepage.

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11. Serif Fonts

Due to screen resolution limitations and an overall lack of online font support, designers avoided serif fonts for years to keep websites legible and clean. With recent improvements, serif fonts are having a big moment in 2021 – and they’ve never looked more modern. As seen onThe Sill, a serif headline adds a dose of sophistication and style.

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12. Overlapping Text and Images

Text that slightly overlaps accompanying images has become a popular effect for blogs and portfolios. Freelance art director and front-end developerThibault Pailloux makes their overlapping text stand out with a colorful underline beneath each title.

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13. Broken Grids

While grids remain one of the most common and efficient ways of displaying text and images on websites, broken grids continue to make their way into mainstream sites and offer a change-up from the norm. Check out the website for HealHaus, for example. Its homepage features images and text blocks that overlap.

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14. Organic Shapes

Gone are the days of strict grid layouts and sharp edges – now it’s all about curved lines and soft, organic shapes. In the example below fromNeobi, the borderline-cartoonish background adds a generous hit of personality and vivid color to the uncomplicated design.

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15. Web Textures

Web textures are background images that visually resemble a three-dimensional surface. When done well, textures can immerse viewers in a website by engaging tactile senses, as demonstrated by Color Of Change – the background evokes a duct-tape-like texture.

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16. Hand-Drawn Fonts

Custom, hand-drawn fonts have started cropping up more and more in recent months, and for good reason. These unique typefaces add character and charm, and help designers create a distinct look and feel without a complete overhaul. On the KIKK 2017 Festival website, a hand-drawn font provides a whimsical anchor for the homepage.

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Design Trends You Can Use on Your Website

Of course, you don’t need to incorporate all of these trends to build an effective website – we doubt that’s even possible. However, even adding a couple as prominent components or subtler details can improve your site’s UX significantly, leading to higher engagement, more CTA clicks, and a better outcome for your online business.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Oct 6, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated October 06 2021


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Disclaimer

HubSpot Inc. published this content on 06 October 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 06 October 2021 23:36:05 UTC.