Website design has a direct impact on the success of your business. It determines how well you can leave a good first impression and encourage user engagement—resulting in more sales. However, with all the design options available, choosing the right one can be challenging. To help you get going, we selected 21 web design inspirations across a number of content management systems (CMS).
If you’re struggling to design your own website, you might be surprised to see how easy it is with the help of an all-in-one website builder, such as Squarespace. It’s known for its top-notch web designs and award-winning templates, taking the guesswork out of web design and making the building of your own (code-free) site simple.
Here are the 21 best-designed websites to help inspire your own website design ideas:
1. PV Donuts
CMS: Squarespace
Web design inspiration: PV Donuts
Why it stands out: PV Donuts gives users what they expect when they visit a donut site—donuts. It does this with an attractive, high-quality image used as a full-width background and pairs it with bold text, serving as its unique selling point. The site appears clean and modern, showing visitors the products that the business sells. This helps capture the interest of visitors, making them more likely to become customers.
2. Belvedere at Quail Run
CMS: WordPress (with WPBakery plugin)
Web design inspiration: Belvedere at Quail Run
Why it stands out: This web design follows a common website layout. However, Belvedere at Quail Run does an excellent job of limiting the navigation options while giving visitors what they came to the site for. Its use of the prepopulated chat feature helps visitors quickly get the information they want, lending to a better user experience while also helping increase leads, visits, and applications.
3. Belvedere Charleston
CMS: Squarespace
Web design inspiration: Belvedere Charleston
Why it stands out: The Belvedere Charleston’s web design is neutral and airy, giving it a more luxurious feel. It streamlines its navigation by offering just three options and one “Book Now” call-to-action button—giving visitors a way to make a reservation quickly. For social proof, it includes reviews as one of its main navigation options, as well as a visitors guide to help potential travelers gain more interest in a visit to Charleston.
4. Sheppard Electrical Services
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Sheppard Electrical Services
Why it stands out: The Sheppard Electrical Services site is a good example of understanding site visitors and their goals. The “Get an Estimate” bar at the top allows visitors to get pricing on electrical work quickly. By integrating this business-specific call to action—instead of using a generic contact form—the business is more likely to generate leads.
5. Beam Marketing
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Beam Marketing
Why it stands out: Beam Marketing’s website is a great example of a unique yet simple one-page website. The website layout is fairly traditional, with the logo on the left-hand side and the menu on the right. However, the use of a professional image on a primarily plain background creates a modern and clutter-free feel. Beam includes a main message on the homepage image with a call to action, as well as a minimalist menu with just four options.
6. Stokesay Castle
Web design inspiration: Stokesay Castle
Why it stands out: Stokesay Castle, an event venue, does a good job of streamlining its site and providing just the sort of information its visitors are looking for. It’s a simple, yet effective design that upholds its brand throughout—from its media to its color scheme and fonts. As an event venue, it displays upcoming events and enables visitors to purchase event tickets directly from the site—something GoDaddy websites stand out for as they come with an industry-leading online booking system.
7. Sit Means Sit Dog Training
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Sit Means Sit Dog Training
Why it stands out: Sit Means Sit gives site visitors proof of its dog training abilities through an impressive auto-play video background. The video shows a highly trained German shepherd doing various tricks—one of which shows the dog jumping up into its trainer’s arms. This is coupled with social proof with its “As Seen On” section, which displays well-known media outlets from USA Today to Animal Planet that have featured the company.
8. Miller Law Group
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Miller Law Group
Why it stands out: The Miller Law Group website features a clean and modern design with an auto-play video background. It also uses a centered homepage message and includes a click-to-call text button in the upper right-hand corner of its header. By using a modern web design, it quickly stands out from its competition, giving visitors a professional and up-with-the-times feel that many look for from legal service providers.
Looking for more professional web design examples? Check out the best government website designs.
9. Optimum Construction Co.
CMS: Squarespace
Web design inspiration: Optimum Construction Co.
Why it stands out: The Optimum Construction Co. website highlights its mission by overlaying bold white text on a muted background. The page is very simple with navigation in the upper right-hand corner, but with its logo and messaging midway down the home screen, strategically placed at eye level. This makes the logo and mission statement the focal points of the website, ensuring that visitors read the message and understand why the company is unique.
10. Hip Furniture
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Hip Furniture
Why it stands out: The Hip Furniture eCommerce website not only features scrolling high-quality, full-width photos with text overlay but also employs a smart organization of menu options. What’s unique about the menu is how it includes icons to help visitors identify each option more quickly. This is a good web design idea for businesses looking to design a website with a graphical treatment of what would otherwise be a standard text-based menu. For extra inspiration, check out these startup websites.
11. Cask ‘n Flagon
CMS: WordPress (with WooCommerce)
Web design inspiration: Cask ‘n Flagon
Why it stands out: What makes the Cask ‘n Flagon website stand out is that it successfully maintains its branding throughout its website, anchored by the large and centered logo. Additionally, the background uses an image slider to show various food photos while testimonials scroll at the bottom to bolster the restaurant’s reputation. It also includes calls to action (CTAs) for reservations and event bookings, helping convert site visitors to customers.
12. Anson Restaurant
CMS: Squarespace
Web design inspiration: Anson Restaurant
Why it stands out: The minimalist design of Anson’s website speaks to the restaurant’s upscale brand image. While many restaurants use a food image as their site background, Anson uses an image of its interior, showing the restaurant’s upscale-yet-rustic ambiance. The site also displays its phone number separate from the rest of its menu options in its header to help it stand out. Lastly, it has a top banner asking visitors to follow them on Instagram.
13. Benchmark Electronics
CMS: HubSpot
Web design inspiration: Benchmark Electronics
Why it stands out: The Benchmarks Electronics website uses a series of high-quality videos to give visitors a better understanding of what it does and what it is capable of. It combines background videos with text overlay to provide further details about each video. There are call-to-action (CTA) buttons as well to learn more about its services. Overall, this is a smart strategy for businesses that offer products or services that can be difficult to explain concisely or those whose services can be used in many different ways.
14. Nisolo
CMS: Shopify
Web design inspiration: Nisolo
Why it stands out: Nisolo’s website manages to create a fairly streamlined ecommerce portal. It accomplishes this using a minimalist menu with only four options, nesting product pages under two simple menu options: Women and Men. The site is also a great example of how to use two CTAs on its homepage, giving visitors two popular options to choose from. The accompanying product photos are an effective way to get visitors to click for more information.
15. Primal Pastures
CMS: Shopify
Web design inspiration: Primal Pastures
Why it stands out: Primal Pastures created a visually pleasing website using photos of its livestock—as well as of its farmers—to help present its business in a wholesome and personal way. This is largely conveyed via a homepage image slider with farm photos as well as short and sweet messages about their business. This helps visitors to get to know its values and story, helping to build trust.
16. Bungalow 56
CMS: Shopify
Web design inspiration: Bungalow 56
Why it stands out: Bungalow 56’s website stands out for its use of quality media and a consistent design aesthetic. It does this by maintaining a consistent color scheme throughout—from the hero photo to its text and banner colors. It is also a good example of how a business with a name—not transparently linked to a specific industry—can add context with a cleverly designed copy— in this case, “design + shop.”
17. Ilaria Bonardi
CMS: Wix
Web design inspiration: Ilaria Bonardi
Why it stands out: This international jewelry brand’s site isn’t just modern, clean, and attractive, but it also does a good job of presenting multiple products at once without making the site feel overwhelming. This is a common problem with ecommerce sites where there’s a necessary balance between displaying multiple products at once but not displaying so many that product images become small and easily overlooked among the many. What’s more is that Ilaria Bonardi’s site is available in multiple languages—making it ideal for an international brand.
18. Jaja Mexicanas
CMS: Wix
Web design inspiration: Jaja Mexicanas
Why it stands out: This website for the New York City (NYC) vegan Mexican restaurant Jaja Mexicanas looks Instagram-worthy thanks to visually stunning graphics, a clean design, and a pastel color scheme throughout. Indeed, it looks like something that you would see on Instagram. The design is also unique in that it is designed in a left-to-right format, matching how English is read. This ensures visitors first see the “Email” CTA and links to social media.
19. Revel Cellars
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Revel Cellars
Why it stands out: Revel Cellars took a smart approach to web design by using a full-width background image slider, showcasing its finished products. This helps site visitors get a better feel for the company’s products and show live applications in homes and restaurants. This is particularly useful for products that need to be promoted in their final “installed state,” such as wine cellars, garage doors, or pools.
Businesses in the liquor industry should consider using a splash page to help gate content and ensure visitors are of legal drinking age. For more insights, check out the best splash page examples.
20. Sans Serif
CMS: WordPress
Web design inspiration: Sans Serif
Why it stands out: This bold website stands out for its creative use of moving graphics that make up the “S”—its logo—in the background. It is subtle but eye-catching, as it continuously changes, drawing in visitors and encouraging them to stay on the page. While staring at the graphics on a home page won’t be an effective strategy for all business types, Sans Serif does serve a marketing and digital agency well, proving their ability to capture an audience’s attention.
21. Bau Hair
CMS: Webflow
Web design inspiration: Bau Hair
Why it stands out: Bau Hair is a good example of taking a modern, yet uncomplicated approach to web design. The company utilizes a standard website layout with the business logo on the left-hand side of the header and the menu on the right. However, it stands out by including a centered, fairly generic image mixed with intermingled shapes. It serves the hair salon by showing its creativity in a subdued way with its monotone, grayscale colors.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much does it cost to build a website?
The average cost to build a website varies greatly based on whether you are building it yourself or hiring a web designer. The average cost to build your own site on WordPress can be as little as just the cost of hosting (e.g., just $2.95 per month with Bluehost) and as much as $300 if you choose to purchase a premium theme and premium plugins. Get more information on costs and learn how to build your own small business website in five simple steps.
Where can I find someone to build my website?
There are many different ways to find someone to build a website, but one of the most affordable options is Fiverr. There, you will be able to browse through freelancer web designers and see their ratings, qualifications, and prices. You can use these freelancers to source website design ideas or simply design a site for you. You can also post a job and let freelancers submit proposals, saving you time.
How do I build a WordPress website?
Building a WordPress website is not easy, though it is possible if you are willing to invest a bit of time learning the platform. To build a WordPress website, get a web hosting service, register your domain name, install WordPress, find and install a theme, customize your theme, and publish your site. Get the step-by-step details in our article How to Design a Website.
What is the best way to build a website without coding?
The best way to build a professional-quality website without coding knowledge or web design experience is with drag-and-drop website builders, such as Squarespace or Weebly. These platforms make building a site very easy. They are also very affordable, with pricing that includes hosting and a domain name for around $10 to $15 per month. To help you build your website, review our article on website design ideas.
Bottom Line
Looking at well-designed websites and website statistics is an excellent way to get web design ideas that you can use on your website—from layouts to the strategic placement of CTA buttons, and selection of colors. If you don’t have web design experience, we recommend that you use a drag-and-drop website builder, such as Squarespace. It offers award-winning templates that are easy to customize, ensuring that your site always looks great. Get started with Squarespace for free.
You Might Also Like…
- For more web design inspiration, check out more small business website examples.
- Looking for inspiration to improve your existing site? Use these user experience (UX) design principles.
- Once you’re ready to launch your site, start generating traffic with these website marketing strategies.
