Good web design does three things: it makes a good first impression, it makes it easy to find your way, and it gets visitors to act. If the site looks good but nobody gets in touch, the design has not done its job.
In this guide we go through what matters most in 2026: usability, speed, accessibility and visibility in both Google and AI answers. You also get an overview of the tools we use ourselves, and numbers from websites we have built.
What You Will Learn in This Post
- What separates a good website from a pretty one, with three examples from our own clients
- The five best practices every good website follows
- Web design trends for 2026: which to follow, and which to skip
- The tools we use: Figma, WordPress, WooCommerce and custom code
- Design that gets visible in Google and cited in AI answers
- Design that gets visitors to reach out, and the process from idea to launch
What Is a Good Website?
A good website is one that does its job. For a store, the job is sales. For a service business, the job is enquiries. The look is only the means.
Two examples from our own clients show the difference. When we rebuilt the VuggeBaby online store, we replaced dropdowns with color swatches, added a preview of the child's name right on the product page, and swapped a heavy search for one that suggests as you type. None of that is decoration. All of it removes doubt before the purchase. From March through May 2026, the store completed 132 percent more purchases and grew revenue by 108 percent compared with the same period the year before.
For Stas Artist we built the site from scratch in Laravel, with a booking system, a tour schedule and an online store, and with mobile as the first choice in every design decision. In the first seven months after launch, the site had 507 percent more new users and 634 percent more returning users, measured in Google Analytics against the same period the year before.
That is what good web design is: choices that get people to do what you want them to do.
Five Web Design Best Practices Every Good Website Follows
Built for Every Screen
The website must work just as well on a phone, a tablet and a desktop. This is called responsive design, and it is no longer optional. Google ranks you based on the mobile version of your site, and most visitors arrive on a phone.
So start with the phone screen when you design, and expand to large screens afterward. The other way around almost always produces a mobile version that feels like a compromise. Use images that scale without blurring, menus that work with a thumb, and test on real phones, not only in the browser simulator.
Easy to Use
Visitors should find what they are looking for without thinking. That means a menu with few, clear choices, important information high on the page, and buttons big enough to hit with a finger.
At VuggeBaby, the biggest loss was in the checkout. Customers could not see how the name would look on the garment before buying, and many gave up. The preview fixed it. Look at your own site the same way: where does the customer have to guess?
Fast to Load
People are impatient online, and Google measures it. Core Web Vitals are Google's measure of user experience, and since March 2024, INP is the number for how fast the page reacts when someone clicks. Measure with PageSpeed Insights, and look for the usual culprits: large images, heavy scripts and a slow server.
- Compress images to WebP, and set width and height in the code
- Remove plugins and scripts you do not use
- Choose fast hosting close to your visitors
Accessible to Everyone
The site must be usable by people with impaired vision, hearing or motor skills. It is required by law: Norwegian websites aimed at the general public must meet 35 requirements from the WCAG standard, and the EU Accessibility Act applies in the EU from June 28, 2025, to online stores among others. In practice that means good contrast, alt text on images, and a site that works with a keyboard alone.
We explain the whole framework in our guide about text to speech and universal design.
A Clear Hierarchy
Use size, color and placement to guide the eye. The most important thing should be the biggest, or stand alone. Space around an element makes it visible. Group what belongs together, and let the rest stay quiet. A good hierarchy lets visitors understand the page in three seconds, without reading.
Web Design Trends 2026: Follow These, Skip the Rest
Not every trend deserves a place on your website. The table shows what we recommend to our clients.
| Trend | Our Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| AI drafts for design and copy | Use, with care | Fast for sketches and ideas. Without a designer the result looks like everyone else's, and everything needs a human check before publishing. |
| Accessibility as the default | Must | Required by law in Norway, and in the EU since June 28, 2025. It is also better design for everyone. |
| Speed as part of the design | Must | INP and Core Web Vitals count in rankings, and slow pages lose visitors before they have read the headline. |
| Ready for AI agents | Watch closely | With WebMCP, AI agents can search and order directly on your website. We have tested it on mementor.no. |
| Dark mode | Optional | Nice for reading at night, but it needs two color palettes that both pass the contrast check. |
| Small animations | In moderation | A button that reacts on hover is enough. Movement that means nothing steals attention. |
| Slanted layouts and unexpected placements | Skip | It catches the eye in portfolios, but confuses customers who want to find the price. |
| Video at the top of the home page | Skip | It is often the heaviest element on the page, and few watch it to the end. A good image and a clear headline do the job. |
The Tools We Use
Figma is the standard tool for the design itself. That is where we make sketches and clickable prototypes the client can try before a single line of code is written, and several people can work in the same file at once.
We build most websites in WordPress, and online stores with WooCommerce. You own everything, the cost is low, and Vipps, Klarna, Bring and Norwegian accounting systems have ready integrations. When a client needs something the standard solutions do not cover, we build from scratch in Laravel, as we did for Stas Artist and for our own website.
Webflow suits design-driven sites where you want full control without coding. Shopify suits online stores that want a fixed monthly fee and no technical responsibility, at the cost of some freedom. For testing we use PageSpeed Insights for speed and Hotjar to see where people click and how far they scroll.
Choosing between Shopify and WooCommerce for a store? Which one costs less depends on how your customers pay. We run the numbers in our Shopify and WooCommerce price comparison.
AI tools can now draft entire websites in minutes. We use them for sketches, color suggestions and copy ideas, and let a designer shape the expression afterward. Everything made by AI passes a human check before it is published.
The same rule applies to copy, ads and images. We have put together a four-week plan for using AI in your marketing.
Design That Gets Visible in Google and AI Answers
Much of the search engine optimization is decided when the site is built. We have a separate guide on how SEO and web design work together. The short answer is this:
- One H1 per page, with H2 and H3 in a logical order, so both Google and AI engines understand the structure
- Titles under 60 characters and meta descriptions under 155, written to be clicked
- Descriptive file names and alt text on images, compressed to load fast
- Structured data for products, reviews and questions and answers
- Short paragraphs and clear answers at the top of each section, so the content is easy to cite
The last point is what makes ChatGPT and Google's AI answers choose you as a source. It is called AEO, and you can read more in our guide about AEO optimization.
Design That Gets People to Reach Out
The design should work for you. The button that matters most needs a color that stands out, a text that says what happens, and a place where people look for it. "Get a quote" beats "Click here" every time.
Trust decides the rest. Customer reviews on the home page, logos of clients you have worked for, and clear prices remove the doubt that stops an enquiry. In VuggeBaby's checkout, a dedicated confirmation shows the product just added to the cart, how far the customer is from free shipping, and four bestsellers from the same category. That is trust and upselling on the same screen.
Trust and clear prices show up in the conversion rate. We show how to get more inquiries from the website you have, and how to find what stops customers.
If your own logo is due for a refresh, our guide to logo redesign and rebranding shows how to keep what customers recognize.
At The Box, a coworking space in Oslo, the prices were not on the website. Anyone wondering what an office cost had to get in touch, and many did not.
In the new design all 13 offices are listed with floor area and monthly price, the meeting rooms with an hourly rate, and the booking opens from anywhere on the site and filters by number of people. The request lands with The Box as a fully structured email with room, period and contact details.
The website has become the channel enquiries come through.
And test. Make two versions of your most important page, and let the numbers decide. Ask customers what stopped them. Their opinion is worth more than your own taste.
From Idea to Finished Website: The Process
Wondering how to actually create a website from scratch? Five steps cover it.
- Planning: decide what the site should get visitors to do, who they are, and which pages you need. Five pages is plenty for most businesses.
- Design and prototype: sketch the pages, choose colors and fonts, and build a clickable prototype in Figma that shows how people navigate.
- Development: turn the design into a working site in WordPress or custom code, with forms, search and any integrations.
- Testing: check every browser and device, every link and form, and the speed in PageSpeed Insights. Fix, then test again.
- Launch and maintenance: publish, connect the domain, and keep the site updated with content and technical updates. A site is never finished.
Redesigning an Existing Website?
If you already have a website that is not delivering, the question is whether to refresh it or build new. We cover that in our guide on new web design and website redesign. What it costs, you will find in our website pricing guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is web design?
Web design is the work of how a website looks and functions. It covers everything from colors, fonts and layout to how easy it is to find your way and get in touch. Good web design combines appearance, usability and technology.
What are the top web design trends for 2026?
Accessibility as the default, speed treated as part of the design, AI used for drafts but not for the final result, and websites that AI agents can use directly through standards like WebMCP. Dark mode and small animations are fine in moderation. Slanted layouts and video in the top of the home page are trends we tell clients to skip.
Are websites still relevant in 2026?
More than before. AI answers in Google and ChatGPT pull their sources from websites, and AI agents are starting to search and order directly on them. A business without a good website is invisible in both places. What has changed is the job: the site must answer questions clearly and be usable by machines as well as people.
What does a new website cost?
It depends on size and features. At Mementor you get either a fixed project price agreed in advance, or web design as an ongoing monthly service. Ask for a free quote, and you get a concrete price within 24 hours. See our website pricing guide for typical ranges.
Which tool should I build my website in?
WordPress suits most businesses and gives the most freedom over time. Shopify is made for online stores and is quick to get started with. Webflow suits design-driven sites. If you are unsure, choose based on what the site should do in two years, not just today.
What is responsive design?
Responsive design means the website adapts to the screen it is shown on, whether mobile, tablet or PC. Google evaluates the mobile version of your site when ranking you, so the mobile experience matters most.
Does my website have to follow universal design requirements?
Yes. Norwegian websites aimed at the general public must meet 35 requirements from the WCAG standard, and public organizations have even stricter requirements. If you sell to customers in the EU, the EU Accessibility Act also applies from June 28, 2025. Read more in our guide about universal design.
Conclusion
Good web design is not what looks most impressive. It is what gets the most people to buy or get in touch. Make the site fast, built for mobile and accessible to everyone, remove the doubt where customers hesitate, and measure what happens.
Starting on a new website? We design and build websites at a fixed project price, or as web design as an ongoing service. See our web design service or ask for a free assessment.
