From Facebook and Instagram to Yelp and Google Business, there are a dozen ways for organizations to maintain an online presence. But no matter how many profiles you create across these popular social media and review sites, your audience will want to visit your real home. The one not hosted by Google, Facebook, or Yelp. 

I’m talking about your website. A website gives your business credibility. It’s a place to show off your brand, relay important information, answer FAQs, and publish SEO-rich articles to increase your visibility and value. But you only get a few seconds to make a positive impression when visitors arrive, so make sure it’s effective by using some of these nine modern website design trends.  

1. Accessibility

Website accessibility—that is, making sure site elements like images, links, and even color schemes are kind to visitors with visual or other impairments—is more of a need than a trend. But it’s something that many businesses are only now starting to incorporate into their websites. The CDC estimates that one in four adults in the United States lives with a disability. That’s a quarter of your potential website audience!

How do you make your website more accessible to people with disabilities? Think about high-contrast viewing modes, keyboard navigation options, ARIA labels to provide invisible text descriptions on clickable fields for screen readers to read, meaningful alt text for screen readers describing your images,…