Whether you’re a small business looking for a WordPress Web Design or in the throws of developing an international e-commerce business, web design should form an integral part of your marketing strategy.
Web design affects conversion, search engine ranking, and brand awareness all of which have a direct impact on your return on investment.
From year to year, small business web design trends change. Many of the trends are momentary and viral, and consequently, they fail to produce the steady growth and brand awareness that small business needs.
However, many of the developing trends are here to stay and are setting up the pace and direction for the future of online marketing and web design.
Want to get the most action possible from your website design?
The Deep End Web Consulting have put together a clean infographic on which trends to look out for and possibly incorporate into your web design strategy for 2017.
Visual Trends
People relate to people like themselves, so connect instantly by styling your design to reach your target group.
Cinemagraphs are still images with a touch of video to captivate your audience. Expect to see more of these as large images.
Just a touch of animation will attract more attention to your call to action button, enticing visitors to click. But don’t overdo it. The more you distract your site visitor from the end goal the more likely they are to opt-out of your call to action.
So keep your animations relevant and engage in but avoid overkill. Remember that colour also plays an important part in your web design.
You want your call to action to be the thing that grabs the user’s attention not the bells and whistles of a quickly fading trend.
Functional Design Trends
Load speed matters in web design. A skeleton screen creates the effective illusion that your site is loading quickly and allows users to begin engaging in your content straight away.
Consider using a bot to answer questions visitors might have before they commit to buying or signing up for something on your website.
Strategic Design Trends
The strategy is all-important. Expect to see these trends in 2017:
Top online retailers have paved the way for shopping cart marketing. If you sell online be sure to offer upsells or bundles to increase revenue.
Keep your upsells clean, simple and relevant and avoid distracting and annoying pop-ups. Providing the information that the user has not requested is to ignore user intent.
If done correctly a persuasive video is an excellent way to reinforce the features and benefits of your service or product.
The persuasive video is a step up from the show-and-tell approach.
What could be more powerful than people who love your products and services sharing their enthusiasm?
Not everyone will be a customer or want to sign up for your mailing list, but a value based exit overlay is a great tactic for a second chance.
Offer them a freebie with no strings attached as a last-ditch attempt at eventual conversion.
Savvy marketers are increasingly using one-stop-shop landing pages as a conversion strategy.
The old thinking was that all of your most essential elements needed to be at the top of the page. But the increase in mobile and palm held devices means that people are used to scrolling.
This means you can employ terrific landing page designs along with many of the other tactics described here to increase conversions on your website.
Landing Page Web Design Trends
Live chat is a great way to engage your client or user. But try and be less intrusive.
Nobody enjoys massive chat pop-up blocking the ACT information they actually came to read. By blocking vital information with annoying pop-ups, you are removing one of the steps that lead to conversion.
So keep your chat technology simple, clean and easy to find – yet unobtrusive
Keep your online forms equally simple. Do not ask for unnecessary information. The more you require of your users, the less likely they will be to adopt your service or purchase your product.
Social proof also continues to be a critical factor in buyer decision. Use customer reviews strategically on your site. This not only breaks up the design and layout of your landing page but also reinforces the buyer’s decision.
Instapage have provided the following tip from their recent design and conversion article.
Users typically and naturally read from the left margin. Centering your content typically makes it harder to read especially if you are using side bars on landing pages.
The consensus is that the best-converting pages keep the paragraph short and evenly spaced.
While the jury is still out on this issue, the important thing is consistency in the layout and design. Make it easy for your users to read your content.+
Mobile Web Design
Finally, don’t ignore mobile landing page optimisation. This is critical to your web design, and it’s power to convert users.
Call of any small business web design is 2.4 user smoothly toward a purchasing or service orientated goal.
What is true of desktop design is especially true when it comes to mobile web design. Less is more. Your users need to be able to read in under 30 seconds the major features and benefits of your product or service.
When creating your small business web design ask yourself, what is the purpose of this design element and how does it further the goal of conversion?
When designing a landing page to promote a product or service online, you’re ultimately pointing users toward one goal. Know what the goal is, and how anyone design element is helping users achieve that goal.
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The latest trend of web designs are Functional Design Trends, Strategic Design Trends, Landing Page Web Design Trends, Mobile Web Design
Thanks David.
I was making mistakes to not update my Homepage and not making the Call to action button animated.
I think that’s why I lost lots of clients.