A well-designed, concise website is an extremely important tool for bringing a potential customer into your small business.
With constantly changing design trends, it’s important to understand what is essential, with consideration to you your business’ budget.
Let’s take a look at the top web design trends for 2013, as chosen by Website Magazine, and what they mean for your small business’ marketing strategy:
Responsive Web Design
Responsive Web Design has become increasingly important due to the rise of smartphone use and multitude of screen sizes on the market, with tablets and mobile phones of different shapes and sizes.
When transitioning your old website over to a responsive site, you should consider how it will look for both a wide screen laptop and mobile phone. While you may have many pictures, text and videos on your full site, you may also want to think about the importance of a concise mobile experience with fast loading times and easy navigation. A responsive website should also include a clear call-to-action at the top of every page, as well as your social media badges to allow potential customers to become a fan or follow your company if they are not ready to buy right now.
With these things in mind, your responsive website will look picture-perfect on any device:
Image Tiles
The image tile display, popularized by Pinterest, has spread to many websites including Ebay and even Facebook. Its visually-appealing platform and ease of use reflect the way people digest content: in the ‘now’, with the ability to discover and share.
Image tiles may not be the easiest technology to implement onto your new or existing site, but the principles are simple:
- Aesthetically pleasing colors
- Organized Layout
- Reduced text
- Familiar Icons
- Everything “above the fold”
Parallax Scrolling & Typography
Huh? Parallax Scrolling is simply when a user scrolls through a website and experiences sliding visuals and text. It’s a new design trend that has been implemented on many websites, including Honda’s.
To small businesses, Parallax Scrolling & Typography offer great opportunities. Though this website feature is very unique, it may be a bit out of a small business owner’s budget. Unless you are in the media or entertainment industry, it may not be most cost-effective solution
Typography refers to the styles of font that are on a website- from type, to color, to size. It is important to have a website that utilizes size in determining the hierarchy of information. This helps customers find what they are looking for, directing them to the most important information first. Uniform bodies of text are often overlooked.
Social Feeds
Social media has revolutionized the way consumers buy and the way companies influence that decision. Most websites today have links to their top social media channels, and the latest design trends are facilitating this social interaction directly on company websites through feeds. Social media is continuously becoming integrated with sales. Why get on board with social networks?
- An active social feed will allow you to display industry credibility. This is a great first-impression with communicating the benefits of your product offering.
- Publishing social links on your website is a transparent way to gain trust. Users can scan your posts, evaluate, and potentially become a long-term fan with one click.
- By building followers, likes, and fans, and adding value to the conversation with quality content, this opens up opportunities for the occasional promotional post to display your products and ultimately increase sales.
Conclusion?
A website is a long-term investment, so it is important to do it right the first time.
There are many design trends you can spend your money on, but it is important to understand the difference between the essential and unessential. As a whole, trends are moving in the direction of simplicity and ease of use.
What can you take away from all these trends for your own website?
- Concise pages for fast loading times, easy navigation
- Organized layout
- Focus on images and icons over text
- Strategic use of text size for info hierarchy
- Social Badges to engage long-term customers
Want help with your business’ website? Check out PropelWeb!
