Business trends change every year. While business sites are nothing new, they are more important now than ever since web design trends can influence your business. Hosting a website for one’s business in 2021 is vital to any company’s success. It is one of the ways to reach consumers organically. Having a searchable website makes a company’s material easier to access. The easier the website can be found, the more consumers it attracts. In many ways, an easy-to-find website is an effective marketing strategy in every way.
Being easy to find is great. However, then comes the small window of time a custom website design gets to impress a new user. Think about it. Whenever you click a link on the internet from a search engine or another source, you might close it within seconds. Maybe the design was flat, or the site was not what you were looking for. Other reasons could be an outdated site. Which might make you question whether the information on there is up to date. What if the website has an outdated design? Some users may doubt its relativity to their search. Retaining an audience is key to every successful website. This is done through constant updates and activity on the site. Staying in touch with trends ensures that your website reaches people online.
Another factor often glossed over is a good-looking mobile website. More than half of searches are conducted on smart phones these days. Imagine any of those searches landing on your site and facing the challenging navigation. The challenge being, navigating a desktop-centric site on a phone. The zooming so they can click the right link. The menus that appear too small or too large. Any of these factors can drive users away. In this article, we will discuss what makes a good website in 2021.
New web design trends are seen everywhere you look these days. Brands and companies consistently go through redesigns and revamps to stay trendy. Staying trendy is one issue. There are also the bounds of web design that are consistently pushed. We will get into good web design examples further down in the article. But what makes a design good? What can make your website stand out? One trend that you may have seen is “scrollytelling” or scrolling cards. That is, using the scroll feature on a website to make it interactive. As the user scrolls up or down the information on the page changes with a subtle transition. The transition could include different colors and pastel themes to be welcoming to the user. Then there is horizontal scrolling. It can be effective when telling a story in a slideshow fashion.
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
The importance there is to have clear buttons for the user, so they may pause or go back at their leisure. By doing this, you are allowing them to experience the story without distractions. If the page moves too fast, or they must go back to the start every time they miss something, they could lose interest. The key to incorporating trendy and new designs is at the same time, keeping it simple. If a user is overwhelmed by an intricate series of effects, as cool as it may look, they may miss the message. After all, websites are like storefronts. Their mission is to attract visits. However, these visits must be meaningful and get the intended message across. Whether the site is informational or a shop, a user needs to understand its core purpose.
Clearly, we may not be able to cover every trend in these few paragraphs. When approaching web design, having inspirations help to set your vision straight. One simple trend making websites look approachable and less mechanic, is cartoon illustrations. You may have seen them on Twelfth Dream’s site as well. It is a great way to include a hint of zany and fun, and spruce up the site’s feel. A great resource for finding such illustrations for your site is blush. Making sure the color palettes are a fit should be noted here. Speaking of fitting color palettes, many sites are considering going dark with their themes. A series of tech giants even offer their site with a dark mode turned on. Especially those with a lot of white space.
Google, Facebook, and Reddit to name a few. This trend is also picking up steam, as dark mode is easier on the eyes. It also uses less battery. Overall, its efficiency seems to have won over many users. Retro fonts are another great example. A lot of sites seem to use fonts from decades past while employing modern twists. As vinyl sales rise, a clear market trend for nostalgia is palpable. Although, it should be noted that at the end of the day, it is your message that matters. The purpose of the site is to convey that message. So, while it is beneficial to keep trends in mind, it is not necessary to include every new trend in your plan.
Sometimes, a simpler design choice can make your site look just as slick. Making your menus appear in a grid format is a great example. It would make them look like a series of squares and rectangles, but it would be cohesive. Other simple methods can transform a dull website. Having relevant text to your site is vital to get your message across. However, there are other means to do so and grab the user’s attention. This includes multimedia. Videos, audio, and pictures can peek a user’s interest. In fact, as much as text is helpful in communication, accompanying multimedia drives your message home. It might be an investment of time on your behalf, but it will surely pay dividends with further engagement. Through painting a visual image or by setting the scene through sound effects, the user has an easier time connecting to your message.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engines are the primary way by which internet users find websites. Think about the last time you searched for any specific topic or service. Now, think about the times you had to go all the way to the second page of results. It does not happen often, does it? Most users do not click past the first page of results. So, in order to be seen, it is vital to make it on that first page in terms of your website’s subject. There are many ways to ensure that happens. One would be to tag your articles appropriately and include links to other parts of your website. In effect, creating an internal web of inter-connected links. Outbound links help too, as they generate organic traffic.
There are many facets to SEO that help to build a successful website, which we will get into in future articles. What matters is that its importance is stated. There are plugins as well, that help you improve SEO on your site. One such plugin would be Yoast SEO. Understanding your audience plays a key role in reaching them. Even if your site is properly optimized and users find them, the material needs to be relevant. That is why pinpointing your target userbase is important when evaluating your website.
The size of every landing page determines how fast they load for the users. How fast the page loads can be the difference between reaching an audience or losing them. Think about a website you visited that took awhile to load. You either left the site or questioned your internet connection. Google announced about a decade ago that page load times will affect search engine rankings. If you think about it, Google made the right move. Users are not going to be fond of the search engine if the results are bloated web pages. In this age of instant gratification and high-speed internet, keeping users waiting may drive them to the competition.
There are several sites where you can test your site’s speed. They can be as detailed as Google’s own PageSpeed Insights or simple like Pingdom Tools. If you try Google’s page insights you will see First Contentful Paint or Time to interactive. There are many other metrics the page measures once you enter your URL. This creates a benchmark that you can later compare your site to (after making changes). What the process boils down to is making the code efficient and getting rid of unused code, optimizing images, and http requests. Http requests are the requests made to view your page. Along with mobile optimization and adopting effective caching techniques, sites can be much faster in loading. These benchmarks are also helpful when tracking a development team’s effort on your website.
If you don’t know about the importance of page loading speed, then you’d better study our article.
In essence, what matters most is that your website has a clear purpose. That purpose is then helped along with intuitive design and search engine optimization. All that stands on top of good development. If one of these factors go awry, your site gets lost in the shuffle. It is important to constantly update and polish your website. There are many sites that can evaluate yours against the current benchmarks and help you improve. Twelfth Dream is one those sites. Team As A Service (TAAS) accompanies you .You can book a website analysis with us and we can help you improve your site today.
1. Is it important to find proper balance in all features in a website (video,picture,font and theme etc.)?Should value be given to each feature according to the site’s target?Balance in distribution and integration of all features will prevent confusion. On the other hand, not only it is aesthetically satisfying but also it does show a blatant path.
2.What are plugins good for SEO? Plugins are software including several functions that can help your WordPress site to perform better. SEO plugins are those which specifically boost the SEO of your webpage. Plugins that profoundly transform SEO:
3.What affects page load speed?
