New Year's Resolutions for your Website
Is your website ready for 2015? In the year ahead, expect to see some new web design and development tactics take hold. Make it a resolution to keep up with the times and provide a pleasant user experience to your website visitors. Not sure where to start? We have you covered. Below are some items which you should look into implementing for the New Year to ensure your business achieves great success in 2015.
Go Responsive - You may have heard us harp on the importance of a new approach to design called ‘Responsive Web Design.' Responsive design allows your users to access the information your website provides in an easy to view fashion, regardless of the device they are accessing it from. We cannot emphasize the importance of responsive design enough. Not only does a growing mobile audience demand that your website accommodate the needs of users on the go, but search engines, Google especially, will favor websites who utilize this new design technology.
Opt For Scrolling Over Clicking - "Staying above the fold” is a phrase which comes from print media, but is it useful for web design? Current best practices say no: users are used to scrolling and are even beginning to prefer it. Gone are the days where clicking into deeper pages and navigational levels is an expected part of a user's experience. Now, users want to scroll and interact with your website, so there’s no need to force all homepage content to the top of the page. It’s okay to put important information further down.
More Photos, Less Text - A photo is worth a thousand words. This has never been so true, especially where websites are concerned. Expect to see a trend towards imagery over textual content. Rather than complementing your text with an image, try it the other way around. Use eye grabbing imagery accompanied by short blurbs of text directing users to where they can get more in depth information on the given subject. Be sure to accommodate your image with a call-to-action so users know what to do next.
Everything Will Be Larger - Be it text, photos, or videos, all elements within your website will need to grow and accommodate a trend toward larger monitors. As screen sizes increase, features and design elements will need to grow with them.
User Experience Will Matter More Than Ever - Your website might have great content, and maybe it's getting tons of traffic through marketing campaigns and strategic keyword usage, but if your users don't have a good experience once they find your website, the prior becomes pretty irrelevant. Be sure to take user experience into consideration in 2015. Whether your website is dated, contains too much/too little content, or has a complicated navigational structure, look at your website from a user's perspective and pinpoint problem areas which might be worth addressing in the year ahead.
Overall, keeping your customer’s experience in mind can help determine which enhancements would be most beneficial to your website. Want to start 2015 off on the right foot? Contact us today. One of our web experts will be happy to sit down with you and discuss the many ways we can help your business flourish in 2015.
Have a great New Year!