Website Trends and Technologies that You Can Expect to See in 2022
Posted on 10th September 2021
Technology is constantly evolving and so too are trends in web design. One minute a certain trend or design will look contemporary then the next it appears clichéd. This isn’t ideal if you need to use your website to generate sales as visitors will come across your site, see the same thing they have seen a million times and click straight off. You want visitors to stay, browse, and be engaged!
Design trends to look out for include:
Technologies we can expect to see:
Bold Colours
When it comes to web design, many feel that less is more and a minimalist style has been adopted by sites across the web. To make up for it, a lot of organisations are opting to use bold, bright and saturated colours that will help your brand stand out. In contrast to blank spaces, bold colours have an instant impact on anyone visiting the site. By being exposed to such bright and eye-catching colours the minute they click, prospective customers are much more willing to engage with your brand.
There are a number of different colours that are used as a vehicle to increase sales. Which ones you should use, depends entirely on what you’re trying to sell and the message that you’re trying to convey to your audience.
Strong Videography
It has been a mantra of the marketing world for a long time that videos are must-haves for websites. People love videos as they’re engaging, easy to get into and the most effective way to get across your business’ tone of voice, quality and ethos. It goes much further than simply slapping a video on your website.
Yes, videos are great, but they need to be thoroughly thought out. Your videos should come with both meaning and purpose behind them, as opposed to having a video for the sake of it. As such, you should ensure your video gets to the heart of what your business does and clearly conveys what separates you from the rest of the competition.
Micro Animation
Micro animations are very brief animations (more commonly known as GIFs) that are used to make websites appear more appealing as they work for buttons, links, sliders, icons and other clickable elements on the site. They are beneficial to the design of websites as they push the user to do simple, specific actions that they might neglect to do otherwise. This applies to a lot of social media elements, which are taken into account by many web designers now as getting attention on social media is key. Short animations encourage people to like and share posts that they might not have done otherwise.
Organic Shapes
Organic shapes are seen on many different websites and are preferred by a lot of consumers due to the fact they are welcoming. This is usually because their natural shape sparks feelings about nature, such as leaves, flowers, butterflies and clouds. They can be used to highlight the environment or outdoors on a website but more importantly, they are nice to look at and users enjoy seeing them on sites, meaning they stick around and engage with your brand for longer.
More Interactivity
If you add interactive sections onto your website, you will be able to provide a lot more value to your visitors and also get feedback regarding the experience they have had on your website. A good example would be for a real estate site to have a mortgage calculator on their site leading to more customer engagement, which will also assist with getting more traffic (and consequently conversion) on your site.
Other examples of more interactive systems that you could include on your site are:
- Quizzes / Questionnaires
- Contests
- Polls / Surveys
Load Time and Page Speed are Paramount
Something that is absolutely crucial for your website is an ultra-fast loading time. The fact is, consumers were already making the switch to online shopping and this has been enhanced even more due to the pandemic forcing organisations to make the switch from physical stores to digital. As such, every consumer has access to more or less the entire world when it comes to shopping.
This means that if your website is slow, people no longer have the patience to wait around for it to finish loading. Instead, people will simply go to a quicker website that also operates in your industry.
The performance of your website will have a direct impact on your company’s conversion and overall success.
Human-Like Chatbots
Artificial intelligence has come a long way since its initial implementation years ago, to the point that the prospect of having human-like and helpful chatbots on websites will soon be a reality. AI is becoming much more sophisticated meaning consumers will soon be able to have a seamless conversation with a robot and find it just as helpful as speaking to a human.
This will be incredibly beneficial as it means that you will be able to work on building your business as opposed to handling customer complaints and queries. All of these questions will instead be directed towards the chatbot on your site, who will be able to help them with their query.
Voice-Activated Interfaces
The way that we are requesting information is changing. Rather than typing into Google, voice searches are becoming much more popular. As such, web design is adjusting to these changes as a means to keep up with just how much voice chatbots are being used.
Having a voice-activated interface isn’t that commonplace on a lot of websites; however, the emerging trend is certainly going to start to find its way onto far more sites in the near future. We can expect to see many more websites integrating a voice search feature into their websites, as well as the currently used text search.
Content and User Experience
Everything on your website will have a purpose, whether it’s to sell a product, a service, provide information or ask people to subscribe to your mailing list. You can check Google Analytics to see whether or not consumers are engaging with your site in the way you would like them to and if not then it may be you need to revisit your website's content, or consider the user experience.
A good user experience means that the user has:
Visited your website
Taken the time to scroll through different pages on your website
Understood what the website is about
Got what they wanted.
Due to the accessibility of websites around the world, improving on your user experience is crucial to ensuring they don’t simply click on your site and then head elsewhere. In order to improve your user experience, you need to ensure your site provides value, usability, usefulness, desirability and is findable, accessible and credible.
Lead Nurturing Forms
Nurturing leads allows you to send a series of targeted and timely communications to potential leads, the point of which is to inform prospective clients of your sales and funnel them through the process until they are ready to purchase from you. There are a number of different campaigns that can be used to nurture leads. One of their biggest benefits is that they allow you to gain new customers at a low cost as the entire process is automated.
Conclusion
Keeping your businesses website updated is essential. Some trends come and go but utilizing the relevant ones into your businesses website could go some way to a better user experience and an increase in enquiries and sales. It’s also important to keep your website updated with imagery that is both relevant to your business and modern. Customers are more likely to leave your website if they feel it looks out of date. Your website can outdate pretty quickly so it’s always great practice have a design refresh at least every 3 years.”
If you want your website to stand out for the right reasons and be easy to manage, you should look to enlist the help of a web design agency who have a track record of creating wonderful websites. At it’seeze Windsor, we are experienced and passionate about designing websites for small businesses. We can help revamp or create a website that looks professional and keeps your customers engaged.
If you have any questions about our services, then do not hesitate to get in touch.
Tagged as: web design
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