Admit it. If you were to look at a website made 10, or even 5 years ago compared to one made just a few months ago you would immediately see a drastic difference between them. This shows just how fast commonly accepted technology and design trends change in today’s technology era. Here are some of the most common website design trends we guarantee you will start noticing in 2018!

1:  Minimalist Designs

Back in the day, website designers tended to pack pages full of content.  Whether it be text content, images, or flashy animations; the idea was “the more the merrier”.  This idea has taken a complete turnaround from what it once was.  Now, in 2018, the simpler the better.  Why?  The answer is simple.  Most people visiting websites are not usually looking to read your content as much as they are looking for the fastest way to fulfill their need.  Reading text on a website is now considered to be more like work to people now, especially with the millennial generation.

As a result, it’s extremely important for web pages to be short, sweet, and to the point as to not lose your visitors attention.  Many companies are opting-out of using multiple page sites and going with single-page websites that focus on simplifying their products or services and creating a more engaging website funnel (and they are seeing better results too.)  You’ll also notice websites taking advantage of video content and animated videos because they are proven to be more enjoyable to visitors.

2:  Push Notifications

As of late you’ve probably been noticing a lot of sites, especially some of the larger ones, asking if you want to receive/allow notifications from them.  On chrome, it’s usually displayed on the top left of the screen during your visit.  If you click yes, what you’re doing is allowing the website to show you a small notification on your computer or phone as soon as they published one.  You don’t have to be on their website to receive them and in most cases now, you don’t even have to be surfing the web and your browser can be completely closed.

Push notifications are very powerful tools in today’s marketing society for many different reasons; and one of them is because they work on almost any type of device!  The user doesn’t have to open any app to see the notification, which makes it much more efficient than email and text messages that require you to open up the app to receive the notification.  This makes this type of communications extremely useful for things like sports scores and breaking news, but push notifications can be used on your website for anything you want.

Push notifications require no additional cost like those associated with making apps and are instead integrated in with your current site.  Studies show that they have much higher engagement rates than a lot of other means.

3:  Chat Bot Implementation

We are all too familiar with chat messaging add-ons that are commonly seen on websites.  They pop up and ask you if you need anything and then connect you with a representative to help you out.  Up until last year, almost every single one of these required a real person on the other end.  Now, with advancements in artificial intelligence, chat bots are becoming more and more common and I expect them to at least double in popularity during the year of 2018.

What’s the advantage of having a chat bot?  Automation.  If you have a developer code a good chat bot for you, it will be able to answer questions about you or your company without any human intervention at all.  This can save you the cost of paying for an hourly employee or contracting a company to handle these requests for you.  Really well developed ones could even replace support teams entirely!  Chat bots using keywords and pre-programmed algorithms are able to respond to visitor inquiries in the form of conversations, and when really good ones are integrated with your website visitors can hardly tell the difference.

4:  Static Websites

It might not sound like a very interesting concept because who doesn’t want things to be dynamic, right?  The reality is, most people don’t know what the term “static website” actually means.  When you hear the word “static” most people automatically think of a boring website that doesn’t look great with nothing to interact with; this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  When people talk about static websites, what they are referring to is the back-end code running the website… not the actual website itself.  The code running the site is not changed regularly; and that’s it.

You can do all of the same things with static websites as you can dynamic websites, but each come with their own benefits and use-cases.  People who are looking to have a website that requires the least attention to keep it running, a static website is the what they want.  If you will be constantly changing your sites content or adding things regularly, such as blog posts, go with a website built on a dynamic CMS such as WordPress. However, it’s important to know that with dynamic sites like these, it’s extremely important to continually update all plugins and do regular risk assessments.  If you fail to do this, your website is much more likely to be hacked or left vulnerable, leaving all your information, passwords, and your business vulnerable to security threats.  For those who want to avoid this, a static website is the key.

Static websites for most businesses and organizations produce the best “bang for your buck.”  They last longer and require much less attention.  As technology continues to advance at an exponential rate, we’re seeing more and more companies future proofing themselves so they can focus more on their business and worry less about dealing with their website or paying for someone to deal with it for them.

What are your predictions?

Now that you’ve gotten a chance to look at our predictions for 2018, what do you think about them?  Do you have any of your own that you think we missed?  Do you disagree with any?  Let us know in the comments below!

 

Posted in Online Strategy, Web Design