Christmas is on our doorstep (already!), and 2018 will be here before we are ready for the fireworks as the clock chimes midnight. You might already be wondering what is in store for your website in the new year, and now’s the time to begin planning for what trends you think can benefit your website in the upcoming year. I’ve been researching into what 2018 could bring and my findings are as follows:
Use white / negative space
While this isn’t a new concept, designers will be looking to use more negative space on websites, especially on mobile sites. Negative space is the breathing space around the on-page elements and encourages simple, elegant websites.
Effective negative space draws attention to the important aspects of your site, for example, a Call To Action, or an important section of text. Even images are becoming a thing of the past, with animations and video content becoming more popular on new websites.
Go back to basic images
Simple, hand-drawn images are growing in popularity in website design. The thing that hand-drawn images convey is making you look approachable and friendly in a way that stock photographs don’t. Creating your own images (either drawing them, or using your own photography) will not only look better on your website, but it’ll boost your SEO too! Plus by using your own pictures you’re letting readers into your company culture a little more, so they feel like they know you better.
Animations and video
Movement is generally what sparks interest on a web page. 2018 will see movement into animations, namely, triggered animations. This is, the image will remain static until the visitor scrolls when the image will jump into life. This will happily surprise the visitor and give your website extra pazazz and be more memorable. See a great example of triggered animation here
Utilise chatbots
And personalisation will, in my opinion, see an astonishing rise in 2018. You may have already noticed on websites, chat bots popping up to offer help and reassurance for any questions you may have. These chat bots will continue to develop into the new year with more websites moving to automation to improve customer satisfaction. It’s worth looking into a chat bot to install onto your website if you haven’t already as they do prove very useful for customers.
Improve your security
Google has made some drastic changes to the way it displays websites on its search engine over the last year. With more hacking and malware on the web, it can be a dangerous place, and as such your website’s SEO has been affected. Building trust with your customers will be a major factor in the new year. If customers are questioning can they trust your downloads, or open the email that you’ve just sent, it will have a negative effect on your business.
HTTPs security has begun to enable visitors to see if a website is secure or not, and therefore give an element of trust and endorsement to companies. Luckily for you and your visitors, security will be a hot topic throughout 2018, building on the trust between company and client. Make it easy for yourself, and ensure your website is SSL secure, see more here.
Mobile continues
Small screen optimisation will continue to be the way forward for website design. Website designers will become accustomed to designing a website for a mobile screen before desktop.
App development
Development in apps for businesses enables customers to keep on top of their accounts on the go. It also gives businesses a direct way to market new products and promotions to their customers.
Final thoughts
If you’ve read this and thought, ‘wow my website is seriously lacking in some of these areas’ it might be time to consider a website redesign. At bOnline, we recommend that customers give their website a revamp every 12 months. There are so many benefits to doing this, read more here.
Share and enjoy
If you have any questions or comments about this post, please fill in the comment box below. Or send an email to shale@bonline.com. To find out more about bOnline, please visit our website.
