Top 10 website development trends in 2021 Now that the year is coming to an end, what were the top 10 website development trends in 2021? What design, copy or media elements defined the year or maintained their dominance? If you’re pressed for time, we see the standout trends as: COVID-19 policies & procedures pages become standard practice. Artificial Intelligence and bots help with UX and customer service. Single Page Application (SPA) sites increase in popularity. Mobile-first development is now the norm but watch out for Apple users. Serverless applications and architecture enable remote working. Product test automation reduces development costs. Motion UI harnessed to funnel users through the journey. IoT dominates the boardroom with web crossover. Content optimised for voice search first. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) plugin saves dev costs. We’ll sort them into the three key development areas of mobile-first, pandemic related and UX inspired trends and provide a bit more flavour to their emergence below. Mobile-first trends More than half of all internet traffic is mobile now. We don’t even need to link you to the reports, intuitively you know. Chances are your own browsing habits have migrated to mostly mobile in recent years. So, it’s obvious that Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Mobile-First Development and Single Page Application (SPA) are leading the charge in design for phones. We expect these trends to continue with good web development focused on near-instant mobile load speeds, rapid conversion and streamlined UI. Lastly, recent changes by Apple on user privacy rules on their devices have changed a lot about what can be tracked now. Essentially not much is passed on to advertisers, websites and merchants any longer, so it’s a space to watch as well. Pandemic-related Privately and in the corporate world, COVID has changed our lives forever. Safety precautions are now listed on nearly every website and our work from home directives have informed tech. AWS (AWS Lambda), Google Cloud (Google Functions) and Microsoft Azure (Azure Functions) lead the charge on serverless computing allowing commerce and business to continue uninterrupted. And collaboration service partners like Cisco are already thinking about syncing their tech with any return to the office with IoT devices like the Cisco Webex Board. We’ve also cut out unnecessary costs in support through automation and bots to help with testing and customer service. UX-focused Artificial Intelligence and bots now dominate the first-touch response for many businesses. They help direct users to resources or manage workflows for service departments. But design is contributing to the user experience too. According to InVision, “motion helps make UIs expressive and easy to use, it’s one of the newer members of the UI design family.” But with new, vast SASS libraries, that’s becoming less of a concern. Lastly, all content is slowly becoming optimised for natural language as sites compete for ‘position zero’ across search engines and home devices. Want Alexa or Google Home to read your content as a result? You’ll need to write for a natural voice response. Want to talk about design, UX or anything else on the internet? Our expert team is standing by.
5 signs you’ve outgrown your web hosting Web hosting is a modern commodity. You need to have the right abound of storage, bandwidth and speed to enable your customers to buy. Fall down at any of those hurdles and you’re leaving cash on the table. So, you probably know not to simply go with the lowest quote you can get. Chances are, when you make your hosting selection, you carefully compared the packages to make the right fit. But now you may be feeling something is off. The arrangement isn’t as comfortable as it was before. Here are 5 signs you’ve outgrown your web hosting: Hungry neighbours taking more than their fair share. Show load times are costing you money. Poor IP reputation is getting you flagged. Bad performance at peak times. Non-standard software is banned. Hungry Neighbours With any shared service agreement, resources are pooled and used across all subscribers. But not everyone has the same needs. You can bet that for every few low-bandwidth users, there’s a super consumer who is pushing that load to its limits. If your host doesn’t have limiters in place, you probably have noticed a drop in service levels as your host has gained popularity. Slow Loading If you notice that your site’s page loading time has taken a nosedive, it’s time to consider a switch. You can monitor that here. And don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by good desktop loading times. Mobile traffic is fast overtaking desktop browsing as the primary medium. If your mobile load times are slow, you’re missing out on custom. Bad Reputation You must monitor your IP too. If they’re getting flagged for spam and malware, that’s going to affect your business. There are several tools available to keep track of your host’s reputation. If there are any warnings, it’s possible another client of your web host has been exploited. This can happen if they’ve not kept their website up to date or failed to enact good security. But it will hurt you, so it’s best to look at making a change. Peak Time Struggle Shared server resources share demand too. So, during busy periods, the RAM and CPU may struggle to keep up. As a result, you’ll see a temporary reduction in loading speed and hang time on processing functions. The downside is that this may cost you consumer trust. If a payment screen hangs, a client is unlikely to attempt the purchase twice for fear of being double charged. Standard Only Out of the box tools will rarely suit a growing business. When you began, basic software like MySQL was just fine. But now you need better, non-standard software like Percona. If your web host won’t allow you to integrate the systems you need, it may be time to move on. You don’t need to settle for basic programs. We’d love to help you evaluate your web host. Let’s talk about what our hosting packages can offer if you have noticed any of these five signs you’ve outgrown your web hosting.
How to Choose Good Images for Website Sales Conversions The type of images you choose could be reducing your sales figures. Yes, that’s right! People respond to images in different ways and picking the wrong ones could put customers off your product. And it’s not just that. You could be reducing your overall web traffic if you don’t have any images. According to Jeff Bullas, “Articles with images get 94% more total views.” That’s a huge difference in traffic. But having good quality images will make a huge positive impact. So, if you’re wondering how to choose good images for website sales conversions, consider the following: Skip the cheezy, staged stock photos. Show real people having an emotion. Don’t just go with what you like, test it! Use the best quality and clarity image you can. Make it relevant to the content and true to the brand. Ban cheesy stock You know the ones. A comedically overstressed worker pulling at his hair, a frazzled housewife surrounded by messy toys or a smiling ethnically ambiguous woman clutching a shopping bag; these don’t really say anything new. Think about communicating a unique message. Look for photos that jump off the page at you. Scroll past any you feel you’ve seen before. There are loads of options for great free stock photos like Unsplash and Pixabay. Show real emotion People buy from people. Try to use human faces or human body parts wherever you can. This will help your visitor imagine themselves using your product or service. Try to show them what they’ll feel when you solve their problem. Oh and it never hurts if the people in your images resemble your target audience too. Test, test, test Often, people just pick an image they like and go with it. They never actually stop to think if this image will resonate with the customer. One way to test this is to have multiple versions of the same landing page with different images. Keep the one that performs the best. Do this with every page on your site for the best results. Clear, high quality Even if you find the ‘perfect’ image, don’t bother with it if the resolution and quality are low. Today’s modern consumers are used to crisp, crystal imagery. Think of all the perfectly filtered Instagram images they scroll past each day. A poor quality image will do more harm than good. Just don’t chance it. Source another image. Totally relevant Not only should the image be relevant to the topic discussed within that element or article, but the brand should factor too. Think about your brand colours and values. If you’re a bright and fun brand you shouldn’t select dark-background imagery for example. There’s a visual disconnect there between the image and the overall page. They need to marry up. Images are very important to design and sales performance. But if you want more tips on how to improve your website SEO overall, check out our previous article.
What you might not know about SEO There are countless articles written about SEO every day. But most of them cover the same two topics: keywords and word count. However, there are some other key things to consider that have nearly just as much impact on your ranking. Here’s what you might not know about SEO: Use image alt attributes to let search engines understand what a picture is about. Write in an easy to understand way, just like you would talk. Set the heading types so search engines know how your page is structured. Configure the metadata to provide the most useful snipped of the page’s content. Alt Image Attributes Most people never bother to set up the alt text on their images. When you leave it blank, search engines don’t know what the image is, so they consider it a decorative item. This is a shame because you could be benefitting from valuable SEO juice by just setting an alt text. You need to describe what’s in the image, but that doesn’t mean it can’t contain your keywords. Think alt text like, “photo of a woman using our app to save money on car insurance.” If “save money on car insurance” is your longtail keyword, this is a great way to get more references in. Conversational Tone If you want to try for ‘position zero’ which usually gets read out by voice assistants and appears at the very top of google search results, you need to do a few things. One of the most important ones is to write in a conversational tone. That means, write as if you’re talking to someone. Answer the question (related to your longtail keyword) as naturally as possible in 40-60 words. And don’t keyword stuff, Google has software to recognise this now. Maybe you could add a few questions? Or start sentences in ‘grammatically-unconventional’ ways. Oh, and don’t use too many big words. Heading formats Another key to position zero is to use proper heading formats (especially with lists). Google needs to know how to display your content. So, only ever have one H1 heading as a first point. When you make an expanded list, put a one-sentence overview next to each point and set it as an H3 or H4. This tells Google that it can show those list headings to answer peoples questions, even if there is more information in between the points. Or you can provide an overview of what you’re going to talk about at the top of the article with your website editor’s in-built ‘list’ format like we’ve done here. Metadata Use Yoast or another plugin to quickly configure your page’s metadata. This helps search engines know what your page is about. It also provides a customised ‘overview’ snippet about the content. You’ll get a better click-through rate if you make it clear right away how you’ll answer a visitor’s question. Remember you should use a long-tail keyword in most instances. Your site can get dinged for having pages with duplicate ‘seeming’ content. So, longtails let you add that differentiation. That’s our list of what you might not know about SEO. Hopefully, that helped you with some tips you can use right away. Need more? Check out our previous article on SEO.
Best Web Design Trends for 2020 As we approach 2020, we are starting to see some obvious trends appearing across various sectors As we approach 2020, we are starting to see some obvious trends appearing across various sectors – not least the online world. Website design is one of the areas that has inevitably seen the most change in recent years. Web design trends change as we take technological leaps towards the future of online. In response to the threat of a new year and predictions coming in from all angles, this article deals with some of the most obvious trends we can expect to see in 2020. Adaptive Design Adaptive design refers to the ability to enjoy a website – from any device. Being adaptive quite literally means adapting to suit all manner of devices. The content has to alter its format in line with the size of a screen. For example, a black of photos on a laptop screen may become a single file line of photos down the page of a mobile device – increasing user readability. One of the most important things to look for in an adaptive design is an edited Menu design. This includes an obvious menu button and an easy-to-use menu list. Notifications When you sign up for something, it’s likely that your phone will pop up with an automated message to allow push notifications. If you’re anything like us, you typically say no. (If only to avoid the constant stream of notifications that apps and games can send to you every single day.) However, in 2020 the notification trend is set to rise. Users are acknowledging the value of knowing when something is about to happen or when an important news story hits the headlines. Motion Design Motion design refers to short videos – known as GIF’s – which allow users to interactively engage and explore something they may be interested in. GIF’s are especially useful when compared with more standard videos as they take up less space on the webpage and result in much quicker load times, keeping the user engaged and preventing them from clicking away in frustration. However, it is also worth noting that GIF’s are typically small bits of video content and will not provide an in-depth exploration of your product – for that you may well need a video. Video On to the more standard videos now, and despite the rise of GIF’s, video content is still set to increase in value as 2020 approaches. After all, if a video interests us then we are likely to watch to the end – just look at the sheer number of views on Facebook videos all over social media. The content is nothing special, yet the interest is peaked and users tend to watch to the end. Users like relevant, simple and minimalistic videos that provide the information they need without extreme explanations or lengthy introductions. Robo-Chat This one comes back to AI – something we all know is coming! Artificial Intelligence sounds quite frankly terrifying, but the chances are that the invention of AI will make life easier for many of us, if for no other purpose than they can screen user questions and provide an engaging FAQ feature. ChatBots are created to mimic a real conversation, using built-in responses that are pre-determined by real humans. These responses are instant for users, with 24/7 service and an ability to help with basic issues regarding the website. While they won’t replace human interaction; because some users will want to talk to a real person, their value is set to skyrocket. Interactivity People like to interact with tech. To feel like they are getting real value from a site, the more interactivity present, the better. This could cover everything from videos to animations and much more! Minimalism This might seem pretty contradictory considering we just covered interactivity, but minimalism is often as effective. Minimalism involves a simple user experience in a number of ways. This includes the design, colour scheme, volume of buttons and graphic details. It’s easier to understand and it will convert better. What’s on the Out? There are a few things we are likely to say goodbye to in 2020. First, one of these is in line with our final trend, and that is a complex design. The more complex the design, the harder the site is to navigate – and that’s simply not good enough anymore. Lastly, a feature we can wave goodbye to is background scrolling. This means longer load times and an annoying pause as the background took a few seconds to catch up. This is unacceptable as we enter 2020.
Theming your WordPress site Theming your WordPress site is a big decision. Not only does it determine the colour scheme of your site, but it also impacts how user-friendly the site is both for yourself and for your website visitors. Your WordPress theme is essentially the template for your site with added bonus bits, including customised formats, fonts and backgrounds. So how do you install a WordPress theme onto your website? The easy route – from the inside Using one of the built-in themes that WordPress advertises in its catalogue is by far the easiest way of installing a theme. Yes, your site may reflect the look of many others like it, but with quality content and some good marketing, you should be able to stand out from the crowd without too many problems. If you’re brand new to WordPress and don’t yet have any selected themes to choose from, starting from scratch is simple enough. Click on ‘Add New’ in the menu under ‘Appearance’ and spend some time scrolling through the many hundreds of options available in the online library. A top tip we recommend is spending some time looking at all of the pages of themes – people in a hurry will often make their selection from the first few pages alone, making these themes the most frequently used. Make your site different by avoiding these most popular designs and picking something lower on the list. Once you’ve selected your theme, switch to live view and explore. Once you’re happy with your selection, install the theme. Remember you can always return and change the settings as often as you like. And if you get bored with the theme you chose, the plethora of themes available will always be waiting on the menu. Downloading an external theme While WordPress offers a multitude of themes in its own database. Plus, the internet is full of creators who have designed and made up WordPress themes of their own to sell. Of course, this involves installing the theme from an external location; a slightly more complicated but entirely doable process. First, you need to download the theme file and save it somewhere that’s easy to find. It’s likely this will come as part of a zipped file. (One which has been reduced in size in order to make download easy.) In order to access the contents, you then need to unzip the file. Returning to the backend of your WordPress site, open your theme’s menu and click on ‘Add New’. Alongside the available options in the WordPress library, you will see an option to upload a theme from your computer. Click on this and then locate the file you just saved. Once your chosen theme has been installed, it works much the same as an internal theme. This is in terms of editing the settings and formatting select areas. Make sure the theme you choose is compatible with the version of WordPress that you are working in. In a world where technology is constantly being updated and renewed, software updates are inevitable and regular. You need to ensure you keep on top of them when theming your WordPress site to keep your website looking great.
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