2015 Website Trends

The world is fast forwarding into the Digital Age, and this means that as business owners, you not only need to understand how this will benefit you, but also what are the “must haves” in today’s online arena, and adapt accordingly.

Being current in all things "digital" is crucial, and so I thought I would share what the 2015 website trends are, and what you really must have as a functioning, operating, and lead generating website this year…

Here we go…

2015 website trends and must haves:

1. Responsive

This may seem a little “101” but there are still so many websites that are not mobile friendly, or responsive. Having a responsive website means that it is optimised for use on all devices. Why is this important?

• Mobile usage is increasing, meaning more and more of your potential customers will look for you from a mobile device
• If that potential customer has a negative user experience on their mobile device they are 61% more likely to go elsewhere!
• If you have links to social media and blogs, this will bring more mobile users to your website….
• The responsive layout is preferred for SEO – meaning that Google will is more likely to rank your website highly
• A responsive layout means that you are future proofing your website, as it will work on all future devices as well, as it is based on screen size not device…

Responsive layouts are must for your website in 2015!

2. Scroll don’t click!

With the increase in mobile device usage, it is preferable for a user to scroll instead of click. You will have noticed many websites putting all their information on one page and just scrolling down… this is what I mean! Not only is this responsive, but it is also user friendly!

3. Google will rely heavily on social media signals for SEO

Social media and SEO have always been separate tasks, but as the online world is growing fast, Google is relying more and more on social media content for ranking sites. What this means is that you need to have social media added to your websites, and you need to be actively involved in social media activities.

4. Be HUMAN

Often businesses come to us and say “we want to look professional and larger than we are”. Why? Why would you want to hide who you are to the online world - they will eventually find out !

Google and Facebook have made changes to their platforms to push businesses to focus on the “human experience”. This means that your website will need to be current, provide value to your audience, have new content updated regularly – and this will then need to integrate to your social media to ensure you are doing the same thing there.

5. Blogs

As you can see with all of the other trends, content is key… this means you need to not only have a blog on your website, but you also need to update your blog regularly… This provides your website with fresh, searchable and updated content and ensures that you are becoming a trusted and credible source of information for your online users.

6. Inbound Links

Inbound links are where other websites have highlighted your website in some way and provided a link to it. This can be done through a few ways, you can create great content and have industry experts refer to it by adding a link to their own website or another simple way is that you can register on online directories. Make sure the websites you are getting inbound links from have a bigger following than you do.

*** Don’t buy inbound links!!!!

7. CONTENT IS KING

Not sure if you have missed it…. But content is set to rule websites and online activities in 2015. Make sure your content is constantly updated, be diligent… and also make sure that it has:

• Titles
• Metatags
• Keywords

all included… and don’t forget to sound human :)

8. Videos

A great way to have fresh content is to include videos on your website, this will help with SEO, give a human touch, and break up the writing! Your videos don’t have to be professional… but a great way to incorporate videos is in your FAQ area of your website… instead of writing an answer, why don’t you explain the answer in video form?

9. Design

The design of your website in 2015 is taking more on for 2014 and making it stronger… so the areas that are being focused on for a great design are:

• Typography – the great usage of fonts, colours and size can really make a difference to the design of a website – 2015 looks like there will be a greater emphasis on using the written word as a design feature.

• Big, beautiful and real imagery and video – a lot of the emerging websites are using these larger than life images and videos as the background to the website – it gives a very interactive feel whilst also being very human

• One or two dominate colours – having a responsive layout means you need to be really careful about colour usage… there is a big shift to using only one or two dominate colours and the result is a really strong vibrant presence.
• Ghost buttons – this is a really elegant way to add buttons to your website

• Tiles – this allows for a modular look and feel that is becoming very popular with the web designers as it is proving to be a great way to develop a responsive layout that looks fantastic.

2015 is an exciting year in online activities, and it is going to be crucial for the small and medium businesses to get a handle on this, as this will allow you to compete online with a even playing field… it will literally be the businesses that move with the trends that will end up on top… of both Google and the competitors

Take a look at our 2015 website for ideas and how to integrate everything into one sleek website