7 Great Web Designing Tips for 2015

2015 is here and its time web designers started planning how they will come up with results-driven designs this year. If 2014 was anything to go by, we can expect even more cut throat competition in the online world next year. Websites need to be better crafted and must be more engaging than before.

So, here are some web designing tips you need to implement to ensure success in 2015:

Leverage Geo-Targeting

You should have geo-targeted design for your website. In geo-targeting, each version of the site is distinctly designed for a particular location. This specific location could be province, country, city or region. Geo-targeting ensures your website’s design and the information on it, is in sync with the requirements of a particular demographic audience.

Usually, the IP address of users is utilized to determine their region and then they are presented with content that is specific to their location.

Don’t Just Focus on Landing Pages

There are tons of articles floating on the Internet about how to design a landing page that converts.Well-designed landing pages encourage visitors to stay longer on your website and ensure they navigate to other pages on the site.

But simply focusing on landing pages or the homepage of your site will no longer suffice in 2015.

A potential customer checks different pages (like product page, contact-us page) of a site before clicking on that call-to-action button that turns him into a paying customer. So, it is important that designers pay equal attention to all other pages of the site.

Just like landing pages, ensure all pages of your website contain indexable content. This will help you rank higher on SERPs.

Include Less Text and More Videos

Content has been King all along and will continue to remain so in 2015. The only thing that will change is the type of content. There will be a perceptible shift towards visual content.

With the introduction of HTML5, it has become easier to load and play videos on any device including smartphones and tablets. Videos help make the site more engaging and improve UX. According to the research group Visual Web Optimizer, there is nearly a 46% increase in conversion rates with video as compared to text. This is the biggest reason we will see the shift towards videos.

There are different ways a web designer can include videos on a website; he can create video-embedded landing pages, include product-description videos on product pages or post video testimonials.

But using videos is not enough; the design must ensure videos are of good quality and engaging.

Look Trustworthy and Transparent

More and more businesses are jumping on the online bandwagon each passing year. Today, even a local café shop has a presence on the Web. In this cut-throat online competition, it is vital for businesses to stay ahead of their competitors to get noticed by prospective customers.

One of the ways to stand out from the crowd in your industry is to appear trustworthy. It is extremely important to look professional and credible to your potential customers.

There are lots of small things that add up to make a website trustworthy. Be clear about exactly what you do and include this information on your home page. If you want to convert visitors into customers, present professional and trustworthy information by including testimonials, privacy trust seals, social proof and a detailed privacy policy.

Credibility will improve the sales of your business.

Make Your Website Social Media Friendly

Social media usage has skyrocketed in recent years. Incorporating social media into websites by adding social media buttons, streaming social feeds or using social sign-ins has become the norm.

Integration of social media with websites in different ways will continue next year as well. Since leading social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are planning to bring in big changes in 2015, you need to make sure your website is ready for these changes.

For instance, in December, Facebook announced it is going to roll out 7 different call-to-action buttons for pages in 2015. This makes it important for you to provide social media buttons on your website so that a follower visiting your social profile can either see your contact details or directly make a purchase from your business page.

Embrace Responsive Design For Large Screen Sizes

Since the last two years, people are shifting from traditional computers or laptops to smartphones and tablets for their basic Web needs. This is the reason we saw the trend shifting towards the responsive mode in web design, last year.

In 2015, it will be more important than ever, for web designers to adopt responsive design as many new devices like smart TVs are entering the market. Gaming consoles like Xbox and smart TVs easily transform television into an Internet-enabled device. This makes it vital for web designers to ensure that a website offers the same level of display compatibility on a 47 inch television, 14 inch laptop and 6 inch smartphone.

Apart from ensuring you are able to retain your audience irrespective of the device being used by them to view your website, the other benefit of embracing responsive design is you will be required to maintain only one site.

Craft Calls-to-Action That Get Clicked

Web designers are aware of the importance call-to-action buttons hold in web designing. However, we see many websites designed with ineffective calls-to-action. This has a significant negative impact on their sales.

So, lay emphasis on the design of CTAs of your site by focusing on essential elements like size, color, position, shape and text of CTAs.

For instance, if visitors are abruptly leaving your site, offer them incentives and ask them if they are interested in viewing these offers. Include two buttons- ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Make ‘Yes’ a prominent button by highlighting with a dark color like orange and ‘No’ with a dull color like grey.

In 2015, we will see CTAs designed to offer better user-experience to visitors; dynamic CTAs will replace the static ones. Furthermore, you will be seeing web designers embracing microinteractions in web design for encouraging visitors to take action and create engagement.

The above mentioned tips will definitely ensure your website is better placed to boost business sales and growth.

Michael Georgiou is a dynamic business professional and entrepreneurial guru associated with Imaginovation – a Raleigh Website Design Company proven his success in creative strategy, online branding, project management, and communication projects in both the public and private sectors.