New year, new you, new website? After a wind-down period over Christmas, January is often the month when companies start to plan their up-coming marketing campaigns, strategies, and general updates.
If a new website is at the top of your to-do list, you’ll have probably done plenty of research into the features you’d like to consider during the design and development phases. And if you’re still not sure, we’ve highlighted some of the top website design and development trends likely to grow throughout 2024.
From a growing focus on SEO to better integration with 3rd party software, websites are becoming major activity hubs and are no longer treated as a static shop window.
SEO, SEO, SEO
At the top of the list has to be SEO. We’ve noticed a huge focus being put on SEO from the very start of the website sign-off by clients, and luckily, have always integrated SEO throughout every aspect of our design and development process.
Companies are more clued up on what it means to rank highly on Google, and some of the foundation tasks that can help get there. We’re noticing more clients interested in our keyword analysis and website migration reports which highlight current website performance to ensure no good juice is lost during the development of the new site (think navigation structure, page names, word counts etc.)
Site speed is no joke
A slow website is the death of online success. To contradict this, the world is naturally becoming more visual. Social media has increased our consumption of image and video content, which in turn is influencing the amount of video and imagery companies are wanting on their websites. But with images and video come large file sizes and slow websites.
Going into 2024, digital marketers are becoming more conscious of appeasing the visual needs of their users while also maintaining fast website load speeds. The advent of WEBP files (highly reduced image sizes) is having a wonderful effect on site speed however with a majority of website builders still moving over to this new format, it may take a while before they are compatible with all content management systems.
Flexible integration
As mentioned before, websites are becoming the centrepiece of many digital marketing strategies. They are a hive of activity with many CMSs offering in-depth analytics, integrated email campaign and SEO campaign features and more.
We’re already seeing many companies wanting to integrate heavily with their current CRMs such as Hubspot, allowing for a faster and more efficient way of managing leads and structuring future marketing campaigns. As we head into 2024, we expect to come across more requests for flexibility as newer systems launch offering further support for marketers.
As web design agency that builds websites from the ground up every time, we have a greater scope for providing unique integrations compared with many template website builders.
More payment options
With a growing number of ecommerce clients, we’re definitely seeing a trend towards allowing multiple payment methods. With standard card payments and Paypal the original norm, many companies are now venturing out and offering instant payments such as Apple Pay or instalment payments such as Klarna.
Both of these options are providing consumers more ways to pay, encouraging further online sales and increasing the bottom line for the company – a win-win it seems!
Less is more
Despite websites getting bigger, integrating more, and generally offering better solutions for users, less it still more when it comes to design. Streamlining a website’s navigation, reducing the amount of “fluff” visible on a page, and largely getting to the point faster is a major factor when it comes to the future of web design in 2024. Short user journeys and easy conversion tactics (think small contact forms or even an instant chat) are on the rise.
We’re seeing bigger headlines, less text-heavy pages (that still hit recommended wordcounts through clever placement), and more controlled design.
Lasting thoughts
When it comes to web design, despite trends coming and going, the most important factor is to make sure your little corner of the internet suits your brand. You could have an all singing-all dancing website, but if your target market is corporate professionals looking to invest millions, a tongue-in-cheek headline and controversial yet funky graphic might not work.
Think brand first and you’ll be onto a winner.
