The world of web design – like so many other digital sectors – is an ever evolving one. Trying to keep on top of the latest changes can be tough. However, it always helps to take stock of the latest trends, which is why we’ve put together this piece looking at some of the most popular web design fashions to have appeared within the sector this year.
Social Media Badges
With social media having become a genuine SEO ranking factor, it’s now vital for almost any company to invest in some sort of social media marketing. As a result of this, it is now a no-brainer for a website to include social media buttons as part of the design. There is, after all, little point creating great content if you don’t give readers the chance to share it!
Responsive Web Design
Put simply, the idea behind responsive web design is for the site to display itself just as well on each of the devices used in 2013, such as desktops, mobiles, smartphones and tablets. Any website that doesn’t work well with mobile browsing will likely receive a punishment in the Google rankings, so it’s little surprise that this has become more common throughout the year.
Retina Support
Since retina support came in with the iPhone 4, this form of screen display has become more and more popular amongst web designers – especially those that are major Apple enthusiasts! Essentially, retina displays are twice as dense as a typical LCD, so more pixels can be squeezed into a particular space. Though it means essentially having to create two sets of images, the extra work can lead to some seriously cool looking sites.
Fixed Header Bars
With websites creating more and more content in order to appease the Google monster, Fixed Header bars has become quite useful in helping to ensure that no matter how far down the user scrolls, they can still easily navigate around the site’s other pages. These toolbars can also be added to almost any site, from an e-commerce page selling jam to a blog discussing cricket.
Large Photo Backgrounds
With SEO having led to more and more text being visible on-screen, there was bound to be a slight backlash. It seems to have come in the form of large images being used as the background for pages. Whilst it’s important to ensure that this type of design is still optimized for SEO, it’s definitely a great way of catching the visitor’s eye.
Things to Remember
It’s important to remember a number of things, whichever trends to choose to follow. Ensure that your website is well-optimized in order to rank highly in the search engines. It’s also important that you create high quality content both on and off-page in order to enhance the site’s reputation. Social media should be integrated effectively (as noted above) so that content can be shared amongst visitors to the site.
Good luck, and have a great time working on your designs!
