Your website plays an important role in the consumer journey — it’s the hub of your online presence. As well as drawing in new customers for your business, it can turn first-time customers into brand loyalists. Your site’s design plays a significant role in your site’s lead generation potential. Great design means more customers and better search visibility.
If you want to maximize your site’s potential, keeping up with the latest web design trends is essential. It helps you improve your web experience with the right design elements, which will motivate customers to keep visiting your site. Many of these web design trends for 2021 also improve your search visibility — which in turn delivers increased traffic and conversion rates.
Here are some of the trends you should embrace in 2021:
Hyper-Personalization Will Earn You More Customers
80% of customers state they are more likely to buy from brands that offer a personalized experience. Customers are no longer interested in mass-produced content or web experiences. They want to feel that they are being heard by their brands, and the best way to reflect this is through your design. Hyper-personalization is among the many web design trends that have given sites like Netflix and Amazon a competitive edge in their markets.
The best way to embrace hyper-personalization is through leveraging data. You should track customer behavior and use this data to create personalized journeys on your site. You can segment experiences based on a variety of factors, from the visitor’s location to their age. If you are looking for a more pocket-friendly way to hyper-personalize your website, consider navigational segmentation.
Dark Mode
Dark mode has been in vogue — it’s hard for anyone interested in web design trends to ignore it. From mobile apps to web content, a lot of brands are implementing this feature. Google has even embraced it on Android 10 and launched its Night Eye chrome extension. Dark mode is far more than just another fad; it offers numerous benefits to the end-user:
- It is energy-efficient — especially on OLED and AMOLED displays.
- It reduces eye strain.
- Dark screen reduces blue light, flickering, and screen glare.
Above all, dark mode looks cool on almost any site it is used. Give customers the option to enjoy this mode by launching a version on your site. Best of all, it is cost-efficient to implement.
Designing for Voice Search
Voice search has been gaining traction in recent years, which makes it one of the top 2021 web design trends. Voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant have been pushing the envelope in this field. It’s estimated that 55% of American homes will have a smart speaker by 2022. Although voice-search informed web design is still growing, it is wise to embrace it early to stay ahead of the curve.
The trick is to look for ways to give your audience a touchless experience. This is a web design trend that requires optimal collaboration between your SEO and web design team. For instance, you need to ensure your site’s content is already optimized for SEO. Ensuring your on-site search feature allows voice search will also be ideal.
Design Your Website for SEO
Poor web design choices can harm your search engine ranking. For instance, Google has found that if your website takes longer than three seconds to load content, it can increase your bounce rate exponentially. Other web design factors that affect your rank include:
- Intrusive content like pop-ups
- Site structure
- Content quality
- Navigation
- Layout
- Mobile optimization
- Use of JavaScript
- Internal links
Google has been adding web design factors into its algorithm, from mobile optimization to site speed. This makes the SEO and web design departments inseparable — they need to work together in embracing common web design trends to please search engines. The trick is to assess the different ways your web design lags in terms of SEO and to make the necessary changes. You can easily find insights on how to comply with 2021 web design trends from common tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console.
Augmented Reality
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated eCommerce growth by five years. It has also catalyzed a variety of web design trends through which businesses can adapt to the new normal. With social distancing a priority for many, most businesses have had to lean on solutions that help them provide a great digital shopping experience online. Sadly, relying heavily on eCommerce created a gap for businesses that sell “try-before-you-buy” items, a gap that can easily be filled by augmented reality. For instance, furniture stores and fashion retailers have had to look for ways to provide a similar in-store shopping experience virtually.
IKEA recently updated their app to provide customers with an in-store shopping experience using augmented reality. Customers can see how a piece of furniture will look in their home before making a purchase. Although AR is still growing, there is enough technology to give customers an unmatched shopping experience when using your site. Embracing it will give you an advantage against the competition (if they aren’t already using AR).
Micro-Interactions
How engaging is your website? Micro-interactions are a sure way to improve your website’s engagement. This 2021 web design trend helps your customers feel that they are in control of their experience. For instance, a percentage counter will help customers know how much longer they should wait for their downloads to be completed.
What might seem like a small animation could improve your site’s engagement exponentially. In addition to making site navigation easier, micro-interactions make it possible for customers to better engage with your product. For instance, Facebook uses micro-interactions with their like buttons to guide user reactions while making using their site more engaging. If you have a social media eCommerce site, this should be on your list of web design trends worth embracing. Hiring the right web design team can help you choose ideal micro-interactions.
Keep Web Visitors and Search Engines Happy
Customers crave an immersive experience when using your website. You should focus on trends that add value to the end-user and make your site attractive to search engines. With the economic changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, these trends are here to stay. Trends like AR are only getting better with time, and adopting them early will give you a competitive advantage. Consider embracing these web design trends to future-proof your business’ online presence.