If you’ve got stellar content and products or services, how important is web design? Did you know that 38% of people won’t engage with an unattractive website?
Can you afford to lose more than one-third of visitors due to your web design? The answer should be an unequivocal no.
But what constitutes an attractive website design these days? Keep reading to learn about the top ten 2018 web design trends that can increase engagement on your website.
2018 Web Design Trends
The more you engage visitors, the more likely they are to convert into leads or even customers. Implementing these 2018 trends can give your site a modern web design which will engage viewers.
You’ll know you’re engaging them not only by your conversions but also by the time they spend on your site, a decreased bounce rate, and the number of pages they view per session.
The reason these numbers improve is these website design ideas enhance the user experience. This can improve your search engine rankings too because search engines are all about providing the best user experience.
Without further ado, we’re pleased to present the top 10 design trends of 2018.
Technical Trends
We decided to start with these first because they can be more complex to implement, and you’ll want to implement them before thinking about the visual trends we’ll discuss afterward.
1. Build With CSS Grids
CSS, or cascading style sheet, is a type of code, like HTML or JavaScript. The job of CSS is to tell your website elements how to appear on the page.
Using CSS grids, you can align your website elements with cleaner code and more flexibility than some other design tactics. The CSS grid allows you to specify the placement and size of each element relative to the size of the page, overall.
It’s easy too to make CSS grids responsive. We’ll get more into this in a moment.
If you know how to code, you can start to implement this trend right away. If not, you’ll want to talk to a web designer.
2. Single-Page Websites
Single-page websites present all your content on one scrolling page. This is great for users because they don’t have to click through a bunch of links to access the content they want.
You might wonder, what if I have a blog? You can set up your single-page to show snippets of your latest blog posts, and entice your readers to enter that part of your site.
In this way, you can avoid the SEO measuring pitfalls that can accompany a single page:
- Single pages may have higher bounce rates
- Single pages may have lower pages-per-visits rates
Of course, if your conversions are skyrocketing, then bounce rate and pages-per-visit need not be indicative of how users are responding to your website.
Your visitors are seeking information about your brand. Why make them hunt for it?
3. Floating Navigation
A floating or sticky navigation menu follows your users as they scroll down your page. This is especially important if you go with a single-page design layout.
We include it with the technical trends because you have to add some coding to your CSS in order to make the navigation sticky.
With CSS, you can make anything sticky, actually, but we recommend not overdoing it. Remember: If everything is bold, then nothing is.
4. Mobile Responsive Design
Did you know that users now spend 69% of their time engaging with media on smartphones? Between facts like this and Google’s changes to its algorithm to accommodate mobile use, you can’t wait any longer to get a mobile responsive design.
Examples of what a mobile design can do include:
- Ensuring text is legible
- Easy-to-tap buttons
- Automatic content resizing
Visual Trends
Now that your website is operating in an attractive manner, it’s time to modernize the way content appears. Put these website layout ideas into practice to engage and convert visitors.
5. Bold Typography
Your fonts should express your brand’s personality. They should be unique.
They should be bold. And whereas serif fonts were previously shunned because of lower screen resolutions, they’re coming back in style now because retina displays and higher resolutions can handle font flourishes.
6. Negative Space
Negative space, also known as white space even when it’s not white, is unused space around website elements. Modern designs make effective use of negative space.
It can also emphasize text or images by making them pop more and drawing the eye.
7. Shadows and Dynamic Gradients
Flat design used to be the hallmark of modernity. Now, trendy web designers are mixing flat design with drop shadows and dynamic gradients.
These make the website more exciting to look at. But, by still incorporating some flat design, you can prevent longer load times.
The faster a website loads, the better–but you also want your site to be attractive. Mixing these two design trends can help you achieve those goals.
8. Custom Line Illustrations
They’re simple and clean looking, which is why line illustrations are all the rage right now. If you can hire a designer to customize them–or you have a graphic designer in-house–they can add a personal touch to your site.
9. Animations
Using animations to guide visitors along the buyer journey engages them along the way while conveying what their next step should be.
10. Background Video
Video has been a staple of website design and SEO for years now, but what’s new in 2018 is making it a background element. Background videos engage users, and they don’t have to go through the trouble of clicking play.
They can also beeye-catchingg when they span the width of your website like a hero image.
Get With The Times
An outdated website tells visitors you don’t care about their user experience. Your website should be communicative, exciting, and capable of converting visitors.
By implementing the top ten 2018 web design trends we discussed in this article, you can check those boxes.
However, if you’re not a web developer and you don’t have one on hand, implementing these design ideas can seem daunting. For help bringing your website into the year 2018, contact us.