“In a crowded market, having a website that simply serves as a brochure is no longer competitive.” — 2016 Small Business Marketing Trends Report

These days, doing business online is all about providing your audience with an innovative and engaging user experience. Emerging trends keep changing in terms of sustainability, web design, and functionality. Keeping up with these trends gives business owners and web developers the ability to make the best possible changes and discard anything that isn’t useful. 

With the development of new technologies and web-based platforms, staying competitive in the online market space can be quite challenging. If you want to keep your competitive advantage and stay ahead of the curve, make sure to keep these emerging web design and development trends in mind this upcoming 2019:

• Bold and Better Colors

Bold color schemes have become increasingly popular throughout all digital platforms. Most developers are now opting for bolder, brighter colors that immediately catch the audience’s attention. Color combinations are also used to create striking effects. When used correctly, different color schemes can draw attention to the specific contents you want to highlight and can improve the overall look of your website.

• Design for Mobile First

Mobile phones are becoming increasingly more popular than desktop computers. After all, you can take your Mobile devices anywhere with you. The old standard was to design a website for a desktop or a laptop display, then add a mobile-friendly design to that. However, due to the increasing popularity of mobile devices, websites are now designed with mobile-first compatibility in mind. Unlike the old standard, a mobile-first site is designed for mobiles then the desktop or laptop version is integrated next.

• AI and Chatbots

AI and chatbots have gained popularity in the past few years and it seems like that trend isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, did you know that approximately 27% of people worldwide are very interested in artificial intelligence-based tools? Further statistics show that around 27% of consumers say that they would purchase a basic item through a chatbot. Approximately 48% of consumers also say that they would rather connect with a company through live chat than through any other means of communication. Incorporating this technology to your website can provide your users with a seamless and convenient digital journey. (links in order: https://research.hubspot.com/artificial-intelligence-is-here | https://www.drift.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2018-state-of-chatbots-report.pdf | https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)

• Accelerated Mobile Pages and Load Speed

Businesses and web developers are encouraged to develop websites that load instantly and work smoothly on mobile devices. According to Google, they want web pages with rich content like animations, graphics, and video to work smoothly alongside smart ads. These pages must also load instantaneously. These designs are also expected to work across different devices and platforms so that the content can appear everywhere in an instant. How does this benefit businesses? While it can be challenging on the developer’s end, it brings significant advantages for a business. After all, no customer wants to be stuck on an unresponsive and slow web page. With Accelerated Mobile Pages, you can provide your audience with a fast and seamless web viewing experience, no matter what type of mobile device or tablet they are using. (link to https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages.html)

• Voice Search Optimization

According to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report in 2016, voice search optimization has increased more than 35-fold between 2008 and 2016. Further statistics from Location World also indicate that over 40% of adults used voice-based search on a daily basis in 2016. By 2020, ComScore predicts that approximately 50% of searches will be voice-based. Voice search is a trend that isn’t going to go away anytime soon. With technology like Siri on iPhone, Google Assistant from Google, Alexa and Echo from Amazon, and Cortana on Android, more and more consumers are becoming reliant on voice-based searches. In fact, ComScore has found that 1 in 2 people uses voice technology on their smartphone, and 1 in 3 voice technology users uses voice technology daily.

Consumers are really adapting to this technology and since consumer feedback ultimately determines which technologies survive and thrive, voice search definitely won’t be obsolete in the near future. What does this mean for businesses and developers? These statistics show how important it is for you to make your website mobile responsive. After all, Google indicates that approximately 20% of mobile searches are voice searches. Also, as consumers become more used to using voice-based searching to browse the Internet, you might want to integrate voice search internally on your website. (links in order https://geomarketing.com/mary-meeker-2016-voice-search-is-the-next-big-thing | https://edit.co.uk/blog/locationworld-2016/ | https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/just-say-it-future-search-voice-personal-digital-assistants/1392459 |https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/The-Future-of-Voice-From-Smartphones-to-Smart-Speakers-to-Smart-Homes | https://searchengineland.com/google-reveals-20-percent-queries-voice-queries-249917) 

• Single Page Websites

Traditionally, websites are created with multiple pages to accommodate separate topics and items. For businesses, this is an ideal solution as it allows the content to be grouped accordingly and to prevent the website from looking cluttered. However, the way that consumers view websites is constantly evolving and many now prefer the convenience of seeing all of the information they want on a single page. Moreover, since most people now browse the web through their mobile phone, having the convenience of simply scrolling down to view content instead of clicking on multiple pages is an advantage.

• Blockchains

Invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, blockchains enable the distribution or sharing of data while prohibiting it from being copied. While it was originally developed for Bitcoin, it is now being used in the e-commerce sector. Blockchains keep all transaction parties informed, provide failure-free decentralized storage for files, and enable smart contracts and supply chain auditing.

To Wrap Up: Web Design Trends for 2019

If you’re planning to make your website stronger, faster, and more relevant, pay close attention to the web design and development trends coming up in 2019.

To recap, here are the web design and development trends that you need to keep an eye on:

• Bold and Better Colors
• Design for Mobile First
• AI and Chatbots
• Accelerated Mobile Pages and Load Speed
• Voice Search Optimization
• Single Page Websites
• Blockchains

Keep your competitive advantage and consider these suggestions! Even if you’re a business owner and not a web developer, it’s important for you to stay updated about these web design and development trends so that if you do decide to hire an experienced developer, you can ask them to integrate these features to your site.

On the other hand, if you’re a web developer, knowing these trends is highly vital so that you can provide the highest quality of design services to your clients.

Author Bio:- I am Louise Savoie Digital Marketer at Proweaver, a web development company specializing in Custom Web Design which helps sole proprietors and small companies increase their sales and grow their business. I am responsible in Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing.You can find us on Twitter: @proweaver

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