There will always be aspects of web design that are never going away – user-friendly navigation, data security, and fast load times should just be a given on your website. However, you can keep your site at the forefront of design and search engines by adding some of these innovative website features and elements that promise to be hot for 2023.
Website Load Time and Page Speed Are King
One of the most important web design standards is ultra-fast load time. Quick loading times have been essential factors in UX and SEO for years, and it continues to be a top priority for websites that want to rank well and convert better.
Studies say that more than half of internet browsers expect a website to load fast and no more than two seconds after clicking a link. If it takes more than three seconds to load your site, your visitors most likely will leave, and it’s not likely they’ll be back, ever again!
Website performance has a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. According to data collected during a study, Pinterest reduced perceived wait times by 40%, and this increased search engine traffic and sign-ups by 15%.
Geolocation & Browser-Based Content
Perhaps you have visited a website and then come back to it a few hours or days later to see that the content has changed. When you pull it up on your phone for the first time or on another browser, you see the original content you saw the first time you visited the website.
It’s no secret that most advanced websites track your browsing history and know your location. But cutting-edge web agencies will advise their customers to display dynamic content, content based on past user behavior, or what we know about a user. Not generic content made to serve everyone.
Custom content created for users returning to your website for a second or third time can increase conversion.
You experience this every time you use Google as a search engine. People looking for a nearby restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina, will see different results than users in other towns.
A great directory website will also recognize the type of food you like. If you reviewed or saved Italian restaurants in the past, it might make sense to weigh Italian restaurants higher in your search results.
Progressive Lead Nurturing Forms Integrated with Your CRM Tool
Online lead generation forms are one of the most important elements of a marketing website. We want to get to know a lot about our website visitors, but we can’t ask too many questions at any particular time. We place progressive/dynamic contact forms on the landing pages and display fields according to the lead’s journey.
Ideally, we don’t want to display too many fields in a form, but we can always adjust the form fields according to the data that we already know about our leads. We might ask the name, company, and email address at the first conversion and then ask for the phone number, title, company size, and company revenue fields at the next conversion opportunity.
Our CRM, like HubSpot, stores the information of our leads. By integrating it with our website. The CRM can recognize the lead when they come back to our websites and display form fields on the landing pages that we don’t know about the contact.
Accessibility and Availability
Inclusivity and accessibility are more than a trend, but there is a growing need for web design to factor in the needs of people with disabilities. Having a site that every visitor can navigate and interact with is more than just part of good customer service and providing an excellent experience. It can increase conversion, boost your SEO, and help you reach a bigger audience.
Elements that improve accessibility include:
- Creating strong color contrast between text and backgrounds;
- Adding focus indicators, such as the rectangular outline that shows up around links when using keyboard navigation;
- Using labels and instructions with form fields rather than low-context placeholder text;
- Using functional alt tags for images (which also boosts SEO!);