3 WEB DESIGN FEATURES TO IMPLEMENT IN 2017

Irish Spring arrived a couple of weeks ago and so 2017 is now well and truly in full swing. If you have put off refurbishing your website for a couple of years then its probably a good idea to make this your priority before the end of the first quarter. 3 WEB DESIGN FEATURES TO IMPLEMENT IN 2017 is your essential starting point in keeping your website up to date.

From visuals to performance and responsiveness, web technologies and aesthetics are constantly on the move. If you aren’t keeping pace with latest trends and essential updates then you will soon lag behind your competitors, these tips will help you to keep ahead of the curve.

Image is everything and so how you present your business online is exceptionally important. In a previous post I described Five Ways to Look Better Online so if you haven’t yet read that then maybe do so once you finish up here. In that post I wrote about the importance of using high quality images that are correctly optimised for web browsing and suggested the use of stock images to help improve the over all look and feel of your website. While this advice still rings true there has already been a shift away from the use of stock images in favour of using bold flat minimalistic graphics and icons. These retro almost 8Bit Graphics are going to be all the rage in 2017, so when planning your website update or upgrade then be sure to plan on using them. Of course if your business produces or sells visually unique and striking finished products (E.g. kitchens, flowers, cars, jewellery etc.) then it is probably better if you stick to using professionally taken product shots. If you’re still unsure of the difference between the two approaches compare the graphic above (flat graphic) that supports this blog post against the graphic I used on earlier blog posts, (Photographic) such as Five Pages All SME Brochure Websites Should Have. Faster Faster Faster! Like most things about contemporary living speed is all important when it comes to your website. Everybody wants everything immediately, if not sooner, so if your website is taking too long to load, your potential customers are going to bounce to your competitors. In the age of  fibre broadband your website should be loading at the speed of light. If you’re running a WordPress website I have included some tips on 3 ways you can speed up your website using In 2017 google will be taking no prisoners when it comes to mobile responsiveness. At their google Summit on May 24th 2016 one of their key speakers put it this way, “The shift to mobile is not something that will happen, or is happening, it has happened.” There is no underestimating what this means for small to medium size business as well as large corporate ones, its as simple as this if your website does not respond to the device that it is being viewed on then your SEO and Google ranking will be severely affected. There are of course other reasons why having a mobile responsive website is essential in the hyper competitive business environment of 2017, to learn what they are Read This Article I wrote in January.