Is there a new website in your New Year marketing plans? Here are the latest web trends for 2020 that you’ll want to be incorporating into your web design.

• Oversized lettering/bold typography. Huge typography is gaining in popularity, as website owners strive to simplify web design. 
• Big solid color blocks. Think of familiar Facebook posts with solid color backgrounds. Use these on your homepage in conjunction with photos. Each block can contain a key message, a testimonial or a call to action.
• Split screen content. Do you have several key messages? Easy. Line these up side by side. Think about adding a call to action in the center to tie the two together.
• Asymmetric layouts. Most websites are based on grids, generally (invisible) columns and rows. Web designs that stand out will display broken grid techniques, with design elements placed chaotically. 
• Background video. Animation instead of static background brings your platform to life. Video contributes to your Google authority, or SEO value.
• Hidden navigation. By tucking your navigation away, you can save a lot of real estate for other components. I struggle with this one. We put a serious amount of thought into the navigation so that it has the maximum SEO value and makes it as easy as possible for users to get where they’re going. Now we’re hiding it?
• Flat design. Flat design lacks shadows and gradients. It’s streamlined, efficient and easy to read, but it may be falling from fashion. Another trend that doesn’t make sense.

An overarching design theme: Large elements surrounded by lots of whitespace

White space remains a key design element to showcase a key image or content. Now that white space is making its way into the online form! Think about it–how many times/week do we fill out online forms—to order something, to generate feedback or to get more information. Forms are important components of web interactions; expanding a form so that it takes up more room on the page, making it more inviting, accessible, easier with which to interact improves the user experience. 

Global web trends

Altered reality. Stores and brands are implementing altered reality (AR) into their websites by allowing customers to virtually “try on” clothes, jewelry, makeup, etc. They’re allowing users to rearrange furniture to see how it would look in their homes or offices.

Microinteractions. Look for more microinteractions that are meant to delight us. They’re tiny automated signposts that you’ll see when you: 

• Upload a file, hit the submit button, and see an upload status bar go from 0% to 100%. That’s a microinteraction. 
• Hover over a Call to Action and the color saturates and the button gets bigger–that’s another microinteraction! 

Data. No matter what industry you’re in, it’s increasingly valuable to be collecting our user information, and more web designs will be based on that data.

If you’re thinking about a new website in 2020, contact Top of Mind Marketing.

We can help organize information, develop content, build the site, manage images and help it show up in search engines. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Case Study: Business Doubles Revenue Month/Month

Sometimes we forget how effective case studies can be. Rather than just telling your audience what you do, this is an opportunity to actually demonstrate your ability to effect change, to showcase your expertise, to document how you’ve successfully helped your clients increase sales.

Let’s revisit a case study from more than a year ago

In the original article, we took a look at how one small Napa Valley business owner used two simple online tools to significantly increase his revenue. Now more than a year later, those same two online tools have actually doubled his revenue, month-over-month.

Bill Ryan has lived in St. Helena for more than 40 years. He retired years ago after a long, successful career in sales and marketing management positions at Beringer. Bill’s a busy guy. An avid fisherman, he writes a weekly fishing report for the Napa Valley Registerand a monthly column for the St. Helena Star. Bill also has a little mobile notary business. When we met, I wondered why a marketing guy’s only form of advertising was a pathetic bumper sticker that said “Notary”.

A simple website to dramatically increase Bill’s visibility

A simple website would be easy and inexpensive to develop. It would dramatically increase his visibility for prospective new clients—especially visitors to Napa Valley who might need to notarize documents while they’re here. I eventually wore Bill down. We collaborated on content, scheduled a photoshoot, identified and uploaded images, purchased and set up a domain and launched St. Helena Notary on the Go within just a few weeks.

Next up: Leveraging the power of Yelp

When I asked Bill why he wasn’t on Yelp, he didn’t really have an answer. His is the kind of business for which Yelp can be effective, so we created a Yelp page and uploaded a few images. Yelp won’t work without reviews, so Bill began asking his clients for reviews. For some, he follows up with an email, thanking them for their business — this is Relationship Building 101, and it’s been extremely successful for Bill.

The results: Bill’s business has doubled month/month as he’s increased his visibility

Bill’s client list includes a fair number of regular corporate clients, lots of old friends and neighbors. Increasingly, however, he’s getting calls from people around the country–New York, Washington DC, Portland, Dallas and LA. They’re either on their way to Napa Valley or already here and need to have documents notarized. They find him through Google or Yelp and love his 5-star reviews.

A simple website and a Yelp page are doing their jobs

These very fundamental online assets are responsible for Bill’s dramatic month/month revenue growth at an extremely modest cost.

Including an actual client in a case study provides validity, but if there are privacy issues, don’t. But do provide details. Show how you helped a client solve problems, increase revenue, streamline operations, open up new marketing channels. Questions about incorporating case studies into your marketing plan? Give me a call!

Is a Single-Page Website Design Right For You?

You may have noticed single-page websites popping up around the internet. They’re especially popular with designers because they’re a great way to host portfolios. Apps and product sites also favor this design option that doesn’t require a lot of content or drilldown.

A single-page website: One that fits on a single page

Single-page websites are fully loaded in the initial page load. There’s no drilldown, no navigation bar or clicking because there’s nowhere else to go! Single-page sites can be efficient, and they’re a natural outgrowth of the mobile movement–visitors don’t have to wait for pages to load.

Things to love about single-page sites

• Ease of use and maintenance.
• High conversion rates.
• Look great on every browsing device, falling within mobile-friendly guidelines.
• Professional-looking sites can be built in a matter of hours; updates easily achieved.

There are other scenarios when a single-page site is the perfect solution

• If you’re a freelancer, a single-page is the perfect way to host your work and give potential employers a bit of information about you. You can also include a simple contact intake form.
• Landing pages. This is the ideal solution for a campaign. A single-page site lets you create messaging and efficiently run A/B tests.
• Simple website needs.Think about a pop-up store. A simple website with a brief introduction, photos and contact information is the perfect solution for a temporary business.

The downside

The average website is likely optimized for 20-50+ keywords. Remember that one-page sites are all about images or other information. How can you optimize for 50 keywords on a site that has virtually no content? You can’t. And that’s the biggest drawback to single-page sites.

• If SEO is an important component of your website and marketing strategy, this is not the best solution for you.
• Real websites include multiple pages designed around a users’ needs and the website owner’s goals. Let visitors pick their paths based on their needs and then present them with information created just for them. We can do this with a multiple page website, but we can’t easily do this with a single-page website.

Popularity likely to continue, as it serves a need

In a traditional web environment, it’s all about grabbing users with keyword search, getting them to land on your site and then funneling them towards a contact form, page, or phone number. With single-page sites, there’s nowhere for the user to get distracted — every part of the page drives them toward a conversion point, driving more leads and business. While single-page design won’t take over the future of web design, it likely will continue to leave its mark through 2019 because it serves a real need.

Is this right for you?

The best approach: Think about what you want to include on your site. Sketch it out, identifying images and content. Give Top of Mind Marketing a call, and let’s determine if a single-page site is the right solution for your business.