Website Design
Trends for 2014
After reading a
handful of articles about what webmasters, designers and
developers believe will the the trends in website design for 2014
I have a pretty good idea that they are probably right.
The thing is, we have been
urging people to do these things for many years.
Are we ahead of the trends or
just not completely stupid to let the latest website fashion
trend affect the way a website works.
Guess what, some of
the predicted trends are for 2014?
I think I know why these are
the trends and should be able to explain it quickly.
The bloggers and would be
webmasters are out. The millions of once active teens that took
over the internet with blogs have subsided and moved on to social
networks and phone apps.
So what people think is a
popular design is not dictated by a bunch of teens that are
blogging about anything and everything. We don't see hoards of
traffic to blogger.com, blogspot or wordpress. Now we see people
going to real businesses and spending money online while the
teens tackle the latest phone apps and ring tones.
So the landscape has changed
and now the bigger businesses and commercial websites are taking
the lead in design and guess what?]
They want the websites to be
useful and more simple. Easier to read, more content to
read and just plain SIMPLE!
They know that a huge
percentage of users are on mobile devices which means smaller
screens, so the old style of tiny fonts almost the same shade as
the background are done.
Now websites are
black and white with bold letters and BIG TEXT.
At one time it was a race to
see who could have the better website. Who had more technology,
who had the flash, the video and the multi media.
But now everyone has a website
and with the evolution of sitebuilders like pageBuzz.com more and
more people are building websites themselves. So getting to the
moon first was great, but now that everyone has seen it the
sensation is gone.
Now business are
concentrating on making their websites work.
Most have given up on the
promise of Facebook and have moved back to their websites where
they should have been all along. But lets not point fingers here
at all the followers that abandon their websites and went into
social media because they were hurt enough by those of us that
kept working on our websites.
Now those companies are back
to the grind of making their website special a place that people
want to visit and they have discovered that people want
information.
Imagine that!
People actually want
to see something useful when they visit a website. Who could
have predicted that? Who would have known that slideshows and
flash banners would not be enough?
Only the thousands of business
owners that have been making money online since back in 1995.
The people that did not go
with the followers, the trend seekers and they get rich quick
crowd.
While everyone else was
sleeping at the wheel smart businesses where busy developing
content based websites and growing their businesses.
It is important to avoid the
fads, avoid the trends and stay true to who you are.
Just because
you see someone jumping off a bridge does not me that you
should do it!
The problem with being a trend
follower instead of a trend setter is that your lifespan is
limited.
Companies like Levi Strauss
have been in business forever with the same product despite the
huge shifts in the fashion market. They have weathered the storms
countless times and came up on top.
By staying true to who they
are, believing in their product and not changing it just because
people are wearing something different this week.
Websites have not changed much
since we started back in 1997. Sure the graphics are cleaner, no
more animations and distractions, just simplified content like
the old black and white newspapers.
What is wrong with plain old
black and white text? NOTHING at all!
Sure the newspapers lost out
to the Internet because they were too slow getting news out. But
they survived for many years in spite of colorful magazines and
fancy photo spreads.
Today, we still see
billions of books being sold and all are plain black and white
text.
Not fancy, not flashy, but
they have content between the covers.
Websites are exactly the same
and the same people buying those black and white books are
looking at your website. When they do, they expect to see more
than a fancy cover without much content inside.
I don't know exactly when
webmasters and developers lost sight of that primary concept but
I do know why. They are lazy and developing good content based
websites is harder than just slapping up slideshows and graphics.
Creating programs and running
complex ecommerce is much harder than creating dazzling designs,
so they opted for the easy way out. And I can't really blame them,
people wanted websites and were unwilling to take th time to
provide content for the websites. So webmasters did what they
could with what they had.
We are all guilty of it. No
idea what to say, put up a slideshow with fancy movement, hang a
pretty painting over the hole in the wall and slap a throw rug
over the stain on the floor. Easy simple fixes that do nothing to
help your business. But they look good.
Now that everyone
is online, you need to compete with substance.
You can get away with just
having a webmaster make a fancy looking website anymore. You have
to go in and add some content to your website.
Adding one paragraph of text
about your business is not going to impress anyone anymore. You
need in depth details, comparisons and even video demonstrations.
These are all
things we, at pageBuzz have been talking about for years.
It is nothing new, not a trend or something you should be worried
about in 2014. You should always be worried about it and
you should always be mindful of what is important.
What did the 3
years you spent on Facebook net your business?
What did the
2000 twitter posts you tirelessly tweeted do for you?
What did
Flicker, Digg and Google+ do for you?
Now if you did get some value
from the thousands of hours you spent staring at your Facebook
page then you are one of the few and should consider yourself
very lucky.
Most people wish they could
get that time back which is just not possible.
So spending time wisely is
important and following trends in not a wise use of your time
unless you product is part of the trend.
There is no magic
for 2014.
There is nothing special for
2014 any more than "Web 2.0" was nothing new over the
past years. Now "web 2.0" is a buzzword that has been
surpassed by the hashtag # which is just a trendy name for the
pound sign or number sign.
Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag.....
but where is the substance? where is the content, where do we
make money?
While the pundits and
speculators guess what will be the trends in 2014 I promise you,
companies like Levi Strauss will keep making money.
And you can do the same by
just doing what makes sense. Follow the simple outlines we have
created for you here at pageBuzz.com.
There is a reason we are
still here after 10 years while most companies in our
industry can't last 3 years. Because we don't waiver from our
main product. We don't fall victim to trends or hashtags, web
2.0, mobile sites or DOT-CO domains.
We remain strong and we
realize it is only a matter of time before people shave those
afros, put away the bell bottoms and peace signs and fall back to
the core products that drive the core of our economy.
You can sell
everything and head west trying to find gold or you can stay
where you are and continue doing what you do the best way you
know how. In the end, you will be better, richer and stronger for
having stayed the course.
Keep your website on track,
don't look to the trends for advice and your business will grow.
On the other hand, if you decide to change everything in hopes
that business will get better, you might find yourself doing it
all over again in 2015.
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