With such a strong yet, different, year coming out of 2021, small business owners are looking for the latest design trends in 2022 to revamp their website, and ensure their users are receiving a modern, effective website to kick off the new year.
With so many modern website examples and website design trends, Slaterock Automation has compiled a list of the top trends that will help you determine the best way to update your website in 2022.
Even while including these web design trends for 2022, Slaterock still keeps its focus on ensuring your website serves as a tool for your business and a solution for your customers through Functional Web Design
Website Trends for 2022
Build a Mobile-first Experience
Drive Personality
Create a Purpose
Create Content with SEO in Mind
These are Slaterock's four website trends for small businesses in 2022, and they reflect the core values that we bring to each of our clients. With the internet constantly changing and website builders, like Wix.com, constantly being updated with modern design capabilities, it's often hard to keep up.
Let's dive into each web design trend to gather a better understanding of what we mean and how we implement these tactics.
Build a Mobile-First Experience
Its official, mobile device website traffic has surpassed desktop traffic! Today, 55% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. More and more people are using their mobile devices as tools to access the internet, so it's important that your website is designed with a mobile-first experience. That means the website is optimized for mobile devices, with a simple, easy-to-use interface that makes it easy for users to find what they're looking for.
One trend we are seeing grow in popularity is the use of VR (virtual reality) in online shopping. Because users cannot see the item up close, VR allows a website shopper to place the item in their home for sizing and aesthetic references. Slaterock has found many great tools that can be added as a plugin to your Wix website, but this does take a lot of setup work as hundreds of images need to be gathered for each product.
Create a Mobile App
Stephan Schambach, founder and CEO of NewStore, explains how website owners are missing a large opportunity by not having a native online app. Stephan Explains “When executed correctly, branded mobile apps are the missing piece of the omnichannel puzzle because they create a more meaningful connection between the brand and the consumer. Most importantly, they establish a connection between a brand, its digital channels, stores, associates, and customers.”
Although, at Slaterock we don't entirely agree. When it comes to small businesses there are a lot of different factors to consider when building a relationship with your customers. Although building a native app is a great way to solidify a long-term relationship between you and a customer, there are many drawbacks to a native app; one being price.
Thankfully, Wix is doing a great job introducing Branded Apps to current Wix users. However, with limited capability and a high monthly hosting fee, many small businesses using the platform will most likely opt out as the fee cannot be justified along with the additional charges of selling products on an app downloaded from the app store.
Moving forward in the year 2022, design trends related to mobile websites will only grow. As social media and its usage continue to rise, more and more people will be clicking off a social post and landing on websites for information and products. Slaterock agrees that it's critical to capture that user right away with a proper mobile-first experience, but it's also critical to be using social media in the first place.
Drive Personality
Driving personality through modern website examples is a great way to show your clients what you're capable of. Different design trends are important for any business or website owner to pay attention to. While you can't always rely on the latest web design trends to make sales, you can use them to your advantage by adding a little personality to your website. This can help inspire your customers to feel confident about your brand and trust.
Being authentic with your designs
Catering to your audience is a great way to create an authentic experience. We do this through the personalization of our website design trends. Many of the latest web design trends include personalizations such as Spotify Wrapped and other shareable content. The shareable content trends technology also helps to create brand awareness. It is statistically proven that consumers prefer to shop brands that tailor their experience by making suggestions relevant to their needs.
Unique Styles for your website
There is no better way to make your modern website stand out than by having features that optimize the consumer experience. One web design trend that is becoming a common feature is the use of voice search. This modern website feature allows for someone to speak into their device to create a search. Design trends, such as voice search, are crucial to a website builder's functionality.
Create a Purpose
In order to support a successful brand, it is important to know what your consumer is looking for. Some web design trends we are seeing in 2022 include creating ethical and sustainable practices. Nowadays, it is becoming a priority in society that we do more to be ethical. Whether it's the products you sell, or the ideas you promote, making your website's purpose to be more sustainable is just one way to become a part of this web trend.
Another purpose that we see increasing in the new year is activism. 2022 is all about promoting social change through your platform. Identifying your cause is just the first step in becoming an advocate for a purpose. Some web design trends relevant to this purpose include: adding donation links to your site, promoting online petitions, blogging, and so much more.
Taking a stand for what you believe in is great, and highly recommended, relying on this trend could have the opposite effect. Slaterock highly recommends that you are either ready for the effects of promoting this cause good or bad. At Slaterock we do not recommend jumping on this web design trend too quickly; rather, do your research to better understand your target market and how they may be affected by this announcement.
Create Content with SEO in Mind
Finally, we have arguably the most important trend in 2022, and the foreseeable future, and that's creating content with SEO in mind. By now most should have a better understanding of what SEO (search engine optimization) is and how it works. But a new trend is taking SEOs like us by storm, and that is creating content designed for Google.
Previous Content Trends
In the last few years, as blogging became more popular, websites began to burst with thousands of visitors a month as more and more people began reading for information and entertainment. This blogging style trend worked well but it was just the beginning of what is now present-day SEO.
Currently, there is a race for content, and the largest companies with massive budgets are winning the race by hiring hundreds of content writers and creators to develop some of the best content available. Companies like Wix, Hubspot, and Hootsuite, are just. a few that are spending nearly millions a year on developing content designed for Google, the only question is why?
Writing to Rank
One thing we try to explain to each of our clients is that Google is looking to show the best possible answers to the questions people search for each and every day. They do that by constantly showing new content with more information and credible sources. (Hopefully like this one)
As people search for these questions, companies like Wix, Hubspot, Hootsuite, and many more, are providing you with the answers. The chances of that individual signing up for their services are significantly higher after viewing an article answering the question they originally searched for. This new SEO trend is now getting websites (like the ones listed above) thousands of visitors a month allowing them to collect information and track activity to better position themselves for a sale down the road.
It's a similar concept to having a brick and mortar store in a very populated area, most likely it doesn't matter what you sell people are going to buy just because they are there. That's the position these companies are putting themselves in by spending millions on content. They are "building the storefronts" and opening the doors for the traffic to flow through.
Although this website trend is used by large corporations, there's no reason you and your business can't join the fight to rank! Not a writer? There are many great resources to help you find freelance writers that know and understand your niche or industry.
Slaterock Automation has numerous Strategic Partners to help get the job done when it comes to creating high-quality content to rank on Google.
Creating SEO Friendly Content in 2022
With all of this information, what is the next step? How can you best position your businesses to grow with SEO-friendly content in 2022 while outranking the corporations spending millions? Although it may be hard, there are a few options to consider.
They do work, check out our Impressions in the last 3 months vs the last 6 months!
Choose longtail keywords
By going after "longtail Keywords" with really solid copy, Google may see you as an expert in the space and show your content out to others for those specific, longer, keywords and phrases.
Topical Coverage
Google wants to see that you understand your industry and that you are creating really great content for those searching for answers that relate to you and your business.
You can "cover your topic" by creating lots of content with longtail keywords and interlinking those pieces to show Google you are covering all aspects of your niche or industry.
Our thoughts on these 2022 Website Design Trends
While already being over a month into the year 2022, these design trend predictions have held out strong. Creating SEO-friendly content clearly stands out among the rest (so far). Our team at Slaterock has already seen a massive increase in website impressions with a slight boost in clicks but only time will tell how this website trend will continue.
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