Get Ahead of the Curve with this Website Tip

Websites continue to change, but what will be the website trend in 2019? Website content? Blog posts? Nope.

Over the years, as the internet itself has evolved, websites have served a variety of purposes. But regardless what your website is supposed to do, every effective site shares several characteristics:

• Inviting design, which uses text, graphics, colors and styles, as well as effects to entice visitors to stay on the site
• Ease of navigation, which makes navigation on the site intuitive, so even new visitors can find their way around and get to the information they’re seeking
• Load speed, which determines how quickly your pages load in a visitor’s internet browser and device

Which Is the Website Trend in 2019?

Ray Access doesn’t employ website designers, so we can’t speak to how designs are changing online, except to note that new designs are breaking down the boxed-in framework. If you want to learn more, go here.

Navigation hasn’t changed that much. Menus are listed at the top of the page, along the side of the page or collapsed into a so-called “hamburger” — three short horizontal lines, stacked one on top of another. Click the hamburger to open the menu. Your navigation choice is part of your site’s style, but it has to be consistent across your site.

Load speed is one area that has been evolving quickly and has made a huge difference in the effectiveness of websites. There are many factors that affect your load speed, and we’re predicting that improving your site’s speed is going to be the biggest website trend in 2019.

Why Page Load Time Is Important

How fast your website loads directly relates to its success. According to Unbounce.com, nearly three-quarters of consumers admit that a slow page speed stops them from buying something. The prevailing attitude is summed up in this quote by Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media:

“Web pages don’t have loading bars. So when the page is slow, the visitor doesn’t know if the delay will be another 500 milliseconds or 15 seconds. Maybe it will never load. And the back button is right there.”

Additionally, Google recommends that your site load in five seconds or faster at a standard connection. So if you have a slow site, the search engine giant may penalize you. While Google’s algorithms are secret, it’s no secret that they want to deliver positive experiences for their users, and they consider slow load speed a poor user experience.

Factors Influencing Your Site’s Load Time

You may think connection speed is the determining factor for how fast your site loads, but that’s incorrect. If you’re browsing the internet on your 3G cell phone, every site loads at about the same rate, relatively speaking. It’s other factors that can influence the relative website speeds.

So the website trend in 2019 is to make your site load as quickly as possible. Factors that influence how fast your site loads include:

• The image sizes on your site
• The complexity of your site’s code
• The number of operations going on in the background
• Your website host’s capabilities

How to Improve Your Website Speed

You have some control over the factors that slow down your website. A little background work can do wonders for your load time. For example:

• Resize all your images so that they’re no bigger than the size they’ll be displayed on your website. Then upload them again to your site, using the same filename. The goal is to make the file sizes as small as possible.
• Use mobile-friendly templates for your website and clean, concise code. Ask a programmer for help if you need it. Getting your pages to load quickly is the top website trend in 2019, and totally worth the expense. Slow sites lose visitors, engagement and sales.
• Make sure you don’t have clunky plugins or other apps running in the background when a visitor comes to your site. Your pages will load faster without all that competition for bandwidth.
• Pay what it takes for a website host that can handle all the traffic you’re going to get. It’s about computing power on your host’s end and (again) competition for the bandwidth coming into your website. One recommended host that can handle this website trend in 2019 is HostPapa.

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Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.