It is imperative that you hop on these trends? Will you be left behind like a website that still uses scrolling text? Will your website be abandoned like a website that plays a non-stop loop of the same tune? No, you will not lose viewers if you ignore the trends listed on this article, but you should seriously consider hopping on three or more of the trends listed in this article.
Not only are many of the trends very easy to hop onto, many of them offer a distinct benefit and advantage for your website. For example, something as simple as creating your own imagery, even as simple as taking your own photos rather than lifting or buying them, is going to help you get more viewers. Most of the trends are easy to follow, and they are popular for a reason, which means they may have a more powerful effect on your users.
You may believe that single-page websites are not as popular as they used to be, but you would be wrong. It is just that single-page WordPress designs have set up shop in certain niche areas. For example, you are very likely to see single-page websites that advertise and/or host apps. You also likely to see single-page WordPress websites that promote online games and indie games.
Such websites are still popular as online signposts for offline businesses, such as a website for a hairdressing salon in a certain town. A single page website is mobile friendly, it is very easy to update, and it makes SEO (Search Engine Optimization) far easier because you can concentrate all your paid, unpaid, on-page and off-page attention onto/into just one page.
Virtual Reality is still in its baby phase, but many people seem to think it is good enough to start exploiting on a major scale, and quite a few WordPress designers are taking advantage of this.
Of all the trends listed on this article, this is probably the one you should consider last. There are still far too few people using VR technology to make VR integration a big part of your website. It is not like the old days when you had to have a mobile website or a flexible/responsive website to accommodate mobile users.
VR headsets are popular in the year 2017, but they are not popular enough to force you to install some sort of VR integration into your WordPress website. VR headsets are not the first thing people think to use when surfing the Internet. Nevertheless, the trend for VR integration and optimization is here and probably here to stay.
Interstitial anxiety is the feeling a user gets when he or she has to wait for the rewards promised by a click. The longer the wait, then the more interstitial anxiety. Too much waiting around makes users frustrated, which may lead them to leave the website. Even seemingly innocuous interactions can severely damage a viewers user experience.
For example, if a user clicked a Google+ “Like” button on a blog post and had to wait three or four seconds for the click to show up, then the user may be less inclined to press the like button on the next blog post. Websites that concentrate on interstitial anxiety optimization are less likely to annoy and frustrate their users.
The rise of Smartphone technology is a fad/trend, but it is one we are going to see for quite a while yet, which means websites with long pages and one-page websites are likely to remain popular for a few years to come.
The year 2017 has not been any different to previous years where mobile technology dictated website design. The longer-page design and the one-page design is still popular because they eliminate the need for clicking, and clicking is annoying for Smartphone/touch-screen users.
We have all made our websites more mobile friendly, and most people have responsive websites these days. Having a website with very long pages and having a one-page website is easy, and most people have a very good Internet connection, which means your longer/bigger page loads very easily in situations where it may not have loaded as quickly in the past.
The year 2017 has been the year of heightened security. Chinese and Russian hacking groups have really turned up the heat with some popular websites receiving over one million brute force attempts per day. Encryption is becoming very common where it is not just banks and sensitive information holders that have the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate. Websites such as writing services reviews websites and even blogs are encrypting too.
Not only has the Chinese and Russian threat increased, we also saw the appearance of WannaCry in 2017, where businesses actually started coming forward saying they have been the victims of ransomware attacks.
Businesses usually keep ransomware attacks a secret for fear of damaging their stock prices, but so many were attacked this year that many businesses have come forward saying they have been victims. The more businesses that come forwards and admit it, rather than paying the ransomware companies to keep it all hush hush, then the less successful ransomware programmers are in the future.
The odd things about this trend are that it has a strong salable focus and plenty of designer attention, but it just isn’t spreading like wildfire in the way that many experts predicted. Age-responsive design is not that difficult to implement, especially when you consider how easy creating a dynamic website is these days.
It is certainly a design trend that has dominated in the year 2017, but it is a rosebud that hasn’t bloomed yet. It is dominating in the year 2017 because the idea only really became mainstream in the year 2017; it still has a way to go before it becomes as common as mobile-friendly responsive design.
Age-responsive design is relatively easy to implement, but even if you do not want to invest your time and effort, you may simply make age-responsive design part of your accessibility options, which gives children the option of seeing a child-friendly version of your website the same way that visually impaired people may see a larger-font version of your website.
Current age-responsive designs have included changing navigation menus depending upon the competency of the current visitor, and adapting font spacing and sizes to increase legibility for younger people. Some have also changed color schemes for better contrast too.
There are other articles online that cover this topic and they claim that customized designs are a current trend, but that is not true at all. If you design your own WordPress theme from scratch and use it exclusively, then your custom design is unique, but very few websites and companies are doing that. Why waste time on building your own WordPress theme when there are literally thousands of them out there to choose from, and many of them are free.
Custom imagery is a strong trend that has been running for years. Websites are always making their own images from scratch. In fact, if you have a semi-popular website, you can still rank very highly on Google Images if you create your own images. Google seems to know if you have created you own images and if you have lifted them from another website.
Websites with moving parts are easier than easy to create these days. For example, the Hungry House website shows a picture of people sharing food in the background before showing you the food establishments in your area.
Cinemagraphs are still photos that have elements in them that repeatedly move. They were popular on Google+ for a short while as a way of scaring people, such as the scary image of Jack Nicholson knocking on a door in the Shining movie. They seem to have moved away from Google+, where full GIFs are still popular, but Cinemagraphs have moving away towards WordPress websites.
In some cases, a Cinemagrpraphic has the same effect as streaming a video in the background of your website, but it puts less pressure on your service provider and even less on your website itself.
Some of the trends listed here are tied to technology. For example, unless clicking on a touch-screen becomes more convenient, then it is likely that single-page and longer web pages will remain popular. Will VR-ready websites becoming more and more popular, or is the current VR trend a passing fad? Who knows, suffice it to say that trends tied to technology will or will not continue depending upon the success of the technology it is tied to.
Can your website get by without jumping on the most popular trends of the year 2017? Sure it can, but there are some trends you should seriously consider before dismissing. For example, the age-responsive design is not nearly as difficult as it seems. Most younger people are permanently logged into their Google+, their Facebook, or their Twitter account, so it is not difficult figuring out which of your users are kids and which are not. Implementing an age-responsive design is almost as easy as installing any sort of responsive design, and you can always go the accessibility route that was suggested in the article. Seriously consider hopping on some of the trends in this article.
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