With so many businesses going online and new companies starting up practically every day, standing out from the crowd is becoming increasingly harder. If you’re website doesn’t catch the eye in 2017, then you may have some serious work to do.

Here are just some of the web design trends that are set to take off in the next 12 months.

Mobile-First and Responsive Designs

The notion that customers are regularly using their mobile devices including smartphones to access the internet isn’t new. If your company still hasn’t got a mobile ready website, you’re way behind the times. Most designers now make sure this is in place first and then build up to desktop delivery, not the other way around. When your site is viewed on a range of devices, it’s a priority to have responsive designs in place.

Focus on Home Pages

Bigger and bolder text may be one way to go for new sites over the next few months. Standard templates which make everything look the same will be a thing of the past, particularly if you want that visitor appeal which keeps people coming back for more. Designers aren’t just sticking with straight horizontal text either – expect to see verticals and some quirky angled wording on home pages from now on.

More Dynamic Visuals

One problem for businesses is how to make those pages more dynamic. Getting gifs and high quality videos to run smoothly once someone comes onto your site is easier now with quality cinema-graphs that typically work on a loop. As long as you have the bandwidth and right hosting package, this kind of content can certainly hold your customer’s attention more than other types of content.

A Time to Experiment

With the need to stand out a priority, expect to see web designers experimenting a lot more in the future. Focusing on what you want your user to do once they get onto your site is going to be part of the design mix, as always, including how well you engage on both mobile and desktop devices. Overlapping images and funky page layouts can be somewhat risky but it may also give you the competitive business edge you’re looking for. Don’t be afraid to listen to your designer and try new things in 2017.

Vivid Colours

Along with big fonts, eclectic design and dynamic content, you might also be seeing a few more vivid colours as well. These can add depth and impact to your web pages and make them look highly stylish. This makes sense with the HD resolution mobile and desktop systems that we use nowadays and it should lead businesses to reassess their branding in respect of the look and feel of their visual content.

Keeping it Simple

A lot depends on what your business is there for but the mantra with many sites is to always, always keep it simple. People want to get in and out, do what they need to do and they don’t want to be distracted by content that is not useful to them. Text will be spare and simple and the messaging highly focused. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have content such as blogs and the like, but clarity will be the name of the game.

While, all the basics of marketing SEO and making your site visible by engaging with social media remain in place, looking at how the design of one of your most important assets is performing is always a good idea. After all, if you look just like everyone else, how are you going to stand out from the crowd?