The Web is constantly evolving as technology improves and web site design is evolving right along with it.

Online businesses are slowly realizing that the saying “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t always apply to their web sites.

A successful, high-traffic web site requires a lot of work in the areas of design, content and search engine optimization.

Web design has grown by leaps and bounds from the days of blue text on black backgrounds, type that goes all the way to the edge of your screen and beyond and sites that are packed with graphics.

Now, both web designers and online business owners are paying much more attention to how their web sites look and function. The following are 7 of the hottest trends currently in web design:

1. Design for Function

While the overall look of your web site is important, good looks will only go so far with visitors. Your design should be used to enhance your content as opposed to competing with it. The message you have for your visitors is what brings in sales, not how pretty your web pages are.

Most site owners and designers now recognize that the functionality of a web site is more important than how it looks because, if people can’t find their way around and purchases can’t be easily made, then the site has failed to do its job.

2. Colors

Back in the “old days” of the web it seemed as if the color palette people drew from consisted of eye-burning neons or black. Today the shift is more toward soft, neutral colors. Many designers are using gradients and reflections to make the site feel warmer and more inviting. Color palettes are leaning more towards earth tones, which don’t stand out or cause people to lose focus on your content.

3. Simplicity

While graphics and Flash animations continue to grow in complexity, the best web designs go for a simple approach. If you look at sites like Apple, Ebay and Amazon, you”ll see simple, easy to navigate designs that draw customers in and make their shopping experience as easy as possible.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the remaining 4 design trends for web sites.

Over the next few posts we’ll be talking about what’s sooo 1998, and what’s the next new thing in web site design.

Hit Counters

Any site created past 2002 should not have a hit counter that shows how many visitors have been to the site at the bottom of the page.

First of all, the number is not accurate. Hit counters count “hits”, not visitors, and not page views. We can go deeply into the differences another day, but suffice it to say that the number of “hits” says almost nothing about the success level of your site. Displaying it on your page screams “I’m a newbie!”

And your site, especially if it’s professional, should Never say that.

The Low Cost Web site Design Secrets series continues. You’ll always be able to click the link to the entire series below.

Low Cost Web Site Design Secret Number : Keep Your Sticky Plan Simple.

Now that we’ve established how important it is to have a sticky site, what can you do to get the stickiness going?

A great many things. But first, we have to go over the most important point again.

You’ll want to pick one or two ways for your site to be sticky and build on them. Once you have three or four ways to make your site stickier, unless you are starting a resource or community site rather than a commercial site, you will probably want to build another site.

To create a sticky site, you can do up to three of the following activities at once:

• Constantly add new content with a blog, an RSS feed, or a directory of your own articles.
• Give them a way to return to your site on every page - there should be a link to your RSS feed or newsletter on every page of the site. You’ll want to send out an update at least monthly, but weekly or daily is best if you can.
• Make sure your copy is readable and easy to understand. Use bullets and headlines throughout copy to draw attention. Less than 20% of your paragraphs on web pages should be more than four sentences long.
• Build interaction into your site. If you have a blog, allow comments. Forums should be moderated and all topics should be answered within a time frame that matches the action of the community.
• Provide as many resources as you can. Not all of these resources need to be on another site, or be free. In fact, for some sites it is better if there are just a few areas of free content, such as articles or blog entries.

Stickiness is important enough for your site and your business for you to consult an expert if any of these suggestions don’t fit your site. Fill out the form below to drop me a line, and remember to reference this post. I’d be happy to talk with you.

Nina

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Read the Rest of the Low Cost Web Site Design Secrets Series