Making decisions on good design is hard. There’s more to design than just choosing a color scheme. Decision-making can be stressful, especially when you have to make quick, cost-effective, and aesthetically pleasing decisions. And keeping up with them can become a significant drain on your resources.
This drain can be a real problem for small business owners who don’t always have the cash to pay for redesigns or new sites every time the trend changes. But is it worth spending all your time and energy chasing design trends? Read more to find out.
Web design isn’t about looking pretty.
If you’re a business owner, you might think that web design is about making your website look as beautiful as possible. But that’s not the case at all. The first thing you should do when preparing for a new site launch is to ensure it works properly and meets the needs of your users.
That doesn’t mean you should ignore aesthetics altogether. Good design does matter—after all, a poorly designed website will only serve to drive visitors away. At the same time a well-designed site can help build trust and brand recognition among potential customers.
But in order to create an effective design, it’s important to understand what really makes websites work: namely, user experience (UX).
You sacrifice function for fashion.
Many business owners overlook the importance of functionality in favor of fashion. You sacrifice function for style when you put aesthetics above all else or try to squeeze every last drop of value out of a feature that doesn’t work well or isn’t needed by your customers.
Design trends are an excellent way to keep your brand current and make sure that it stands out from the crowd, but they should never be the driving force behind your website. A trend is just that: temporary. The best designers know how to use these trends in a functional way and communicate your brand.
But if you chase design trends just because they are “in” you may end up with something that doesn’t work for your business or brand. You sacrifice function for fashion, and it can be costly to hire web design companies when every trending design comes out.
Your brand becomes confusing.
You’ve put so much time and effort into developing your business. But it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of what’s hot right now or what everyone else is doing and lose sight of what makes your business unique. Your brand isn’t a trend; it’s what makes you.
When you chase design trends in your business you risk your brand becoming confusing. There are so many different elements that make up a brand, such as colors, logos, fonts, and even taglines. When you begin to incorporate design trends, it can be easy to lose focus on what makes your brand unique. Suppose you choose a trendy color or font and abandon it a few years later due to its popularity fading. In that case you risk customers associating that color or font with a different company. They may misinterpret your meaning if they see it in connection with your business. This could lead to confusion and lost sales.
Your SEO could suffer.
Don’t chase design trends when you’re redesigning your site. Don’t think about your site’s look and feel as a separate entity that sits on top of your business model and branding. If your SEO suffers in the process, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Good design is good design. It’s nice to want to keep the look and feel fresh and current, but don’t believe that changing the look of your site will close more sales or make people think more highly of you. A great site will always be great regardless of its look and feel. It doesn’t need to be trendy to be timeless. Modern design can hurt your SEO because it makes it harder for search engines like Google to parse what exactly is on each page.
Trends always change
The world of design is always changing. Trends are constantly rising and falling off, while some patterns will persist and others will come back into fashion again. It would help if you learned to ignore trends. The main reason for this is that if you chase after a trend it’s very likely that you’ll miss out on an even better opportunity.
If you chase trends your immediate surroundings will define everything you do. You won’t be able to create your own unique brand or style; instead, you’ll have one foot in the present and one in the past, which means your business will be left behind at some point in the future.
Stay timeless with us!
The best way to get your website to stand out is to clearly plan what you want it to achieve. The worst thing you can do is go with the flow and hope it will all come together.
As a rule of thumb, don’t chase design trends for your business. Instead, focus on the goals you want to achieve and the audience you are trying to reach. Let us help you have a timeless design for your website; contact us today!
