Your website essentially functions as an online business card for your brand. When designed well, it’s one of your best sales tools.
Think about it this way: Your site design can say almost everything there is to know about your company, products, services, prices, and more! Depending on how this information is presented to the customer ultimately will shape their impression of your brand. It should attract potential customers, offer a seamless user experience (UX), and provide easily accessible information to users to help guide them through the customer journey.
Of course, trends and technology change over time, as do consumers’ expectations. As such, you need to make periodic changes to your website’s design to stay current. Pay attention to your analytics so you can identify issues that might prompt you for a redesign. For instance, if your customers are increasingly abandoning their carts on your eCommerce site, it might be time to check in on your site design and optimize the checkout process. If your bounce rate is a lot higher on mobile than on desktops, you may need to optimize your site design for mobile users.
As summer 2022 sets in, this is a great time to re-evaluate your current website design and make changes as needed to get ready for the hot summer sales.
We recommend updating your website seasonally to align with any user trends, seasonal sales, and just to offer site visitors something new and eye-catching to re-engage their interest. Taking the time to refresh your website can offer a lot of benefits, including:
Between enhancing users’ experiences and potentially boosting sales, a little effort can go a long way in terms of a website design refresh.
So maybe a site refresh sounds like a great idea, but how do you actually get started? Here are some ideas to spark a little inspiration.
A summer-themed logo is a super fun way to bring your brand into this bright and sunny season. A revamped logo can see an even stronger presence during these months, allowing your brand to connect with your audience through the shared spirit of lazy summer days. Refresh your standard logo with summer colors or seasonal accents that get users in the mood to shop for the season. All you need are a few subtle touches.
Seasonal logos are eye-catching and create excitement. They also entice visitors to stick around and learn more about your company, especially since you went the extra mile to grab their attention. Keep in mind that you don’t have to completely overhaul your existing logo. Instead, you can add a few fun touches that set the mood and brighten up your existing branding.
People get excited about changing seasons, especially when they have warm summer days to look forward to. Play on this anticipation and use it to your advantage! Fun seasonal designs get users excited for something new. Look for imagery that portrays summer vibes. Additionally, avoid heavy fonts or color choices. Instead, opt for lighter typefaces, interesting fonts, and color choices that exude positive emotions.
Micro animations add depth to web design. Although the idea itself isn’t new, this trend is expected to be a big hit in 2022, with the subtle movements bringing websites to life. As a bonus, micro animations have a way of drawing audiences’ eyes to a particular place on the page, which you can use to your advantage and bring awareness to any information you specifically want your users to see.
Summer is all about lazy days, kicking back, and relaxing. So align your site design with this lifestyle and make shopping easy for your target audience. Horizontal scrolling provides viewers the ability to see information easily on phones or tablets. This is because gesture control is used with these devices.
Side-scrolling is the perfect solution for eCommerce sites, portfolios, online maps, and more. A good side-scrolling panel may also highlight an animation effect, which can make the resource more attractive, comfortable, and memorable.
Dynamic websites display different information to users based on their current locations, their past growing behaviors, or recent purchases they’ve made.
Websites with dynamic content have high engagement and conversation rates, meaning this will continue to be a hot trend for the foreseeable future.
Bold, bright, saturated colors will help your company stand out from all the soft neutrals businesses have been using for the past few years. Users associate summer with sunshine, blue sky, and green grass. Use these bright seasonal colors throughout your site!
Add Functionality
As we’ve said, shoppers are already super relaxed this time of year. No summer vacation shopper is going to have the patience for a difficult site and poor user experience. With this in mind, your summer website design needs to be easy to use, understand, and navigate, both for your frontend users and for your team on the backend.
Consider adding a chat feature so your customers can feel more connected with you and get answers whenever they have them. The more you can do to improve personalization and navigability, the more likely your visitors will be to find what they’re looking for as quickly and easily as possible.
Here are some other functional elements you might want to consider:
Add a little summertime magic by changing the color of your buttons to highlight the seasonal part of your navigation menu. If you’re running a sale, you can also add extra buttons to point customers to your special offers. In the banner of your homepage, draw visitors’ attention by updating it to something sunny, bright, and summery.
Embracing trends can really make or break your site. This summer’s hottest trend will be to incorporate elements of 3D with a flat-ish overall aesthetic. Elements with a flat flair might include:
Each of these properties helps to create depth and dimension to web-pages.
Dark mode, night shift, and other low-light user interface options provide audiences with a low-contrast site that’s easier to look at in low-light environments. Enabling users to toggle between light and dark as they scroll through different pages enhances their experience on your site and with your brand. You’ll want your users to be able to shop in the sun and under the umbrella.
Need a little website refresh but don’t know how to go about it? We’ve got you covered! Our design and development teams are experts in seasonal site refreshes and updates. Touch base with us so we can get summer up and running for your brand today.