Web Trends You Need To Ditch

 

Design trends change very fast and interactive tools and gimmicks come and go once the novelty has worn off, which means you have to be very careful with the latest crazes as they aren’t always the best feature for your estate agent website, especially if you don’t update your website regularly.

In many cases, these “cool” crazes will actually deter your audiences. Here are the 4 popular web trends that are likely to be harming your website:

1) Anything auto-play

Whether it was an auto-play video, audio or a virtual assistant these features are very unpopular among users. Your audience isn’t stupid; if they have made it to your website they are capable of clicking a button to play your video. No user wants things forced upon them especially not annoying audios.

Give your audience the choice, otherwise you’ll find yourself losing visitors.

2) Huge graphics = slow loading

Big imagery is great, even some animation is great if done correctly but you should never substitute the quality of the user experience for design. Big images if not compressed correctly, heavy animation and videos can take a long time to load, which will have a negative effect on the usability of your website. Loading speed is crucial; don’t let design slow you down.

3) Excessive social media widgets

Social media can benefit your marketing efforts greatly, however filling up your landing pages with “cool” social widgets won’t help you retain visitors or encourage conversions.

Social media widgets on a website simply distract people and drive them away from your website. Twitter feeds on the homepage are a very common one which serves no real purpose apart from distracting users away from their real goals. Don’t get caught up in useless gimmicks, stick to what is known to work.

4) Infinite scrolling

Infinite scrolling does work for some websites; however, estate agency websites aren’t one of them. Infinite scrolling makes it difficult for people to research your services, search for properties or find specific blog posts.

A certain amount of scrolling is fine, especially for mobile users but don’t get caught up in the infinite scrolling fad. Instead, make things easier by providing simple navigation.