Website Trends Across the Years and How To Use Them NOW

The beginning of each New Year brings new opportunities for your real estate and vacation properties as you add new features, new capabilities and new services for your clients and guests. In much the same way, the New Year also brings opportunities to update and refresh the look of the website for your real estate and vacation properties to help drive more traffic for your business. If you notice that your website has had the same “look and feel” for some time and you are looking for the newest ways to draw interest in your offerings, the team at RealTech Webmasters can work with you to intersperse the latest technology and website design offerings with your website to help you gain greater success in the year to come.

Website Trends

Incorporating the latest advancements in design with proven techniques for search engine optimization and website design is at the core of what RealTech Webmasters do for our clients. If you are ready for a refresh, our team can help you take advantage of these trends for 2017 to help convert website traffic to guests for your offerings:

Mobile Friendly Designs:

In 2016, mobile devices overtook desktop computers as the primary source for accessing internet content, which means that more and more potential customers are using their smartphones or tablets to access the web. If your real estate and vacation properties are not mobile friendly, this is a great time to review the design of your site to ensure mobile capability. Our teams can help you create a look and feel that is designed for mobile, as well as enhancing mobile capabilities for booking that can help drive higher traffic to your property.

Enhancing User Experience:

While you may not think about how visitors use your real estate and vacation properties website, a negative user experience can cause potential customers to navigate away quickly. Having a pleasing, easy to use website will allow site visitors to move through your website to find the information they desire more efficiently and help them decide on a booking quickly. In addition, incorporating elements that allow visitors to find booking and contact information immediately can drive better booking results for your properties.

Be Original and tell your story through images and video:

For many vacation and real estate property owners, the beauty of their locations is often the most unique selling point of their experience. From sun-dappled mountain vistas to sparkling clear waters around beautiful beaches, the beauty that surrounds your properties is an important draw for your customers. Using these unique aspects of your properties should be a key component of selling the experience to your site visitors and incorporating photos and videos from your properties, as well as sharing the stories of what guests can experience when they book with you can differentiate your properties from the competition. In addition, being able to share information through social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, can help grow your presence and the online marketing expertise that RealTech offers clients will be able to help you reach customers on a global basis.

If your real estate or vacation property is ready to update and refresh your website and create an online marketing presence that will allow you to take advantage of the latest technology and user experience guidelines, contact RealTech Webmasters today to learn how our teams can help you drive outstanding growth in 2017 and beyond.

Web Design Trends for 2016 That Will Make Your Site Better

A decade ago, top web design trends leaned toward newspaper-like columns and small images. But at the start of 2016, websites with a worn-out design can actually hurt your business. In a study by Brightlocal.com, nearly 10 percent of local consumers would be turned-off from a business if the web design was poor.

vacation rental website design

As webmasters, we know how important design is for our clients and how ignoring trends can hurt a business’s bottom line. Here are some top website design trends you should follow for 2016 to make sure your site design isn’t turning potential customers away:

    • Hero Images: Hero images are the large images front and center on your website. They’re the first thing a visitor sees and their job is to encapsulate the site’s most important content. We encourage our clients to use big, high-definition images as a way to grab a customer’s attention. Because of increased bandwidth and data availability, you can also get away with more impressive hero images.
    • Material Design: Similar to the minimalist flat design (think of the Windows 8 screen), Google’s new Material Design is encouraging webmasters to simplify, simplify, simplify. Their goal is to move away from amped-up websites and use graphics that are grounded in reality by using the fundamentals of light, surface and movement to convey information to the user. The goal is to create quick-to-grasp content that resembles the 3-D world.
    • Responsive Design: Responsive design means your website changes to fit whatever screen it’s viewed through, mobile, tablet or laptop. Google has ranked responsive design higher in importance every year for the last two years, ranking responsive sites higher than non-responsive. Nearly half of mobile device users report issues with static sites and 34 percent of smartphone users access the internet solely from their phones. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to see how your site scores. If your website isn’t responsive, you’re ranking lower in Google searches and could be losing valuable business.
  • Load Time: Remember when entry screens running Flash were all the rage? Today the entry screen is extinct, and if it takes more than 10 seconds for the homepage to load, a user is more likely to leave the site entirely. An expert web design team navigates the constantly changing industry to help you design a site that brings in customers and improves your search ranking.

Contact us today to get an evaluation on your site and learn how a fresh design can improve your business.

Website Design Trends to Look for in 2015

As 2014 comes to a close, it is a perfect time for businesses to evaluate their websites and determine if it is time for a redesign. With a new year comes new design concepts and a chance to update your website with optimization trends.

obxcola website design

Web Design Ledger recently discussed website design trends for 2015, and we’ve highlighted five of those trends that will play a key role in the industry next year:

  • Responsiveness: Developing a responsive website can now be considered a necessity in the design process. Whether on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet, ensuring all users can easily access your company website is a must. In 2015, internet users will expect easy navigation and a fluid, responsive design.
  • Parallax scrolling: The parallax scrolling trend is dominating, creating an immersive 3D experience for website users. Currently, most websites follow a standard home-page design with icons that redirect to separate pages. However, parallax scrolling showcases more of your content on a single, continuous web page. If not done properly, it can be overwhelming for an audience, but a site using parallax scrolling creatively and tastefully can be quite memorable. It allows for a progressive interaction between the website and user for an overall unique experience.
  • Typography: For far too long, small and condensed blocks of text were the norm for website designs. You can expect to see bigger and more unique fonts that will bring personality to web pages. Designers in 2015 will branch out, trading classic design principles for more flexible and modern typography.
  • Flat design: Flat design reflects minimalist principles which have become increasingly popular. Take Apple’s new design approach for example. The innovative powerhouse left shadows and realism behind for a more flat, modern look. The minimalist trend is reflective of a fast and convenient user experience that emphasizes relevant and dynamic content.
  • Webgraphics: Similar to infographics, webgraphics are visually appealing representations of data, but with interactive elements. At first glance, it may look like an infographic, but scrolling over an image may initiate an animation, or clicking on a word could lead to a pop-up bubble. Webgraphics emphasize storytelling and give users the power to turn the page, resulting in an interactive narrative for your brand.

Ever-changing design trends pave the way for innovative marketing strategies for your tourism or vacation rental business. At RealTech Services, we stay on top of emerging trends to offer optimized website design. Could your website benefit from a redesign in 2015? If so, contact us today.