2013-web-trends

Mobile devices are defining new ways to experience the web.

It’s no surprise that the number of people hitting your website from their phone or mobile device is increasing. The date differs according to who is collecting the info, but sometime in the near future, mobile web use will overtake those from a desktop.

With all the tablets, readers, and devices available, it can mean a major way to rethink the way that we design and implement websites. It means organizing the information that needs to be delivered in a meaningful way and then ensuring the delivery of that information to be flexible for each device.

There are many different solutions being proposed to this problem, but the one solution that is most accepted is something called Responsive Web Design.

What is responsive web design?

Responsive web design allows web content to be displayed differently across the many different devices that access a website. The images are automatically re-sized according to the width of the display, as well as the content being laid out differently depending upon which device is accessing it. This allows for a single website to smartly display the information according to the device accessing it.

Google recently came out with their recommendation to use responsive web design to handle delivery of information onto various device and formats. Their recommended standards have solidified responsive design as the way that web design is going. It’s no longer good enough to have a fixed width format. With this come its own challenges to ensure that images and text position and flow in the desired way.

Social media has changed the way we interact with the web.

Our world is much more social – and we stay connected and engaged using social media. But we’ve also grown accustomed to customized service that caters to our choices and includes recommendations of our online community of friends. Websites need to engage the visitor in a way that speaks directly to them. No longer can a website’s content focus on about how good their products are.

Now, we expect to find reviews of the products, watch video that shows the product in action, and expect to learn how that product will make our life personally better. In short, we expect it to be about us. That requires a shift in focus and a strategy in content that serves the visitor.

Does your business have a Content Strategy in place for 2013?

Technology is constantly evolving. Google is continually changing how it defines relevant websites. Through all these changes, though, one thing has remained constant – and even more relevant as time goes on: and that is to employ a solid content blogging strategy that maintains a steady conversation of industry topics to your followers. It means creating and executing a content strategy that builds your brand and your web presence using a company blog and your company social media.

Relationships are still as important as ever, technology has just given us more tools to foster those relationships.