2013 has been a great year for web design. New trends have emerged, and designers have created some truly innovative websites. If 2013 was any indication of the future, 2014 will be an even bigger year for web design. Keep your eyes peeled for these trends:

Huge hero areas

A hero area is the intro section at the top of a website. More often than not it contains a bit of text with a large image in the background. Many websites used to use sliders to showcase their website, but this is quickly changing. More and more websites are using these large hero areas to create a great, simple introduction to their business.

Less text more video

Video is becoming more and more popular on websites as computer power, bandwidth, and availability of video editing software increase. Embedding video can make any website dynamic, heighten click throughs, and increase visit times. It’s also great for educating users as an audiovisual substitute to reading paragraphs of copy. Many mainstream sites like YouTube also offer free tools to analyze views which helps make video a valuable marketing tool!

Mobile everything

Responsive design was optional for a lot of businesses in 2013. This next year is when it becomes a mandatory feature. The variety of devices used to access the Internet has grown significantly, which means that businesses will need to cater to them. Invest in a responsive design or you will get left behind! Websites will also take a more mobile friendly approach to the way they present information. Attention spans are getting shorter, and important information will be displayed in a short and sweet manner like on social media sites. Online information will be more easily digestible than ever before.

Outsourcing web development work after your firm designs a website can be a great option if you want to save time and money. Outsourcing can increase your profit margins on a design project, and allow you to take on more clients at once. However, there are several key factors that should make you rethink your choice, and choose a different development firm:

Lack of experience in a particular CMS or technology needed for your project.

Every project is going to have different requirements. Clients may want a website to be built using a specific CMS or platform. You need to ensure that whichever development firm you are looking into has experience with that technology. Otherwise the entire process will be a trial by fire for all parties involved, and you could quite possibly lose a client.

They have a bad company website.

If a developer doesn’t have a good company website you need to move on to the next option. How are you supposed to trust them if they won’t invest any effort into their own company?

They don’t provide specific pricing, deliverables, and timetables for their work.

Regardless of what firm you are looking into, they should be able to provide clear cut pricing, deliverables, and timetables. If anything is left up to chance there could be delays, and your client could choose to take his business elsewhere. Also, unforeseen costs can drive business away as well. Everything should be clearly defined at the onset.

They aren’t proficient in English.

If you and your client operate in an English speaking company then by all means make sure your developers do as well. Clearly discuss with your client what sort of communication they need with the developers ahead of time so you know what language requirements to set. Miscommunication can be a deal killer in an industry where understanding what the client wants is so critical.

It takes too long to get a quote from them.

Move on if you present a development firm with a request to receive a quote and it takes them forever to respond. This is generally not a good indicator of timely communication on their part, and could spell trouble down the road. Not being interested in making a profit is their prerogative. You need to find someone who will respond promptly and efficiently to all communication.

Copying online content is just as bad as plagiarism in books. You may not get in nearly as much legal trouble, but there are huge potential repercussions. The point is, you should never copy content. Look at other articles for inspiration, but hitting Control + C and Control + V is the laziest and most ineffective way to build traffic and sales. Here’s why:

Search engines will filter out websites that copy content.

Search engines will actively filter out search results that have duplicate content. This means being lazy and copying from other websites won’t help improve your visibility or traffic. It will help your competitor’s though.

The number of undifferentiated competitors and content will increase, making life more difficult for sales and marketing.

Imagine this: Every best-seller in the world was copied word for word by competing authors. How do people pick between authors if they know that the will just end up reading the same exact book? At random? If all other factors are kept the same it means each author has essentially the same probability of selling their book. This means lower sales for everybody. The same thing can happen when it comes to copying online content. Not having a unique take on a subject doesn’t give a consumer any more incentive to look at your site over other options. In turn, this can impact the sales and marketing team’s ability to create compelling reasons to purchase your products. Copying content removes differentiators, making the most exciting company extremely mundane, and a hard sell.

Dramatically lowers the use of search engines for everyone.

The whole point of search engines is to display the best array of information available on a given topic. This can include different points of view, writing styles, source types, etc. Duplicating content reduces the usefulness of search engines by reducing variety. A fully informed consumer is one that has access to all views and sources, not one that can only see 500 duplicate articles.

Finding and implementing a great website analytics package is a must-have for any business that takes its website seriously. The go-to option is usually Google Analytics, but there are some other awesome (and sometimes free solutions) online. For instance:

Crazy Egg ($9-$99/month)

Crazy Egg’s main selling point is that it lets you build heat maps and track exactly where users are clicking. This is great for assessing your website’s usability. Being able to see which parts of your website are the most interesting is great for identifying areas to focus your efforts on. It can also help to improve website design and conversions.

Google Content Experiments (Free)

Google just loves giving away free tools. This is another great solution to implement if you want to test how changes in layout will affect clicks and sales. Formerly known as Google Website Optimizer, it has since been integrated with Google Analytics. It is one of the only A/B and Multivariate testing solutions on the market right now. GCE is great for small business owners who want to test out different ideas, and has a simple user interface. Set up can be a bit tedious, but the fact that it’s free and offers a ton of benefits makes it absolutely worth it.

A custom website is the way to go if your business wants a professional and unique online presence. Many people think that custom websites are extremely expensive, but this isn’t necessarily true. There are a number of affordable solutions out there. So why should you invest in a custom solution?

Custom websites offer a unique online presence.

Branding is all about carving out a niche for your company. Having a generic template design isn’t the best way to go about creating a unique online presence for your company. Custom websites allow you to work with a designer to design every single aspect of your website so that it matches your business vision. It’s a great feeling to know that your site is completely differentiated from any other business on the Internet.                                                                       

Custom websites are scalable.

Another benefit of a custom website solution is that many of them are scalable. That means they can grow with your business needs so you don’t need to invest in a new solution. Investing in a custom website now means saving time and money later on. You won’t have to worry about searching for a brand new product, or deal with migrating services, features, and content.

Custom websites offer extensive feature customization.

One of the biggest draws of a custom website is its customization capabilities. If you need a custom feature or widget, a developer can make it for you. You can add custom e-commerce storefronts, social media stores, news feeds, forms, blogs, showcases and many other cool additions. The only limits are your imagination and budget.