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Everyone wants to grow their business, but not everyone has the time or patience to learn all the ins and outs of marketing, sales enablement, and making the most out of a CRM such as HubSpot. Join the Web Canopy Studio team, a HubSpot Diamond Partner Agency, as they chat about various topics all designed to help you grow your B2B business.
(00:00):
Hey, in today's episode, we are talking about the three must have design trends for your website. My name is John Aikin. I'm the CEO of Web Canopy Studio, and this is the Website Conversion Show.
(00:18):
Hey, what's up everybody. Thank you for tuning in to day. Uh, fun fact, before we get started into today's topic today, as of the date that I'm recording this, it is Web Canopy Studio's 12 year anniversary. It's 12 years since we started this company. Uh, and we started that company, um, 12 years ago as a website development company. It's what we were doing. We were doing lots of little wor word Pressy websites for restaurants and small businesses and, and local companies and so on. And, um, it's just been really cool to, to see the evolve evolvement evolution, to see the evolution that the company has, has gone through. Um, couldn't be more proud of the team and, and the people that, that work here just Absolut be blown away by the talent and the creativity and, um, just the amazing, amazing stuff that they bring to the table.
(01:08):
It is far and above anything that I could have comprehended, uh, thinking about starting this company 12 years ago and quitting my day job. So, uh, that being said today, we're still doing websites. Uh, only now we're doing really, really cool stuff with our websites. Uh, especially when we're looking at how are we applying these websites to software companies or these website trends to a lot of software companies, SaaS businesses, um, B2B high end services, um, specifically using HubSpot in, in most cases. And so, uh, what we have done is, is very different, uh, over the years than, than what we originally started out to be. And I think that's the case for any successful business that you kind of have to evolve as time goes on. So today I'm really thinking through some of the things that I've been seeing lately, maybe the last few years, but really, really successful things that have happened on websites that are just beautiful trends work well.
(02:05):
They represent brands so, so good and they help their prospects and their customers as they move through their website, just engage and stay and, and have a great experience. And so I wanna walk you through these three trends. Uh, these three must have trends for your website. And the first one that I wanna look at is I don't even know this is a legitimate term. It is what I say all the time when we're having any kind of design discussion inside of our company. And we're doing like internal critiques or reviews, or, Hey, can you take a look at this? One of the, the mantras that I repeat over and over and over again to the company, to, to the design staff is we have to make sure that we are breaking the plane, break, the plane, not plane, like what you see up in the sky.
(02:50):
Uh, we're not doing that, but break the plane as in the different sections as you move through the website. It's critical to me that unless we're being really intentional about making, you know, some kind of like harsh, you know, blocky design, which totally has its place and, and can definitely be cool. It's very important to me to see website design evolve. And if we look at websites from a decade ago, you see websites that literally are section one here, section two here, section three here. And they just line by line, go through these different sections. This section is gonna have an image background. This section is all white. This section is now here's a line and it's all black. Um, which worked great. That is like WordPress to a T, right? That's, that's a WordPress website. And, um, it's still used today by a lot of companies, but to me, one of the best ways to show that you are trying something new and that you are trying to engage is to do something different, doing something different, could be totally crappy.
(03:57):
It could be an awful experience. So we don't wanna do something different just for the sake of doing something different. If it sucks, there needs to be an actual experience that we're trying to, that we're trying to, um, uh, create here. And the reason I like this one is because breaking the plane. What I mean by that? I'm sorry. I've taken so long to actually say that. What I mean by that is you have these individual sections, right? We want to create some kind of three environment or some kind of movement or some kind of flowing feel that takes people from maybe their current section down to the next or up it's over overlapping the previous section, um, not in an obnoxious way, but in a subtle way, that makes you feel like this is a nice flowing, um, page. Think of it as maybe you have an, uh, an all white header at the top.
(04:41):
And the next section down is waves and the waves come up over that white section. So it's a great example, but there's a lot of different things that can go into that. Specifically, these elements, these visual elements that allow you to move the, the user down through the page and to stay because why we naturally follow the design. We naturally follow the path that's laid down in front of us. And so if we create these harsh finish lines constantly, as we move through, we're not creating this sense of, I wanna see what's down there, we're creating this sense of that's the end. And this is the next section I don't really want to go on. And so subconsciously there's all these different things feels like not really important, but when we're being really methodic about what it is we're doing, that's very important and it creates this nice flow and this nice feel to it.
(05:29):
So that's breaking the plane. We're gonna remove that section by section design, kind of feel that was so prominent, you know, back in, I wanna say forever ago, but like 2016, like that's what every website that was out there, right? The next thing, creating some kind of moving element in your design. Can you create a sense of flow throughout the page? Now, what I don't wanna see is just really expansive gifts that are gonna bog down the, the site. I don't wanna see a bunch of videos. I mean, there's a time and a place for 'em, but when I'm thinking about moving elements, I'm thinking about subtle design characteristics that might sit behind, um, major elements of, of the, the website that you're looking at. So major sections having almost off color floating objects, I call 'em floaties, jobbies. I don't know what they're called, uh, which is cool, little abstract things that can help move.
(06:23):
And, and perhaps as the site moves, those floaty Joby things are moving too. They're floating up, they're floating down, but moving elements also create a sense of focus and a sense of what was that, where am I, is this the right place to, to be like, but in a good way, not in a bad way, we're following the movement, we're seeing what's happening. And so I want to create moving elements in every website that, that I'm a part of, because I think it's important. And I think it really helps showcase what it is that, that, uh, we want people to do on that site. They're gonna follow that movement, right? And then the last thing is more so a a what not to do than a what to do. I want you to use pictures of real people on your website, specifically, people experiencing success, uh, using your product, using your service, your clients, your team.
(07:11):
I want to see real actual people on the website. I don't want to see animated graphic for the entire website. That's not helpful. I don't want to just see a bunch of stock footage. That's not really that helpful either. I want to know that if I'm gonna be a customer of this company, I wanna see people who look like me, who are doing the things that I want to achieve someday, who are aspirational. And so we might wanna think about aspirational images of what that success looks like. And so those are the three things that I would really encourage you guys to think through break the plane, incorporate moving elements into the design, and then U utilizing imagery of real people who are, are showing aspirational success of what it is that we're trying to accomplish. And so, so that's it today guys, a short, short episode, not, not, not too crazy. Don't forget to go to webcanopystudio.com/assessment and take that website conversion assessment. You're gonna be able to go through, uh, the 30 questions on there. You're gonna, it's a self-guided exploration and it's, it's gonna allow you to get a really detailed, really great report about how all your websites performing today. But it's gonna give you a checklist and all kinds of cool features that you can follow along with to make edits and make adjustments. I think that's it. Let me know if you have any questions, we'll see you next time.