Big Ideas for Website Design, Content and Internet Marketing
By Peter Boyd on January 28, 2016 in SEO
Services: Law Firm Website Design . SEO . Internet Marketing . Law Firm Marketing Guide . Content Marketing . PPC
What We Expect in the Next 365 Days
It’s always fun to look forward and anticipate the big ideas of the next few months. It can be easy to tell when a style is emerging, but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and go with your gut. We polled the directors at PaperStreet and compiled their trend predictions for the next 365 days.
Big Ideas
- Video – It’s a massive tool for unique content and helps drive traffic and engagement. Video is only going to get more popular.
- ADA Compliance – Your website will need to be compliant with ADA in 2016.
- LAW HUB – A LAW HUB is a resource centric website that focuses on the user (not the firm).
- Offline is the New Online – Recent trends show people are “disconnecting” and re-engaging in mediums like catalogs, newspapers and magazines.
Design
- User-Centric Layouts – Design that speaks to the user both in message and design.
- Mobile – A continued shift in designing for mobile first. Mobile design is more important than ever.
- Long Scroll – Think horizontal sections that are stacked and work well for a long page (also good for responsive)
- Ghost Buttons – A photo or background that shows through the button. Essentially the button is only a stroke or border.
- Video – Similar to the 2015 trend, instant-play background animation and videos will continue to increase in popularity.
- Sticky Header – A locked header and/or navigation, call-to-action ensures important information is always with the user
- Card Design – Card Designs are designs that look and feel like a Pinterest board.
- User Interaction – Design elements will take a backseat to user interaction.
- Minimalism – It’s a lifestyle movement and a design movement. Less is more in minimalism design.
Development & Technology
- Dynamically Created Static Sites – Development mode would allow for all elements to load dynamically and live mode would load cached static pages without the database involvement.
- Humans.txt File – It’s similar to robots.txt, but for humans.
- HTTPS – Google will give HTTPS websites more weight.
- HTML 5 – Use HTML 5 to take advantage of new features that are almost all standard on web browsers.
- Less Sliders – Sliders can become distracting and increase load times. We will see less sliders in the coming year.
- Subtle Animations – Instead of page-length loading based on the scroll, subtle animations will become more popular.
- Full-Screen Forms – Full-screen forms are ideal for mobile layouts.
Internet Marketing
- SEO is Marketing – It does not encompass all that you handle; it’s about what you want to market for.
- SEO As a Partnership – Eighty percent will be done from your marketers and twenty percent will be required from the firm.
- Tracking Conversions – Monitoring the return on investment by better reporting/tracking for all inquiries
- Greater Emphasis on PPC – We predict the slimming down of organic search results and more emphasis on PPC and directories for law firms.
- Local Search – Local maps, top directories (quality), and top content will continue to grow and become more competitive
- Video Content – Video content will overtake written content in ROI for B2C industries.
- Mobile Optimization – In 2016, mobile optimization will become more important than desktop optimization.
- Social Content – Social media will be more readily indexed and shown in Google SERP
- Page Speed – We will see an increased important on page speed and load times.
- Voice Search – Voice search on mobile phones is going to rise in popularity.
Pay-Per-Click
- Helicopter Monitoring – Regularly reviewing and monitoring your campaign on a daily basis is going to increase in importance.
- Realistic Budgets – Budgets that are based on business goals.
- Management Tactics – Review and management are going to become more important including, timing and placement of ads, bidding amounts, landing page copy, conversion tracking, call tracking
Content Marketing
- Client-Centric Content – Self promotional information is out and useful, rich content is in demand.
- Content Hubs – Write related articles on a topic and cross-promote
- Data Articles – Create articles based on data.
- Quality Information – It’s not just about quantity; articles should contain valuable content.
- Content Downloads – Providing content assets in exchange for user contact information.
- Repurposing – Repurposing content for multiple purposes (such as converting blogs posts into an e-book).
- Newsjacking – Newsjacking is taking advantage of breaking news to promote your brand.
- Interactive Content – An increase in production of quizzes and content that is more engaging.
Social Media
- Live Streaming – Periscope, Meerkat and Blab will grow in popularity.
- Google + – The death of Google+ is coming.
- Abandoning Platforms – Businesses will begin to hone in on the social platforms where they thrive and forget the rest.
- Advertising – You have to pay to gain (advertising is going to be necessary to have a voice on certain platforms).
