The Latest Digital Trends For Businesses In 2020

We are living in a weird era for businesses at the moment. COVID-19 has turned everything on its head. If you want to ensure your business continues to move forward, you need to make the most of the latest digital trends. After all, now more than ever, people are making their purchases online. Here are some tips to help you out:

Prioritise Cyber Security

The importance of cyber security cannot be ignored. When you consider the tension and worry as of late, the last thing you need is a data breach. This could cause serious damage to your reputation, and it could be something that most businesses find impossible to come back from in the current day and age.

This is why you need to make sure that your approach to cyber security is a multi-layered one. There are a number of ways you can go about this.

To begin with, it starts with ensuring that all of your employees follow basic procedures. This includes everything from using strong passwords to protecting their IP address with a VPN. You can read reviews on VPNs to find the most suitable for your business. You should also ensure that you have a firewall and anti-virus set-up on all computers.

Aside from this, there are more advanced security measures that can be implemented. This includes everything from network segregation to penetration testing. It is highly advisable to look into all of these options. 

Use Effective Colour Design to Engage Customers

Web design uses colour theory and psychology to build and create websites that are effective and engaging. Good use of colour in graphic and web design is essential, with the correct colours being able to convey different emotions to customers as varied as trust, authority and excitement.

Professional agencies specialising in web design will design the ideal website for your business, using colour correctly in graphics, banners and text to develop your brand image and captivate your customers.

As any good designer knows, the use of colour in creating a website is vital. Different colours are used for different purposes and to create different moods, so it’s always best to use a professional web design service. They’ll maximise colour usage for your business website, developing the right tone, consistent brand image and highlighting key information for customers.

Scientists have found that different colours create different emotions, with colour acting as an instant way to communicate. Emotions and moods evoked by colour choice influence purchasing decisions and openness to engage with a company. As a result, it’s essential that colours on your website hit the right tone experienced web designers will ensure this. 

Basic colour theory includes using complementary colours that combine well on a colour chart, but designers also need to take into account contrast and vibrancy too. Complementary colours are opposites on the colour wheel which create accents with other colours, strengthening the properties of an individual colour. An example of these is purple and green. 

Vibrancy is also key, with brighter, more vivid colours evoking urgency or energy- ideal for a sale or promotion. Oppositely, darker colours provide the user with a more tranquil, calm experience, so a website for information or news is likely to use darker colours on the colour wheel. 

A professional web design company will develop a scheme for your website using a triadic colour scheme, an analogous scheme or a compound scheme, all designed to carefully balance colours to provide the optimum combinations. 

A professional web designer will combine the ideal colours to convey your message and identity in your website. Obviously, branding and image are essential for any business, so your website must continue to use any colours in your logo and branding materials. This will create a unified image across social media and all marketing activity. 

Different colours will generate different emotions and your web design agency will advise on the best emotions to evoke for maximum customer engagement. Red is known as a stimulating, attention-grabbing colour which is why it’s often used for sales, promotions and breaking news. But red can also overstimulate, so it should be used sparingly.

Another warm colour is orange, which is ideal for promoting emotions such as energy and friendliness. Orange is not as attention-grabbing as red, so it can be used as both a secondary and primary colour successfully, working well with other colours on the wheel. 

A ‘cooler’ colour such as blue helps to create a calmer, relaxing and trusted feel on websites. For example, Twitter and Facebook use different shades of blue to convey trust and authority well.  Green can be both relaxing and energizing when used in colour schemes, making it a versatile choice. 

Focus on SEO

Web development places real importance on quality SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and volume of traffic to your website. This is achieved through organic search via search engines such as Google.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still a vital internet marketing tool, and any business with an online presence needs to consistently develop and strengthen their SEO through great content.  

SEO has evolved considerably in recent years. Although SEO now relies on constantly updating of quality content and keeping up to date with constant developments in algorithms, it is still an essential marketing tool for 2020. Combined with quality content and great user experience, SEO continues to work, and work well for businesses. 

An experienced company in web design and development will develop your SEO strategy to strengthen your brand, increase your visibility, online presence and drive traffic to your website. The majority of people browse the internet through search engines, so you need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to find you listed in the page results- detailed SEO will do this. 

A detailed SEO strategy implemented by a web development agency allows you to clearly target local areas, demographics and your customer base, making it easy for potential customers to find you, engage and convert.

SEO also offers an excellent return on investment as it’s cost-effective, affordable and measurable. Better Google rankings also build brand awareness and trust, increasing potential sales; people often trust companies more that appear at the top of Google’s results. Nowadays, it is much easier to build your brand since there are great agencies that offer digital branding services that can push your brand to the top of Google’s pages.

SEO is also combined with social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram exposure all work well with SEO to build brand awareness, increase page rankings and direct potential customers to your business to implement with other marketing.

The increase of mobile internet also provides many opportunities for detailed SEO from a web design agency to target local customer bases, allowing detailed geographic targeting.

Although SEO is essential for the success of your business, developing an effective, continuous strategy can often seem daunting. An experienced web developer will create and implement a successful SEO strategy for your business. Professional web designers will work with you to create SEO strategies and content that work, taking the stress out of page rankings and brand awareness. 

SEO will be implemented through keyword research, content creation, social media and link building. In-depth keyword research and competitor analysis is the vital first step of this process, highlighting the best ROI and developing a silo of keywords to be used.

SEO is most effective when used in combination with quality, useful and updated content, so creating quality, keyword-rich content is essential. As a result, professional writing will be used to maximise the impact of the keywords in the silo, developing outbound links that maximise the SEO. 

Local and niche link building is an essential part of an SEO strategy, so blog, video and forum comments, as well as local links will be created. A web development company will also create a Google Adwords campaign to increase the successfulness of keywords on your site to promote your blog or website.

To optimise your SEO efforts, social media will also be utilised. This will involve developing profiles, as well as engaging with followers on all of the main platforms, from Twitter and Facebook to LinkedIn and Instagram.

Add Live Chat to Your Website

Finally, adding live chat to your website is important in the current day and age. People do not expect to wait when they are making purchases online. They want to have the information they need straight away. This is where live chat comes in. You will be able to answer customer queries about a product so that you do not run the risk of losing the customer.

There are a lot of guides online that explain how to add video chat to your website. It is a lot more straightforward than you would imagine. Most business owners assume that this is going to be expensive and complicated, but you may be surprised!

To conclude, there is no denying that businesses need to stay up-to-date with all of the latest trends, especially in the digital world at the moment. If you follow the trends and advice that we have discussed, you give yourself a great platform for excelling in 2020.