The future of web design is now. Here are five hot new trends shaking up the world of B2B web design. While they’re gaining momentum now, we expect to see them become even more prominent in 2018.

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1. Card Design

Websites aren’t built out of cards. Or are they? One of the freshest ways to lay out a website is to make it look and act like Pinterest. It’s a website built entirely of rectangles laid out in a grid that each link to a separate item or page. In the B2B setting, start looking for homepages that have a few of these cards in place of horizontally divided, full-width sections. Some believe this way of building our websites may increase user engagement.

 2. “High Quality” Photos

Nowadays, iStock Photo is the tip of the iceberg when looking for photos to help tell your story. Everyone’s looking for that fresh, new look, and you may need to get off the beaten path to find it. The hottest photo fashion is images that have a homemade, candid feel but are still well-crafted. Think “photography geek’s day off.” For the B2B world, this trend has potential to breathe new life into your branding, no matter what your industry. For that extra dimension of character and storytelling that will bring your product or service to life, go for the not-so-obvious stock photo sources like Negative Space or Freerange.

3. Hamburger Menu

It’s hamburger time – finally. That’s the three-line icon at the top of apps and mobile sites that means “click here to see the menu.” We, as a society, are beginning to embrace this futuristic insignia. It’s beginning to appear in website designs that aren’t mobile, and viewers are expected to understand what it’s there for. It pulls up a menu. One giant leap at a time.  

4. Inbound Video

It used to be difficult to take full advantage of videos in a B2B setting. We grappled with questions such as “how can we afford to make our own videos” and “how can we effectively integrate them into our inbound marketing program?” Now, with services like Vidyard, we can get a full set of analytics that measure whether videos engage our audiences. You can also personalize videos for clients, as well as direct them to landing pages and forms at different points within the video. We’re looking forward to seeing your faces out there!

5. Fullscreen Forms

B2B websites rely heavily on forms for generating leads, so we’re constantly looking for ways to draw in visitors and encourage them to provide their info. We’ve mastered landing page layouts that lead the eye from the header at the top, to brief copy below, to a small form on the right. But there are whisperings of a revolution. What if the form was BIG – really big – so your visitor won’t get bored and sidetracked before finding the fields? What if it lived on a pop-up that appears after clicking a CTA, instead of on a separate landing page that ultimately adds more steps a visitor must take? It takes courage to be bold – go for it!

While trends come and go, these website design developments look like they’re sticking around. Want to learn more about how web design shapes the landscape of B2B marketing? Subscribe to our blog, and check out one of our recent web videos: Website Content and SEO.