Trends 2015: Five Brand-new Infographics for Website Operators

This article covers some of the latest infographics on hot topics of the new year. We will have a look at current trends in 2015 – not only in web design, but also digital branding and social marketing that are equally important if you want to be prepared for the future. One of the infographics gives some tips on how to protect yourself from hackers; however, these tips are only a foundation on which to build further. Enjoy the following five infographics; there is certainly something for everyone.

1. – Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends for 2015

Mobile payment (ePayment) becomes a hot trend in 2015, with the new Apple Pay conquering the market and PayPal being a strenuous competitor. “Mobile first” is a principle you will often hear of this year. In case you haven’t optimized your website for mobile use yet, it is time to start. If your website earns money, you should, however, put it into a mobile app as well as a responsive design. It will be increasingly difficult for companies that don’t use digital media, to be found in the Google search results. [Clicking on the image opens the full infographic.]

2. – Protect Your Website from Hackers 2015

With the spread of WordPress increasing, it becomes more important to protect yourself from hackers. A strong password is the first step to hold hackers off. But it is equally important to keep WordPress and plugins always up-to-date, since older versions may have security holes which quickly become publicly known. You should avoid extensions like the popular image cropper TimThumb.php which are not being maintained anymore and therefore present a serious safety risk. Here is an article about how you can make WordPress safer. [Clicking on the image opens the full infographic.]

3. – Infinite Scrolling: Pros and Cons

Infinite scrolling means that more content is loaded automatically when you reach the end of a page. It saves you annoying clicking in order to get new content. This concept is, actually, pretty cool - visually. At first sight, it seems to be comfortable and user-friendly. But it also has its weaknesses. Memory usage of the browser can climb dramatically and cause a freeze/crash because it simply can’t handle the data flood. This applies especially to websites that contain a lot of images. In addition, not all types of content are suitable for infinite scrolling. Another downside is that you will hardly reach the footer as it is constantly being pushed by the freshly loaded content. Even though it is a big trend that many designers will want to implement, you should ask yourself first whether your project is really suitable for infinite scrolling. [Clicking on the image opens the full infographic.]

4. – The Top 5 Web Trends of 2015

We already glanced at the upcoming trends for 2015 in this article. The infographic comes up with two more points. For infinite scrolling see the infographic above. Another trend will be setting up websites as a single page. Single page combines all your content, as its name says, on one page. You can smoothly scroll to the menu fields via JavaScript. Of course, this technology has been around for quite a while now. Even the website of our mother company commindo media GmbH & Co. KG uses single page ;) If you still don’t have a mobile version of your website, you should bring it up to speed now. More and more people use the internet on their smartphones and tablets, and a website that can hardly be read on a mobile device leaves the impression of a company that doesn’t bother about its business. It is time to pay attention to optimizing your website for mobile devices. Plus - even better: Get someone to develop an app for the two big app stores Google Play and iTunes, or create one yourself with a WordPress plugin. [Clicking on the image opens the full infographic.]

5. – Social Marketing Trends 2015

Marketing in social networks becomes more important in 2015. Interesting content shared on social networks is one of the main reasons why people follow big brands and companies. Under no circumstances should you neglect video marketing. The use of video content has increased by about 73% in 2014. People rather watch videos than read text. This trend can be observed especially among young people. Surely, the most important trend 2015 will be engagement. It is no longer sufficient to simply present a product. Customers want to be wooed and feel that they are not only a number in the purchasing process.

Conclusion

We are not always right with our predictions. Deviations are always possible – in any direction. But an outlook on web design and marketing trends is not really hard to make. After all, trends become apparent ahead of time. Who, however, doesn’t stay on the ball, sometimes gets overrun by development. (dpe)