Keeping up with modern day trends can be a difficult task, especially if you don’t have an eye for design. As we are becoming increasingly more visual in our day-to-day lives, users make decisions about brand and business perceptions in seconds. You also may be used to that direct communication to make a sale or generate leads. However, we’re seeing as time goes on that more people will do their own research online before deciding if they want to pick up the phone and contact businesses directly. So, how can you make your ag website stand out from your competitors and stay ahead of the competition? We’ve put together some website design trends we’re seeing for 2024 that are sure to stay relevant in the coming years.
Minimalist vs. Maximalist
“Less is better”. Looking back at some of the earliest websites on the internet, colors, fonts, animations, and assorted images were thrown onto web pages with not much thought. Nowadays, websites are built more strategically with the design and user preferences in mind. As a business in the agricultural industry, it’s important to balance a design that will attract your user but not distract from your overall messaging.
Simple Logos Go a Long Way
Logos are primary sources of identification for all businesses, no matter what industry you may be in. Your logo is displayed on important print and digital marketing materials, not only representing your brand but giving our users a key identifier. For the agricultural industry in particular, we see logos that have been used across years or decades of being in business. However, just because a logo has been in use for a long time, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s keeping its value. One of the most common trends we’re seeing with livestock owners, ranchers, farmers, and other agricultural business owners is a logo redesign that represents their brand in today’s modern digital age. In other words, less is better. A clean, sharp and minimalist logo makes agriculture brands stand out. A new logo gives you the opportunity to redefine your brand and what it means to be in the agricultural industry in the 2020’s.
Accessible Colors & Fonts
If you asked a marketing or brand professional a few decades ago what would make your brand stand out, they’d likely recommend “the more visually appealing you can make yourself stand out, the better”. However, as mentioned previously, that’s no longer the case. Old websites used to be built to host a variety of brand colors and fonts to try and make themselves stand out. Not only is this an outdated design and marketing practice, but it also affects your website’s accessibility– which in return, is poor for SEO and can cause you to lose your place on Google’s search engine result pages against competitors who are doing well. If your colors do not have a good color contrast ratio, or your fonts are illegible, then your website is not up to accessibility guidelines.
When deciding which colors to use for your website, you want to stick to complimentary colors within your brands’ guidelines. For example, if your brand colors are red, white, and yellow, then we would recommend you choose red and white as your primary colors. Then, you can utilize the yellow to highlight or draw attention to specific information across the website. For fonts, it’s always recommended you only choose one, easy-to-read font that is consistent across the site. You can also add a secondary font to emphasize specific CTA’s or content sections. Cluttering your website with various fonts just to try and make it visually appealing is doing the opposite of what you want. Step into the shoes of your target audience and think about what they want, and what would make their user experience easier on your site.
Clean Website Structure & Navigation
Using your website as a dumping ground for any and all information will make it hard for users to navigate. The harder it is to navigate or use your website, the more likely it is that users will become frustrated and click off. If you’re using your website as a primary source of lead generation, then this is the opposite of what you’d want. Website structures should be clean and simple. Your main navigation should be presented in a way a user could easily find the information they need, without having to click through multiple pages. Structure also includes user flow, which is the process of creating CTA’s and content sections that can direct users to different parts of the website. A good user flow will keep users engaged and more likely to take action.
These actions could look like:
- Signing up for a mailing list
- WInquiring about a sale
- Filling out a contact form
- Viewing livestock pedigrees
- Downloading a sales PDF
- And more!
Bring Your Agricultural Website To the Mid-21st Century With the Experts at EDJE!
Ready to take the next step and upgrade your agricultural website? The EDJE team has many years of experience working with ranchers, farmers, livestock owners, and many more members of the agricultural industry in creating websites that meet the needs of their marketing goals. For more information or additional questions, chat with our EDJE team and let’s work together to build a website you can be confident in!