Staying on top of the latest web design trends will help your website stay at the front of the pack. While a lot of people seem to think that web design trends are more about fashion and looks than substance, the real point of these trends is that they help to increase the functionality of your site. This increased functionality can come in the form of improving search engine optimization, increasing the number of visitors for your website, and increasing the amount of money your website makes. You won’t have to make dramatic, irreversible changes to your site that will cause you to have to look into other web hosting companies or change domain name if you follow any of these trends, so feel free to try these suggestions out to see if you like them.

Social media integration is huge right now. On almost all popular websites, users will see options to “Like” posts for Facebook, or to “Tweet” messages on Twitter. Integrating social media sites like Facebook and Twitter allow your users to connect to your site on a personal level and share what’s on your website with others. On an immediate level, adding social media integration to your website increases the number of people who visit your site because when someone shares your website on one of these social media outlets, their friends are automatically exposed to it. Having more readers directly translates to more money for your website through advertising dollars. Additionally, people sharing information on your website through social media sites improves your search engine optimization by providing more backlinks and exposure to your site.

More people than ever are using mobile devices for their web surfing. Going into 2011, that means that your website’s navigation should be friendly for a touch screen. Any site layout that is good for a touch screen will be good for a mouse, so basing your design around users who will be accessing your website with a mobile device is key. To achieve this, you’ll want to use a website layout that leaves plenty of white space around navigational links. Along similar lines, you’ll want to use more button-style links with images instead of a long list of text-based links in menus. When a lot of text-based links are sitting right on top of each other, it’s very easy for users with a touch screen to misclick and hit the wrong link. If your site is difficult for your readers to use, then they will simply stop coming back, and this will directly affect your bottom line. This is an easy trend to stay on top of regardless of if you use windows web hosting or linux web hosting

The most popular websites in 2011 have one major thing in common: syndicated news feeds. These news sections make people want to read your website not only for your content, but for the news. A syndicated news feed increases the number of readers to your website, as well as the frequency that readers visit your website. More readers visiting your website more often increases the advertising dollars that your website can bring in. Having a news section of your website also increases the likelihood that people will link to your website because of the updated news stories. If this is combined with social media integration, a news section can provide a huge search engine optimization boost because of the backlinks you’ll gain from people linking to news stories on your site.

It’s important to stay with the times if you want to make sure your website is competitive in 2011.. By keeping up with the trends and making the appropriate changes to your website’s design, you can reap rewards in the form of more readers, SEO benefits, and more money.