Over the last few years, mobiles have undeniably taken over the internet, but have we reached a point where mobile website design is more important than desktop? We think we might have.

If you’d said twenty years ago that in the near future, mobile phones would eclipse laptops and PC’s, with virtually everyone carrying a machine more powerful than the average early-2000s laptop in their pocket, I’d have said you were being crazily optimistic.

But that’s what’s happened, but way too few online businesses are adapting speedily enough. With so many sites still using older designs, and not prioritising adaptive mobile website design, the businesses that adapt their websites quicker are going to be taking the lions share.

Designing the perfect mobile website page isn’t as straightforward as you might think. It takes a skilled website designer to build the perfect mobile website. With that in mind, here are some of the most important factors.

Quality web design is not just about pretty websites that let your user read a few paragraphs, look at a few pictures and buy your product. It’s about providing an experience and staying one-step ahead of the competition, and that necessitates keeping an eye on all the new and emerging tech. This is how quality website designers integrate new technology into sites and the power of keeping an ear to the ground.

Sure, professional web design can seem a lot more expensive, and there’s plenty of cheaper, albeit, much more amateurish offers out there, but what are you losing out on when you go with a cheaper option? Here are the benefits of going with professional web design.

When it comes to connecting properly with your audience, reaching out to customers, or even just humanising your company and doing a little PR, social media pages are the way forward. They give you the ideal tools to craft and shape your online brand while connecting you directly with the people who keep your business afloat.

The trouble comes when businesses spend periods running intense digital marketing and social media campaigns, which then end, leaving social media pages neglected.

The most important element of running any successful social media brand page is consistency because a big push is all well and good, but when it comes to social media, slow and steady will always win the race.

You need a great website designer to create the perfect website, you need a top-notch SEO service, and to top it off, you need the ideal social media management business or team.

Social media management is not quick or easy, it’s a case of recurring, habitual content promotion and production as well as consistency, but it can pay off big time providing it’s done right.

Just the ability to directly shape and design your brand, and make sure it’s received just right is absolutely invaluable. That’s the importance of maintaining brand social media pages.

We’ve all heard about virtual reality, but augmented reality is where the hype and money are at, here’s why that is.

Older Augmented Reality

At the moment, augmented reality centres on applications for smartphones, allowing people to use the camera combined with AR software to try on clothes or glasses while buying online, or search for Pokémon. It’s been something of a clunky gimmick, but as tracking and biometric software improve, so too does AR.

The more accurate and powerful the software, the greater the possibilities for AR. Very soon, it’s going to stop being a gimmick, and according to Apple, will influence our lives just as much as the development of the smartphone.

Apple have been prioritising AR for years now, introducing various features into different iterations of the iPhone, and developing new software. Fortunately for them, it’s beginning to catch on, especially in retail, for both online and real-life shopping.

Imagine being able to accurately try something on before you buy it? How about a virtual shopping assistant, allowing you to identify items and direct you around the store to different products? The applications really are endless, and could hugely impact the ways in which we live our lives.

Why’s this coming to your attention now? Put it down to massive developments, launches and investment from the likes of Apple, Facebook, Snapchat and Google.

While VR is going to remain in the realm of the specialised gamer for a long while to come, the applications and uses for straightforward, functional AR are going to be infinitely more widespread. This potential has led to a valuation of the AR industry ranging between $32 and $162 billion, making it very much something worth paying attention to.

Whether as a business or a consumer, chances are you’ve had to deal with the past few weeks bombardment of emails and messages all to the tune of “Data law changes” or “Updates to our privacy policy”. These are the new GDPR regulations coming into force and making businesses scramble to maintain their legality.

With fines of €20 million or 4% of annual turnover, whichever is higher, on the table, these new rules are no small thing. Those fines could mean going into admin for a smaller business or hundreds of millions in fines for a multinational.

You might sniff and mutter something about Brexit, but beyond the faff of affirming your membership to a favourite mailing list, or the potential cost of implementing regulation-compliant procedures for your business, this is actually a very positive move for web users of all kinds.

Nowadays, when it comes to literally any industry, you can find one-stop-shops. On the high street, you’ve got Tesco, where you can buy literally anything the home might need. Online you’ve got massive marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.

People like convenience, and being able to go to one place instead of a bunch is always going to be a good thing. Does that ring true for website design companies and other web services though? Does it make sense to go to a bigger business that can perform all the services you need, or several smaller, more specialised companies?