Kristen Doyle 0:00
Is your website feeling a little 2021, or earlier? The web design world is always changing, and lately, I’ve been noticing some really interesting shifts in how websites look and function that I wanted to share with you today. But before you start panicking about needing a complete website overhaul, don’t!
Kristen Doyle 0:24
Today we are talking about some website trends for 2025 that are achievable and won’t require a bunch of fancy coding or a total redesign of your site.
Kristen Doyle 0:37
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 1:17
I get it. Running an online business means wearing all the hats. You’re creating products, you’re marketing them, managing customer service, and somehow, you’re supposed to keep your website looking fresh and current too. It’s a lot. But here’s the thing, keeping your website up to date with current trends doesn’t mean you need to do a complete overhaul or even hire a web designer, although I’m always here if you need one.
Kristen Doyle 1:41
Today, I’m sharing some really manageable updates that you can make to freshen up your website for 2025. Some of these are super quick ones that you can implement on your own in an hour or less, and others might take a little bit more time or planning if you want to tackle them.
Kristen Doyle 1:59
But the best part about these is most of the trends for this year actually involve simplifying things. You might find yourself removing elements from your site rather than adding more complexity to it. Let’s start by looking at a top level overview of the current trends in web design for 2025.
Kristen Doyle 2:18
Remember when websites were all about being big and bold and in your face and grabbing attention? With bold colors and animated everything. Well, that pendulum is swinging back the other direction now. We’re seeing a shift from flashy to functional and minimalist in web design right now. I think a big reason for that is that we know that website visitors, ie human people in the world, are dealing with a lot of digital overwhelm right now, and the last thing that they need is another website screaming at them for their attention.
Kristen Doyle 2:57
So there’s a big focus right now on user experience and comfort when we’re using websites. What’s really interesting is that simpler, cleaner designs are actually converting a lot better right now than flashier ones. So with that in mind, let’s talk about some of the easier to implement trends that we’re seeing this year.
Kristen Doyle 3:17
The first one is a move from bolder colors to more soothing color palettes. Now I know many of you love your bright, bold colors. I have pretty bright, bold colors on my website too, so I get it, but hear me out. Remember what I said about the digital overwhelm. That is a big reason that we’re seeing this shift to more soothing color palettes.
Kristen Doyle 3:40
It’s to give people less eye strain so that they will stay on your website and browse longer, and it creates a better user experience for them. Now that doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to redo all of your branding and come up with a whole new color palette.
Kristen Doyle 3:58
Some practical ways to shift your site to a more soothing color palette without rebranding and coming up with brand new colors, would be to just start by either changing those bold color block background sections to a white background, or whatever your neutral color is for your site. Or, toning down their intensity. So instead of using that fully saturated bold color, you use a lighter version of that color when it’s going in a background.
Kristen Doyle 4:28
I personally really like removing the color background and using your bold colors for either text or maybe some highlights around the text, things like that, so that those bold colors are there, but they’re not quite so in your face. Now, on the flip side, while we are toning down our colors, we’re actually going bigger with text.
Kristen Doyle 4:50
So the trend for text in 2025 is big bold font, and this means larger font size, but also bolder type. Geography, meaning the font itself is bolder and easier to read. So if you have lots of fonts on your site that are very thin lined, you might think about increasing that weight.
Kristen Doyle 5:11
Most fonts come in multiple weights, so increasing that weight to something a little bit darker and bolder. Or if you have lots of fancy scripty text. You might want to replace that with a simple, easier to read font, because that is the trend right now. This is especially important in your hero section. That is the first thing that people see when they land on your page.
Kristen Doyle 5:35
And so what we are seeing there is that people are using fewer words and making that font size lots bigger. A practical step you can take for this, in addition to maybe increasing the font weight, that means whether it is normal weight or bold, or any of the steps in between that you maybe aren’t familiar with, but they are there.
Kristen Doyle 5:53
There’s actually nine font weights that can be used. So increasing in that font weight, but also try increasing your main text font size, the body font for your website, by either two pixels or maybe four, and see how that feels. Then you can also increase the heading sizes, if they don’t automatically increase when you change the body font size.
Kristen Doyle 6:16
Depending on how your site was set up, when I set up websites, the heading sizes are dependent on the body font size. They move up in increments depending on the body font. So if we increase the body font, those headings will go with it. But if I did not set up your site, then you may need to increase your heading sizes as well.
Kristen Doyle 6:35
The next big trend for this year that you can actually implement pretty easily is an increased amount of white space and very minimalist design. Now remember, white space doesn’t actually have to be white. It just means empty space. It’s sometimes also called negative space. And basically what this means is we are spreading things out on the website.
Kristen Doyle 6:56
The benefit of doing that is it’s much easier for people to read. It feels less cluttered. That leads to less distraction, and less distraction means better focus on the important stuff on your website. So some easy ways to implement that are to do two things. First, look at your page and ask yourself, What could I remove? What is on here, just because I thought it was cute, that’s not really serving a purpose that I could get rid of to create more white space?
Kristen Doyle 7:24
And then secondly, especially if you are using a page builder where you have control over how far apart things are, can you increase the margins between sections so that you’ve got lots of space from one section to the next for people to kind of clear your head, in a way, and get ready for that next thing.
Kristen Doyle 7:43
Another thing you can do to embrace white space and more minimalist design is to make the content easier to digest. So break up those bigger text blocks. Use headers to space things out and to guide people through what they are reading. And our next easy update to make is on the flip side, while we’re taking things out of the page and creating more white space, we’re actually adding more in the footer section of the website.
Kristen Doyle 8:11
Your footer is not just for copyright notices and main menu links and privacy policies anymore. Really think about treating your footer like a mini site map. Not that you need to list every single page, but list out enough things that you can help people navigate around your site and find the things that they need.
Kristen Doyle 8:31
Some ideas of things that you might want to include in your footer, social media icons, I always tell people, don’t put them at the top, because when people click on them, they leave your website, so they’re perfect for your footer, where people don’t see them until they’ve already scrolled through your entire page.
Kristen Doyle 8:46
So put your social media icons down there. Put a search bar in the footer. I know you might have one in the header as well, but if people have made it to the bottom of your page and are still looking for something, that search bar in the footer can make it really easy for them to find what they need.
Kristen Doyle 8:59
If you have sub brands or maybe a secondary business that you run, the footer is a great place to put the logos for those. And what I mean by sub brands is what you’ll see if you go to the bottom of my kristendoyle.co website, where you can see logos for each of the courses that I offer, and when you click on them, it will lead you either to a sales page for that course, or some of them have a full website, maybe there’s a freebie related.
Kristen Doyle 9:27
Each of those logos will lead you over to where you can get more information about that sub brand, quote, unquote. We don’t often think of ourselves as having a business with sub brands, but if you have courses memberships, maybe you’re a digital product seller and you also have a VA business, then you really do have a sub brand, and you can list it in the bottom of your website to get people moving between the different sites that you have.
Kristen Doyle 9:54
Another great thing to include in your footer is a fairly short you don’t want to overwhelm, but a fairly short list of categories that you have content for to help people navigate around. You could call this something like learn more about or what can I help you with? And then list out a handful of the most popular categories that people might be interested in.
Kristen Doyle 10:15
You can link these two categories of products, blog posts, podcast show notes, whatever you are creating on your website. Added benefit here is that is really great for SEO. When you’re adding all these things to your site, make sure you’re organizing them and arranging them so it’s easy for people to scan.
Kristen Doyle 10:32
When you’re adding a lot of things to your site. I like to arrange these horizontally across the page, rather than stacking a bunch of things so they have to scroll a lot. But if you’re going to arrange horizontally, then you need to make sure you’re checking things on mobile, because on mobile, it will need to be stacked instead of side by side, so that it fits on smaller phone screens.
Kristen Doyle 10:51
Alright, those are easier updates. Let’s talk about some kind of next level updates you might want to make. And the good news is, if you are using a page builder, like Elementor, or even some of the other platforms that have their own built in page builders. These are actually pretty simple to do, and you can do them right in the settings for different elements on the page.
Kristen Doyle 11:13
The first one is what’s called a micro animation. These are really popular right now, whereas we used to have whole sections of the website that would animate as you scroll down. Maybe things are flying in from the sides, instead of having lots of things moving around on the page, now we’re using more subtle movements that happen when someone interacts with your page.
Kristen Doyle 11:36
So you might notice hover effects happening on buttons, other than just changing color, maybe it bounces up or it tilts side to side, something like that. You might also notice text underlines or circled texts that animate either as you’re scrolling or when you hover on them. You’ll also see text animations, really simple ones, that happen as visitors scroll down the page.
Kristen Doyle 11:59
Sometimes something will rotate or it will move across the page as you scroll. And another thing that I have noticed, that I really like is icons that move just slightly. They might tilt or bounce up, kind of like the buttons, and it just draws the visitors attention to those things as they move.
Kristen Doyle 12:15
As you’re thinking about adding in some micro animations. Remember, less is more. You want these to be very small movements that grab the eye but don’t distract. And you want to pick just a few elements to animate that you really want to draw attention to, rather than animating everything that you can.
Kristen Doyle 12:32
Think about it along the same lines as choosing which text to bold in a blog post or a product description. If you bold everything, nothing is bolded now, because it’s all bolded. The same is true if you’re animating everything, then people don’t know which things to focus on, and it’s just a distraction, instead of something helpful and useful on your site.
Kristen Doyle 12:51
The next thing you might consider adding is what’s called a B roll video background. B roll is video footage that typically doesn’t have any sound on it. It’s something related to your page content, but it’s subtle, rather than bold, something non distracting that just creates some subtle movement in the background while you have text or buttons over it.
Kristen Doyle 13:16
This is really popular in header sections or other full width sections on your website. If you want to implement some B roll video backgrounds, my recommendation is that you host those videos somewhere other than your website. And what I mean by that is, do not upload the video to your website and then use it in a background, because when you do that, your website itself, your hosting account, has to be the one to deliver that video to everyone who views it, and it can really slow your website down.
Kristen Doyle 13:46
So instead of doing that, host those videos somewhere else, somewhere like YouTube or Vimeo, and that will keep your site running really fast, because it will pull the videos from their hosting, not yours. When you’re picking your video to something subtle, something that is not going to be distracting and something that is clearly related to your content.
Kristen Doyle 14:07
Keep wide, wide, wide screens in mind, especially if your video is going to stretch the full width of the browser window. So make sure you’re not including something that’s really tall. You really want to create a video where just the middle is the most important part, and it’s okay for it to get cropped for different screen sizes.
Kristen Doyle 14:26
And then, last but not least, I wanted to share a sales page specific trend I’ve been noticing that I just find really interesting. Right now, Google Doc style sales pages are a huge trend, and in some cases, they are converting really, really well. You might have seen one if you checked out my Savvy Seller Collective during my Black Friday sale.
Kristen Doyle 14:49
There is something really powerful about simplicity in sales pages. It sends the message that the thing you’re offering is so good that you don’t need a flashy page to sell it. You can just tell them in simple language what they’re getting and they’re gonna love it. I think the reason that this works is it’s that familiar format. The focus really is on the content, the words that are on the page.
Kristen Doyle 15:15
And it is a pattern interrupter, where we have all gotten used to seeing flashy sales pages full of design elements. This is something totally different, and pattern interrupts are always a good thing when it comes to sales. You still want to use your branding. So use your brand fonts. Maybe you put your logo on it, but really let your offer be the star if you want to try a Google Doc style page.
Kristen Doyle 15:39
And you can do this either directly in a Google Doc, which is what I did for The Savvy Seller Collective on the Black Friday sale, or you can create a page that looks and feels more like a Google Doc and less like a polished sales page.
Kristen Doyle 15:53
Let’s wrap up today with some action steps for you. Some quick wins that you can do in an hour or less. Starting with color, pick one big, bold element on your site and tone it down. Whether you remove the background color or you use a less saturated version of the background color, just tone down one of those bold elements on your site and see how it feels.
Kristen Doyle 16:20
My favorite place to find those less saturated colors that still perfectly match your brand color palette is a website called maketintsandshades.com and we’ll put that link in the show notes. Another quick one you can try is increasing your header font sizes, especially in your hero section, and try adding one useful thing, one new thing into your footer of your website.
Kristen Doyle 16:44
Now, if you’re thinking about planning bigger changes to your site, spend a little time auditing what you have now, what feels too busy? What could be simplified? Where could you add some little animations, or record some B roll video to put into a background. Do an audit of your current site. Maybe ask a friend who’s also listened to this episode to do an audit for you.
Kristen Doyle 17:10
Maybe the two of you can trade off, since it’s sometimes hard to really objectively audit our own content and then schedule time in your calendar for those bigger updates that might take you a little more research and a little more time to do.
Kristen Doyle 17:23
Keep in mind, you don’t have to implement every single one of these trends to have a website that looks fresh and current. Start with just one or two of the ones that speak to you. Maybe tone down some of those bold colors, or increase the font size here and there, and then give yourself permission to make some small changes over time, rather than feeling like you need to stop everything else and do all these changes at once.
Kristen Doyle 17:44
And if you’re looking at your website thinking it might be time for some bigger changes, I would love to help you figure out what updates would have the biggest impact for your specific business. You can book a strategy call with me, and we’ll talk through what’s working on your site, what could use some updating and create a plan for me to help you make those changes without you having to get overwhelmed by it.
Kristen Doyle 18:07
Head to Kristendoyle.co/call to get that call scheduled. Thanks for hanging out with me today, and I’ll talk to you soon.
