Bop Design Announces the Pros and Cons of Parallax Web Design
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 10, 2013 -- Today’s web designers continue to push the boundaries of website design, using new technologies to create more engaging and interactive user experiences. As reported by Luke Clum on http://www.imediaconnection.com, a growing number of designers are adding interactivity to their websites by creating transitions that get triggered as the user scrolls down the page. According to Bop Design, a San Diego web design agency, one of the best tools for creating these kinds of interactive user experiences is parallax web design.
“Parallax design creates a continuous scrolling feature in which graphic elements and text exhibit movement and interact with the scrolling motion,” says Jeremy Durant, a principal in Bop Design. “This gives the appearance of a layered visual effect, which helps create depth between the background and the moving images, graphics and text. If you’ve never visited a parallax website, click here http://www.ahttp://www.rds.com/websites/parallax for some examples.”
Currently, most parallax websites belong to consumer-facing companies, since they tend to be more on the cutting edge of innovative marketing techniques. However, parallax can also work for B2B companies. This is especially true with service-related businesses, since the dynamic design tends to hold people’s attention longer, allowing the company to tell a more detailed story. Successful B2B parallax websites can be found at these links:
• http://www.livingword.co.uk
• http://www.dementialab.org/development-lab
• http://www.5emegauche.com/#5-mots/digital-native
One of the primary benefits of parallax design is that it allows a website to walk visitors through a story just by scrolling down the page. This approach works especially well with visitors who don’t like to click on a lot of links or browse numerous pages to get the content they seek.
Parallax design also enables companies to project a unique image that makes their website stand out from others. The dynamic communication style holds the attention of viewers longer than a regular site, and appeals to a younger crowd seeking a different user experience. Plus, the more fluid and linear style of communication keep viewers on track, allowing them to absorb more of the company’s brand messaging.
On the other hand, parallax design has a number of potential drawbacks, especially with SEO.
A parallax site is basically a one-page site, and the single-page design makes it difficult to optimize the site for a wide variety of search terms. A one-page design also limits companies to only one set of meta data for the site. Which means there’s only one way for customers to find the company’s site on the web. With multiple-page sites, people can find it through all the different pages.
SEO experts generally recommend using only one H1 (header) tag per page, and having only one page limits the amount of H1 keywords on a parallax site. Technically, a company could cram them all into the one header. But it wouldn’t make sense to readers, and the search engines would suspect something was up.
Another downside is that Google doesn’t like huge pages because they take forever to load. And neither do today’s “I want it now” web browsers. If a parallax page takes too long to load, people will click off and go elsewhere. Analytics can also present a problem, as today’s analytical tools don’t have the capability to accurately measure engagement on a single-page website.
Finally, parallax web design does not work well on mobile devices, an important consideration given the explosion of mobile web surfing.
“If you’re looking for a new and interesting way to engage website visitors, a parallax website design offers a trendy option,” says Durant. “It can help your site stand out from the crowd and increase the odds that visitors will take the action to connect with your company. However, if you depend on SEO to drive traffic to your site, you may want to think twice before taking the parallax plunge.”
About Bop Design
Bop Design is a boutique marketing communications firm headquartered in San Diego with offices also in the New York metro area. We express a business values through branding, advertising, design and web design. We also help attract a firm's ideal customer through search engine optimization and search engine marketing. The marketing firm's focus is on small businesses that want an external team of marketing specialists to help give their brand an edge in the marketplace.
Jeremy Durant, Bop Design, San Diego Web Design, http://www.bopdesign.com, +1 7604701275, [email protected]
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