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Boost Website Navigation with Creative Scroll Arrows

Does your small business website design feel stuck in the 2000s? They may feel like this if cluttered with excessive graphics, animations, and text or heavy use of generic stock photos. The worst culprit is the fixed sites that don’t have a responsive design and don't work on mobile devices.

Let's face it: website design trends move fast, so don’t beat yourself up if your site is still using one of the above (except the fixed with, then you should beat yourself up). Visitors may click away out of boredom before truly engaging if your site lacks the latest innovations.

Scroll arrows are a subtle yet critical element that can make or break users' experience. Yes, those tiny directional arrows we barely notice.

Creative scroll arrows don't just point visitors where to go next. These micro navigation elements set the tone for an intuitive, modern, and visually appealing journey.

That's why forward-thinking businesses and organizations are tapping designers to craft custom scroll arrows that captivate users across devices. But if you say, “I'm not sure what makes scroll arrows creative” or “how to incorporate them.” Read on as we decode the latest scroll arrow innovations, taking sites to the next level.

Why Small Businesses Should Know About Creative Scroll Arrows Design Trends?

As a small business owner, keeping your website design fresh and modern is key to engaging visitors in a competitive landscape. But constant website revamps are not sustainable. The good news is that small but impactful design details like creative scroll arrows can update the look and feel without breaking the budget.

However, once you launch it, you will find a gradual rise in the bounce rate. In addition, staying updated with the design trends and the creative scroll arrows can help you present an unseen and fresh design for your users. Hence, if your mind is clouded with whether or not you should follow the creative scroll arrows design trend, the clear answer is yes.

You must already know about scroll arrows, which navigate users to the next stage on the sales funnel. Now, with the addition of the term, creative, your webpage becomes more interactive and fun. Hence, if you outsource your website development project to a website design company, they will help you get in touch with the shape, size, design, animations, and colors.

What Does Creative Scroll Arrows Design Mean to You?

Nowadays, designers are tapping into their creative potential to improve website navigation experiences for their users. In such a case, creative scroll arrows near the home hero area can be the safest and best bet for your website. If you have a mundane and dull-looking plain arrow, it does not blend well with your webpage's creative design.

Since creative scroll arrows are the newest form of elements added to the website, you get a direct benefit straightaway, which is that you have a creative canvas. You do not have to follow specific rules to get the creative scroll arrows design right. All you need to do is test with your end users and evolve. However, to get you started with the innovative scroll arrows design, let’s get you some inspiration.

What are the Key Types of Creative Scroll Arrows Design?

An essential aspect of creative scroll arrow design is that you do not have to have strong observational skills to spot these. There are numerous websites using scroll arrows. You can quickly locate them in the first fold of the website. These scroll arrows have a distinguished design flair, making them more noticeable to end users.

These creative scroll arrows appear more prominent owing to their shape, size, color, placement, and animated effects. You can combine any or all of these elements to create a scroll arrow, enhancing the design element's beauty.

Let’s explore the different types of scroll arrows:

Pop-Up Ghost:

There’s nothing tricky about “ghost” scroll arrows for small business sites. These simply slide neatly into view as visitors scroll down past the homepage hero to the next section, guiding them deeper into your content.

One of the best benefits of using a pop-up ghost scroll arrow is it doesn’t mess up with the design of your first fold--the hero banner of your website. Hence, you can keep all your creativity intact in the first fold of your website and have a tremendous navigational cue for your end users to spot once they are on the right track toward the sales funnel.

Where to Place It:

While there is no set location to place the pop-up ghost scroll arrow, you can put it towards the extreme right corner, right below the segment where your first fold ends.

How to Design It:

You can have a curved-shaped scroll arrow pop up or a simple arrow in a circle to make it more prominent. You can use your brand colors or contrasting colors to make the pop-up ghost funnier and funnier.

Example

The Mr. Pops website creatively implements a pop-up ghost scroll arrow that slides into view as visitors scroll down, providing a playful and engaging user experience.

Animated Scroll Arrow:

The latest buzz in the website development sphere is animated and visual, so why not bring that motion into the range of scroll arrows? The bouncy scroll arrows move beyond the conventional approach. However, these are focused animations far from the standard placement of the creative scroll arrows.

When talking about animation, we do not need fancy; we can work with simple design elements and less experimentation with the color schema, shapes, and sizes.

Where to Place It

Unlike the pop-up ghost, the animated scroll arrow can be placed in the extreme left corner. While elements on the right side of the website are accessible to track, changing the range of motion and blinking from the animated scroll can give your website a beak from the mundane.

How to Design It:

Since it is placed at the left-hand corner of the website on the first fold, it has to blend with the overall website design.

The No-show and Still Tell Arrow

Is a creative scroll arrow all about arrows? Nope!

You can have a creative element without adding your usual arrow to it. That’s how you don’t show an arrow and design an element powerful enough for your end users to get the cue to follow the next step.

Instead, with this creative approach, you use a simple line or dotted indicator to lead visitors to click buttons or areas you want them to navigate to without a literal arrow. This subtle cue helps small business sites guide users while maintaining a clean, modern aesthetic.

Where to Place It:

You must go to the extreme right with pop-up ghosts. With an animated scroll arrow, you go toward the left. However, you can take creative liberty by placing this type of scroll arrow.

All you need to do is place it just before or near the action you wish to take. For instance, if your users want to click on a specific CTA, you will recognize this scroll arrow just before the CTA button. If you intend to navigate your users to a particular fold, you will place the scroll arrow right before the fold starts to convey to the user that they intend to scroll down.

How to Design It:

You can go overboard creatively when designing this scroll arrow. If you have a product, you can work on the visual element of your product and use it as a scroll arrow. It would look like your end user is chasing your product while following the scroll. And who wouldn’t want their products tracked, especially by the right kind of end users?

Example:

Explore horizontal scrolling websites like Patrick Heng to find instances where visual elements, rather than traditional arrows, serve as cues for the next steps in the scrolling journey.

The Sum and the Substance

As mentioned, there’s no thumb rule when designing a scroll arrow. Hence, make this scroll arrow your creative project and experiment with it. Test with your users, which is an important step. Get cues from your end users on what works best for them and come to a conclusion; that’s our conclusion.

Image of the author - Chad J. Treadway

Written By: Chad J. Treadway |  Monday, December 18, 2023

Chad is a Partner and our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.