Life on the Internet is never boring. Just when you have one design style implemented on your site, you hear from developers that there is a fresh new Web site design approach that features incredible usability. This means that you're now pushed into learning everything anew. However, what choice do you really have? The alternative would be to ignore the latest trends and continue going along as is and in order to stay competitive today - that's just not acceptable.

What is parallax design?

The newest design concept to roll out is the sometimes mind bending parallax design. Just in case you've missed out until now, parallax scrolling means that the user is freely ‘scrolling through’ the Web site. This means the user is moving up and down along a single page, not moving from one entire Web page to another like usual. Some great examples of sites that have implemented this design element are:

• ActiviaDrinks.com
• FingerBilliards.com
• http://www.nintendo.com.au/
• http://community.saucony.com/kinvara3/
• La Playa Carmel

Proponents say it provides a more compelling user experience because of an increased level of interactivity. Meanwhile, detractors are afraid it may hurt your rankings, as you only have one file to optimize and thus fewer opportunities to target multiple keyword clusters.

While SEO is an important component of each online business, you also have to consider branding, image and user engagement. These three components may benefit greatly from switching to a parallax scrolling Web site.

The important design factors

In order to ensure that your new paral...