Animated backgrounds are back in style. Here’s how to add one to your website.
A website is the heart of any modern business, no matter the industry. After all, your website is your online identity. It helps people discover your brand, and it sets you apart in your little corner of the web. That means you need an eye-catching, trendy website that is worth your visitors’ time.
To create an effective website, you must be in tune with the latest web design trends. Gone are the days when static elements made unique websites. Maximalism is making a comeback, which means monochromatic, minimalistic pages are out, and engaging, dynamic elements are in. This includes the comeback of one specific website element: the animated background.
Hear us out. In less than three seconds, your visitors have already decided whether or not your site is worth their time. In that short period, you need to give them reasons to continue exploring your website. Are your products or services up to date? Do you know what you’re doing? Can you be trusted as a business? The answers to these questions begin with whether or not you know how to establish an online presence.
A website with the perfect animated background will instantly attract attention. If your site is all about sports, then you can use a sports stock video as your background. A restaurant? Food stock videos. Tech organizations, and R&D firms can go big with space stock videos. You don’t have to match your industry verbatim, but it’s a good idea to keep your background in the same family. Get creative, and think about interesting angles that aren’t completely on the nose.
And if you really want to go big, you can even include a background song or some sound effects — just be sure there’s a mute button handy in case you decide that some siren sound effects are what your website needs!
Now that you’re caught up on the latest design trend, let’s look at how you can upgrade your existing website with an animated background.
How to Create a Full-Screen Video Background
Pick the Perfect Video Background
First, you need to find that unique, appealing, and exciting video background that complements the overall vibe of your website. You’ll find a range of videos on stock libraries, including loop videos, from which you can shortlist the ones that work best for your website.
How to Incorporate Animated Backgrounds into Your Website
Video backgrounds on websites may seem fancy and complex, but they’re super easy to incorporate into your website. Of course, those who know HTML and CSS can always use their technical skills and finish the task in no time. But for those who aren’t so technical, fortunately, some plug-ins make the world of website design much faster (and easier than coding).
Popular Plug-Ins for WordPress
If you have a WordPress site, navigate to the “Add Plugin” button, and enter some of the names below. Then load the page where you want to add the animated background. Next, upload the content using the plug-in.
Here are some search terms to find the plug-in you need:
- Video Player and Full-Screen Video Background Plug-in
- Easy Video Player WordPress Plugin
- Elementor Background Video and Image Slider
How to add Animated Backgrounds to Your Website
it’s not as hard as you think. Here are the rest of the steps in the process.
Step 1: Place the Video on the Webpage
The video you’ve selected needs to be placed on the webpage using the <video> tag. There are several other attributes that you will need to ensure the video works just the way you want it to — these include the id attribute, which allows you to style the video.
Next, we have autoplay, Ensuring the video automatically starts once the page loads. Other essential attributes are loop, muted, and poster.
Step 2: Add HTML Filler Content
With this step, you can visualize how your text will appear against the video background.
Step 3: Add CSS
When you add CSS, it helps convert a regular video into a background video. Width: and height: allow you to adjust the dimensions of the video, extending it to cover the entire viewport. Object-fit:cover automatically adjusts the video to help maintain its original aspect ratio. Position:fixed keeps the video in place when the user scrolls through the page. Finally, the z-index places the video under the content you want to display on the main webpage.
Step 4: Style the Page Content
At this stage, you can alter the font, text color, alignment, and other aspects to ensure the text is visible against the video background. Be sure that you format the text in a way that complements the video backdrop.
Step 5: Add Some More Content (If Necessary)
Now that you have a fair idea of how the text appears against the video background (step 2), you can add more page content (if you need to). Once you’re done, your website video background is all set and ready to be displayed!
Tips to Keep in Mind
Keep The Design Simple
You will want to add a visually appealing element to your website, not one that would distract visitors. So, keep your background video simple, without excessive movement. It shouldn’t be cluttered with too many elements in motion, as this would remove the focus from your website’s content.
Contrasting Text
There’s a possibility that text or icons may not be visible against the video backdrop. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to opt for contrasting elements. This ensures that the text stands out and is always visible throughout the animation loop. If text does appear in the way, try changing the header section of your website or the menu position, as this usually solves the problem.
Device Compatibility
Websites with video backgrounds may not work well on mobile devices. The website may take a long time to load, or it may not be able to load completely. In addition, the opening element of your website, the video background, may not even be visible to viewers. To resolve this issue, consider adding an image background as a backup so it shows up on mobile devices without any trouble.
Looping Videos
If you add the “loop” attribute to your video background, the video will keep playing until the tab is closed. This may affect your site performance and your visitors’ CPU usage. If you’re using a looping video, make sure the animation file is as small as possible while retaining the highest quality. Free tools such as Handbrake are great at compressing files, which makes them ideal for web use.
Become a Visionary and Express Your Creativity
A video background, if added correctly, can make a huge difference in the look and feel of your website. Users typically spend more time on-site watching the video in the background, which has fantastic effects on Search Engine Optimization analytics (which positively affects Google Search Rank).
Adding an animated background to your website is easier than ever. So, log in to WordPress, and download a plug-in, or dive into your code to express your creativity. Websites should be fun, and they should reflect your message, so by all means, download a few royalty-free animations and switch them around once a month to keep things lively.
Cover image via Videvo.
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