USA SEO Pros provides a number of different solutions for businesses who are trying to improve their Internet marketing campaigns. The company specializes in search engine optimization, but also provides Web design, blogging, press releases, and other things that can help business gain exposure online. If you'd like to learn more about what the business can do, please visit the main USASEOPros Web site to learn more.
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world [...]
We’re back with another great exclusive freebie for you. This one is a Photoshop pattern file (.PAT) which contains 40 beautiful textures that you can apply to your designs. A detailed step by step instruction is provided inside the file to help you use them. You can use these as textures for your websites or [...]
A St. Louis design group announced a special gathering at a local design studio for a program entitled, “Educational Night: The Business of Design.” The evening’s program was hosted by a local design studio that is making leaps and bounds in the local and national scene, so it didn’t take long for the reservations to [...]
Websites are incredibly versatile as a medium, to be used to display information and other content, and if well designed they can do this in an enjoyable way that’s easy for the reader to digest. This can be done through combining a site persona with an ongoing narrative, consistent throughout, which will all come together [...]
Despite the consumer-focused nature of the WordPress content management software, an increasing number of larger organizations and even businesses are adopting WordPress to manage their site’s content — especially corporate blogs and customer outreach programs that take advantage of social media and interaction humanize a company’s brand. These […]
The May edition of what’s new for web designers and developers includes new web apps, jQuery plugins, grid tools, CSS tools, WordPress resources, productivity and business tools, responsive design resources, and some really great new fonts. Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a [...]
Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of [...]
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world [...]
Today we have another great freebie for you created exclusively for WDD by Grafpedia. This one is called the Media Black UI Kit and contains graphic elements suitable for any sort of media elements, such as video and audio players, along typical navigational items.It’s provided as a layered PSD file. If you want more items [...]
When I first saw a web site designer who had posted a laundry list of prices on his site, I gasped in horror. It created some buzz in the design circles in which I traveled. No one agreed with the concept. Then, a well-respected design firm owner announced he was going to try it. He [...]
All websites go through a review from time to time. These reviews can be helpful and very enlightening. Think of this process as a painless experience with a great outcome.
It is necessity to keep up with the current trends and changes that happen with user habits. In general, the search engines are well aware of the different changes in the user’s search habits. Search engines track users to gain an understanding of why they are clicking on certain links and going to specific websites. This is one way for search engines to provide better search options for users.
Touching up your website and keeping it fresh is the key to gaining more web traffic from users. Reviewing your website can also reveal problems that your website may have, that you might not have been aware of, if you did not review it. For example, you may discover a broken link, spelling errors, and information that may need to be brought up to date.
In addition to reviewing and up dating your website, search engines look for “fresh” content. Be aware of what is on your website and provide as much fresh content and information as possible to keep your website noticed by search engines. Reviewing your website can help you gain more user traffic and help you stay within sight of any search engine.
User Friendly Websites
Before you start adding links and content to your page, consider your website visitor’s frame of mind. How are they feeling right now? Did their search engine just take them on a wild goose chase? Sometimes users are frustrated because they are seeking a specific product, service, or information, and they are taken to different websites that have nothing to do with what they are looking for.
Provide a great header with no more than eight top-level links. Having less links on your website will help the user remember more. More links can provide a problem for them and they may get lost or confused.
Offer a logical order of links that are based on where your visitors want to go first. Make sure that you provide descriptive and vibrant labels. Remember, you want to limit the number of links, but make them memorable for your visitors. Also, make sure that no matter where your visitor is taken on your website, that they know exactly where you are taking them.
Another important thing to remember is to keep your website fresh and appealing to your visitors. Give your visitors a reason to search through your website.
Marketers and Website Designers
When using a professional to create and design your website, keep in mind that they have your best interest in mind. They have a different set of guidelines and interests regarding your website. They will tell you that your selling proposition should be stated early and clearly. Your links should be a specific color like green or orange to attract your visitor’s attention. Your daily routine should consist of your customer’s satisfaction, conversion goals, and page ranks.
This may seem unusual for you to concentrate on creating user confidence and how your links should be or look like, but there is a reason for everything. Remember that your website needs to be competitive and users have to want to go to your website and refer it to others. You need to communicate with your website users well and in a creative way. Gain and provide a positive experience for both your visitors and your company.
There are a few very helpful landing page design tips that people can take advantage of when they decide they need specific pages to attract customers to different kinds of products on their Web site. If your site offers more than on kind of service or product, it may be a good idea for you to create different pages there serve different purposes.
For example, if you sell different kinds of auto parts, it might be a good idea for you to advertise for those different parts separately online, and if you do, it’d be a good idea to have those different advertisements go to different landing pages. Below of a few suggestions on how to do landing pages correctly. If a landing page is done right, it can increase your sales significantly.
Know your desired user by defining you landing page purpose
If you sell cheese and crackers then your landing page purpose is to sell cheese and crackers to hungry, cheese-and-cracker-loving people. If you sell cell phones along with cheese and crackers, then you have two landing page purposes and need two landing pages. Don’t make your landing page a one-size-fits-all for everything you offer. People are going to your site for a purpose. Know what that purpose is a use it to your advantage.
Simple Design
With any Web design these days, going crazy with graphics, flashing text or anything that will distract your user from the intended purpose is a bad thing. Subtlety is key in your overall design. Make it very simple for your customers to find what they want and purchase it, no one is going to be amazed by flashing images, unless that happens to be what you’re selling.
Focus on Purpose/Interest and the Call to Action (conversion)
These go hand in hand, and they are what should stand out since the site is ultimately built for a specific type of user with a specific interest and a specific purpose.
Simplify your forms There is no reason to make your forms anything more than they have to be. If you Web site urges people to sign up through some kind of form, make it easy for them. Make the forms in logical place, and only have users fill in the information that is necessary.
Testimonials - depending on the landing page Depending on the kind of product or service you’re providing, testimonials can be an excellent thing to include on a landing page. Testimonials can provide credibility and trust to your business, which will make potential customers more likely to buy from you.
Check out the video below if you need some more convincing on why landing pages are a good thing to focus on when creating a successful online business.
There are many reasons to think designing a website is an easy process. With the amount of software programs out there and with the number of free templates, it might seem like anyone can create a website. There are, however, many guidelines in the process of web design that not all templates include.
Here’s a list of some of the key design aspects needed to make an effective, functional and appealing design. No matter what you use for a design, whether it be a free template or building from scratch, including these simple design tips can go a long way to achieving the best possible website design.
The first tip seems to be one of the most important in designing websites today: You need to make the site more usable for the people using mobile devices. The idea here is to increase the hit area on links for easier navigation on touch-screen phones. By increasing the padding of the links it’ll make it more accessible to touch the link you want to go to through your phone for better mapping.
Other web design keys to creating a quality design:
1) Make sure images and bad code do not slow down load and response time. This can cause problems with the effectiveness of your website. People are usually impatient when it comes to view websites, so slow load time is a very bad thing to have. It can also hurt in overall exposure of your website; a site with bad source code will not rank highly on search engines.
2) Bulky Flash Designs - We all know that Flash makes a site stand out and look more appealing than just plan images and text. The problem with Flash on many websites is the usefulness of the Flash. Most designers incorporate Flash design but forget to make it user compatible. This might make the site look good, but it weakens the usability.
3) Typography is a major key in design, more important than most people realize. There are three things to keep in mind.
a) The website tagline explains what the company does and what makes it unique among competitors. Your tagline should communicate your site purpose within the crucial first 10 seconds.
b) Split content and make it easy to read. First, content can not be too long on the pages. If it is not said in the first two paragraphs, then it will not be understood. Also, when writing content about whatever your business is doing, it should make sense to the common educated person. Use simple words and simple ideas.
c) Size matters. Make the font size easy for all screens and people with all eye sights. There are design tools to make the size of the text expandable, but to play it safe, text should be no smaller than 12pt in content. The optimal level should be 14-16pt. Take into consideration that your view is someone in there 40’s with the requirements of reading glasses to view things up close. This should make it easy to determine size and color of the text.
These are just a few tips for when you’re beginning to make your own websites. The rules get more complex as you dive deeper into the web design world, but don’t worry, the information is out there to help you at every part of the journey.
