There are many simple and easy ways to boost your rankings in search engines so that more people will visit your website. Some search engine optimization (SEO) methods are out-dated and others are just plain shady (e.g. ‘black hat SEO’ tricks such as link farms).
We will discuss seven of the best organic “white-hat” methods of SEO: things you can do for free to achieve higher search rankings (rather than paid options such as pay-per-click advertising). Read more »
These days, everyone is struggling to catch up on digital marketing. In the rush, too much of the thinking is often left to impressive young web developers who seem to know a lot about all of the new technologies however they lack experience in functionality.
Your business on the web is far too important to leave to a bunch of techie people. In their quest to show off their dazzling skills, the web developers often forget that your digital strategy needs to fit into overall strategy. The result is usually wasted money and missed opportunities.
Here are a few simple rules that will help you get the most out of your web development and digital strategy. Read more »
How many times have you heard someone say, I just want that top search result on Google? For a business website, the top spot in the search engine returns can be a lead generating machine.
Think about it. Google is where most people go when they are researching. What if there was a way to get your company’s website on that first page? Well there is…
One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a website can have a huge impact on the overall website’s search engine rankings. Read more »
Think a tweet is just 140 characters of text? Think again. To developers building tools on top of the Twitter platform, they know tweets contain far more information than just whatever brief, passing thought you felt the urge to share with your friends via the microblogging network.
A tweet is filled with metadata – information about when it was sent, by who, using what Twitter application and so on.
Now, thanks to Raffi Krikorian, a developer on Twitter’s API/Platform team, you can see what a tweet looks like, in all its data-rich detail. Read more »
The future of the Web is everywhere. The future of the Web is not at your desk. It’s not necessarily in your pocket, either. It’s everywhere. With each new technological innovation, we continue to become more and more immersed in the Web, connecting the ever-growing layer of information in the virtual world to the real one around us. But rather than get starry-eyed with utopian wonder about this bright future ahead, we should soberly anticipate the massive amount of planning and design work it will require of designers, developers and others.
Color in design is very subjective. What evokes one reaction in one person may evoke a very different reaction in someone else. Sometimes this is due to personal preference, and other times due to cultural background. Color theory is a science in itself. Studying how colors affect different people, either individually or as a group, is something some people build their careers on. And there’s a lot to it. Something as simple as changing the exact hue or saturation of a color can evoke a completely different feeling. Cultural differences mean that something that’s happy and uplifting in one country can be depressing in another.
The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows, translucency, and even simple physics. Some of these changes have helped usability. Shadows behind windows help us see which window is active. The physicality of the iPhone’s user interface makes the device more natural to use.
In other areas, the improvements are questionable at best. Graphical user interfaces are typically full of symbols. Most graphical elements you see on your screen are meant to stand for ideas or concepts. The little house on your desktop isn’t a little house, it’s «home». The eye isn’t an actual eye, it means «look at the selected element». The cog isn’t a cog, it means «click me to see available commands».
Read more »
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is concerned with helping to raise your website on a list of returned results when people perform a search for your business. In other words, when customers search on Google for a business like yours, how far down the list will your business appear? The closer to the top, the more likely potential customers are to visit your website. Read more »
Good writing is the fundamental element of your small business marketing strategy. A thoughtful, well-crafted message that connects with your customers will do more to win and keep customers than any other element.
This is particularly true for Web sites. Although the Web is a visual-driven medium, with sites using flashy graphics, sounds, and other fancy features, success still comes down to what you say and how you say it.
However, Web site copy differs significantly from that of, say, brochures or display ads. With only few seconds to capture and hold the reader’s attention, Web copy must be brief and to the point, but engaging enough for them want to see more. Read more »
With a new year on the horizon, it’s time to pack away the old, worn web designs and prepare for the brave, new face of tomorrow. Although trends don’t start and stop on January 1st, there is a definite shift from what we craved at the beginning of the year to what we are seeking tutorials for at the end of the year. Most of the time, this shift is subtle. It’s a perfection or re-interpretation of a currently hot trend. Trends help us evolve as designers. As we master the skills of design aesthetic, we continue to push forward to what’s next or what needs to be fully discovered. Read more »
Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you’re working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. Here are 10 useful usability findings and guidelines that may help you improve the user experience on your websites. Read more »
Your website is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the website live. Or is it? When launching a website, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your website to the world.
This article reviews some important and necessary checks that web-sites should be checked against before the official launch — little details are often forgotten or ignored, but – if done in time – may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release. Read more »
A group of students in China produced the image montage software, and had the following to say about it:
We present a system that composes a realistic picture from a simple freehand sketch annotated with text labels. The composed picture is generated by seamlessly stitching several photographs in agreement with the sketch and text labels; these are found by searching the Internet. Read more »
Last week, we saw that order of presentation of a small number of products dramatically affects consumer preference. (See Order Effect Affects Orders.) But how do our brains cope when choices number in the hundreds or thousands, and how do websites best match products or services to their visitors? Read more »
