The Maze of Information About Generating Traffic
Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Web Design | No Comments
There is a huge amount of information online about how to generate traffic to your business website. If you are trying to work your way through it all to find the best way to get the traffic to your site, you are probably overwhelmed with the amount of information that is available. One thing that you can do is find a professional in SEO techniques to help you with your business website goals.
When you are planning your marketing strategy, it is important that you employ a variety of techniques and track them to determine which are actually working. Successful internet marketers know that tracking their efforts is a large part of developing the right strategy. Unless you have an unlimited marketing budget, you will have to decide which techniques are working and which ones you should stop spending money on.
Your SEO expert should be using tracking software to determine how your marketing strategy is working. It will need constant attention to make the adjustments that are necessary to get traffic to your site. Remember, without traffic there will be no business for your website; work with your web designer and SEO expert closely to make sure that your website is optimised to bring the business in to your company.
How Important is the Web Design on Your Site?
Friday, October 31st, 2008 | Design Inspiration | No Comments
Have you been to a site that was difficult to navigate and hence hard for you to find what you were looking for; broken links and the site difficult to understand? Think about the amount of time you spent on that site. Most people will click away from a site very quickly if they are unable to find what they want. Web surfers are notoriously impatient people and the web design plays a significant role in whether you keep those surfers interested or you lose them for good.
The choice of your web designer is one of the most important business decisions that you will make. Take a look around the web and look at what is working on other sites. Use your own experiences on websites to help you determine what it is that has kept you interested. The content on the site and easy navigation are the most important elements that you should keep an eye on.
Information is key on the Internet; if you can deliver clear and concise information for the people who visit your site, you are more likely to keep them on the site for a longer period of time. Most people who are surfing the Internet are looking for valuable information. Provide that to them and you will keep them on your site - give them difficult to read information and poor navigation and you risk losing them forever. Web design is the key to creating an interesting and highly visited website.
The Importance of Using a Professional Web Design Firm
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Web Design | No Comments
The Internet has given a lot of people the chance to finally realise their dream of creating their own business. The development of a website is the most important function of getting your business up and running. While you may be an expert at the business you plan to run online, it is best to leave the website design and SEO aspects of it to a professional.
If you were starting your business in the real world, you would not be out there laying the bricks for your brand new store or office, so this is how you should look at the creation of your website. The site that you present to customers is the window into your business or store. You must have everything working perfectly so that you can keep and attract new customers. Creating websites can be a lot of fun if you plan to build a site for personal reasons, but when your business depends on it, you should stick with the pros.
SEO for your site is another aspect that is better off handled by a professional. There are theories upon theories on the best way to attract traffic to your website. You will need the expert advice of someone who is experienced in this field to guide your business in the right direction. The bottom line on an Internet business is that it will not survive without traffic and you will not get traffic without an expert in SEO.
Take some time and use a web design firm that has the experience to get your business off the ground and running. This allows you to concentrate on running your business and puts the web design aspects of your company in the hands of a professional.
Illustrator Basic 01 - Handy Tips
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | Art, Design Inspiration, Web Design | No Comments
For all those people out there who have up until now been afraid of using Illustrator for their web design and logo designing needs, now is the time to get stuck in and start using Illustrator to help you. There’s no need to be afraid of Illustrator, in fact, once you pick it up and get some good practice in, you’ll like it more than PSP. Naturally you will need both PSP and Illustrator for your web development needs but there are some things only Illustrator can provide and that’s why you need to buckle down and start learning.
To help you make your first baby steps with Illustrator, here’s a quick tutorial on some handy keyboard shortcuts and how to use the pen tool.
• “Ctrl” & “-“
Zoom out of picture
• “Ctrl” & “+“
Zoom into picture
• “Spacebar” & “Left mouse click”
Hold click and drag to move the paper around
• “V”
Return to selection tool (Handy when you use the pen and want to stop making lines!)
• “P”
Return to pen tool
• “Ctrl” & “Left mouse click”
Press control and then left mouse click outside of the selected box to stop what you are doing and deselect the object.
The Pen Tool
Open up a blank new document in Illustrator and select the pen tool (Or press P), now click anywhere on your page a couple of times. You will notice all these lines are straight.
Now click and hold on another location and drag away from where you clicked. Now you will notice your line starts to curve and you have two blue lines extending from your point. Try testing out these curves in your document and getting used to the way they work. When you think you are used to it, try tracing the contours of a simple image. You may find it harder than you first think but you will get used to it with practice.
Try making a curve and then holding “Alt” down as you click the last point you created. Now make a second point and see how the line reacts differently. “Alt” turns any point into an angle point so you can navigate corners and still create curves.
If you extend the two lines from your point too far your curve will develop an opposite curve as well and may even cross over and loop in areas. It is recommended you keep these lines within one third of your line length and do not extend them beyond your points. Once you have mastered this, you will have got the foundations of illustrator and be ready to start making some pictures!
Competitor Research
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 | Art, Design Inspiration, Web Design | No Comments
Following on from our stock art related articles, web design enthusiasts can help create their own unique and well balanced web designs with a varied use of unique stock art pictures. However, if you are unsure about how to start off with this, or how your project is developing with its imagery, look and feel you may wish to try checking out your competitors. Having a sneak peak at what other people are up to in the world of web design and development can help inspire you and give you ideas for your own unique imagery. Have a look at other web developers and see what kind of pictures they typically use for certain concepts. What kind of image are they representing? What idea of the business do you get from the overall design of the website as a whole?
When designing any concept for web design you need to think about your target audience and at the same time, how the client wishes their business to appear. They can choose to be bold, exciting and innovative which will require bright, artistic illustrations and innovative design features. They may want professionalism to be a high priority in which case smooth website transitions, professional sleek and simple logo designs and simple toned down colour combinations work well. Your website design may have the younger generations in mind which will need funky colour schemes, interesting imagery and probably lots of pictures of rebellious teens, graffiti and other features to keep them entertained. If the business wants to be cute and fun and is aimed at kids primarily you need bold simple cartoon imagery with simple bold colours, lots of interactivity and above all an extremely user friendly interface.
All of these should be bringing up different images and pictures in your mind to suit the situation. Even if you envision a woman with a head set for the help page, a ten year old user isn’t going to be impressed with it. Instead a cartoon figure, bubbly question mark or the website “mascot” would be much more entertaining.
Do some thorough research on your client’s business, the website target audience and what kinds of imagery other competitors are using. Never copy another web developers work, but you can use it for ideas and inspiration to get you on the right track.
The Design of Photographs (Use Stock Art part 2)
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 | Art, Design Inspiration, Web Design | No Comments
Stock art is not just about picking up random images as we touched upon in our previous post. Stock art is about deep and thorough design and thought. Every image presented on your website has to be carefully selected and should discourage the ideals of stereotypical information. Placing a girl with a headset for the “Customer Support” team is like committing electronic suicide. These harsh stereotypical and un-imaginative images will only serve to provide a negative, cheesy and wholly unprofessional look to your website. It is in fact, these types of images that people will envision when you talk about stock art, and it is these myths we must endeavour to dispel.
When considering each individual piece of stock art you wish to use, you need to ask yourself a series of questions. For example; is this concept a stereotype? Is this image relevant? Is this picture artistic, unique and interesting? Will this image appeal to the target audience of your website? You need to satisfy all of these questions before you can consider if the image is suitable.
Get a good feel for the imagery that the competition uses. Research websites that have content like your own and what kind of images they are using to convey their own ideas and products. You may find a wide range of different viewpoints stemming from one single concept. Examine which images most appeal to you and why they work and alternatively examine the ones that are uninteresting and have a negative impact on the company and think about why that is.
Creating the right blend of stock art in your website is like a well put together collage. You can have some interesting splashes of colour and random images that don’t jump out on their own as relevant or immediately associated with the concept in question. When you put them all together with a well designed website you can create a beautiful and stunning collage that immediately conveys all the right messages and ideas
Use Stock Art
Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
When designing a website, it’s not rocket science that you will need to put in some pictures and designs in there to bulk it up, give it a theme and generally make it more appealing. What you shouldn’t be tempted to do is nip onto Google and pick up the images you can find there. The problem with doing this is you will not have a license to be able to use these pictures, especially if you are selling this website to a client or using the art for anything other than personal use. If you are found out, you could not only be fined a hefty sum but you would also lose your credibility as a designer.
The solution to this is of course to use stock art. Stock art can be free or purchased, so get as many images as you can through various stock art providers and web development magazines and check for the magic words “free to use”. Make sure you can legally use the stock art for business purposes. For any other stock art and pictures, you can choose to buy a few select pieces from stock art firms which means you will be able to download the pictures you have bought which also means you will then have a license to use those pictures.
You can choose to make your own stock art if you have a high quality camera and a keen eye, ensure your pictures are clean, crisp and clear or they will only serve to cheapen the look of your website rather than enhance it.
Remember, it’s not just a case of sticking in photographs to a few places that sort of appear related to the topic. Just as you have designed the website, you need to design the look and feel of the images within it as it is all part of the same package. Every picture needs to compliment the others, and they should also be unique and relevant. Try to avoid cliché pictures and common poses or designs. You want your website to stand out and be appreciated, so put some thought into the stock art you choose.
Google Chrome
Thursday, September 11th, 2008 | Web Design, Web Technology | No Comments
Google released their new web browser, Google Chrome on the 3rd September 2008. With the launch of yet another new web browser online the professional web designer now needs to consider the appearance of their website on this new medium.
As a professional web designer you should already be factoring in the various differences between Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari to ensure that no matter what the person is using they can see your website clearly and as intended. Each browser has their own unique benefits and downfalls; Safari ranking at the top for speed, and Internet Explorer ranking at the bottom for pretty much everything.
So how does Google Chrome differ and how does it affect website viewing? The first thing you notice when starting up Google Chrome is the amount of screen real estate you are given. All the clutter and various tool bars you are used to seeing on browsers like Mozilla have been completely removed. Google takes great pride in the simplicity and user friendly structure of this great new browser which features “one box for everything” – an address bar you can also use for quick and effective searches on your default search engine (which doesn’t have to be Google). That means you have to be prepared to show a lot more of your website on this browser which may result in ongoing lines finishing early and blank space at the bottom of your page if your web site does not adjust properly to the size. As a user, there is the instant feeling of a much larger screen with only open tabs at the top of the web browser and your start bar at the bottom. Even the traditional progress bar at the bottom has been removed and only a small hovering bar appears during loading and then disappears afterwards.
Google have only just released the beta version of their new web browser but it is easy to see this browser picking up speed and weight in the online community quite quickly. In order to get full browser compatibility ensure you have this browser in your arsenal along side the other four main contenders and you will know exactly what your website looks like on every browser used and you can ensure your website is ready for any major web browser changes.
There is nothing worse than visiting a website that does not function properly on your web browser or looks dramatically different such as overlapping text and images on smaller viewers or misaligned content. If you are engaging in a web design project, make sure that everyone can see your website the way you want it and ensure your site only conveys messages of professionalism, not incompatibility and poor programming.
Using Tables for Layout
Monday, September 8th, 2008 | Web Design | No Comments
On the internet of yesteryear, it was the norm for websites to have the layout done with tables, but with the dawn of CSS, the rules changed somewhat. A lot of people now consider tables to be completely taboo unless used for tabular data – after all, that’s what they’re supposed to be for right? The truth is that although using tables to layout a page is bad form in general, there are times when sections of a page can really benefit from this approach.
Consider the case where we have our main structural elements in place already. We have a container DIV tag enclosing our site, then a header DIV, a navigation bar DIV, a content DIV and footer DIV, and we have everything nicely laid out with some fancy CSS and absolute positioning. What do we do then, if we have sectioned content needing to be nicely arranged within the content DIV? Do we go on nesting DIVs for each individual content area until our page becomes a “divitis” nightmare? A better approach is to simply create a table within the content DIV that can help with arranging our sections. This way we have no nested DIVs and no nested TABLE tags either. The end result is cleaner code that is easier to maintain, good cross-browser support with minimal CSS hacks, and pixel-perfect control over the placement of our content.
Just remember, although tables should be used sparingly, that doesn’t mean they should be dropped from your web design toolbox without a second thought. Being a good designer is about more than just obeying some arbitrary rules; you must use your head and know why the rules exist and when to break them. Letting a design suffer because you can’t figure out the complex CSS to make it work is just madness. If you come across a design problem that is screaming out for a table then use one.
Say it with Colour
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | Art, Design Inspiration, Web Design | No Comments
Colour plays a very important role in graphic design for all mediums. Whether you are designing for TV, print or for the web, your choice of colour can serve to enhance your overall message and can communicate on a more subtle level with your audience. Conversely, bad colour choices can actually contradict what you are trying to achieve and lessen the impact of your design.
As an example of how colour can work against you, think about the primary colours, red, yellow and blue. These colours are bright and vibrant, and when most people see them, they automatically think of children. The primary colours have often been used for toys, commercials aimed at children, and for children’s websites to make them feel more exciting and playful. Now imagine, if you will, that you are searching for an accountant online and you come across an accountant’s website that uses a colour scheme based on the primary colours. Is this likely to inspire your confidence? The chances are it would make you less likely to take them seriously.
A lot of research has been done into the psychology of colour, and the meanings of colours can vary depending on what country you are in. You can easily see this by looking at the websites of international companies. Lots of these companies have separate websites for each of the countries they operate in, and to a certain extent, their websites will have varying colour schemes to suit the country as well. Of course, for those corporate giants with worldwide branding, their logo and marketing materials will influence colour choice, but there should still be some subtle differences.
Some generally accepted meanings of colours here in the West include: Purple for luxury or royalty, Blue for trust and tranquillity, Green has come to signify ecological concerns as well as its traditional associations with nature, money and encouragement. Colours also tend to take on a slightly different meaning depending on the other colours around it You can use colour schemes that fit certain ideas, for example, such as a colour scheme of reds, yellows, oranges and browns for Autumn, or you could use orange and black for Halloween.
Another consideration when choosing your colour scheme is that of contrast. The eye will naturally move to the area of highest contrast whenever we look at something, and you can use this principal together with a good knowledge of colour theory to guide the viewer’s eye around your design anyway you choose.
Learning more about colour, the many meanings of colours, and how to choose an appropriate colour scheme based on the content and the target audience, is definitely time well spent. A good understanding of colour will show through in your work, adding that little extra something that makes your designs stand out from the rest.