user-friendly
Responsive Design & Why it is Important
/** This is an example of a media query that will activate if your screen has a width of up to 680px; It will then (and only then!) apply the contained CSS. */
@media screen only and (max-width: 680px) {
.someGridElement { max-width:50%; }
}
/** The below media query only applies to view sizes above or equal to 680px width.* Setting it to 681 is so that we don’t have overlapping rules.*/
@media screen only and (min-width: 681px) {
.someGridElement { max-width:25%; }
}
Creating a Good User Experience
- Get feedback from friends, family, A/B testing, page analysis tools, and anything else you can get your hands on. These are crucial for any high-end or high traffic web design project.
- Keep your design consistent. Reuse design elements to give a sense of unity. This means, stick to your colors and light/darkness percentages.
- Make tasteful use of animation. Tasteful is hard to define, and it is ultimately left up to you, but find an animation that works for you and the functions that your application performs. Smooth movement is great eye-candy, and will reinforce the feeling of completed an action or creating a sense of progress as users navigate through your site.
- Make use of load times, but keep them short. Having an animation or smooth transitions will reduce the perceived load time, and making things load quickly will help retain users and make sure that they do not get bored or impatient.
Web Design Tips: 5 Ways to Make Your Social Media Matter
To harness the full power of social networks and leverage the exponential reach available through social networking, here are 5 best practices.
Social media is a powerful tool for generating brand awareness and building trust. An effective social media strategy integrates seamlessly with your web design so that your online presence represents your company with professionalism and your SEO is boosted. If you do social media the right way you can build relationships with fans and followers that will build long-term relationships by creating content that engages and brings value your audience. Your web development strategy should always include a social element so your social networks are easily visible and your content is easily shared by those interested in your brand and content.
1. Use your social networks to listen, not just talk.
The social interaction between people is what brings the “social” element to social media. People interested in your brand will fan you on Facebook, follow you on twitter and subscribe to you on YouTube to interact with the person behind the company. They aren't always finding you on social channels to hear a one-way message that talks at them. Rather, thanks to social media, marketing and advertising is now a conversation and consumers will demand that you talk with them in a conversation. This is an exciting evolution that allows you to develop genuine connections with your audience that were not available before.
2. Your content should create value for your audience.
Only if you entertain, inform, or in some way provide value, with your social posts and updates will your fans and followers like your posts, share your blog content and videos and retweet your tweets. How can those interested in your brand join the conversation if you are not initiating one? No one wants to be sold to all the time, not in person and not on the net. If you consistently provide content that is of educational, social, or useful value you will build a following that is loyal, engaged and enthusiastic about your brand.
3. Social is not about selling, it’s about building relationships.
You get out of social what you put in. If you use it as a platform to always be selling, making it all about you, visitors will be less motivated to come back to your sites. But the good news is that building relationships is actually more powerful than sales! If you’re a dentist you’re not trying to use your blog to sell one pair of braces. If you blog on interesting subjects related to your business, such as how to ask for a second opinion or, for those that are terrified of the dentist, a 5 minute mediation to put you at ease before you enter the dentist chair, you will begin to build trust with your audience. This trust is the first step to building a lasting relationship. You will become a trusted resource that can develop into a client bond that will outlast a one-time procedure and continue for 5, 10, or 20 years or longer.
4. Use social networks to build relationships with industry leaders, colleagues and mentors.
Social is not only about reaching out to potential consumers, it's also about participating in the conversation among your peers and industry thought leaders. Follow those agencies and individuals that are driving innovation in your field or who have influence with many people. These people have much to teach and they give away valuable information and insights through social media. Are you listening or are you missing out? LinkedIn is optimal for engaging with industry giants and experts. You can join LinkedIn groups representing your field to keep up on the latest news, updates and industry trends. Be a part of the conversation so you too can establish yourself as a leading voice in your market.
5. Track your metrics to develop and fine tune your strategy.
In order to know what you are doing right, and which strategies are not benefiting you, you need to track your performance. There are many tools, both paid and free, that will generate reports which let you know when your content resonates with your audience and when it falls flat and fails to generate interest and engagement. By playing to your strengths and understanding your weaknesses, you can develop a winning social media plan that will increase your presence, raise your SEO ranking and establish your business as a leader in your market.
We have been in the Las Vegas web design and web development industry for years and we have experienced the power of social media to make connections and create partnerships and clients in our community. It’s not rocket science, all it takes is knowledge, a passion for engaging with your audience, and a consistent dedication to the effort and consistency required to create value and build genuine long-term connections.
How to Measure and Monitor your SEO for FREE
8 tips on how to keep track of your SEO for FREE
You can offer the best services or goods in your marketplace, but if those who are searching for what you sell find your competitor online instead of you, you will likely not earn their business. The research shows most consumers first look online when they are interested in making a purchase. The statistics are clear; over 80% of consumers will do their own search online well before they pull out their wallet to spend their money.
In order to know where you stand in regards to your competitors, it’s crucial you measure your SEO (search engine optimization) to establish your position, and to monitor it on an on-going basis. If you have the budget, SEO is one of the most dominant factors in your online marketing campaign and allocating the funds to have it professionally managed, will be some of the most valuable money you spend towards driving traffic to your site and bringing potential clients directly in touch with your brand. However, if you are not yet in a position to afford expert assistance with your SEO marketing, all is not lost. With some time and effort, you can use the following free tools to identify your ranking and monitor your position. For 6 free techniques you can put into practice today to power your SEO upwards, you can read our article 6 Simple SEO Habits to Increase Website Rankings & Traffic.
1. Google Analytics
You can sign up in minutes to begin taking advantage of this powerful, free tool. Google Analytics offers daily traffic statistics which you can sort and organize: per keywords, per visitor, per location, per referring website, per search engine, and by any time scale. Packed with useful features, it is a must have for anyone interested in measuring and tracking their website traffic and SEO progress.
2. Google Adwords' Keyword Tool
This powerful and free online resource allows you to see the number of searches that Google receives nationally, and internationally, for any specific keyword phrases. We recommend checking off the box that says "Exact" searches, not broad or matching, for the most accurate and relevant statistics. What this means to you is that now you can confidently know which keywords your target audience is searching for the most when they're looking for brands or businesses like yours online. We use this to help decide which keywords would be most profitable to target in our SEO campaigns for ourselves and our clients.
3. Understand the Power of Search Results Ranking.
On any Google search page in organic results: #1 gets 33% of clicks, #2 gets 22%, #3 gets 11%, #4 gets 7%, on down until #10 gets 1-3% share of link traffic. This shows how skewed the numbers are toward the top of the first page of Google. Because traffic is so heavily funneled to the first few listings, its easy to see how companies can become forgotten when they are not actively managing their SEO and staying on top of their ability to be found. Keep in mind that these numbers vary widely based on the industry you're in and how likely it is that people searching will be satisfied with the first search results versus continuing down the search results page looking for something the other results aren't providing.
4. MicroSiteMasters.com
This extremely valuable service provides Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rank reporting and tracking keywords in Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and their service is free for first 10 keywords. 10 keywords are more than sufficient to get started measuring the progress of your SEO efforts, and if you're not using a tool like this, you need to start now so you can begin understanding where you rank and how your rank changes over time.
5. HubSpot's Website Grader
In less than 30 seconds, HubSpot issues a report that analyzes all of your online marketing efforts, not just on your website, and gives you a Marketing Grade on a 1-100 scale. It doesn’t stop there; it recommends the next steps, in order of priority that you should take to improve your strategy. By assessing over 30 factors, HubSpot offers a comprehensive assessment and then provides a plan of action, complete with online resources to help put their recommendations into practice.
6. MajesticSEO.com
This website offers a free tool to track and analyze off-site backlink health of any website online, by total history or by recent growth. Use the power of MajesticSEO’s enormous link intelligence database to compare your backlink power to that of your competitors.
7. Google's "Site:" search
I use this tool everyday, even when just browsing because it's so powerful. Just try typing “site:examplesite.com" into the Google search bar, adding in a website use regularly, and then look at total search results for the number of pages indexed by Google. This normally tells you, with a fair amount of accuracy the total number of pages on any website, which can be used as a rough indicator of their on-site SEO credibility in Google. The total number of pages a website has can also roughly approximate how well established and trusted your website is according to Google search engine’s algorithm, this is because the longer a website has existed and the more valuable content they have online, the more it lends to the idea that they know what they're talking about, assuming that the content is relevant, unique, and that there's a decent amount of it on every page.
For even more fun, try adding search terms with a space just before where the "site:" appears, and you'll be amazed at how useful it is to be doing a Google search of pages ONLY on the website listed in the example. ("site:example.com")
8. Use "Page Source" / "View Source"
This is a simple, fast way to determine which keywords your webpages, and your competitors' webpages, are targeting. This is the basic information you need to assess where your current SEO is focused and vital to your understanding of what type of traffic you are attracting—or failing to attract. "Page Source" or "View Source" is a browser tool option which you can access in most browsers by doing right-click on the webpage on PCs or Option-click on Macs; it also appears in the browser's menu. Select this option and you will see the HTML code for the page. In the code, near the top of most webpages you should be able to see or find using CTRL+F the following text meta tags; look for <title>, <meta description >, <meta keywords > tags.
Pay attention to the first words that appear in these meta tags. These keywords can be used to analyze your competition and see what keywords they are telling Google to target for each of their webpages. The most important is the title tag, but the description tag is also very important to Google, because this is the text that appears in Google search results. Conversely, be sure your meta tags are telling search engines the right story about who you are and what content or keywords each webpage is primarily relevant to.
Based in Nevada, our Las Vegas web design team would be happy to answer any questions you may have about SEO. For more resources and helpful tips sign up for our newsletter or send us a message telling us what topics you'd like to see covered here. For now, don’t hesitate to get started with these useful resources that you can access free of charge anytime. We recommend always getting professional feedback and direction at the start of any SEO campaign, no matter how small, to ensure that you're not making any mistakes that could be costing you valuable traffic. We offer free consultations and are happy to educate our customers on the value of a well designed SEO campaign.
12 Steps to Creating Value with your Website
12 powerful ways to create value with your company website
The internet is overrun with content streaming and updating every second of every minute of every day. Intelligently planned SEO (search engine optimization) strategy and management can funnel users through the digital deluge straight to your company’s website, but once you have their attention it’s crucial you provide them with value or they may never return. People love the access to information the internet provides and 8 out of 10 of consumers hit the web to research when they are in the market to purchase goods and services. But competition is fierce and if you do not stand apart from the crowd, you will be drowned out by the onslaught of content crowding the internet. Most users suffer from content overload and you really have one chance to make your impression or they will move on to your competitors. How do you keep them coming back? That’s simple, but not always easy: create value with your website.
1. Provide information that helps people.
To determine what information is helpful to people try this effective technique: Pretend you're a visitor and imagine what you would want to know and what information you would want to come away having learned after interacting with your website. This seems simple at first, but there are subtle and sometimes unobvious subconscious decisions that your visitors are making. Try to get in their heads and really think about what would make them, not you happy.
2. Have a purpose and a way to measure your progress.
Think of your website as your online ambassador. It represents you every second of every day, while you're sleeping, away on business, or offline. What do you want your ambassador to say to people who are interested in what you do and what you sell? What is your goal? Do you want your brand ambassador to generate sales or leads? How many and by when? Be specific in outlining your objectives so you can set up benchmarks and monitor your progress. If you are not hitting your marks, it’s a good indication that it’s time to make some changes to your content, online marketing, or SEO strategy.
3. Give or create something specific.
General information is for Wikipedia; you want people to gain measureable value from spending time on your site. Be specific in what you are communicating so people come away with a clear understanding of what they accomplished, learned or gained.
4. Use tools.
Tools help you maximize your web presence. Of all the sites they could end up at, your visitors came to yours; why let them leave without knowing who they are and taking the time to see what their interests and needs are? One way to do this is to use a newsletter sign up that captures their email addresses and maybe a few additional pieces of information. For the cost of providing a weekly or monthly newsletter you gain valuable leads and priceless market research.
5. Always include a Call to Action.
Make it easy for your website visitors; let them know what to do next if they are interested in finding out more, taking advantage of a special discount or promotion, or talking to a representative from your business. CTAs can be designed to run with new product launches, special promotions, your current marketing campaign, or key industry events. Even if you are not offering a specific offer, you can suggest they click on a link to take your desired conversion action. You need to know what specific behavior you want a visitor to engage in on your site to consider it a successful visit. Then invite them to do so, that’s your call to action.
6. Connect to your Social Networking Sites.
Invite your visitors to engage with your brand through the social sites where they spend their time. This takes the one way message of your website and makes it an interactive experience by opening the door to a conversation via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or whichever social networks your company uses. It's important to pick and choose which networks you really plan to use, then stick with it, even if you only write an update once a month.
7. Incorporate a blog.
Fresh content improves SEO while establishing your brand as a resource and leader. Additionally, if you continually update your site with new blog articles it provides a reason for people to revisit your site on an on-going basis, creating a relationship with your readers.
8. Use images and text to communicate your message.
Multimedia makes for a more satisfying and engaging experience. If you can use images to enhance your message, go for it. If you can offer video content too, then even better. Internet users are becoming accustomed to photos and videos and the more variety of media you offer the more enticing your message. Images also help communicate the message you're saying faster and in a more friendly way when used correctly.
9. Use images as part of your navigation on your homepage.
People should be able to click on an image or icon to navigate through your website to improve the ease of use. This is especially true on your homepage. Some people are visual and may prefer to navigate using images so be sure your images are clickable and reinforce the natural navigation structure and flow of your site.
10. Plan your pages and content.
This requires that you have your objectives clearly defined. Once you know what you want your site to offer and what you want your digital presence to achieve, you can plan your pages and content to accomplish your goals. As your goals change and evolve with your business and the marketplace, you should update your site and revise it accordingly.
11. Have your contact info on every page.
Make it as convenient as possible for visitors to get ahold of you when they are ready to take the next step and contact you. Establish the method of contact that works best for your business and have it appear on every page. Have you ever been to a website and not been able to find the phone number? That’s an easy way to lose a client or give the impression you're not eager to receive calls. Don’t require too much work on behalf of your visitors, because they may lose interest or delay contact. Think about websites you've used recently and where you had to look on their site to find the phone number.
12. Make your homepage user-friendly.
Your site should be easy to navigate, streamlined and not overly cluttered. A web page that a visitor can glance at and have a clear idea of who you are and what you do is ideal. You only have a short amount of time to convey your message and if it takes too much of an effort to comprehend, or more than 2 or 3 seconds to figure out how to navigate your site, guests will move on.
As a Las Vegas SEO and web development company helping local and national companies build their brands online we are always interested in hearing about the experiences others have had with user-friendly design and invite you to comment or email us any questions you have or topics you are interested in and we’ll do our best to include them in our upcoming blog posts. And feel free to let us know anything we might have missed or anything that has successfully created value for your users which could help others.