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B2B Web Design Guidelines that You Should Follow

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When designing a website, it is crucial to know who the target buyer is. Are you selling to a business, or a consumer?

B2B, if you ask investopedia, refers to a type of transaction that’s conducted between companies. Business to business is the polar opposites of business to consumer (B2C) and business to government (B2G) transactions. B2B marketing can make your business, if executed perfectly.

To do that, here is a list of procedures you should always keep in mind:

  • DO NOT IGNORE VITAL METRICS

    This basically means keeping track with all of your performance analysis. Have determinants, measures, and all sorts of identifiers to gauge how your transactions, operations and overall performance are going. Don’t neglect numbers and percentages that could make or break your entire business. At the end of the day you should be able to answer questions like, “which of these activities would I gain more profit?’, “what can I do to increase revenue?”, or “how can I maintain my sales?” etc. These are only a few of the many questions you should always keep on track with.

  • DO NOT FAIL TO BLOG

    Being religious when it comes to blogging your contents will give you higher probability of boosting the search engine of your rank site more. This means that you can be more visible to the world in just a click of the mouse so don’t neglect blogging your contents because this could be your business saver.

  • ALWAYS MAXIMIZE YOUR VISUAL CONTENTS

    Most people have photographic memories. We tend to process information better if we comprehend and appreciate what our eyes see. Researchers have proven that marketing and other promotional activities associated with images tend to attract more customers than those you only use texts as their props. Always make sure to incorporate images and infographics to your marketing activities because this is essential to the success of your business.

  • DO NOT PROMOTE EXCESSIVELY

    One of the things you should stop doing is promoting your business too much. While it is a great way to build your business or your business’ credibility, it can be overbearing at times. Most of the time, customers don’t really want to hear much about your business or how your business grew from its humble beginnings, they care more about how you are going to serve them. Instead of boring your customers with your endless self-promotion, use a customer-focused approach because at the end of the day your customer’s satisfaction is what really matters.

  • DO NOT NEGLECT EMAIL MARKETING

    It will be hard for new customers to commit to buying your products for the first time. It is important to pay attention to maintaining your email marketing this will bridge you to your prospective and existing clients. This can help you generate the highest return on investment.

  • DO NOT FAIL TO SECTION YOUR AUDIENCE

    While it is safe to say that you need to match your business and your business style to your demographic, or to your target market, it is wrong to think that they want the same things, or they are ready for the same things. This is not something that is universal. You need to segment them, classify them and tend to their respective needs.

  • DO NOT IGNORE THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA

    Do not ever underestimate the wonders of social media. This is not just to build a social media profile; this will also open countless of doors for your business. This will help you become more visible to the market because social media is where everyone is at nowadays. This will not only help you better interact with your existing clients but will also connect you to prospective ones with just a post away.

Website Design Changes Guaranteed to Boost Your Revenues

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We are now living in a very advanced age, where everything is accessible in just a click of a mouse. Thanks to the power of technology and all of its wonders. But what corresponds to a lot of the advancements of technology is the declining utilization of the conventional medium such as the decrease of use of advertising.

HERE IS THE STATISTICAL RESULT WHEN YOU GOOGLE THE DECLINING RELEVANCE OF ADVERTISING:

  • Most of the rates are average — in other words, they combine statistics from both low-performers and high-performers to come up with an average. But the numbers of advertisements are increasing (resulting in more ads competing for user attention!)
  • Facebook really started taking its advertising game seriously when most of the “experts” began to declare advertising dead yet…
  • it reported a massive $8.6 billion in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016 alone.

Fear no more because hope is still here. You don’t have to lurk in the corners and cry over your decreasing ad revenue because I am giving you tips on how to keep boomerang your way back to the top.

  • ABOUT TIME TO REDESIGN YOUR ADS

    Banner blindness is a phenomenon in web usability where visitors to a website consciously or subconsciously ignore banners like information, which can also be called ad blindness or banner noise and that is according to Google. Now why do people ignore banners? You would think that it is because there are a lot of annoying ads that are popping up but no. It is actually because they are poorly designed. People click on things that interest them and if you don’t catch their attention, they will just continue scrolling down.

    Say for example, you visit a particular website with yellow as its dominant color, would you pay attention to an ad with a yellow color scheme? At first you might have taken a look at it but it will eventually grow on you and before you know it, you will forget that it is even there. It does not pertain specifically only to the color of you ads and your website. The point is you need your ads to standout, which is why coordinating your ads to the theme of your website is not always the best way to go.

  • SENSORY ADAPTATION

    Continuing our discussion on banner blindness, as mentioned above, it is not about the annoyance of all the advertisements that is keeping your customers away from seeing your stuff. Have you ever heard of SENSORY ADAPTATION? This is a phenomenon where our bodies eventually get used to certain things that trigger our sensory organs to the point where these things bother us no more. This can also be the logic behind your declining ad revenue. This causes people to ignore banners.

  • PAY MORE ATTENTION TO OPTIMIZING YOUR MOBILE ADS

    You have been living under a rock if you have not realized by now that mobile phones are basically the most important material thing in every person’s purse. With that, majority of these people browse the internet though their mobile phones which is why it is imperative that you focus on optimizing your mobile ads. This is not a hard transition because you can easily switch to responsive ads where they automatically adjust to the gadgets that your users are using.

Guidelines in Creating an Effective Web Form

Eyeglasses With Black Frame Beside Macbook Pro

Even if it is a popular belief to never judge a book by its cover, it does not really apply all the time. Especially if you want to create a website that people would want to visit repetitively. Sure, the content is the most integral component of your site but it would really be such a bummer if a site that could offer amazing contents has a really poor presentation of such. You would also need to consider your web form design as it is one of the factors that could make or break your website, no matter how great your contents may be.

Follow these guidelines for the perfect web form designs.

 

  • PROVIDE PROPER AND CLEAR EXPLANATION FOR FORM FIELDS

Imagine visiting a site for the first time, and then you are required to fill out tons of form fields. The ideal site would not only vaguely provide random blank spaces for you to fill up; they will also provide a clear instruction on what you should input.

  • INDICATE HOW STRONG OR WEAK PASSWORD

Users would want a site that will assure them of the security of their activities. The online world is very dangerous. Giving them the means to gauge the strength of their passwords is a must in creating an effecting web form design.

  • INPUT VALIDATION

This simply means you need to create a form that will check the validity of the inputs of the users before actually submitting it for processing. This way, users would immediately know the details they have overlooked before actually pressing enter. This is a time-saver.

  • FIXING INCORRECT EMAIL ADDRESSES

This does not need a lot of explaining to do. A great and effective web form’s job does not end at providing a field for their customers’ email addresses; it will also provide indication about the validation of the correctness of such email addresses. It should normally flash suggestions of the correct email address.

  • MAKE EASY AND STRAIGHTFORWARD INPUTS FOR USERS

This is especially ideal for mobile sites because the screens are usually much smaller than that of a desktop. It could be very tiring to fill out long and vague form fields. This also holds true for web sites. So create a system that makes it easier for your customers to input needed information.

  • ADAPTING FORMS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

Analyse your demographic. If you cater towards older or younger customer base, make sure that the type or structure of your web form is really meant for them. Adapt to your market to make it easier for them to access your site.

  • KEEPING IT LOW

Design a web form that will covert uppercase letters to lowercase ones to make words less ‘out there’. This is especially important to form fields that do not really require bold words like in a particular comment section of a site. This will make it look more calm and civil.

  • MOBILE CARD PAYMENT SCREEN

Simply show the progress of the transaction and its payment.

  • RECOGNISING CARD TYPE

To save your customer more of his precious time, as he begins to enter his card number, the form field should easily determine your customer’s payment card. Less one form field to fill up.

The Difference Between a Mobile Website And a Responsive Website

Woman Wearing Purple Shirt Holding Smartphone White Sitting on Chair

If you are one of the many people that is going crazy over the confusion between mobile websites and responsive websites, have no fear because this article is made just for you.

Okay, one would think that it is basically the exact same thing or people would often wonder what sets one apart from the other. You would think that is equivalent to rocket science or whatever but actually it is rather simple. So to end your agony…

The major difference of a mobile site and a responsive site is their URL STRUCTURE.

As discussed by Christian Stack, Internet Marketing consultant,

“A mobile site exists on either a subdomain of your website’s root domain (m.yourdomain.com, for example) or a completely separate URL than your root domain (yourdomainsmobile.com, for example). While a responsive site is your main site and root domain; it’s just built in a way that allows it to respond appropriately when viewed on a mobile device.”

So basically, a mobile site is a secondary site or a completely separate site while a responsive site is your main site.

Do not confuse one over the over. Using mobile sites pose a lot of dilemmas. You may have two completely different versions of your site online and this may pose major issues such as risk of duplicate content issues. Why is there a risk to that? Google will index your site…

and if there two different sites to choose from, google might can confused on what site should be correctly indexed to its search engines.

This is basically redundant and time consuming since it will force you to update and maintain both sites. That my friend is not the most ideal thing to do because updating one site is exhausting; imagine having to update two that has basically the same contents.

Another difference between these two sites is their sizing.

The concept behind creating mobile and responsive sites is the ability to view contents on a smaller device, whether it is your mobile phone, your tablet or any mobile devices. In the case of mobile sites, they are designed to fit these smaller devices, for smaller resolutions.

If you view in on a desktop, your contents will shrink and it will not be readable. So it is advisable if you are only going to view it in your mobile devices. On the other hand, responsive sites are designed to fit all devices there is. It is versatile. It can be viewed on any of your mobile devices or you computers and it will not affect the readability of your content. Thus, your website visitors will have a pleasant viewing experience. They will stay and browse the different parts of your website, engage with your call-to-action buttons, and view existing promos.

The bottom line

I guess it is pretty much clear that the winner is responsive sites because it is convenient and versatile. It does not only win in terms of its sizing but in general Google finds responsive sites better indexed.

Double Your Website Views Without Posting New Content

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How, you ask? This is made possible by the utilization of web flow’s role in our business as a design, development, CMS, and content marketing platform. This is one vital component in boosting your website. If you are wondering how this is possible, let me walk you through the whole process.

For starters, let us discuss a CMS other than WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. A CMS is a platform or storage for all of your dynamic contents. The website references the dynamic content on the different web pages. So anytime you or your client creates or changes any content in the CMS, it updates all the pages where it’s referenced, instantly. This helps you gain full control over the contents that you publish, its structure, and how the said contents will be designed throughout your website. This allows the content creator to market its contents efficiently.

Now let us proceed to the good stuff. Here is how we can double our page view without really publishing anything new on your website:

At Sweor, a ROI-Obsessed Minneapolis Digital Marketing and SEO Agency, they call this technique: ‘The bike pump technique’.

Here’s how to your website views:

  • PRODUCE VISUALLY ENGAGING CONTENTS

    This is pretty much self-explanatory. Your presentation and its aesthetics are really vital in making your content engaging to the users. Any part of element of the content that you want to publish must be worthy of your user’s time.

  • CONSIDER STATIC VS. DYNAMIC CONTENTS

    Use static pages for very detailed contents because it allows for an even greater flexibility at the page level in creating custom designs.

  • OPTIMIZE TITLE AND DESCRIPTION TAGS FOR CLICK-THROUGH RATE (CTR) BRILLIANCE

    Okay, this one is also pretty clear. Would you want to click on boring and vague titles and description tags? No. This is why in order for you to optimize your blog, use titles that will entice readers to click and read. Switch up your existing title into something that would be more interesting to the sight of the users.

  • OPTIMIZE OPEN GRAPH INFO

    When using graphs, you need to fill out all necessary information that is relevant to the matter. It is as vital as title tags and descriptions. Failure to complete these important details such as graph title, information and images will affect how your content will be shown on other platforms.

  • ENJOY PEACE OF MIND WITH QUALITY HOSTING

    Webflow really helps with boosting your content because its hosting is not only fast, but it is also safe and reliable. It is especially ideal for websites with heavier contents because it also helps with the speed and downtime.

  • OPTIMIZE IMAGES

    When you are going to add an image, you have an option when it comes to the sizing. This will help you choose smaller sizes for your images so that it will not affect the speed of the page and to prevent affecting SEO in a negative way.

Discussed above is the benefits and importance of having a Webflow CMS in boosting your contents game. These tips will help you double your contents’ views in no time.

Valuable Habits Every Web Design Company Should Follow

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As a web designer…

the very first thing you do is consult your clients. First, you have to consider their vision, what they want, what they imagined their sites would be before you discuss with them your suggestions and concerns.

After such, you need to plan things out properly; Coincide their vision to the changing demands of the society as well. To create a productive site to or to increase productivity of your customers’ sites, you need to work on your resources, time, finances, and creativity.

To be more specific, here is how you can boost a design agency’s productivity:

  • USE CRM!

  • CRM stands for CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT.

    The most important thing to always consider is your customers’ level of satisfaction. How you treat your customers and how you deliver what is asked of you, affects your sales. They are basically your sales which are why it is imperative to create a system that will manage everything that is related to your customers. Why is it necessary for a more productive design agency? It organizes your customer’s information, contact etc. It does not only help you with satisfying your customers but it also make makes your transactions smoother.

  • BE INFORMED.

    Before you get all excited in jumping in to your design work, let us say for example, when asked to design a promotional campaign for a particular product launch, you will first need to assess your client. Know the battlefield first before you attack. That way, you will know how to approach the situation. You will figure out the proper strategies, designs, tactics best suited for your clients.

  • BE ORGANIZED.

    With this, you can be able to manage properly the entire flow of your business. Manage the individual departments of your agency, from the first department which is sales to the actual operations, which is creating the designs.  You can choose among 3 project management tools namely the TEAMWEEK, TRELLO and WRIKE.

    •  TEAMWEEK

      An amazing management tool that works well like a relay. It can be used across different departments and gives you access to the whole history of your project, tracking its progress from day 1.

    • TRELLO

      This is best for teams, especially those working in different locations.

    • WRIKE

      This helps you to easily create project workflows between the members of the department. This is highly suggested.

  • DELEGATE EFFECTIVELY.

    This means proper segregation of duties. Individuals compose a team. A team will work its duty as a department if each and every one on the team knows what to do. Only then will the team work well and be cohesive with other team departments as well.

  • KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES.

    Learn how to discern the urgent task to those that can be pushed back. This can also be related to a value chain. As a design agency, you have a lot of things on your back and in order to perform your duties effectively and efficiently, you need to know the things that add value to your outcome and the things that are not necessary.

Why You Need a Website and NOT an App

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While I, myself, am a big fan of the convenience applications offer me, apps are not always the best way to go. Do not get me wrong, apps are gifts sent from heaven above and they make our life so much easier. I cannot even begin to tell you how many apps I have installed in my phone right now because it would take us quite some time. They are quick, they are easy, they are convenient and so much more.

So basically an app is supposed to serve a particular purpose. If it fails to do so, it is not considered useful. The logic is that, an app needs to satisfy something that a regular website cannot. If an app is just an exact clone of the website itself then it is just redundant and pointless, right?

There are only two reasons you need an app:

1.) The company building the app has considerable brand recognition.

Take big companies as your example, they have apps that allow you to gain rewards and such to pay back for your loyalty to their company and of course for marketing advantages. They develop apps that relate their products, making customers patronize their products more. This does not mean that when you want to purchase their product you need to install an app first, this means if you want to avail extra services and benefits that relate to their products, you need to install a specific app that they developed for that particular purpose.

2.) The company’s product/service is the app.

Here’s where the app is vital to the business and that is the app itself is the business. One great example for this is the much beloved SNAPCHAT app. I cannot even begin to tell you how many users have this app installed on their phone. This is because snapchat is the business itself. It cannot function through a mere website, it needs access to almost everything on your phone, which is why you need an app to access its wonders.

If none of the two applies then why bother investing in an app when you can just strengthen your website responsiveness game and you are good to go.

The reality in the app business is people rarely ever download an app. People download apps that have gained an enormous reputation for themselves like Facebook, Instagram, etc. If your business or content is not as big as their brands then you might want to rethink the app thing.

If in case people ever decide to download your app, you must bear in your mind that the average retention rate for downloaded apps is roughly 3.2% so you do the math.

Basically, if they ever decide to download your app, there is no guarantee that they will continue to use it. Let us not get ahead of ourselves and think that apps are the best thing to jump at because that is not always the case. Sometimes, you just have to improve you website, because people normally search in search engines for service providers, they don’t go searching for “best restaurants near my area” in the app store, right? So, if it is not imperative to your business, then just continue developing your website and make the most of what you already have.

Making a Millennial Friendly Website

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Let us face it. The era that we are now in is basically the era for tech savvy and internet dependent kids that we collectively call the MILLENNIALS. And that’s totally okay! Our world is evolving fast. Developments and discoveries happen almost every single day and that is because we people want to make everything more convenient for us. Our younger generations are the perfect example of how advanced our world has become.

My point? Millennials are basically the biggest market that every business venture wants to target. You may think that these are just a bunch of kids, how hard could it be to attract their attention right? WRONG. The demands of the modern world have completely become more complex and sophisticated and this is what every single business should meet, and that includes designing a website that millennials would fancy.

Here is how you can attract millennials:

  1. PAY ATTENTION TO MOBILE

    We all know how kids are these days. They can totally forget everything else but their phones. You can run a survey and I will bet on my life that there is not a single teenager who is not addicted to their mobile gadgets. They carry their phones almost everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. This is why it is imperative to design a website that is also perfect for mobile use. Design your site in a way that they will not get irritated and bored if they visit such on their mobile phones.

  2. MILLENNIALS FOR A CAUSE

    Our millennials are not only tech savvy but they are also people who love standing firm to something. They have their own vision and principles and you would be surprised that these kids are very much into charitable activities. This is why you need to use that to your advantage and incorporate philanthropic cause to your website to encourage them to support you. You are not only boosting your site but this is also a really strategic way to help those who are in need.

  3. USE WARM AND ENTICING UNDERTONES

    This is the fun part. We are talking about younger generations here. We are talking about how to make them follow our website. Here is the thing. Cut the boring crap and make your design a little more aesthetically pleasing especially for your biggest target market. Use designs that are inviting and familiar to their age and publish contents that are related to them and their time.

  4. THE SIMPLER, THE BETTER.

    While it is fun to jazz things up with extra features and what nots, the very best approach to apply is being direct and straight to the point. People lead a busy life. They don’t have luxury of time to figure out a maze. Cut to the chase.

It is very important to catch the attention of the younger generation because they are basically your largest market. They maybe young and they may still have a lot of things to experience in their lives but no one knows the online world better than they do. Indeed, they are the hope of our future, well, in this case, the hope of our websites.

Increase Website Sales Using These Infallible Principles

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No matter how great your website is…

The reality is majority of the people who visit your website will not buy on their first go. As a matter of fact, they might not even come back to pay you another visit. Don’t take it personally; this is just how online businesses roll.  It does not really take a PHD to increase your ecommerce sales. In fact, boosting your online sales can be a piece of cake.

Here’s how:

  1. ADJUST YOUR COLOR SCHEME TO YOUR MARKET

    If you think color is just for added jazz, you are definitely incorrect. It does not only make everything look bright and pretty because the right choice and usage of color schemes can help you boost your sales on a higher level. According to a study that studied 100 brands along with 450 non-color blind participants, it has been concluded that color increases appeal and likeability toward a product. Another study also showed that color played an crucial role in marketing and decision-making. It was found out that people decide within 2 minutes of interacting with people or products, and that up to 90 percent of their decision is based on colors.

  2. GIVE THEM A BARGAIN

    The seller will list all the details pertaining to that particular product especially the price. Now, the tricky part is there are usually two or three prices listed for one item. It is usually its list price and actual price. The other is cheaper and the other is more expensive. This will create the impression on your customers that they are making a great deal on a particular purchase. This is not, by any means, a form of deceit but it is an effective strategy that will make them think that you are giving them a bargain.

  3. MAKE CUSTOMERS FEEL SECURED

    Your products can look like the most amazing thing that anyone has ever seen but there is a pretty big chance that people will still not bother to buy it. Why? They may question its authenticity or security. There are a bunch of fake deals going around the internet that is why it is important to give your customers the assurance that what you are selling is safe, sealed if it must be, and authentic.

  4. START A BLOG

    Blogging is a really great marketing strategy because people nowadays are showing more interest to blogs. People relate more to blogs because these are daily or weekly testimonies of people about a particular event, place, or product. Blogging has been a great medium for advertising products because people are now following blogs more than they follow anything else.

  5. LIMIT OPTIONS

    You may think that providing your customers with a sea of choices is great but in actual operations, it is NOT helping. Limit their choices. Most of the time it is not about the quantity, but it is most importantly about the quality of what you put out.

The list can go on, but these are the proven methods to boost online sales. Follow these easy and foolproof ways and use them when redesigning your website. Color choice is important so make sure you know your audience well before deciding on a particular website design.

Importance of Typography In Web Design

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Most of the time, typography is often not thought of as much as it should be but if you come to think of it, this is equally as important as the other elements of web design.

Think of it this way, when you bump into a website what is the first thing you notice aside from the content it offers? Of course it is the appearance. Would you want to go through a website that is dull or a website that seems like it hasn’t been thought through properly? NO!

This is why typography, in general, is an important factor in boosting your website. Typography not only polishes your web design and makes everything look pretty but it says a lot about the content you put out in the internet and your brand.

HERE ARE SEVERAL REASONS THAT WILL CONVINCE YOU TO STRENGTHEN UP YOUR TYPOGRAPHY GAME:

  • TYPEFACE HAS A SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE ON DECISION MAKING

    You would think that it is a silly idea that a single typeface could have the power over your decisions but it is nothing but true. It could either make or break your content. This has something to do with your readers’ perception on the reliability and relevance of the contents that you publish. Studies have shown that readers prefer some typeface over others and that is because they believe that contents created with these typefaces are much more factual and reliable. But you don’t have to go through your entire website and change everything just because of this. You have to relate your typeface or your fonts to the type of branding that you want for your website.

  • TYPEFACE TRIGGERS EMOTIONS

    This is an interesting power of typography. It not only influences your decisions but it also affects your emotions. This will encourage them to visit your website as often as they can.

  • TYPEFACE RELATES TO YOUR BRAND

    Remember how we talked about typography being a reflection of your brand? Yes it is. It is an identifier or a head start for readers upon visiting your website in order for them to know what to expect or what content they are going to get from you.

  • FINDING THE PERFECT TYPE EARNS READERS’ TRUST

    This is very important in typography. The thing is, the first you people see when they visit your website is basically your type. You have to create an environment for them wherein they will feel comfortable in trusting your contents and that means making your typeface relatable and professional.

  • TYPE ENHANCES THE READABILITY OF YOUR CONTENT

    This is pretty much self-explanatory. You should not only focus on making everything look pretty by just using the most complex typeface you can find. It should be readable. It should be understandable. It should be comprehensible. It shouldn’t make your readers question what they are reading.  Different fonts are responsible for the user’s readability.

  • SECONDARY TYPEFACES ARE ALSO IMPORTANT

    You don’t stop when you have found the dream typeface because the work is not done yet. There is what we call a secondary typeface, it means your subheading. It should scream that it is equally as important as your heading. You can opt to use the same typeface to tell your readers that your subheading is just as relevant as your heading but you just have to tone the size down.

  • TYPE SIZE IS IMPACTFUL

    This is an important thing to consider in web design. The type size is very impactful to the readers. You want to find the perfect balance of type sizes in order them to know what key points are emphasized or which points work only as support to the topic.

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