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Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Why a Website is Needed to Grow Your Medical Practice?

July 27th, 2020

What happens when you want to search for a product, a company or even a person. You simply visit regarding the things you wanted to know. Today, every small or big service has a website and even the medical practices are not lagging behind. Imagine, a physician not having a website? How would the people get to know about the services, because not everything is clearly discussed over the phone? If a patient wants to search for medical treatment around him, he would definitely surf the internet and your website is what they need to see first.

According to research, eight out of ten online health inquiries start with a search engine. The reason they spend 80% of the time is that it’s easy and they can get an answer in seconds from your website.

But many doctors and medical practitioners fail to see the value of standard marketing growth practices like having a website. They think it as a mere advertising strategy and fall prey to the conventional notion that advertising makes them appear desperate about providing services. Thus, what makes for a well-designed medical website? A splendid website provides a clear message about the services and communicates the practice’s value proposition that makes you attractive to the customers. It improves your medical practice’s digital or online image, seamlessly drive patient inquiries, build the name of trust among patients, and reduces paper-based information load.

What should a good medical website feature?

Many doctors work at several clinics and may offer a mix of private or government services. But none of the organizational websites will display your medical practice unless you create your own online presence and make it easy for you as individual practitioners to be found.

Clear Navigation

The people and mainly the patients visiting a doctor’s website need to find specific information quickly. So, the clear navigation, effortless website designing is essential. Having a website with certain information about your practice, expertise and online appointment forms reduce the time of the staff while allowing more time to focus on patients and improve how the practice operates. In order to improve that experience for patients, website navigation has to be seamless. A good website development company having strong skills in effortlessly curating the website can assist in achieving these results. Enabling patient forms online can reduce the amount of time a patient has to spend in the waiting room.

Responsive Design

This is the age of state-of-the-art technology and rather than relying on a device like a PC or a laptop, people prefer to use everything over the phones and tabs. So, any website which is only made for the big screen and cannot work over the phone might not attract and engage people. Moreover, if your medical practice website is not user-friendly and mobile responsive, it would impact the decision of people about your services as well.  For that, your website needs to adapt to any screen size and make it easy for mobile users to quickly access the information they search. The medical Practitioners may need a proper and skilled website development services and maintenance designing team to run and administrate their website.

Explanation of Services

It is always a great idea to include an explanation about your services and procedures on your website because it will help potential patients find you easier when searching online for those specific services. Also, they would get a thorough list and explanation of a specific treatment that may help potential patients realize. Sometimes, individuals search online for symptoms that they experience, a practice that can lead them to inaccurate information. By providing information on illnesses, conditions, and procedures on your website, you can also help to stop the misinformation out there and cut down on the number of patients being misinformed.

For any speciality practice in the medical field, it is important to tell people what your service is all about so that patients especially the potential ones can get help on time with your great services. Other website development strategies that you need on your medical website to stand out in competition are as mentioned below:

  • Implement a good color scheme to enhance readability
  • Customized patient portals so that they can easily access their health data
  • Use white space to make the page easier to look at and minimal
  • Limited use of multimedia, animation, and other elements as these can slow down a site
  • Show clear, sharp photos of the office infrastructure, amenities etc
  • Virtual appointment website pages to make patients understand your service offerings and criteria

Ending remarks

Need to know what people think about your treatment and services? Easy! Through a website, you can control and manage your online reputation by having integration with social sites. You can control it by having access to content moderation services as well. Your medical website development can be made by having website development services at your disposal who will make the job easy for you. When you have a team of experts who are good in website development services, you can focus on your job of taking care of your patients and website development team will do the task of creating or improving your website, creating and moderating content, implementing search engine optimization, and much more.

We at Clap Creative take the utmost responsibility of streamlining website development services across Los Angeles and match to the standards of multiple industries by being effective in what we do.

 

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Categories: Web Design

Why Hiring a Web Design Agency is Better than Freelancers

April 28th, 2020

The web design sector is the most competitive and saturated one in the world today. The reason for that is because several individuals have learned how to code and have developed the skills needed to create web sites on their own. These developers make their living off of developing websites as freelancers for their clients. While this benefits the clients by giving them competitive pricing and a choice in hiring developers, it can leave a little something to be desired in the final product. Hiring a web design agency, on the other hand, can give these clients more value for their money. In this blog post, we will explore why hiring a web design agency is better for your business compared to hiring a freelancer.

Why Hiring a Web Design Agency is Better

Web design agencies offer some obvious and some not so obvious advantages over freelancers for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of them –

  • Professionalism

One of the biggest advantages you have, when you hire a web design company is professionalism. Freelancers work according to their own time-table. Some of these freelancers work for several clients at the same time. This may be good for them as they make more money but for the client it means you get their divided attention.

Another factor is that some of these freelancers have full-time jobs as well and only work for you during their free time. This may not be suitable for you because you want to communicate with them during business hours and check up on their progress. A web design company works during business hours and sometimes even beyond that for you if needed. They have a team of developers and can assign a dedicated developer only on your project, regardless of how many clients they have.

  • Stability

Web design agencies offer more stability compared to freelancers. Freelancers can decide to shut down their operations or change their line of work at the drop of a hat. Another factor to consider is that a freelancer is a single person. If any personal emergency or health issue arises, then this can leave your project hanging in the middle.

Web design agencies have more stability because they have made an investment in their manpower and infrastructure. You can be sure that they will not shut their doors without any prior notice and will not leave your project incomplete. The manpower available ensures that your project remains undisturbed even if a developer is unavailable.

  • More Expertise

A freelancer can be well trained and have expertise in several aspects of web development. However, an agency with its abundance of resources and staff members can provide you a more comprehensive expert service. An agency can hire a separate team for the design aspects of the project and another team for the PHP coding or development aspect.

Another expertise in high demand these days is e-commerce development. E-commerce developers that excel in Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce can be offered by web design agencies as part of their services.

  • Support and Maintenance

A freelancer is a contract based person whose responsibilities end when the project is completed and the website goes live. More often than not, they do not take any responsibility for anything that happens after that. In other words, there is no such thing as after-sales service in web development from freelancers.

Web development companies, on the other hand, promise you support and maintenance of their website for minor to major issues depending on the agency. Some even offer website maintenance services as part of their plans or offer separate services for support altogether.

Closing Thoughts

 As competitive as the web design sector has become, there will always be certain players that will stand apart from the rest. It will all come down to companies that offer a unique experience to their clients, bring ease of doing business to their lives, and creates solutions that are both technologically advanced and user friendly. In the coming future, technologies like IoT, VR, and AR will become the differentiating factors between web developers as well as web development agencies.

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Categories: Web Design

Top 6 Innovative Website Design Trends of 2020

March 4th, 2020

2020 has already showered plenty of power-packed additions and advancements in multiple industries. Especially for the ones who have strived to perform qualitatively as per their needs of online business growth. Every trend can work well for business owners and even for start-ups if they know which type of website design trend, they should follow to make an impact on consumers.

The best website design actually makes you stop and observe. You may scroll it all day and then something captures your attention. It could be an engaging graphic, a phenomenal photo or something that is creative enough to keep you hooked for a longer time on that website. You know why? The visually appealing things can instantly grab anyone’s focus, especially the organized ones. In other words, it is all about user experience with the brand and on which level a business can add value to the customer journey. Therefore, create a site after knowing your audience, think about what will work well in aesthetics or if your potential customers would like something minimal and not bold animations?

Stay on top in the website design race by understanding these website design trends 2020 and see what suits you –

DarkMode

The dark mode is so hot right now!  With such a trending title and position across social channels, business websites and entertainment apps, dark mode are continuing with its influence on market leaders even in 2020. This dark UI or theme emits a low level of light while maintaining a high standard of usability. It appears to be an interactive website design as it reduces the strain on the eyes when users look at the screen. What makes the dark theme so exceptional that it complements the bright coloured typography over it which ensures that text is thoroughly readable and eye-catchy.

Ultra-Minimal Navigation

Over the years, website navigation has become better and less complex to optimize for the user. The shift towards this focus on how the user interacts with the website will continue to influence how we approach design in general. The secret is to engage the user and make the experience as seamless as possible so that the user keeps coming back for more intuitive experiences. Instead of emphasizing on using plenty of stock and high-definition images, the focus should be more on using minimum imagery and less text. In the same context, the quality of the image is of utmost importance. Moreover, minimalism in 2020 is encouraged by large swaths of white space and not just in the images you would expect. The best advantage of going minimalist in design is that not only it gives a tidy look to the website but makes visitors understand and engage through elegantly designed content.

White Space Frames

Neatly structured websites create a satisfying sense of order that help to arrange all different segments of a page. There have been days when full-bleed layouts were in huge demand among the designers but now, they are gravitating towards complete structures playing with different ways of utilizing white space and clean framing to give their designs stability and a canvas to spark. As per trending website designs in 2020, we will see wide and splendid frames of white space; allowing generous amount space to each element available on the website. The white frames, if strategically used, can grab the attention of users without making it too obvious or irritating. However, white space is often referred to as negative space and it could be seen as an inefficient waste of space. When in fact, it is giving the website content and design an enriching feel with organized separate sections. We would see white space and frames giving larger than life look to the websites with a pleasing appearance.

Artistic Illustrations

Illustrations possess a huge capability to narrate your products or services features in an enticing way. With hints of colours, designer’s imagination and coordination of animated elements, artistic illustrations are a perfect blend of creating whimsical effects on users and website visitors. Illustrations appeal to them in a way like they are reading a story instead of just scrolling through the website. In addition to this, 2020 has brought a rule-breaking trend of combining photos and illustrations. So, who would not love a little doodle mingled with finest of imageries, messy patterns and realistic storytelling to convey the brand’s personality?

3D Elements

Enticing cinema-like graphics, videos, animations and what not playing interactively in motion when you are scrolling through the website. With the web designing becoming more mature, web designers are creatively encouraging the trend of 3D art in website development. Undoubtedly, 3D visuals are able to engage people without showing much textual content. The digital 3D images can adorn websites in luminous, neon-coloured shades. Artworks such as these are capable enough to capture visitors’ attention. Combined with fluorescent shades, the outcome of 3D website designing appears as futuristic and energetic, infusing any site with impressive representation. As in 2020, with the trendy website designs, it is essential that you keep an eye on 3D designs to bridge the gap between reality and digital space.

Typography

Along with motion images and effects, there is a need for expertly-executed typography, that appear to be floating freely in space. 2020 is the year in which all the web designers will break the conventional methods of typography. The reason behind this transformation will be that this typography would be more on designing and art purposes and not for information. Also, the new trending typography will make stronger statements, enhancing the minute details. Furthermore, the chance to show your background through the text is an interesting and dynamic way done in outlined typography. And of course, you need to be a bit more comfortable in using colours and patterns as you are relying on the background for text clarity.

Conclusion

To summarize, web design trends 2020 are an absolute amalgamation of visualization, creativity and ever-evolving technology. Web designers across the world are getting incredibly productive in creating and implementing new designs that will enhance your website’s quality while keeping it highly-maintained and functional from time to time. The modern elements and styles, when arranged properly can work well with each other to make something trendy and sophisticated. Such trends are becoming popular and are getting overwhelming feedback from web designers in Los Angeles and many other areas who utilize these trends to the max. Thus, if you are looking to maximize the proficiency of your business and reach to the users, make sure you choose the web designing services that match with your preferences and taste.

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Categories: Web Design, Web Development

Artificial Intelligence – How its Impacting Web Design and Development?

July 11th, 2019

In this tech-savvy world, where all businesses across the globe aim for new tech innovations, Artificial Intelligence is a prime focus to stay ahead of the times. There is an uncanny desire for automated machines that can work like humans and reduce the extra cost of manpower. 

With the gradual advancement of internet technologies in comparison to past time, automation is what every organization wants to implement to reduce work stress. The capabilities of AI can be combined with data to streamline different types of processes in the workplace. 

Now, if we talk about the role of AI in web designing and development, this technology impacting this business rigorously these days. Take a deep look at it:-

Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI):

Any designing company has taken into consideration its quality which is something that cannot be compromised. At this point, AI intervention sounds like a really good idea with a little bit of automation. A growing field of artificial design intelligence (ADI) tools is doing just that and powering a fundamental shift in the way websites are built. If you are a web design and development company, you have all the more reason to feel excited. 

ADI is a third way where you do not hire a professional for building a website nor do it yourself. The process of object recognition, image classification, and deep learning will also become a lot more accurate with the help of AI. Apart from that, artificial intelligence offering real-time suggestions that are essential for the website designing process.

Here are the perfect example of some platforms implementing Artificial Design Intelligence:-

  • The Grid
  • Wix
  • Finedrop
  • Adobe Sensei
  • Bookmark

The favorable aspects of these AI-enabled tools, they provide thousands of options to choose from and never ask for extra-incurred charges.

What are the advantages of these AI tools?

Enhances User Experience:

In the past few years, chatbots that are AI-powered is capable of taking user engagement and experience to a greater level. This is accomplished by simulating an actual conversation and adapting actions and responses in an accurate way. Their speed and accuracy helped companies to enhance their user experience in a better way. 

Real-Time Assistance in E-Commerce Websites:

Artificial Intelligence empowered solutions giving e-commerce a new direction and tough competition with its immensely interesting feature that is real-time assistance to the customers. It enables e-commerce website owners to know more about the desires and wishes of users. This will, in turn, help them to offer the right products which match the requirements of their potential clients and existing customers.

Ensure Personalized Experience:

AI eliminate communication barriers and make online shopping a pleasant experience. The presence of AI-based solutions will gradually make the online store experience of internet users a lot more personalized. In other words, the use of artificial intelligence in the field of web designing and development will help users to automate a number of basic tasks, which will in turn help developers to find an accurate solution.

Easier Search Solutions:

Chatbots already made the conversation easy and impactful. But, a major portion of users wants to get information in a more simple way. This is one of the reasons for the immense popularity of voice searches among web users. Today, popular voice search solutions like Cortana and Siri are capable of providing information to users instantly and accurately without any sort of hassles.

Conclusion:

Today, multiple numbers of famous and well-known enterprises have been working on artificial intelligence algorithms for a very long time for the purpose of designing websites. The AI assistant is capable of guiding users on decision making that is related to content, branding, layout, or design. 

AI also a mechanism to power the next generation in website personalization, which could change the nature of the internet forever. It is necessary to get an idea of the same to know the latest trends. This has crossed the beginning phase and is expected to change the web design and development massively.

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Categories: Web Design

What is the Impact of IoT on Web Designing in This New Age?

June 7th, 2019

With the revolution of human interaction with technology and the internet, those everyday objects in our house that have in connection with the internet, bringing valuable changes to human lives. It is IoT (Internet of Things) that is forming a bond between real and virtual life to experience technology more realistic.

But out of daily routines, if we talk about websites, how the IoT leave an impact over designing of these online sites. First of all, let’s see what is the website designing in these days:

A Complex Task to Undertake:

Website designing becomes a little bit complex in these days. A designer needs to present clean front-end interfaces that can easily communicate with different devices across the tech world. If the design is more flexible, it is easy to adopt by the array of devices that can be connected via IoT.

Strong Framework is What All Needed:

Frameworks that include back-end databases need to be strong so that data acquired from different gadgets corresponding to every user will have to kept securely and accessed according to the wants. For this, knowledge of top frameworks will add extra butter in popcorn basket.

Mobile User Experience is the Key:

User experience is the essential part and mobile-only interfaces are becoming more popular with increasing usage of smartphones. Simple designs are the best for these tiny devices as they are easy to load. Hence, important features of user experience designs and aid in personalization preferred to be put in it.

Loading Speed Play a Decisive Role:

The loading speed of the design pages plays a crucial role. There will be a communicating leg between an IoT device and a web server. When it comes to design, it is better to implement the one that you generally prefer for slow designs.

Security is Main Concern:

One of the drawbacks of IoT is that it is endangered to attacks by hackers. If there are no essential security measures taken to protect your design connected with IoT, an attack can happen at any time from anywhere. And they can access the contents which sound scary. The most important point to keep in mind when integrating web design with IoT is that there is no loophole left out for a potential hacker to attack.

Power Management is to Keep in Mind:

When we talk about IoT devices, an obvious fact strikes to mind i.e., Mobile, Laptops, Tablets and other battery-powered instruments. This requires full-fledged power management for them. It is common that when heavy programs run in the backend drain the massive battery which causes less user communication. So, the new layout should be designed to minimize excess power usage.

So, How IoT Effects Web Designing?

IoT is that smart technology that connects the smart devices and helps them to operate flawlessly. We all have had a chance to experience the IoT and its awesomeness at a particular point of time. Businesses have already started using certain specific technologies to help them track users, their behavior and patterns that go through the user journey when they land on a site as a visitor and later turn into a customer.

Personalized and unique service is what all users prefer at all times, and this is where an IoT device plays an important role in providing users with a customized experience. Web designers should have knowledge of creating well-managed and sophisticated web designs that are able to respond to users personalized data and can easily be integrated with web-enabled devices.

Conclusion:

The IoT and its connection to web design have a long way to go and we can expect miracles to unveil over the years to come. Already people have started experiencing the advantages of these integrations and implementation of IoT devices, as these are making their lives simple and easy.

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Categories: Web Design

Mobile First Indexing: Is this “A Thing” now?

April 10th, 2019

Mobile first indexing has been the talk of the SEO world for a long time now. So, when Google officially announced its rollout last week and started migrating the sites following the best practices of mobile-first indexing, it received a mixed response from the SEO community rather than all claps and cheers. All thanks to the worldwide confusion that’s been circling around this whole mobile indexing thing.

So, what is mobile indexing and what does it mean to you as an entrepreneur? Are you required to undone everything and start afresh from scratch? Can your mobile-friendly site handle this on its own? Is this mobile indexing a blessing or is this going to be another disaster for you? Let’s find out.

What is mobile-first indexing?

Well, it is exactly what it sounds like, Google predominantly using the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. In simple words, it is Google’s way of serving up more relevant results to its mobile users.

From now on, the mobile version of your website will become the starting point for Google to include in their index, along with the baseline for how it determines rankings.

Google is already identifying the websites that comply with the company’s criteria for mobile-friendly design and are using the mobile version to populate the SERPs.

For instance, if the search giant selects your website to be involved with mobile-first index rollout, Google crawlers will start crawling your mobile site first and then the desktop version rather than the other way round.

Which sites will be affected?

Most likely the m-dots. So, if your website has different URLs for both mobile and desktop version, your website will be indexed based on the mobile version.

But then, if you have the same URL on both mobile and desktop, still it can be affected as your website might supply the crawlers different information for both versions, in which case, Google will prioritize the information for mobile when indexing.

What should I do about mobile-first indexing?

The simplest answer I could suggest is to use a responsive design. Because in case you remember, Google bots have been checking the mobile performance including the loading speed, content layout, etc. even before mobile-first indexing. Responsiveness is the way to go.

And in case you are using a separate mobile site, then you should consider the following options.

  • Keep the content same for both because if you provide less content on mobile, then “less” is what Google will index.
  • Consider using the same structured data markup on both the versions and avoid adding any data irrelevant to the page content.
  • Do ensure that the titles and meta-descriptions are equivalent on both versions of all the pages.
  • Do not forget to add social metadata such as Twitter cards, OpenGraph tags, etc. on both the versions of the site.
  • Also, make sure that any links to sitemaps including the robots directives are accessible from the mobile version of the site.
  • If you have verified only the desktop version in Google search console, do add and verify the mobile version as well.
  • Lastly, if you have recently implemented the mobile switchboard tags, then they should remain the same. Do not change these.

Do I really need to do all this?

Well, no. if you are certain that your website is fully aligned with Google’s rules and best practices, then you need not do anything. But in case you have doubts, hire a worthy SEO team that knows well how to execute this perfectly.

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Categories: Mobile Design

Simplifying Website Design for 2019

March 1st, 2019

One of the common mistakes veterans of web design Los Angeles make is to allow creativity to overpower functionality. We understand its nothing short of a challenge to move outside the box (or the grid) without getting your users confused about how to navigate a site or frustrated regarding how to obtain key information.

In our heart, we all want to create memorable exciting experiences but how can we, if our website bounce rates are bent on competing with the likes of a trampoline. Worry not, for below are mentioned some such tricks you can use to simplify your web design (both for existing sites and new builds) in 2019.

The Pareto Principle

You must have heard of the 80-20 rule (80% effect comes from 20% causes), that’s Pareto’s Principle. Use this principle effectively in your website to identify and include only those 20% features things that add functionality, ensuring you have everything covered to enhance your business and getting rid of anything that is not required including the effects that do not help drive in sales.

Navigation

Do you offer an unfamiliar navigation scheme that is causing a hindrance in the user experience, forcing him/her to re-learn how to go from one place to another? This not only creates a negative impression on the users but also discourages them from returning to the site. Here’s how to improve and simplify navigation.

  • Placing the most valuable information above the fold
  • Getting rid of any unnecessary navigation links
  • Cutting down the pages not visited by people using analytical tool
  • Ensuring that the navigation buttons are easier to locate.
  • Cutting down the content on different pages, if you have loads of it.
  • Using universal icons and symbols for navigation buttons.
  • And lastly, not underestimating the sitemap.

Typography

The typeface that is easily readable not only have standard shapes, uniform stroke widths but also no abundance of embellishment. That’s why the options that you get from a solid family type doesn’t require any additional typefaces in case you need to add emphasis to specific lettering. Just ensure that the letters make enough heft to be readable besides contrasting with your background. Also, it’s better to start with just 2 typefaces; one for the main text and other for display usage.

Compelling Copy

Creating a compelling copy is the only way to grab the readers’ attention. So make sure you make your copy compelling enough both in terms of content and presentation. How do we do that? Let’s see.

  • As mentioned above, choose a readable and user-friendly content.
  • Highlight important text using special formatting options.
  • Try separating long copy into bite-sized information.
  • Create bulleted lists wherever necessary.

Content is king. So, don’t forget to hire in the best talent to create that extraordinary copy which will make that lasting impression.

UI Elements

Every User Interface element present in the design such as the icons, images etc. are there for a reason. So, place them with responsibility. Having a wide variety of UI elements at your disposal doesn’t mean you have to use them, it will just make the users overwhelmed seeing so many divots. Simply try to plan and use elements only when they serve an actual use and purpose in the overall web design.

Color Palette

We know how tempting colors appear to the users. We might as well think using a variety of colors will be fun and engaging. No, they will be overwhelming. So, it’s better to simply stick with a color palette with only two or three options. It will help keep color under control.

For instance, if you are planning on going simple, a monotone color palette with few tints and tones of a single color will do the trick just fine. Try it, you will be amazed how beautiful something so simple can be, not only for you but for the users as well. Fewer colors not only cause less mental overload but also help create a more harmonious and organized appearance.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, all that matters is how willing you are to experiment while following your instincts on simplifying your website. So, don’t be afraid to try out new things and create your own path. And if you need any more ideas, contact us. We are Clap Creative, a top-notch company offering the best of web design and web development Los Angeles.

Categories: Web Design, Web Development

Typical Web Design Fails and How to Fix Them

February 15th, 2019

Investing a lot of time, money, and effort running your website can get disappointing when you get mediocre results in return. Maybe the surge of visitors you are expecting for is a mere trickle. Or maybe people are coming to your website only to leave without any action. So, what choice are you left with?

Well, you may try to find fault with your SEO, content, or marketing strategy, or may focus your attention on the bigger but often neglected issue; your site’s web design. Have you ever given it a thought how much web design mistakes can hurt your efforts?

From using hard-to-read fonts to blasting music on your homepage, there are a number of ways you can mess up your web design. And the thing is, you don’t even acknowledge these as a problem, you think of them merely as some ingenious ideas that seem pretty harmless.

Little do you know these are the ones responsible for sending your visitors running to close their browsers. That’s why I have compiled here a list of frequently witnessed web design fails along with tips on how to fix them.

Mobile Responsive

Majority of people these days use smartphones to access the web, which is why Google has rolled-out its mobile-first index. But if you don’t have a responsive mobile site, you can still index the desktop version but not without negatively impacting your search rankings.

You can fix this by using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool to analyze the page i.e. how the page looks to Google on a mobile device along with any mobile usability problems that it finds.

Call-to-Action

Even if you have the most visually appealing website but not an equally appealing Call to Action, we all know where this is heading. Without an obvious call to action, you will just confuse your visitors and end up losing sales.

Always place your CTA above the fold (the top area of the screen visible before you start scrolling) and try to provide a sample contact form using only the fields that are important.

User-Experience

Your site’s navigation should be such that can make it easy for users to find what they are looking for whether its a list of services, contact pages, staff bios or business hours- all within a few intuitive clicks.

For instance, make sure to place your contact info i.e. your phone number in a prominent place on every single page (generally the footer). In short, provide useful and accessible information to your users to avoid any miscommunication.

Images

The best way to show colors on your website is through the use of pictures. Just remember, authenticity is the key here. And we will always recommend you to use your own shots over stock images.

Also, keep professionalism in mind while doing so. That means using snapshots taken from your grandma’s phone is a strict no-no. But that doesn’t mean you need to hire a photographer for the purpose, a good camera, and a few images taken from the right angle will do the job just fine.

Slow Website

We understand you love to have a lot of fancy JavaScript animations on your website along with the latest technology (and don’t forget gimmicks) but the thing is when it comes to performance, it won’t be of much use since the majority of people out there won’t wait for the whole site to finish downloading.

Here’s what you can do. Firstly, use the Lighthouse tool to identify and fix any load speed issues. Then you can try optimizing the images (compressing them to at least 200 kb), and thirdly, choose a web hosting provider with a track record of speed and quality.

Clutter

Minimalism not only works in real life but digital life too. In the online world, the design of your website should be such as to provide focus, guidance, and a content hierarchy. Pop-ups, presentations etc. look great but overdo them and users might just decide it’s not worth the effort and leave it.

What you can do instead is to keep things simple. Instead of thinking what you can add, concentrate more on what you can remove. Other things you can do are leaving sufficient whitespace around design elements, staying consistent throughout, and divide topics in the form of sections, subpages etc.

Parting Thoughts

So have you checked your website? Which web design mistakes are you guilty of? I am sure you must have found a few. If it is so, then what are your plans? Are you one of those DIY kind of guys who believe in doing everything yourself?

Or you are as clueless about web designing as the majority of us are. Because in such case, you can take the help of a web design company Los Angeles to help you out.

Why Los Angeles?

Just a whim!

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Categories: Web Design

How to Tell if Your Website Needs Redesigning

September 10th, 2018

Every business needs an effective website since it not only serves as a hub for all your online marketing activities but without it, you won’t see any significant results for any online marketing campaigns. The fact is websites, like everything else, wears down with time, that’s why they need an upgrade every few years, just like your cell phone.

But unlike your cell phone, upgrading a professional website goes way beyond than just a ‘digital facelift’ in order to make it look more attractive online. The thing is, how to determine yourself if your website actually needs a complete overhaul or just some minor twerks or falls somewhere in between. Let’s find out-

You are running a visually outdated website

If you are among those who’ve been using the same site since 90’s or even 00’s, then its time you should seriously reconsider website redesign. A visually outdated website not only shows you are not in touch with the current trends but more importantly, you don’t care either.

And a visually appealing one? Besides being much more click-friendly, it actually appears to be a higher quality resource. An updated and modern design isn’t just for show either, it plays a critical role in your customer’s purchasing decision.

The purpose of your site has changed

Web design may be an important part of your brand but it isn’t everything, your brand matters just as much. It goes way beyond adding a new logo and updating your colors. Your website needs to reflect your brand messaging along with its core values.

And it should be done with such a precision that every visitor who visits your website should be able to tell exactly what you do and how your business can help them. Redesigning your website at this point can help you provide an accurate reflection of your brand messaging.

Your site loading takes forever

It might be that your website runs slow on certain browsers or devices, or it is simply slow. In general, it takes around 8 sec to capture the attention span of any human brain, just about enough time to convince him/her on a special offer or a clear CTA.

Slow loading time is nothing but toxic for a great user experience. Most probably, an outdated theme or template is the reason behind the slow loading. if this is so, your website needs a serious software update and quickly, as Google too penalizes slow loading sites.

Users cannot find your website

Think, if users cannot discover your website, how do you expect the new clients to find you? Today, you cannot simply rely on word-of-mouth for publicity because people as soon as they hear about you will want to Google your business.

So, if your site hasn’t been set up for SEO, it means you aren’t showing up on the first page of search engine results either, in short, you are losing out on all the important traffic. Just remember your website’s design and performance directly affect these rankings.

Your website isn’t optimized for mobile

If your site isn’t responding well on mobiles, then it’s definitely time to consider redesigning. Over the past few years, a mobile responsive site has become more of a necessity than a luxury. More and more searches are being conducted on mobiles now more than ever.

 And a huge number of these searches result in a purchase. So, if your website isn’t responsive to different screen sizes, how can you expect your site to have any kind of success among consumers. With mobile responsive design, you won’t ever sell yourself short on any traffic.

Your website no longer converts

Whether you operate a blogging site where you promote visitors to sign up to receive your exclusive content, or you run an e-commerce site where you work hard to get consumers to make a purchase, conversion has always been your primary goal.

So, if your conversion rate is low, it either means users are coming to your website but unable to find what they are looking for, they bounce back, or your website being completely outdated is a huge turn off for them. Another reason your site needs redesigning.

Closing Thoughts:

Identifying with one of the above-mentioned scenarios shouldn’t be much of a cause to worry, but if you realize a few hits close to home, then it definitely means its time to get cracking on a new design. You can redesign either to improve functionality or to update tools or to simply (as most businesses do) stay fresh and give your clients something new.

It’s also important to note here that redesigning your website doesn’t always require you to change every single one of your graphic design elements. Sometimes, making small functional modifications here and there are enough to do the trick.

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Categories: Web Design

Everything You Need to Know About AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

June 29th, 2018

Often times you come across a symbol just beside your search results whenever you run a cursory search on your mobile phone. Ever wondered what that is or should your site even have it? Well, that my friend is an AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages.

What is AMP?

For those of you who are unfamiliar, AMP is an open-source project from Google that helps facilitate the creation of really fast-loading mobile pages. Though this program was initiated by Google, it is not owned by Google but share a wide range of supporters such as Bing, Pinterest, Twitter etc.

How AMP works?

AMP usually works by stripping away a large portion of the webpage’s original content (that is being searched by the user) in order to optimize the page for mobile viewing. As a result, there is literally no time gap between jumping from the search page to the webpage. It is because of these similarities in the working process that some even claim that AMP is a direct response to Facebook’s instant articles from Google for providing its followers a platform to read articles quickly without leaving the Facebook page.

What can AMP do for your business?

Have you ever tried loading your site on mobile? What a silly question, of course, you have but are you really happy with the loading speed? My guess is, you aren’t. And why would you? Loading a site on desktop takes an ample amount of time even with a fast internet connection but loading a site in mobile on simple data plans? I know, it drives me crazy too.

Benefits:

So, now you know why AMP is important for your business website, still not sure? Maybe this will help you convince.

  • It’s super-fast, though it may force you to delete certain codes along with implementing some specific development practices to help you achieve that speed.
  • We all know how the speed of a site helps in determining the ranking factor, so if your pages are AMP-lified, they have a much better chance of ranking higher in Google mobile search results. It will go a long way in improving the SEO efforts of a website.
  • If your site loads faster than the competitors’, visitors are more likely to come often to your site along with prolonging their stays and leaving you with a better chance to make the sale.
  • Even the major non-Google sites such as Bing, twitter etc. are starting to show AMP version of pages in their search results whenever available.

Drawbacks:

Since we are talking about AMPs in general, it would be wrong to mention only its benefits without referring to its drawbacks, however few they may be.

  • AMP projects support ads too though it is not at all advisable to implement ads on AMP run pages as it will severely limit the potential to bring in revenue.
  • AMP also supports Google Analytics but implementing it on AMP run pages requires a different tag which, in turn, takes a lot of time to collect and analyze data.

AMP-lifying your website will require you to develop a new mobile theme for that site, if not, at least make your existing theme AMP-compatible.

There’s another major drawback to integrating an AMP strategy, as you know it requires you to strip down the HTML, further affecting the styling and the webmaster’s ability to incorporate branding into the web pages and as a result, can make your AMP pages look ugly, I mean really ugly.

But the important thing is, if you possess the time and resources to properly implement AMP strategy (including setting up attribution and customizing it correctly), then there is simply no reason left not to go on with it.

What to expect from AMP in 2018?

As we move further into 2018, Google too has been slowly and steadily furthering and expanding the reach of AMP. Where earlier, it was only restricted to recipe articles, news, how-to content, posts etc., nowadays, apart from superfast loading speed, lighter and faster versions of ads are available (all thanks to the integration of AMP into ad formats). But that’s not all, let’s see what 2018 has brought for us-

  1. Google has integrated ‘AMP stories’ (fancy way of storytelling keeping mobile in mind) into SERP (Search Engine Result Pages).
  2. Now, traffic from AMP pages can be displayed as ‘organic search traffic’ in analytics tool, rather than referral traffic, as in past.
  3. As I mentioned earlier, AMP pages, though fast, were often ugly looking but with the help of new customization options and some added functionality, pages look a lot better.
  4. Google is also working on displaying publisher’s URL instead of Google’s URL in the search results.
  5. Google has also introduced AMP framework for email which will be available to all users by the end of this year.

Closing Thoughts:

Ok, that was everything you need to know about AMP and whether or not its suitable for your site. But remember what I said earlier, if you have the time and resources, then there’s simply no reason left not to do it. Also, it may not be around forever but as long as it is, it only makes perfect sense to reap the benefits it has to offer while you still can.

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Categories: Responsive web design, Web Design
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