Yearly Archives: 2014

Why You should Learn how to Optimize a Minimalist Landing Page

Posted on April 5, 2014 at 4:29 pm

As the famous saying goes: “Less is more.” The cluttered look is out. Simplicity is in, providing elegance and producing a kind of zen experience for the user, together with an opportunity for businesses to highlight key points and elements. But how much is simply too much for today’s landing page? Let’s examine how businesses can marry clean and straightforward design with a superb landing page that also delivers.

Keep it Simple

As tempting because it is to post every bit of minutia about your service or product, this plan tends to backfire. People normally shut down after experiencing information overload, that is why the brand new Zen trend of simplicity is so popular. You want to engage your customer within seconds of landing at the page, and a ton of text packed between a mash of graphics won’t do it. Instead, you must put a micro-talk about your produce or service’s strongest points. And you’ll try this in several simple steps:

Why You Must Learn To Optimize a Minimalist Landing Page

1) Know your visitors

This might be online sales conversion 101, but not all businesses follow this basic rule. All of it comes all the way down to analyzing metrics, properly using and integrating social media (see past posts for more tips!), after which optimizing your landing page-let alone your
entire site-to talk for your visitors, anticipate their needs and have interaction them.

2) Balance your elements

Don’t fear white space. Instead, use it that will help you distribute and balance your text and photographs more effectively. Even-spacing between your elements will present a page that’s calming in your visitor’s eye. a peaceful atmosphere results in a trusting atmosphere, for you to hold your visitors’ attention-after which they’ll actually begin to talk about your main elements.

Why You Must Learn To Optimize a Minimalist Landing Page

3) Capitalize on all of your elements

Don’t place confidence in thick blocks of text to drive home your entire selling points. Use a number of bullets to make strong points that count. Infographics are a well-liked element that marriages images and text, which saves space and keeps things clean. an image could also speak one thousand words, and videos always create powerful, engaging content.

4) Deliver a relevant and consistent message

Of course, you must present persuasive, relevant and interesting content for your landing page and supply a transparent call to action. A bit like a salesperson, your landing page should be convincing. Use your whole elements to drive home your message. You may lead in a customer with a couple of powerful illustrations/graphics and entirely engage him with a knowledge-packed video and some lines of effective text. Be relevant and consistent, and your customers gets the message with no need to plow through plenty of unneeded clutter to search out it.

Why You Must Learn To Optimize a Minimalist Landing Page

Creating a minimalist landing page really isn’t a challenge. Keep it simple. Incorporate all of the mentioned elements-but use them sparingly and make every one count-and you’ll have every thing it’s important to create a fine landing page that sells.

Posted in Web Design

11 Beautiful Portfolios to maintain you Inspired

Posted on April 3, 2014 at 10:50 am

Your portfolio is the foremost channel so that it will show your work on your clients, so it’s essential to place some effort into it. Designers, photographers and other creative professionals can make the most of images, type, icons and other elements to deliver a majestic portfolio. From simple and clean approaches, to bright colors and animations, every professional has their very own style and vision when making a portfolio. Today we selected some beautiful and galvanizing portfolios to expose you. Remember to take a look at they all to maintain your inspiration flowing. You can even get inspired to rethink your personal portfolio.

Tyler Copeland

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Thomas Ciszewski

11 Beautiful Portfolios

The Brave Man – Florian Wacker

11 Beautiful Portfolios

isnostudio – Christophe Bouche

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Brad Hogan

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Dennis Field

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Roman Kirichik

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Ryan Barlow

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Tim Brack

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Michael Ngo

11 Beautiful Portfolios

Frank Chimero

11 Beautiful Portfolios0

Posted in Web Design

Why a Responsive Website design May help You Get More Visitors

Posted on April 1, 2014 at 9:45 am

If you don’t have a responsive website design, then chances are high you’re missing out on lots of potential visitors and customers. You are able to also be loosing some. Here’s why a responsive website design might actually help you get more visitors, and the way not implementing this design can be handicapping your small business:

You cater to mobile platforms

Many of your current (and potential) visitors are probably accessing your site through one kind of mobile device or another. A responsive website design automatically adapts and conforms to different screen sizes. In case your website design is unresponsive, it is usually shrinking the text too small for the visitor to work out, distorting your images, or it may well not properly fit into the screen in any respect, meaning it won’t be a draw to potential mobile visitors.

Why a Responsive Web Design Will Help You Get More Visitors Image via Shutterstock

Improved visitor experience

Responsive design means no redirection, no duplicate content, no awkward site or page renditions that look different on every platform and that won’t even translate properly half the time. Responsive design translates right into a site with a consistent look and feel
that works on all devices, thus offering an improved experience, which pulls more visitors and may result in an improved conversion rate in addition!

Why a Responsive Web Design Will Help You Get More Visitors Image by Mike Cummings

Optimized marketing

Every business desires to reach as many clients as possible of their target audience. With responsive design, you seamlessly integrate your campaigns into all mediums, from desktop to mobile phones, thereby reaching more consumers and attracting more
visitors.

Increased visibility on engines like google

Google and other search engines like responsive sites, and have a tendency to add them most prominently basically SERPS (search engine result pages), in addition to local searches. That implies not just increased overall visibility, but in addition increased community exposure
for your website, equaling more local, national or even global visitors.

Why a Responsive Web Design Will Help You Get More Visitors Image by Brian Hurst

You stay relevant

Refusing to update your old web design is a good option to lose visitors and fail to see the chance to achieve new ones. Employing state-of-the-art technology to your site that improves your visitor experience keeps you relevant and keeps your website looking great, and that’s an immense step in helping you get more customers.

Your website design must be greater than a sophisticated, visual representation of what you are promoting and brand nowadays; it must work with whatever medium your potential visitors can find your site on, including their laptop, cellular phone, tablets and other devices. In case you haven’t already implemented a responsive website design, then it’s time that you just do. It would assist you to get more visitors and help keep what you are promoting growing.

Posted in Web Design

10 Best New Free Fonts

Posted on March 30, 2014 at 11:33 am

We’ve been at the prowl for some new free fonts to share with you. After much searching, we found loads of, but we believe in “only the best” for WDL readers. The fonts we’ve rounded up for this post are absolutely beautiful, and we all know that they’ll discover a home in lots of or your projects.

Campton

10 Fresh Free Fonts

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Globar

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Disclaimer

10 Fresh Free Fonts

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Simplifica

10 Fresh Free Fonts

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Aqua Grotesque

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Farray

10 Fresh Free Fonts

Hallo Sans

10 Fresh Free Fonts

10 Fresh Free Fonts0

10 Fresh Free Fonts1

Tesla

10 Fresh Free Fonts2

10 Fresh Free Fonts3

Look Up

10 Fresh Free Fonts4

10 Fresh Free Fonts5

Mohave

10 Fresh Free Fonts6

10 Fresh Free Fonts7

Posted in Web Design

The Seven Principles of Conversion-Centered Design

Posted on March 28, 2014 at 9:16 am

How do people make decisions? The reply to this query requires lots of study and can be extremely complex but let’s discuss how they make decisions on the net. Conversion-centered design works hand-in-hand with website copywriting to transform results in consumers and increase click-through rate. Your goal is to aid your customers complete a job and decrease the leaks out of your landing page.

1. The appropriate Choices:

When a user lands in your page, he have to have a transparent focus of what he should choose next. A conversion-centered design can assist him decide. Keep the subsequent behaviors in mind when providing choices:

Number of selections:

A customer gets baffled and will prove not you make a decision in case you give him too many decisions. Sheena Iyengar, a professor of economic at Columbia University and the writer of “The Art of Choosing”, conducted an experiment called “The Jam Study”. The 1st group of consumers was shown six different jam jars and a second group was given a call of twenty four. Results showed that the 30% from the primary group made a purchase order while only 3% of the second one bought a jam jar.

Disparity between choices:

The choices you give to the shopper landing for your website online must be different enough for the user to quickly decide which one he wants. You’re able to show him a comparison of the alternatives as DropBox does.

The Seven Principles Of Conversion-Centered Design

Relatable Decisions:

The choices that you just present ought to be related in a roundabout way. As an example: choice between a free trial and a paid premium package of Asana, choice between online-only membership and physical membership for Millionnaires’ Business Club.

The Seven Principles Of Conversion-Centered Design

2. Custom Landing Pages:

For different leads strolling back from different marketing channels, it’s best to create segmented landing pages for every. A landing page is likewise called a dash page, microsite, click page or bounce page. It creates immediacy and helps the patron relate where he has come from to where he has landed.

For example, one customer sees your ad on Facebook and one sees your ad next to a thread in his Gmail inbox. Both have the identical goal but have found you thru different channels. In case you take them to a similar landing page, you can not have the ability to address them personally – and a non-public touch is crucial to convince your customer to make a purchase order.

3. Sequencing the method:

Your landing page should provide a logical sequence of steps that leads can follow to become a client. Create a step-by-step story of why they ought to sign up for updates or make a purchase order. Then once you’ve convinced them enough, tell me the right way to check in. This fashion, you won’t spring the call up on unsuspecting users. Should you ask them to enroll immediately without details, they’ll either search for benefits themselves cursing you for not being efficient or turn out to be deciding to not wade through the method in any respect. You’ll learn more about this in point five where we discuss the site of your call-to-action.

4. Balancing Logic and Emotions:

When we make decisions, we base our judgments on two things: logic and intuition. To convince a result in convert, your website’s design mustn’t ever only be logical but in addition attract the feelings of your customer.

Logically, it’s going to be sequenced and may provide sufficient evidence for judgment. Emotionally, the design language needs to be in accordance with your target audience’s profile, should reflect your brand’s values, content should evoke an emotional association with the logo, and it’ll guide the customer’s eye in the course of the process.

The Seven Principles Of Conversion-Centered Design

5. The Fold:

Be careful where you put your call-to-action. In the event you place it above the fold, this is too soon to invite the user to decide. In the event you place it on the end of the page, it’s too late. His interest has fizzled out. Ideally, your call-to-action must be directly on top after the fold. Which means whatever decision you desire the user should make must be made immediately after the 1st scroll.

Above the fold, present your logical and emotional content to convince the user. Your content should follow the four-step strategy of AIDA – attention, interest and desire finally resulting in action (CTA).

6. Center around Benefits for the User:

Most websites have a sort for the users landing on their page. It is advisable provide enough motivation for users to fill out the shape. One technique is to have five bullet points telling the user what he’s going to get out of you. Notice that it’s different from what we will provide you with. There’s a slight variation in copy. For instance:

What we are able to come up with: SEO services.

What you’ll get: technique to make your website popular in Google.

Also, your CTA (call-to-action) should describe what the user gets. Rather than having a “Submit” button for a sort to get a free white paper, consider writing “Download Whitepaper Now”.

7. The Bandwagon Effect:

An experiment conducted in 1969 that showed that folks are likely to follow trends and mimic the actions of others around them. a guy was told to face in a hectic street in Ny looking skyward. Soon afterward, other folks noticed him, five of whom started looking skyward themselves desirous about what the fellow was watching. Later, eighteen more people joined the gang. That could be a 400% increase!

When you’re designing a webpage for conversion, use the bandwagon effect on your advantage. Show those who else has signed up/ bought/ subscribed. Once you link it to a social network and show them a listing in their friends who’ve opted for a similar thing, that’s even better!

Design cues for conversion-centered design:

– Encapsulation (circular shapes like James Bond introductory titles)

The Seven Principles Of Conversion-Centered Design

The Seven Principles Of Conversion-Centered Design

1. Contrast and Colour
2. Directional cues: arrows, pathways, images of babies, lines, eyes
3. White space

– Psychological elements for conversion-centered design:

1. Urgency: Amazon.com offers discounted prices with a deadline. This alerts your frontal cortex of the brain and also you recognize the necessity to make a snappy decision.

2. Scarcity: Websites like TicketMaster and Expedia show you that there are a limited variety of tickets available. This works similar to urgency.

3. Try before you purchase: Giving your users a preview or demo of the product establishes their trust for your transparency and increases their will to purchase from you.

What I’ve written on this blog post is from my experience and research. If I’ve missed out something or if you’ve found a method that works for you, let me know within the comments below. Conversion-centered design may be executed in multiple ways but your goal need to be to assist the user decide. i am hoping this blog post might help you convince them in the course of the language of design.

Posted in Web Design

13 Super Inspiring About Pages

Posted on March 26, 2014 at 4:31 pm

By Gisele Muller / Mar 16, 2014 / Inspiration

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How are you presenting yourself and your work on your audience? About pages are really important to reveal your audience more about you, your work and your ideas. It’s a pleasant strategy to get more personal and go behind the business side of items. Designing a pleasant about page may well be challenging. For that reason, we gathered a some super inspiring examples to inspire you. You’ll notice all of those examples are unique of their own way, but all possess excellent typography and use of pictures. Enjoy!

Grain & Mortar

13 Inspiring About Pages

13 Inspiring About Pages

Mr. President

13 Inspiring About Pages

Creative Market

13 Inspiring About Pages

13 Inspiring About Pages

Playground

13 Inspiring About Pages

Mostly Serious

13 Inspiring About Pages

13 Inspiring About Pages

The Neighbourhood

13 Inspiring About Pages

13 Inspiring About Pages

Knormal

13 Inspiring About Pages0

Forty

13 Inspiring About Pages1

Big Bite Creative

13 Inspiring About Pages2

Themes Kingdom

13 Inspiring About Pages3

Mike Kus

13 Inspiring About Pages4

Two Arms Inc

13 Inspiring About Pages5

adaptable

13 Inspiring About Pages6

13 Inspiring About Pages7

Posted in Web Design

Spring Up your Designs with Some Free Flower Textures

Posted on March 24, 2014 at 3:32 pm

Textures are with a view to add personality, depth and interest to a design. However the key to using textures is not to over do it. In other words, keep it subtle. To celebrate textures and spring, that is just across the corner, we decided to collect some free flower textures a good way to use for your projects. Enjoy.

Grungy Mauve Brown Textures

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Spring Flowering

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

6 large retro textures

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Vintage Bum

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Wood Flower Texture

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Cloth Texture Pack

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

7 Floral Fabric Textures

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Flower Design

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Retro Floral

Spring up your designs with some free Flowers Textures

Posted in Web Design

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

Posted on March 22, 2014 at 9:23 am

Looking for some good quality vintage logos or insignias? We’ve got your covered. We’ve searched the online and located 30 of them in an effort to use on your projects, for inspiration, or just a kick off point in your designs.

These files include editable layers, free fonts, and are fully scalable. One pack even comes with some grungy vintage textures. Enjoy!

9 Hand Drawn Editable Vintage Logos

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

6 Free Customizable Retro/Vintage Logos & Emblems

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

4 VINTAGE LOGOS / BADGES – VECTOR TEMPLATES

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

Vintage Woodsman Logo – Freebie

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

5 Vintage Labels / Insignias Vol.1

logos5

5 RETRO INSIGNIAS

30 Free Vintage Logo Templates

Posted in Web Design

4 Common Mistakes You make to your Website and the way to mend Them

Posted on March 20, 2014 at 7:35 am

Your website is your most important online tool. When visitors click your homepage, it’s often their first opportunity to have interaction together with your brand. If you’re not getting results, you’ve probably made some major—and pretty common—mistakes in your site. Fortunately, it’s often easy to correct such problems. By employing a number of simple measures, you possibly can turn a site misfire right into a recipe for higher conversions and enhanced brand awareness. Listed below are 4 common mistakes you make in your website-and the way to fix them.

1. Information Overload

4 Common Mistakes You are Making on Your Website and How to Fix Them Image via Shutterstock

Deluging visitors with data, especially in your homepage, doesn’t help pitch your products or your brand. People get overwhelmed by an excessive amount of detail, and the more of it you cram into one space, the more your call to action gets buried under minutia the buyer doesn’t want to know.

How to repair It: Less is more. Provide simple bulletpoints of data that get the purpose across and make an impact. Lead quickly right into a clear call to action. Make it easy to your visitors to peer what you’re about, what you’re offering and why they have to act now.

2. Your Design Doesn’t Reflect Your Brand

You had the simplest of intentions once you asked your cousin to splash slick, globule-like designs everywhere your homepage. It’s artsy and cool—and that attracts a crowd, right? Sure it does, if you’ve got an art display at the sidewalk. People will stop and glance at it, but they won’t know what it means and that they won’t really care.

How to mend It: Hire a pro service to design a domain that’s simple, concise and makes every element cohesive and reflective of your brand. Design is essentially the most powerful element in your site. To make an excellent first impression you must make an impact. Work with a design professional to color an image of your organization that ties into your brand and resonates along with your audience.

3. Your Content is Stale

4 Common Mistakes You are Making on Your Website and How to Fix Them Image via Shutterstock

Search engines love fresh content. Why? Because users flock to it. If you’re not updating your content, people don’t have anything new to examine. Stale content can drop your site to the ground of the SERPS, and your visitors will stop caring, because they’ll assume you stopped caring, too.

How to mend It: Updating site content is a straightforward and cheap fix. Host a blog or post fresh articles daily or as a minimum twice every week. SEO is essential and may be incorporated, but don’t stuff content with keywords until it’s unreadable. Keep your content interesting, relevant and tied in your brand—and keep adding more. People will read it, grow aware of your organization and care more about your brand and your offerings.

4. You Missed Your Target Market

4 Common Mistakes You are Making on Your Website and How to Fix Them Image via Shutterstock

The Internet is the one venue that grants you immediate exposure to virtually the whole world. So it is usually tempting to aim to achieve everyone with an unfocused site that targets…no one. By being too broad, you’ll miss the mark, miss your audience and fail to notice conversions and business growth.

How to repair It: You must cater for your audience. If you’re an apparel store that sells clothes targeted at women of their late 20’s to early 40’s, that’s the market you want to attract using all of the elements of your site, including design and content.

Making mistakes to your website can hamper business growth and drive away visitors. Fortunately, the most typical errors are easy to fix. Build a domain that delivers on brand awareness, clean, focused design and relevant content, and watch what you are promoting and consumer base grow.

Posted in Web Design

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Posted on March 18, 2014 at 11:31 am

Single page websites are a fantastic technique to deliver a clean and straightforward experience. Showcasing everything you want in one page could be a challenging process, but lots of designers love this concept and prepare amazing one page designs. From an effortless page with pics and text, to amazing parallax scrolling effects, there are several different approaches to making a single page site. Not every project is acceptable for this approach, but when yours assist you to take this route, opt for it.

Mixio

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

VTcreative

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Yellow Conference

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Black Creative

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

CampaignLabs

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Heikopaiko

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Darren Wilson

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

PageLanes

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

The Kyoto Protocol Petition

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Drawtoclick

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites

Gabe Abadilla

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites0

About the Author

11 Inspiring Single Page Websites1

Gisele Muller loves communication, technology, web, design, movies, gastronomy and creativity. Web writer, portuguese/english translator and co founding father of @refilmagem & @mentaway Twitter: @gismullr

Posted in Web Design

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