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How Does Web Design Impact Content Marketing?
InsightsContent marketing is a strategy that is used to generate an interest in a product, service or a brand through the publishing of smart and relevant information. So, how does web design impact content marketing? Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of Rawpixel.com via Bigstockphoto.
How Does Web Design Impact Content Marketing?
One of the most important considerations in designing a content – heavy site is accessibility. When publishing any kind of information or content, you must ensure it’s easy to navigate to, and read. The design of your website should make the information easy to find without having to click through tonnes of pages of irrelevant content just to find what they’re looking for.
Have you ever gone onto a website and got frustrated because you can’t find what you’re looking for? As will your visitor if they must spend any amount of time actively searching for the content they’re looking for. Creating a straight forward navigation set up with a drop-down menu or a search bar, will improve your websites accessibility tenfold.
You Have 7 Seconds to Make an Impression
Thinking back to times you have visited websites; how have you felt when you have arrived on a scruffily designed landing page? Did you trust the site? The answer is probably no. The age old saying “you should never judge a book by its cover” is not applied to web design. The appearance of your website will be the make or break of your success. Visitors place a lot of faith in well designed, professional looking sites. Its human nature to be more drawn towards something that is well presented – if you had to pick between a scruffy looking solicitor and a well-presented solicitor offering the same thing… we both know who you would choose.
If your site looks outdated or is visually unappealing, users may be hesitant to consider you a valuable resource. You need to have a clean, well presented design that illustrates your professionalism and gives visitors confidence that your website and your business is the one for them.
Along with the overall look and feel of your site, your text and content should be visually appealing too. Some website owners get a little over excited with font choices and the array of colours they can make them. Too many fonts can look unprofessional and be very overwhelming for the site visitor. You should typically stick to one font for the titles and another for the body copy.
Your body copy needs to be clean and large enough to read without any struggle. This might seem as a given, but a lot of people completely forget these details and it can have a major impact on how effective your content marketing strategy is with potential customers.
Don’t Forget the Pictures!
They say all the best books are the ones with pictures in them…well, they don’t, but they should. Because most people are visual learners; it works out in your favour to have graphics and photos to help visitors fully understand new topics and new information. Visual content like photos and videos can help your potential customers get a better idea of how they can use the products or services you offer. From a design point of view, this means the layout of your site should work well with visual content, and make it easy for readers to scroll through photos and watch videos.
These are only a handful of things you need to be thinking about when designing your website, especially when concentrating on content marketing. There is no point spending all your time writing great content if you’re not presenting it in a way which entices people to stay on your page.
21 Modern Web Design Trends for 2018
Insights2018 is here and with it comes a new wave of web design trends to take notice of. Here, we explore 21 top trends. This article is originally from instantshift.com. InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resource, inspiration and premium web design and development. About the author: Prateeksha Mathur is a tech-savvy marketing professional writing for Zestard Technologies, who loves to write about digital marketing, web design, web development and other technology spheres. She is a coffee addict and a bibliophile too. Image courtesy of Rawpixel.com via Bigstockphoto.
A good website should not only have a good design. It has to be responsive enough to be compatible with all the devices.
Web design is a visual representation of the page layout of any website. It is an important part of the web development process. This process gives life to any website. It gives an amazing look and feel to the web pages and websites.
You can easily create static and dynamic web applications. It is easy to learn and implement on the web pages. It does not matter even if you are a beginner or not a creative person. It is a good practice to do web development and design hand-in-hand.
To start with, as a designer you can simply understand the HTML layouts and style later. You can take references to other websites and templates. You can study more about the web designing principles. Later, you can apply the effective web design principles and layouts into web pages. With the help of colours, multimedia, graphics and images, you can enhance the web pages. Thus, you get a simple structured website. Now, you have to apply the CSS to format these elements. This will enhance the look and feel of the website.
Web design is a simple three-step solution – Plan, design and publish.
Plan: When you start website designing and development, the first thing is proper planning. You should plan a proper layout and structure to start with a single web page. Later, you can apply the same to other web pages on the website.
Design: According to the end user needs, you can use the web designing principles. Then, you can style the web pages and give CSS effects. This way, you can add a rich look to your website.
Publish: You can verify the changes and test the website completely. Once done, you can publish your changes to the website.
Benefits of a Good Web Design
A good quality web design is a part of a valuable investment. It will surely benefit your business and increase your value among your customers. Let us know some benefits of a well-designed website.
Expected Web Designing Trends for 2018
As a web designer, you should keep yourself updated with the latest web designing trends. Here is a list of the trends you should keep an eye on in 2018.
1. Mobile responsive design
Today, the mobile responsive design is a must-have in all the websites. It is the most important trend in the web designing. The principle of web designing should focus on “Mobile first approach”. It is a good practice to design your website as per the smaller devices first. Gradually, you can design the web pages on the larger devices. To make your websites mobile responsive, you can use Bootstrap and the material designs.
2. Flat Design
Flat design has become popular since 2017 and will continue to be so. It focuses on the important parts of the website. It is all about the usability and the minimalism. It gives a quick loading experience. It helps in optimizing the website loading speed. It helps the search engines to crawl the web pages of your website faster. Thus, a flat design engages the users to stay longer on your site.
3. Broken Grid Layouts
Bootstrap focuses on the grid layouts for the responsive designs. Likewise, broken grid layouts allow the elements such as images and text to drift into the simpler layouts. The simple boxes overlap each other, merging the pixels and bitmaps of the inner elements. These boxes then overlay onto each other and converge. This creates a beautiful pattern of the converging pixels of the texts and images.
4. Expressive Typography
The use of expressive typography can help in creating powerful and alluring web designs. These help in capturing user’s attention. It also gives a unique design and branding style to the websites. Many big companies pay a large sum to develop special fonts for typography. For instance, Facebook has its own “f” in their logo. It focuses on the special colour, fonts and interface that reflects their brand.
5. Illustrations should be in center stage
This is one of the most interesting challenges web designers can face. In the world of digitalization, selection of image is very crucial. There are two most important factors. They are editorial photography and product UI images and GIFs. They emphasize on the product features, functionality and how they affect the human lives. Thus, it is necessary to keep the illustration in center stage.
6. Animated Logos & Scroll-Triggered Animation
Using animated logos is a powerful trend nowadays. It attracts the visitors and is helpful for the website and business. They are easy to load and download to the device. The Scroll-triggered animation has become popular lately. It uses smooth transitions that are light and easy to accomplish. The combination of these creates eye-pleasing and lightweight websites.
7. Bold Fonts and Eye Catchy colours
A website looks vibrant and eye-catching as it comprises of multiple colours. It matters a lot when it comes to fonts, styles and the colours. The bold fonts and styles tend to attract the users and the visitors. For instance, if you have a website for kids, you can focus on the colours and fonts. And design it accordingly. Thus, it is important to focus rightly on the fonts and the colour combinations.
8. Micro-Interactions
The micro-interactions allow the users to interact with each other without reloading of web pages. This allows them to communicate in real-time. It increases the connectivity and speed in this era of the high-speed internet. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter have made these extremely popular. Users love these micro-interactions such as likes, shares, post and private messages. Thus, micro-interactions have ruled the mobile-connected world.
9. Virtual Reality Videos
Video integration in websites is a new trend. The use of content, graphics, videos and images is very common in today’s designing process. But during the designing process, there are a lot of challenges behind. In 2018, we can see more of 360-degree videos, 360-modelling and virtual reality videos coming up. Also, there will be a significant rise in the applications creating videos.
10. Organic and Oblique Shapes
The card-based UI has dominated both web and mobile designs. Until today, the cards were mostly sharp-edged. But with the concept of material design, there has been changes to these. Google is focusing on changing its UI card designs that have rich-look. The Google Now has a completely card-based UI. Also, Twitter, and Facebook have adopted these. Thus, this has changed the design elements to a big extent.
11. More Pervasive Interactions and Animations
There has been a rise in the use of tools that simplify the creation of animations and interactions. So, animations should be rightly used as they can lure the visitors at the right place. This helps to distract the users from the performance issues. Also, it gives a delightful experience to the website users and visitors.
12. Chatbots, AI, and Machine Learning
The impact of technology has been phenomenal on the web designing elements. The use of AI assistants such as Google Assistant, Siri and Cortana are now available on billions of devices. Web designing involving the usage of chatbots is no big deal now. Every eCommerce website or messenger apps includes chatbots for easy communication with the users. As these technologies continue to advance, we can clearly see their future in web design.
13. Top Sticky Elements vs Bottom Sticky Elements
In this mobile-connected world, users are prone to visit the websites and the web apps more frequently. They navigate to different tabs and apps by clicking at the bottom. As mobile app design is getting so important to modern web design, sticky menu items are becoming popular. Many website developers have started to make sticky menu items. These items scroll from the bottom of a site. Thus, the progressive web apps must-have this modern functionality.
14. Responsive Design
Website responsiveness is less of a trend nowadays. It has already been in this field since ages. Any responsive website should be resizable as per the device screens and sizes. It is essential to design websites that can look appealing to multiple screen sizes. This design element has been continuously evolving. In 2018, it will expand to include the new technologies such as the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.
15. Voice User Interface & Search
Nowadays, a design is not just limited to screens. It also includes voice-powered interfaces and searches. New website designs include these voice user interfaces. It becomes easy to implement and use the voice searches in websites. It will save a significant amount of time in daily routine. Today, we see Cortana, Siri, Alexa and more such voice-powered interfaces and devices that power our day-to-day activities.
16. An Emergency of Maximalism
Today, a good design has different approaches and meanings. The use of maximalism in the site designs has increased to a lot of extent. It seems brutal but it lays an effect. There are fonts, designs and graphics that have maximalism. It seems as a mess to a greater extent. But in 2018, this is what we can see as an emerging element.
17. Floating Navigation Menu
For a better experience, web designers have to keep the navigation controls constantly at fingertips. There has been a drastic change in the navigation bars. It gives a better visual experience. They have allocated the navigation bars to the very top of the website. This gives a clean look and design to the website.
18. Scalable Vector Graphics
These are not new to the web designing elements. But it is sure that in 2018, these graphics formats can overtake the traditional file formats. They have a lot more advantages than the pixels. They are highly scalable in terms of quality. Also, they do not impact the loading speeds of the websites. These include 360-degree views and 3D images.
19. Simple, Functional, Futuristic Design in 2018
In 2018, the web designers need to focus more on the simple designs. Nowadays, the creation of powerful and optimized websites is highly recommendable. There have to be new styles, fonts, formats and new technologies. So, it is better to focus on how to design simple and functional designs in a subtle manner.
20. Sustainable Design
It is equally important for web designers to focus on the sustainable design. Today, internet uses almost 10% of the world energy. The global use of web pages is increasing the amount of carbon emission. So, the tech giant companies have to focus on the use of renewable resources. So, designers need to also focus on the environment-friendly websites.
21. The Brand Experience
Websites reflect the brand. A web designer has to design the website keeping its brand value in mind. Also, for a stronger brand, you have to work on performance and content marketing. Proper marketing requires proper strategies to be planned and executed. Thus, they should focus on the brand value and experience equally.
We have picked the top trends of 2018 and treasured the best for you. Hope these help in designing powerful and sustainable websites.
There are number of web design trends that web designers need to focus on. A web designer has to focus on the bigger picture every time. They need to choose and follow the trends and apply the techniques. 2018 is going to be the year of new technologies. Web designing will trend with these technologies such as Machine learning, AI and VR. With these into effect, it will help to design the websites effectively. These surely will affect the digital world positively.
29% of Small Businesses DON’T Have a Website…
InsightsA lot of small businesses still don’t have websites. Why? Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of mangostock via Bigstockphoto.
“Don’t look at the business owners who DON’T have a website!” said Jim. ” No, don’t talk to them!” said Tim “I can’t hear what you two are saying…” said Geoff
So why do 29% of small businesses still not have a website? and why do those who do have websites place very little importance on the upkeep of it?
It’s unforgivable that you don’t have a website; they’re an extension of you and your business. But it’s even worse if you do have a website and you haven’t kept it up to date. How many times have you clicked on a website and instantly left it because it looks like it hasn’t been touched since 1999? You even found cobwebs in the corner of the screen. By leaving it to go into the depths of despair, it implies that you just don’t care. That’s not the kind of impression you want to give your potential customers.
A website can help you gain credibility… this computer however, cannot.
A website can help you and your business gain credibility.
Without one, your potential customers (one of the 6 billion….) will click on your competitors that do have one. You’ll basically be giving them traffic. And if you have a website (Click here to find out what your website should be doing) but it’s a ‘home-made’ one (and it really does look ‘home-made’…) then having it professionally redesigned will provide your business with that professional and confidence inspiring image that every business wants and needs.
What do you do when you have no money in the piggybank? Get three more and hope for the best!
And if you’re thinking that as a small business owner that you can’t afford a professional website
…you really need to ask yourself “can I afford NOT to have one?”. You’re probably still thinking, “no, I can’t” but think about the benefits of having one: It’s a point of contact for people online, it has all the information your potential clients need about the services you offer without having to compromise on the space and information given (like you would in a newspaper ad). Although the cost of designing and making a website will vary (ask us about what we can offer!) once it’s up and running it can be very affordable. And going back to that newspaper ad, consider how much you pay for that and its potential market reach… is it really as much as a website?
“Stacking newspapers won’t build you a website… Stacking P’s might do though!”
Unlike a newspaper ad, your website can act like an online brochure or catalogue.
It is much easier and quicker to update information, and if there are any problems (e.g. spelling mistakes, wrong product code etc.) it can be a lot easier and quicker to fix. It’s an effective way of letting your customers know about the arrival of new products, keep them up to date with sales, offers, new information or any new services you might offer. And unlike a paper ad, it can’t be misplaced (providing your potential customers know how to bookmark a page!).
“Didn’t you know that web developers don’t sleep?”
24/7, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year
This leads me on to how your business will now be open 24/7. That’s right, your business will be accessible 24/7, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year. BUT before you start wondering when you’ll sleep or eat, understand that by having a website, your business is available all the time, even if you’re not. It will give your customers the convenience of reviewing your products and services when your store or office is closed. Amazing, right?
“He was so good at selling that he sold a hat to a snowman!”
Can you imagine your business being GLOBAL?
Whether you’re providing products or services (or both!), your website will provide an alternative location to sell them. As a retailer, a website (eCommerce) is a great place to sell your products to a wider market; even services can be made globally. Can you imagine your business being GLOBAL? Very exciting indeed. Don’t think you’ll be able to sell your products or services online? Wipe that thought from out of your mind! Rule one of Jerram Marketing, if you can think it, it’s probably possible!
A website is a great place to showcase your work
No matter what type of business you’re in, a website is a great place to showcase your work. By including a portfolio or image gallery, as well as testimonials about your work, you can demonstrate what makes your business unique. It doesn’t even have to be anything to do with the business itself – customers love to see the person behind the brand! Champion hot dog eater? Pop it on there. Started your company in your nans living room with just a pencil, an energy drink and some enthusiasm? Shout about it!
“Literally, face-to-face…”
Providing information to your customers takes time
…whether it’s on the phone, face-to-face, in a brochure, or in emails. With an online catalogue, you can provide lots of information about your products and services. Like I mentioned before, it’s so easy and pretty quick to add and/or amend the information, so get writing! Once your website is up and running, it is available to your customers indefinitely, saving you time. And what is time? Time is money!
“Get an FAQ Page… ‘Fancy asking Questions?'”
Maybe you sell special insulated socks for people with VERY cold feet and would like to share tips on how to use them, or perhaps you’re an accountant and want to give your clients advice on how to simplify their bookkeeping practices. By including an FAQ page, adding articles or uploading newsletters to answer all your customers’ questions you can keep them up-to-date. What better way to provide them with value-added service than by sharing information on your website.
It may sound a little like I’ve repeated myself all the way through, but hopefully, I’ve drummed in that having a website is important. Nay, it’s imperative to the success of your business. Now, go have a look at our blog article on how to find the Perfect Digital Agency.
10 Really Working Web Design Tricks for Increasing Your Site’s Conversion Rate
InsightsIncreasing your site’s conversion rate will lead to more opportunities for your business. Here are 10 ways you can increase your conversion rate. This article is from instantshift.com. InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resource, inspiration and premium web design and development. About the author: Amanda Johnson is a content manager at a real estate startup Rentberry in San Francisco. She loves creating useful articles for tenants and landlords as well as writing about marketing and self-development. Image courtesy of suthisa via Bigstockphoto.
Smart marketers know that a web design can either boost or drop conversion rate.
Although it is true that SEO and social media marketing are vital for conversions, having an excellent design can make all the difference.
All digital marketing components matter. However, web design can make or break conversion rates. In a Stanford University study, 46.1 percent of people stated that their top measure in distinguishing whether a company is credible or not is web design. With that in mind, the design of your website is vital, and it must look professional.
Aesthetically Pleasing
The aesthetics of your site can also play a role in conversions. Two-thirds of people would consume content and stay if the site is beautifully designed, according to an Adobe study. That said, your site has to look attractive if you want your visitors to read your posts.
In that case, you cannot overlook web design. You can hire a freelancer or employ a designer to ensure that your site is aesthetically pleasing.
Here are some web design tricks that can give you a sustainable boost in conversions.
1. Refer to the Hick’s Law
The law states that by increasing the number of options, it also increases the time it takes for an individual to make a decision. This law is frequently referred in web designing. In this study, researchers found that more is not always better because a table that displays fewer varieties of jam attracted more people than a table with 24 types of jam. People were likely to purchase when they see a small display.
To apply the law in web design, you need to limit the number of options you have for your visitors. On your website, evaluate what is in your navigation bar. It is the best place to go to find what you can get rid of to lessen the number of options. The more links your visitors can choose from, the more your users will lose interest in your website.
Apart from the navigation bar, you should also look into the other elements on your website that visitors will have to decide when they are on your site. These would include determining whether to allow readers to scroll down the page more or use the navigation bar; deciding to download your eBook or share your post on social media, or choosing to read a product review or browse more products.
Because there could be various places on your website where you can cut back the number of options, you might want to install a welcome gate on your homepage. In here, your visitors will see a welcome message that covers the entire screen, and it comes with a single call to action. With that in mind, visitors will only have one choice when they visit your site. If they wish to see more options, they can scroll down, thereby minimizing distractions on your homepage.
When you apply this law, however, it is vital that you consider the actions that are crucial to your bottom line. Remember that each page on your site has to achieve one primary objective. Then again, the fewer choices your visitors have, the easier for them to use your website, which may increase your site’s conversion rate.
2. Speed up Your Website
Your visitors are impatient when they surf the web. A second delay can result in a 7 percent reduction in conversion. There are several tools to check your page speed and know more about its issues. You may use PageSpeed Insights of Google, Page Load Speed Analyzer by SEO Chat and Pingdom, among others.
Remember that you have eight seconds to get your reader’s attention. In that case, you have a minute amount of opportunity to attract your visitors after landing on your website. If your website is slow to load, they leave and will never come back.
Besides speeding up your website, you should consider having a brief headline, eye-catching image that can communicate the purpose of your page or draw the visitors’ eyes to the primary call to action. Make sure that your signup buttons are large and simple. And ensure that your copy is enticing.
3. Follow This Photography Principle
The rule of thirds is a photography principle that web designers can implement. In this rule, you need to divide your web page into thirds, so that it gives you nine squares with equal sizes. The four middle squares are places of interest. Any object you place at these points can have a huge impact on your website, thereby, boosting conversions.
You may place your most important call to action button in these areas. But don’t place your navigation bar in those places. In this way, your visitors will focus on the primary call to action on your web page.
There is no need to redesign your entire website. Instead, you can use the rule of thirds as a way for you to place the most important parts of your site. First, you need to take a screenshot of your site above the fold. Then, divide it into nine equal shares. From there, you can decide whether you wish to tweak your website or not.
In those areas, you may place your video, audio and other interactive content. Consider having hover effects on your call-to-action buttons. In that way, your visitors will be more enticed to click. Then, add some animated exit popups. They’re vital to re-engage your visitors when they lose interest.
4. Leverage Negative Space
Negative space is the whitespace in web design. This space is a positive thing as it makes your site more readable and usable. This space is not just the space between the elements on your page. Rather, it also refers to the space between the small elements on your page, like the area between the paragraphs or lines of text.
You must pay attention to the negative spaces on your site because they make your site easy on the eyes, leading to an increased conversion. Depending on your web design, you may use a ton of negative space on your homepage. In that way, your visitors will focus on the primary call to action.
To have enough negative space, you may use a smaller font to have more space in between letter. Then, the line-height should be 1.5. If you choose to have smaller fonts, you should have more line-heights.
Then, break those large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs to boost negative space in between paragraphs, thereby, making the posts more readable. Don’t forget to use margins and padding to add white space between the large elements on your site.
5. Get Rid of Sliders or Carousels
Why? They can only hurt your conversion rates. They were exciting before. But now, they become pet rocks. Furthermore, sliders slow down your site because of the large images used. They are also distracting as they don’t allow visitors to consume your content.
These elements are confusing because of how human eyes react to the environment. Human brains are designed to detect motion in a static landscape. Back in the day, it was helpful to track mammoths across a tundra. But this response makes people pay more attention to the movement of the sliders and ignore conversion points that you want them to focus on.
Furthermore, sliders will not make sense when your visitors navigate your site through a mobile device. And that is why people find it easier to scroll than to swipe. Remember that the easier for your visitors to navigate your site using their mobile device will give you higher conversion rates.
Sliders will also cause too many H1 tags to your site. You may think that they are great for your site, but web crawlers despise them. The reason for this is that they confuse the hierarchy of information on your website. Because web crawlers hate them, they can significantly affect your page ranking. Thus, make sure to avoid them as much as possible.
Instead of using sliders, opt to have a static image with a forceful headline.
6. Consider the F Pattern
In various studies, researchers found that most users browse the web to read a post in an F pattern. That is, they look from left to right at the top of the screen. After that, they scan the page down and make some readings into the content. Rarely do they reach the bottom right of a page.
How can you use the F pattern in boosting your conversions? Place those critical calls to action and objects along the F-shape lines. Then, insert those objects of less importance in areas with low visibility.
Since the left-hand side of the page is where your visitors will look first, consider placing the primary call to action in this area. Then, place headlines down the left-hand side of the page. Now, for your sponsored ads, you may put them in the sidebar on the right part of your page. Anything that does not need to be visible but essential for web crawlers should be placed in the low right-hand part of the page.
7. Choose the Right Colors
Since colors can evoke emotions, you must choose the color combination that conveys your brand’s personality and compels people to take action. Remember that people will make their purchase decision from an emotional place. That said, the color combination you choose for your website will play a significant role in optimizing conversion rates.
One suggestion is to curate a Pinterest board with some photos that reflect the vision of your brand. Use Adobe’s Color Wheel to create a color scheme based on the colors in those photos. But you can tweet the individual colors by moving the selections around.
After creating a color scheme, make sure to use contrast as it can also make or break your conversions. Contrast can be used to make headlines, text, and call to action buttons more readable and noticeable. The front and button colors must be in contrast with the background and the other elements that you wish to highlight, like subscribe buttons. They must be in a tone that truly stands out from the rest of the page.
In a test by Hubspot, it found that red buttons are better than green buttons. Then again, before you consider red buttons, make sure that red is not the dominant color on your page. Else, it will not create more contrast.
As mentioned earlier, you may use the color wheel to pick a complementary color, which is a color that is a complete opposite of your dominant color.
However, before you choose the right color combination, you must understand that people look at colors differently. The colors always depend on how they match your brand. That’s why you need to pick a color that matches your brand’s personality as it affects the purchase decisions of your visitors.
For example, if your brand is rugged or masculine, you must not opt for a pink call-to-action button. Instead, opt for a big orange button.
How colors impact conversions will depend on the context. For example, since blue is a commonly used color in web designs for hyperlinks, then people always associate them with hyperlinks. Thus, they know that if the text is in blue, they can click on it.
It is also true for CTA buttons. You don’t need to choose blue. However, bear in mind that whatever color you pick for a button, it will be associated with an action. Use that color consistently for all CTAs on your site. But avoid using the same colors for items that are not clickable. Also, don’t use different CTA colors on the same page.
8. Keep it Simple
The “obvious always wins” in web design. That’s why flat, minimalist design improves conversion rates. The reason for this is that it focuses on the most vital elements. A clean design emerges over other dramatic visual effects. By focusing on the fundamental elements and getting rid of those embellishments, this approach can be helpful in creating an organized layout that can surely optimize conversion rates.
Furthermore, a minimalistic design allows having more space on your website for relevant CTAs, thereby, preventing the page from having non-essential elements.
Even though the minimalistic design is great, you should not overdo it as people will lose interest. For instance, in CTA buttons, people are used to seeing buttons with depth or dimension. These characteristics are indicators of interaction.
If you have a flat button, however, your visitors can easily overlook it when they scan through your page. For that reason, make sure that you use a contrasting button color. And choose a location that makes buttons visible.
Thus, every time you create a page, you must ask yourself if there’s a way to have a simpler version. By keeping it simple, you can expect better conversions and more aesthetically pleasing design.
A simple design caters to people who can handle less information at one time. If your visitors see a lot of stuff on one page, they get overwhelmed and leave. When you provide your user a great experience on your website, make sure to get rid of those elements that are non-essentials.
9. Follow the Gestalt Similarity Principle
It is a design principle that tackles the law of similarity. In here, the law states that the human brain likes to group same objects together. This mechanism allows humans to make sense of things and help them organize noisy environments.
When you follow this principle, you need to group similar items or elements that can be associated with one another. These would include conversion buttons, images, and testimonial boxes.
For instance, you can have an amazing testimonial to your opt-in form to boost conversions. Although testimonials are not designed for lead magnet, the visitors can associate them as they are still in proximity.
10. Add Faces
When humans see another human’s face, they are triggered to empathize with that person. That’s why when you convey a problem, your visitors may understand or feel a connection with it. For that reason, experts recommend incorporating human faces in the articles, opt-in pages, and case studies, among others.
If you have an endorser of your brand or if you are the face of your brand, you need to get a photoshoot done. Ask the photographer to take horizontal shots with a lot of negative space on one side, where you can place a CTA or text.
For a real estate website, one of the secrets of real estate photo is to add a human face and not just the image of a house or a part of the property. You may hire models or just use stock photos. However, make sure that the face you pick represents your brand accurately. By using faces that reflect your target demographic, it can help in increasing your site’s conversion rate significantly.
6 Best Google Analytics Plugins For WordPress In 2018
InsightsToday, we’re going to show you a list of top best WordPress Google Analytics Plugins for visitor statistics. Authored by Harsh Agrawal (shoutmeloud.com). ShoutMeLoud is an award winning blog that talks about living a boss free life with blogging. They cover about WordPress, SEO, Make money blogging, Affiliate marketing. Featured image courtesy of Bloomicon via Bigstockphoto.
If you want to make your blog better, learning more about your audience is imperative. You can figure out what content they like the most, where your traffic is coming from, and whether your blog is growing in the right direction.
But to get all that data, you need an analytics tool like Google Analytics. And more than just Google Analytics on your site, you also need a way to easily find the specific data and reports that actually provide useful information.
To help you do that, I’m going to share some of the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress. Most of these plugins will help you not only add the Google Analytics tracking code to WordPress, but also view important analytics reports right on your WordPress dashboard.
When you’re able to easily access actionable analytics data without leaving WordPress, you’ll be more likely to use it. And that’s a good thing!
You Don’t Necessarily Need A Google Analytics WordPress Plugin
Before I start, I want to point out that you don’t need any of these plugins to use Google Analytics on your site. These plugins just:
First, you can always just paste the Google Analytics tracking code into your child theme’s header.php file or a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers.
Or, another way is to use Google Tag Manager to add the Google Analytics tracking code. The advantage of using Google Tag Manager is that you can also use it to manage all of the other scripts that you add to your site.
If you do decide on using a plugin – either to make the process simpler or get access to more advanced features and in-dashboard reports – here are some of the best.
1. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is one of the most popular Google Analytics plugins listed on the WordPress.org plugin directory.
It is popular because, in addition to helping you add the Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress site, it also lets you view traffic reports inside your WordPress dashboard, as well as helping you take advantage of some deeper Google Analytics functionality.
But I’ll start from the beginning:
MonsterInsights gives you two easy ways to add the Google Analytics tracking code to your site:
Using the first method is typically your best bet because that’s what lets MonsterInsights display actual traffic reports inside your WordPress dashboard:
MonsterInsights also offers other functionality that lets you:
The free version is plenty for most bloggers. But if you want custom dimensions, eCommerce tracking, or some other features, the Pro version starts at $39.
2. GA Google Analytics
GA Google Analytics is a lot more lightweight than MonsterInsights. Rather than giving you in-dashboard reports and other advanced features, GA Google Analytics is just focused on making it really easy to add the Google Analytics tracking code to your WordPress site.
First, it gives you a simple box where all you need to do is paste in your Google Analytics Property ID to enable tracking.
But then, you can also enable additional core Google Analytics features like:
One great feature here is the option to exclude Admin users from being tracked. This helps make sure that you don’t mess up the accuracy of your data by including your own actions.
Use this one if you don’t care about in-dashboard reports and just want a lightweight solution to add the actual tracking code.
Check out GA Google Analytics plugin
3. Analytics Counter
Like MonsterInsights, Analytics Counter lets you add the Google Analytics tracking code to WordPress either:
Once you add your Google Analytics account, you can start using the new Analytics Counterinterface to view overall Google Analytics data for your site:
The plugin is very easy to use. The only thing to consider is that you can only view overall statistics for your site – you can’t drill-down into specific posts or pages.
Check out Analytics counter plugin
4. Analytify
Analytify is a freemium plugin that helps you add the Google Analytics tracking code and makes all of your analytics data accessible in WordPress at a level that goes beyond the capabilities of many of the other plugins.
One nice thing about the plugin is that it gives you a quick look at the most important metrics for your site, as well as how those metrics compare to past periods:
The plugin doesn’t just give you an overall dashboard for your stats. You can also see stats for specific posts/pages when you go to the Posts or Pages menus in your WordPress dashboard.
And you can also see more detailed information about a post or page in the Edit screen:
Other helpful features include:
Analytify is a good option if you want your Google Analytics data to be accessible pretty much anywhere on your WordPress dashboard. For more information, check out my Analytify review.
Get Analytify plugin
5. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP)
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP, popularly known by the abbreviation GADWP, is right up there with MonsterInsights for the title of “most popular Google Analytics plugin at WordPress.org”.
It has well over a million active installs. And the surprising thing about this plugin is that it’s 100% free – none of the features are locked behind a paid version.
Like many other plugins, Google Analytics Dashboard for WP makes it easy to add the Google Analytics tracking code to WordPress. It also:
Beyond this helpful report, Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP) also includes features that let you:
The Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP) interface isn’t as beautiful or user-friendly as MonsterInsights, but the plugin is 100% free, whereas MonsterInsights locks some of the more advanced features behind the Pro version.
Download Google Analytics Dashboard for WP
6. Google Analytics WD
Google Analytics WD is a freemium plugin that functions on a principle similar to MonsterInsights and Google Analytics Dashboard for WP.
In the free plugin, it can help you:
For example, here’s what one of the in-dashboard Audience reports looks like:
If you upgrade to the premium version, starting at $30, you’ll also get access to:
Feature-wise, there’s not a ton to differentiate it from MonsterInsights or Google Analytics Dashboard for WP – so I think your choice should mainly come down to how well you like the interface.
Download Google Analytics WD
Which Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress Should You Choose?
If you just want the simplest way to add Google Analytics to WordPress and don’t really care about in-dashboard reports or advanced features, I recommend that you use Google Tag Manager or the simple GA Google Analytics plugin.
If you want those features, I recommend MonsterInsights for most bloggers because it’s the easiest plugin to use and has the best interface. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is also a good option because it offers most features for free – it’s just not as beginner-friendly.
And finally, if you want to view stats for individual pieces of content, Analytify offers the most detailed in-dashboard reporting with respect to that.
Most Popular Websites To Buy Best WordPress Themes in 2018
InsightsFind your perfect WordPress-theme provider! Authored by Harsh Agrawal (shoutmeloud.com). ShoutMeLoud is an award winning blog that talks about living a boss free life with blogging. They cover about WordPress, SEO, Make money blogging, Affiliate marketing. Image courtesy of ijeab via Bigstockphoto.
I’m listing only those WordPress theme companies, which are very popular and constantly updated. You can pick any theme from the following theme club. Also, many of them offer child themes which will help you to give a custom design to your site.
Before we move ahead with the list of top WP premium theme clubs, there are a couple of things which you should know:
There are many themes which you will get online for free, and it will be tagged as “Free WordPress Premium Theme”. A premium theme with so many qualities is difficult to get for free. Of course; you can get free premium “like” themes with less quality but why to compromise with your blog and theme quality?
Before you buy any theme, I suggest you look for a couple of essential features such as:
This is something which we expect in every time, and almost all the major theme club offers such option as inbuilt, or their support forum is full of such WordPress theme tweaking tips and tutorials.
Top list based on performance in 2018:
My Favorite list of Premium WordPress theme companies:
I will start the list with the theme club I have used and have experience with their support and the most important theme itself regarding design and usability.
Genesis Theme:
I’m a huge fan of Genesis theme because it offers all the latest feature you can expect in a premium WordPress theme. Moreover, it works great with popular SEO plugin “Yoast SEO”.
What I like the most about Genesis is, no coding knowledge is required to use this theme. All you need to do is, get the Genesis theme framework, select the skin you want to use, and simply configure your new theme. This is as easy as it sounds, and your blog will have a stylish theme. If you are looking for a single recommendation, I would suggest you browse themes at Genesis and pick one which suits your taste.
ThriveThemes:
ThriveThemes is going places in 2018 with their great suite of WordPress themes & page builder plugin. Personally, I admire their voice WordPress theme which is idle for anyone who wants to create a blog for personal branding.
Thrive themes are created for speed & conversion. Needless to mention the SEO feature of it, as all the theme clubs that I have listed on this page are SEO friendly. With Thrive themes, you can lower down your plugin usage as all themes have inbuilt features such as related posts, social sharing buttons.
Overall, from the feature & pricing point of view, ThriveThemes is an ideal option.
Elegant Themes:
If you are planning to set up multiple blogs with different design and at an affordable price, Elegant theme club should be your choice. They are one of the cheapest Premium WordPress theme company, which offers 87 unique premium WordPress theme design for $69/year. Elegant themes offer access to all their Premium WP Themes for $69.
This is like one-time investment, and you can use different themes on your WP Site. Apart from existing themes, you will also be getting free access to all new and updated themes.
Theme Junkie:
Theme Junkie is another budget WordPress premium theme club. They offer some of the most famous and downloaded WordPress themes like Freshlife (Mashable look alike theme), Resizable (Responsive WordPress theme). What I like about ThemeJunkie is, they are easy to set up and for tech bloggers.
Theme-Junkie themes are the life saver, as it will quickly let you monetize your blog, with predefined ad space.
Theme Forest:
If you are someone, who is hunting for an entirely unique and latest WordPress theme, my recommendation is to try ThemeForest. Unlike other theme clubs, ThemeForest is a place for freelancers and WordPress designers to sell their theme using TJ marketplace. They have their set of quality guidelines and all themes on ThemeForest are unique and up to date. If you are shopping for a designer theme, you should check our ThemeForest themes once.