The modern logo has to work harder than ever before. In the past, a company logo was perhaps intended simply for a shop sign and printed in local newspaper adverts. Today’s logos have to work with a growing plethora of smart devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions, displaying responsive websites.

Often logos end up suffering within responsive website design. Many have not been designed with responsive frameworks and variable sizes in mind, and are just resized to fit whatever available space has been provided for them or not.

However, there are brands that do well within the responsive web space. These are brands and logos that have been designed carefully, with consideration as to how they will display within changing formats. The very best logos are simple and flexible, with varying formats and layout options so that when a site is optimized for a device, the brand is also optimized to the space allocated for it.

Let's see why simple, flexible and versatile logo design has become so important in today's landscape. Industry-leading, born-in-the-cloud brands such as Twitter, Facebook, Spotify and Google are refining and simplifying their brands owing to responsive web design and the growing impact of the mobile device market. We can consider their solutions when thinking about our own brands, and how to optimize our logos to thrive within responsive web design.

A Simple Fact

The human brain remembers simple forms far more easily than complex ones. One of the most common factors that separates a good logo from a bad logo is the element of simplicity. Quality, memorable, successful brands are always simple. 

This concept is nothing new and was known long before responsive web design started pushing the envelope of simplicity. The simplicity of this design allows these logos to work well at any size on practically anything. Perfect for responsive web design, despite being made decades prior to the availability of such technology.

However, the original branding mistakes of iconic logos like Apple is a common recurring issue for most businesses. Small startup companies typically have a limited budget. To avoid costs they mistakenly turn to the wrong person for a logo, someone who is not a professional logo designer. Someone who feels compelled to add things to create something.

An example of simple and complex logos

Consider the Great Lakes Golf logo above on the left. Somebody spent a lot of time adding things to that design. The result is quite busy and it’s not going to scale down well at all; whereas the Skype logo on the right is simple, clean and memorable. It will work on anything and is scalable to small areas on mobile devices.

The logos as viewed on mobile devices

At full width you can identify the ball sport elements on the Great Lakes Golf logo. But scale down 50% and it’s barely readable. On the right, the Skype logo scales down beautifully. And if space gets too small, the Skype brand is flexible enough to drop the wordmark altogether.

This simple comparison shows how simple, clean and versatile design wins over more complex arrangements. The Great Lakes Golf logo probably suited its original intention just fine. However, in the context of a responsive website, the inability to scale cleanly becomes very apparent.

The Tech Industry Response

FACEBOOK

Web-savvy brands are simplifying their logos to suit responsive mobile web design. Facebook removed the faint blue line from the bottom of its icon’s ‘f’ in 2013. And in July 2015 it simplified its wordmark by removing the ascender on the lowercase ‘a’, swapping it out for a simpler, more rounded version.

Overall, the other letters have also been slimmed and refined. The changes might seem insignificant but the reasoning is not. Facebook is changing its brand as a direct response to viewing on mobile devices.

“This is actually a huge change and it’s much more than the ‘a’. It’s driven by mobile.”

– Howard Belk, co-chief executive and chief creative officer of branding firm Siegel+Gale.

GOOGLE

Another case in point is Google - Google recently unveiled its latest logo update, their simplest yet. The Google logo has been evolving to new levels of simplicity since it first graced our browsers in the 90s.

In recent years it would have quickly become apparent that their thin, serif type was not going to scale nicely within responsive web design. So, like other tech brands, they’ve simplified to a sans serif typeface with a flat design and a friendly and distinctive ‘G’ icon.

Google's recent logo changes for the responsive world

"Once upon a time, Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices...

Today we’re introducing a new logo and identity family that reflects this reality and shows you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens."

– Posted on the official Google Blog by Tamar Yehoshua, VP, Product Management.

The Trend - No Words

When Prince changed his name to a symbol in 1993 most of us thought he was nuts. But perhaps he was just ahead of his time. An increasing number of companies are refining the simplicity of their logo, moving towards a flat, simple symbol design with no wordmark at all.

Logos for Twitter, Nike, Apple, Starbucks and Pinterest.

Of course, these are all well-known brands that can get away with reducing their logos to only a simple icon. Not everyone can or should do this. However, this is another example of the effect responsive web design is having on brands. Certainly, using an icon graphic as part of an identity increases the flexibility of the brand for use on mobile devices.

Moving Forward

Does this mean all logos are going to end up as simple flat icons or flat sans serif typefaces? I don’t think so. However, there is little denying the influence responsive web design is having on branding and it will be interesting to see how far this goes.

The historically sacred view that a company’s logo is a rigid form that must never change is giving way to a new kind of branding freedom, where logos respond and vary. From horizontal formats to vertically stacked, from wordmarks to simple icons, even changing colours to suit dark and light screen backgrounds.

One might argue that looking at the branding direction of the tech industry isn’t relevant to, say, a law firm or a restaurant. However, all industries are going to eventually end up within responsive web design one way or another and become affected by the rise of mobile devices. Some companies may wonder why this doesn’t seem to work as well for their brand as it does for Twitter or Pinterest.

Those who understand the design principle of simplicity and embrace this flexible approach to their branding will respond best within this new medium. At the very least, how a brand appears when scaled down on a mobile device will become a staple test for any logo designer or branding project.

Logo designers ought to help educate clients to embrace this new flexible approach, where logos can be optimized within responsive web design while maintaining brand consistency. Otherwise we will witness more web builders taking it on themselves to alter a problematic logo on the fly to suit their individual project. Not an ideal solution for anyone.

In March 2014, the Baymard Institute, a web research company based in the UK, reported that 67.91% of online shopping carts are abandoned. An abandonment means that a customer has visited a website, browsed around, added one or more products to their cart and then left without completing their purchase. A month later in April 2014, Econsultancy stated that global retailers are losing $3 trillion (USD) in sales every year from abandoned carts.



Clearly, reducing the number of abandoned carts would lead to higher store revenue — the goal of every online retailer. The question then becomes how can we, as designers and developers, help convert these “warm leads” into paying customers for our clients?

Before Cart Abandonment

Let’s begin by looking at recognized improvements we can make to an online store to reduce the number of “before cart” abandonments. These improvements focus on changes that aid the customer’s experience prior to reaching the cart and checkout process, and they include the following:

• Show images of products.
  This reinforces what the customer is buying, especially on the cart page.
• Display security logos and compliance information.
  This can allay fears related to credit-card and payment security.
• Display contact details.
  Showing offline contact details (including a phone number and mailing address) in addition to an email address adds credibility to the website.
• Make editing the cart easier.
  Make it as simple as possible for customers to change their order prior to checking out.
• Offer alternative payment methods.
  Let people check out with their preferred method of payment (such as PayPal and American Express, in addition to Visa and MasterCard).
• Offer support.
  Providing a telephone number and/or online chat functionality on the website and, in particular, on the checkout page will give shoppers confidence and ease any concerns they might have.
• Don’t require registration.
  This one resonates with me personally. I often click away from websites that require lengthy registration forms to be filled out. By allowing customers to “just” check out, friction is reduced.
• Offer free shipping.
  While merchants might include shipping costs in the price, “free shipping” is nevertheless an added enticement to buy.
• Be transparent about shipping costs and time.
  Larger than expected shipping costs and unpublished lead times will add unexpected costs and frustration.
• Show testimonials.
  Showcasing reviews from happy customers will alleviate concerns any people might have about your service.
• Offer price guarantees and refunds.
  Offering a price guarantee gives shoppers the confidence that they have found the best deal. Additionally, a clear refund policy will add peace of mind.
• Optimize for mobile.
  Econsultancy reports that sales from mobile devices increased by 63% in 2013. This represents a real business case to move to a “responsive” approach.
• Display product information.
  Customers shouldn’t have to dig around a website to get the information they need. Complex navigation and/or a lack of product information make for a frustrating experience.

Unfortunately, even if you follow all of these recommendations, the reality is that customers will still abandon their carts — whether through frustration, bad design or any other reason they see fit.

After Cart Abandonment

The second approach is to look at things we can do once a cart has been abandoned. One tactic is to email the customer with a personalized message and a link to a pre-populated cart containing the items they had selected. This is known as an “abandoned cart email.”

The concept is pretty simple. At the right time, a customizable email is sent, complete with a personalized message and a link to the customer’s abandoned cart. Of course, this approach assumes that the customer has submitted their email address — effectively, they’ve done everything but paid. Abandoned cart emails represent one last attempt by the merchant to convince the buyer to check out.

In September 2013, Econsultancy outlined how an online cookie retailer recaptured 29% of its abandoned shopping carts via email. This is a huge figure and one we might naturally be skeptical of.

To get a more realistic perspective, I asked my colleagues at Shopify to share some of their data on this, and they kindly agreed. Shopify introduced “abandoned cart recovery” (ACR) in mid-September 2013 (just over a year ago at the time of writing). Here’s a summary of its effectiveness:

• In the 12 months since launching automatic ACR, $12.9 million have been recovered through ACR emails in Shopify.
• 4,085,592 emails were sent during this period, of which 147,021 carts were completed as a result. This represents a 3.6% recovery rate.
• Shop owners may choose to send an email 6 or 24 hours after abandonment. Between the two, 6-hour emails convert much better: a 4.1% recovery rate for 6 hours versus 3% for 24 hours.

It’s worth noting that the 3.6% recovery rate is from Shopify’s ACR emails. Many merchants use third-party apps instead of Shopify’s native feature. Given that Shopify is unable to collect data on these services, the number of emails sent and the percentage of recovered carts may well be higher.

Given the statistics, abandoned cart emails are clearly an important part of an online retailer’s marketing strategy. Luckily, most leading e-commerce platforms enable merchants to send custom emails, either in plain text or HTML. Knowing how to implement these notifications is a useful skill if you are designing for e-commerce, and they represent added value to your services.

Conclusion

While there are many tactics to persuade customers to buy, inevitably some people will get to the payment screen and decide not to continue. Any tactic that helps to seal the deal is certainly worth considering, and given the small amount of work involved in implementing an email to recover abandoned carts, it’s a great place to start. Designers and developers are in a powerful position to help their clients increase their revenue, and being armed with tactics such as the ones outlined in this article will hopefully enable them to offer a wider range of services.

In the last several years, we’ve seen a rapid shift in software and app interface design, from 3-D and skeuomorphic to flat and minimal. Although this trend has become nearly ubiquitous, let’s take a moment to consider how we got here and what influence it’s having on interface design as a whole.

What Happened?

So, how did the collective consciousness swing from a love of all things textured, beveled and drop-shadowed to a desire for flat colors and simple typography? Many factors have fuelled this transition, but here are a few that stand out.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

As a constantly connected culture, we deal with a nonstop flow of information, some of it important and relevant, most of it not. We are constantly evaluating, filtering and, of course, creating content, and it all gets pretty exhausting. In addition, much of our content consumption has moved to devices with small screens, thus exacerbating that feeling of overload. Becoming overwhelmed is all too easy, and a reduction of clutter in a user interface (UI) can create a little visual zen.

Free of clutter: Geckoboard‘s visualisations are designed to make key data easy to interpret at a glance.

SIMPLICITY IS GOLDEN

In a similar trend, a lot of disruptive Web apps and services are offering highly focused tools with extremely limited feature sets. Whereas traditional software developers tend to load their products with a glut of features to justify the high price tags, this shift towards focused micro-apps favors simplicity over feature set. Simpler apps mean simpler interfaces.

Beautiful and minimal: The Blue weather app by Oak.

CONTENT IS KING, AGAIN

As so often happens when new devices and technologies enter the market, we become fascinated by what they can do and how we can advance interactivity. This interface frenzy is usually followed by a return to a focus on content. Media consumption, whether of text, audio or video, is probably the activity we engage in most on our devices, and for that use case, we just want the interface to get out of the way.

TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY

As smartphone and tablet adoption has rapidly penetrated all user demographics, concern about the obviousness of controls has reduced. Whereas we once feared that users might miss a button if it didn’t pop off the screen, we are now willing to explore subtler interactions. Windows 8 and Chrome for Android even support touch commands that start off screen, without any visual indicator.

Fitbit’s dashboard is a bright, bold, and easy approachable visual identity.

TECHNOLOGY’S INFLUENCE

Most software will be limited by the platform on which it runs. Screen dimensions and pixel density are the confining factors of hardware. A minimal interface demands a very limited design palette, which means that every element needs to sing. Typographic scale and font weight will largely determine both the aesthetics and usability of a flat design.

If your target devices can’t handle that level of nuance, you’re out of luck. As screen size and pixel density continue to increase on mobile devices, thinner and smaller type can be presented with better clarity. Of course, support for @font-face has also boosted the appeal of minimal typographic-focused designs.

Live sales monitoring with Wallmob: keeping track of the figures from any device that has a browser.

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

With the proliferation of connected devices of various dimensions, UIs have had to become more fluid, and the responsive design movement has responded. While responsive design does not call for a particular aesthetic, one could certainly argue that flat UIs lend themselves to it more easily than many other styles. The other advantage of minimal design is the reduction in page weight and loading time.

To the point and weightless: OnSite.

Best Practices

OK, enough with the theory. Let’s get down to some practical considerations. Creating an effective minimal design is surprisingly challenging. As you strip away common UI tricks (drop shadows, bevels, textures and the like), you quickly realize how important the few remaining elements become. While the following tips are mostly universally applicable, they are especially relevant to flat UIs.

As with any project, the first step is to ensure that your chosen style makes sense. Before diving into a flat design, make sure it aligns with your target users’ sensibilities and your target platform, devices and application type. Following a trend is pointless if it’s the wrong solution for your project.

Here are some ideas to keep in mind when aiming for simplicity:

• The Process you follow is pretty important, no matter what style you are adopting. 
• The Grid plays a crucial role in so much of interface design, and no exception here. 
• The Colors are obviously always a key component of visual design and with minimal interfaces, it is even more critical.
• The Typography is the hero when it comes to flat content-driven websites, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
• Intuitive Interaction in a flat UI is crucial and indicating that an element is interactive can be tricky. 

Wrapping Up

I don’t believe in hard and fast rules in design. Seeing designers so heavily invested in creating extremely clean and simple user interfaces is pretty awesome. Does exploring flat design mean using absolutely no gradients or shadows? Of course not. In fact, some of the most intriguing work I’ve seen recently balances flatness and dimension by presenting content intelligently while keeping the interaction intuitive.

In this highly connected, information-rich and feature-packed digital world we live in, minimal design’s widespread resurgence is refreshing to witness. It is by no means the right solution for everything (no style is), but when applied thoughtfully and appropriately, it makes for a highly usable and enjoyable digital experience.

The secret to successfully building a good website is similar to how the Wright brothers invented the first airplane.

Before the Wright brothers came along the common belief was that the way that you’d be able to get an airplane to fly was to create a large enough and strong enough engine that would be able to propel the plane to fly. And so most adventures focused most of the energy on building more powerful and stronger engines for the plane to get the plate actually take off. But with the Wright brothers did instead was they tried to come up with an airplane design that was as late as possible that was a sensually as close to a glider as they could make it so that all they would need was a very small and light engine and because the glider design was so efficient I would only require a small engine to propellant and posit to fly which as it turns out was the correct way to go about it and that was the reason that they were the first people to effect the airplane.

In many ways that’s the same story as to how many people try to generate traffic to their website.

One of the problems I see quite often is companies and businesses that spend money on Google Adwords, Facebook advertising, Yelp, SEO and other traffic generating mechanisms. They spent all of this money and time and effort getting traffic to their website and then they get upset or confused when they don’t generate that much business from their efforts.

What they might not realize is that the relationship between traffic and the design of the website is very similar to how the wright brothers invented the first airplane.

While many people focus on how do to get people to come to their site, they fail to realize is that the most important thing is having a website that converts. In this analogy your website is the airplane design and the engine is the traffic to your site.

If you do not have a well-designed, well-developed, clearly thought out website then all of that traffic is the same as having a really giant engine strapped to a skateboard.

So the first to successfully generating traffic to your business is creating a website that is well-designed, has a strong call to action that is proven to successfully convert traffic into leads and leads into customers.

Then once you’ve worked out the conversions on your site you can go ahead and pay for Google Adwords, Facebooks Ads, etc…

So the question to ask is, does your current website have liftoff? And if not, why not? It’s the single best thing you can do for your business’ success.

What is Website Design RFP?

A web design RFP is a request for proposal where you send a document to several website design firms for the purpose of them all competing and bidding for the chance to work with you. An RFP can range from being just a few pages to as many as 20 to even 100 pages, which depends on the scope and complexity of the project.

Who needs a Website Design RFP?

Not everybody needs to put together a website design RFP. Here is who a web design RFP is right for. If your project is in the $10,000 or above range and or you are looking to work with a large agency, then your best bet might be to use an RFP. RFPs are a more formal instrument and because of this they are more suited for corporate or government type websites.

Who doesn’t need a Website Design RFP?

If on the other hand you have a budget under $10,000, or your company culture is more relaxed and easy-going, you may not actually need an RFP to choose the right design firm to work with. For most small to medium-size businesses, simply filling out the contact form on the website design company’s page and initiating a telephone call is all you need to do to get the ball rolling. During this phone call, the design firm can typically get a sense of your needs and then send you a proposal based on the needs and goals determined in your phone call.

What experience are you going for?

When it comes to submitting an RFP, the question you want to ask yourself is what is the experience I want to go for? Designing a new website is ultimately a creative process that involves discovery, intuition and outside the box thinking. Some RFPs can be so daunting and intimidating that they are more likely to be completed by more business oriented design firms rather than truly creative companies who might be put-off by the laborious effort of filling out a 10 page RFP.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that most people do not need to put together a formal RFP when initially contacting a web design firm. A one-page e-mail detailing your specific needs for the project is often the perfect amount of content to get the ball rolling. Also, one last thought: the best indicator for the quality of work that a firm does is in their portfolio. Beware of a great proposal from the firm that has a mediocre portfolio. At the end of the day, you’re looking to get any website and if the websites delivered previously by this firm aren’t great, the chances are that yours won’t be either

Major Topics to cover in your RFP

“I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.”

- Rudyard Kipling

With all of that being said, if you decide to move forward with your RFP below is a list of topics you might want to cover. Again, don’t go overboard, but be specific with exactly what it is you’re looking for in a new site, and exactly who you’re looking for in a firm.

• Who
• Who are you?
• What does your company do?
• Where are you located?
• How many people work at your company?
• Who are you looking for?
• A large agency?
• A local design firm?
• A single man shop?
• In the RFP, you may ask the firm to describe themselves and include the following:
• Company history
• Number of employees
• Employee bios
• List of references you can contact
• What
• What kind of site are you looking for?
• What is your budget for the project? (larger design firms typically don’t take you seriously if you don’t have a budget in place)
• What type of design?
• Show examples of other sites with the design you have in mind
• What functional requirements do you have?
• CMS – Do you need a Content Management System?
• Will the site require a backend database?
• Will the site require payment processing?
• Are there other features you need? Reference other websites to describe the function you have in mind
• What features do you want to include?
• Responsive Design
• Search Engine Optimization
• Home Slideshow
• Contact Form
• FAQs
• Email Signup
• Gallery
• Video Integration
• Custom Map Integration
• Blog
• Social Media Integration
• Payment Processing
• When
• When will you need to receive questions from designer by?
• When will you need the proposal submitted?
• When will the project commence?
• When is your anticipated launch date?
• How
• How many pages will the site be? (very important for the designer to be able to clearly define the scope of the project)
• How many page templates will the site have? (a page template is a group of pages with the same design and layout, but with different content)
• How many people from your organization will be involved?
• How many rounds of revision will you need for the project?
• Why
• Why are you having the site designed or redesigned now?

Logistics

If you’re wondering what format you should use for the RFP, a simple Microsoft Word doc will suffice. Some people use Google Docs or a PDF, which are both fine too.

Conclusion

So there you have it, everything you need to put together a web design RFP. I’ve attached some sample RFPs that you might find helpful, just click just click the link below to view.

A lot of businesses provide very similar products and services. How do you identify one provider from another? The answer is branding. Branding of products and services is what differentiates a business or even its website from those of its competitors. This may sound elementary but often companies neglect to understand the importance of branding and identity. A brand is the representation of products or services, their characteristics including customer experiences and the values associated with them. When people use a product or service, they remember their experiences whether it be good or bad and these experiences are what get associated with that product or service. This association is what is helped by way of branding.

For this product or service representation as branding to work, it is imperative that websites feature how companies see themselves, what their end customers think about their company, and how companies want future clients to perceive them.

Branding is not Just About Having a Good Looking Logo

A company logo or a product logo is just the tip of the iceberg in branding and identity. Other facets of a well-designed brand experience and brand website include quality imagery, relevant and up to date content, ease of use, consistent colors, relatable emotion and character, consistency, and a memorable user experience.

Quality Imagery – The majority of website visitors are extremely visually focused and nothing can catch their attention better than a well-placed and relevant image of the product or service offered by a website. Quality, relevant and fresh imagery is what helps people associate emotions with brands.

Relevant and Up-to-date Content – Website viewers initially look to find out what a website is all about and if it can answer any of their wants or needs. By providing clear, relevant, and updated content, the proverbial phrase: “beating around the bush” can be avoided.

Ease of Use – It is very irritating to get lost inside a website and not know where to go or what to do next. Clear, familiar, and intuitive navigation makes it easier to promote a product or service or to hopefully close a sale.

Consistent Colors – Color is not just aesthetics, it also serves to trigger subconscious associations and emotions. Blue for example symbolizes trust; green for health, nature or environment; and red for energy and enthusiasm among others.

Relatable Emotion and Character – A website’s character and personality have to be in line with what the company stands for. If a company is all about trust and security then site viewers must be able to relate to this when going through the company’s website.

Consistency –  Setting a consistent look and feel throughout a website and its pages in terms of typography, colors, visuals, and layout not only helps to make a brand memorable but also makes web pages load faster

Memorable User Experience – Website viewers now use a bevy of platforms and devices to browse websites. Mobile compatible websites leave a positive impression on site visitors.

Conclusion 

Branding in web design is so much more than a company’s logo and tag line on a website. Branding is a well thought out strategy to help people associate a product or service with a value – to increase brand equity through a well-designed website. Brand equity adds value to a company’s product or service and thereby allows them to charge more compared to competitors; gain higher market shares; get higher positions on browser search results; or become a leader in their specific niches.

Content is king.
It’s the king of SEO, and it’s the king of every great website, blog, infographic, Twitter account, and Facebook page out there. Excellent content drives traffic to your site. It’s as simple as that. No image, blog post, video, or anything else that has ever gone viral has contained content that is anything less than excellent – be it excellently funny, excellently informative, excellently shocking, excellently entertaining, or excellently silly, they have all had one thing in common: excellence.

So, what makes excellent content?
Well, it depends on the medium, but in this post I am going to be focussing on written content and blog posts in particular. I like to think that I know a thing or two about how to craft together some excellent content for my worldwide audience. I didn’t learn the best practices of the craft overnight, but through years and years of hard work and writing literally hundreds and hundreds of blogs on all manner of subjects.

And so now you can take advantage of my experience as I detail for you some of the very best tips for crafting excellent content that I have picked up along the way, which will hopefully help to make your journey towards excellence a lot shorter than mine was – if only someone had been so kind when I started out.

1. Make It Positive

Positive content is infinitely more shareable than negative content. This may actually seem counter-intuitive – if you read the news, then you may think that negativity was a necessity. But marketing content doesn't work like that. People like to read and to share positive posts from businesses’ websites. Indeed, finding the perfect tone for your content is essential for it to be enjoyed by your following, and for them to feel that other people in their networks might enjoy it too.

So, what is the right tone for your blog?
Well, it’s all about finding the right balance between formality and informality. You, of course, want your content to be useful and informative for your readers, but ideally it should also be entertaining to a certain degree as well. In a sense, the perfect tone for your blog will probably reflect the tone and the style of your favourite teachers at school. Do you remember them? They somehow made what might otherwise have been some very dry information come alive, didn’t they. You may well even remember some of the things that they taught you even now. They did this by inserting a sense of fun and enjoyment into their content, and that’s exactly what you should be doing, too, no matter how serious or informative your post may be. Which brings me onto my next point.

2. Make It Practical

Aside from being positive, excellent content is almost invariably practical for the user to some degree. This of course makes sense when you think about it, and perhaps goes some way to distinguishing why the news we read seem to make its success out of being negative, whilst blogging is all about positivity. The news are simply there to spread the word of current events and affairs, whereas a blog post should have real, useable value for the reader.

Quite often you will find that posts will take the form of this one, where some practical and actionable tips are being offered for those that discover them. Indeed, this clean and clear simple style can be a great place for you to start out when getting to grips with crafting some excellent content for your blog. Think about your audience in relation to your product or service – what sort of thing do you think that they all have in common? Can you come up with a list of some great tips that might be useful to them all?

What’s so great about this is that your readers will have something of genuine worth that they can take away with them after they’ve finished reading your post. They can apply it in their work or lives, will see some great results in return, and will remember you and your blog for it.

3. Evoke Emotions

If you can hit on an emotion in the reader then you’re onto a serious winner, and the chances of your content going viral significantly increase. High arousal emotions are the best ones to target, and in fact sometimes the odd negative emotion can actually be of benefit here if used well. So, what are the high arousal emotions and how do you tailor your content to target them?

• Awe: If you can inspire awe in your readership, then they won’t be able to resist hitting that share button or leaving a comment or reply. Awe can be inspired by of a story, a real event, or even from an impressive list of tips or links.
• Surprise/Shock: Try and find something to write about that goes against people’s expectations in a manner that surprises or even shocks them, and they’ll just have to read on. Find new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking about things, challenge assumptions in your writing and prove those notions wrong – indeed this last point leads me onto to a negative emotion that inspires engagement…
• Anger: If you manage to mount a serious challenge against some common assumptions, then you’re almost certain to tick a few people off, and what you’ll find is that they’ll start tweeting about you, sharing your post on Facebook, leaving lots of comments and perhaps even a few blog posts will be written in reply. This of course is great for generating traffic to your website, but you must of course be careful with it. Don’t just be contrary for the sake of it. Remember, you must still be writing positively even if you are inspiring a negative emotion, and you of course must still be practical. So, inspiring anger works, and there’s nothing wrong with igniting a healthy debate about something, but don’t make yourself unpopular, and always check your facts before challenging established conventions.

Some Final Thoughts and Tips

Creating excellent content is a matter of practice and experience, but hopefully the tips I have provided for you above should save you some time when trying to find the right path that will work for you. Experiment a little, find what sort of posts arouse the most engagement from your following, take note, and recreate those sorts of posts again.

When it comes to formatting your posts, it also pays to follow a few conventions of style. Firstly, give your post a very ‘clickable’ title, something short that shows the reader instantly that what you’ve written has value for them. And then, once you’ve done that, do the same with your subheadings. You want to format your posts so that the content is easily scannable for readers, so lots of subheadings, lots of paragraph breaks, and a few bullet points are always good as well.

Finally, when you sign off on your post, make sure that the last thing that you do is ask for your readers to take some sort of action.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

A well optimized landing page is perhaps the first funnel point and one of the most important aspects that decides whether a user becomes a prospective client or a lost opportunity. Hence the headline, the line that catches the eyes first becomes the primary part of that landing page.
When a visitor lands on a landing page, the window for him to convert or sway to another website is very small. Hence, when you are planning a landing page, spend a good amount of time deciding the headline, because you also have a small window in which you have to grab the readers attention.

Keep it short, simple and sweet

Keep the landing page headline simple and to the point. This will take the readers’ attention off the bat in an instant and will deliver what the content has on offer. This again depends from business to business and campaign to campaign.
Your headlines can also be funny and inventive, but do so only if you have expert copywriters to do the job for you. In order to be funny, make sure you do not loose the essence of your content. There is a thin line that draws between being offensive and funny.

Give a Glimpse of what you are trying to offer

By looking at the headline, the visitor must get a glimpse of what exactly it is that you are trying to offer. An ideal headline should provide just enough information to the user, but not disclose all details. It should give away just a small glimpse of the benefits and should entice and urge the user to further read the contents of the landing page.
As an example, a landing page states…
What’s on offer - ‘Earn your degree online’. Any user who wants to enrol or get more details will have to fill up the form.
Solves a problem - A user will not have to run around colleges to enrol, attend classes and then attain a degree. All he will have to do is, fill the form and register to enrol…problem solved?

Add numbers to your headline

Yes, they do help. (Well this is also another reason why you are reading this blog, isn’t it?).
Providing numbers in a headline means that the reader will not be reading just a lump of information, but a specific list of insights into the said details. In some blogs, numbers also connote hierarchy of events and are easy to point out details that are otherwise difficult to mention in paragraphs.
That said, sometimes adding obscure number like 19 or 37 can really catch people’s attention. Numbers leave a mark on the readers mind which makes him think that this message is important. Marketing experts have analysed over the years that figure numbers (1,2,3,4) work a lot better than numbers that are spelled words (one, two. three, four).

Adding Questions is also a go getter

I find that adding questions in an easy and a very powerful way to grab people’s attention. When used effectively, questions rope readers into a story no matter how busy they are. A well formatted question headline has several viewpoints which makes the readers curious.
Now, asking a question in a headline can also be a risk. Most questions by default have a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer. If we take an example, there are three instances that can occur:
YES: Someone who wants to study abroad will fill the form immediately.
YES, but NOT at the moment: Someone who is not willing to study at the moment, but wants to give it a thought later may also fill the form.
NO: Someone who does not want to study abroad will move to another page the very instant he/she reads the headline.
Like you can see above, the ratio of people filling the form to not filling is much higher. This way question headlines also ensure that relevant leads (students who really want to study abroad) are much more than junk leads (students who fill the form without any reason).
Though writing a question headline is a gamble, it is a necessary one.

Trigger negative emotions

Negative headlines if used well can work as very powerful motivators.
Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? He had stated that in order to survive, we thrive on safety, affection, attention and our need to outdo ourselves. So with a headline, when you play upon man’s basic need, that of survival, and offer to help him out of that situation, it leaves a positive impact on their mind.
In an example, the headline and the image play on the negative emotion of ‘Hate’. The headline communicates a problem – something that most people don’t like – bugs. Now, a user who hates bugs will want to read further or sign up to get the solution.
But at the same time, if negative headlines are used in the wrong context, they can kill the message.

Make the headline believable

Only 10 seats left – Study with us for 1 week, get an MBA seat at Harvard  
If this was the case, everyone would have been a alumni of the Harvard, rated the best MBA college in the world! This headline will put anyone on guard. Forget about the user reading the content further, he will close your website and move onto another. Your claim may be true…but keep it subtle. However, the headline should not be misleading, because then the reader will hit the back button and never come back.
By going overboard, you may lose trust with your users. Instead write…
Only 10 seats left! Study with us, get a step closer to your dream – Harvard

Add USP to the headline

In your landing page headline, try words that help sell a product – free, discover, secret, results, quick, guaranteed, off etc. If you know what pain points your potential customer is facing, it should help you write the correct headline and offer him the right deal.
The words ‘Limited’, ‘Off’ and ‘Discount’ are mentioned in the landing page headline and grabs the user’s attention immediately.

Do not use too may keywords in the headline

Yes, putting keywords in the headline makes sure that it ranks well in SEO searches, but stuffing the headline with too many keywords overwhelms the reader and makes it look pushy. Use just the right amount of keywords in a landing page headline which will give you an advantage during web search, search through social networking sites etc.

Landing page headline aesthetics

The less complicated your headline, page and its design, the more likely it is to convert. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. The headlines should ideally be 2 sizes larger than the content.
2. Do not colour them black, instead colour them a dark shade of grey or ivory white if using the headline against a black/dark background.
3. Use Title Case – Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word.
4. Font size is really important considering that we live in a world where the internet is mostly accessed over Smartphone's.
5. Don’t use a period at the end of the headline. A period or what is also known as a full stop is a mental note for a user to stop reading there. Remember, a period in a headline is a major mistake!
6. Don’t keep the main headline very long. If you have a lot to say, break it down into bits. But again, the sub-headline should not be of the same size as that of the main headline as this will kill the essence of the main headline.
7. Quotations at times can work for headlines.

Use A/B Testing

Make sure you do A/B tests for your headlines to check which version of your landing page and its headline is working best. You can also use free A/B testing tools like Lander A/B and Google Website Optimizer. Over time, A/B testing will also help you analyse your visitors behaviour and what is it that is helping you connect with them.
Then again, when A/B testing, do not make a lot of changes in your headlines or landing pages. This way, when you analyse which landing page is faring better, it will be easy for you to gauge, adding or removing which part did the trick.
Example: When testing a landing page headline, change either the colour or the text or the words. Do not change everything at once. You will not be able to analyse which headline is faring better.
While there are many ways to create headlines, the above mentioned ones are most compelling.

Debate is usually an indication of intelligent human pursuit. But not always. 

One issue for design students—this no-brainer, simplest of issues—has ever been kept alive within the inane realm of debate since it first arose. As such, it is an unflattering indictment on those who contest the simple fact that a web designer must craft markup and css.

A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures.

Web design is product design. Drawing a picture of the product is not designing the product. Web design is experience design. Drawing a picture of on-screen content or mechanism behaviors is not designing the experience. The functioning html/css (and sometimes JavaScript) is the design.

Graphic design is often important in web design, but only as one component of web design’s requirements. If you stop at the .psd you’ve stopped well before midpoint in the design. The graphic designer who lacks html/css skill is insufficiently prepared as a web designer. A designer who lacks competence should address that issue rather than seek refuge within embarrassing debate.

How Design Fails

It is my experience that design seldom can do much good for most second– and third–tier companies and organizations. The reason for this is that these sorts of entities almost always fail themselves before they even enlist the services of a designer or a design agency.

More often than not, companies and organizations first need business consulting before they need design – else all the design in the world can do little good for them.

For instance, the following scenarios are pretty much regular fare in our industry:
The client comes to us with an ever expanding list of print collateral they need produced. They don’t seem to understand that so much of it is redundant and they insist on spending 3 times what they should. They prefer a scattershot approach to marketing collateral instead of examining what their specific needs are and planning a targeted program to address those needs.

The client comes to us for a website or a site redesign. Their reason for this need is to “keep up” with their competition; to “look competitive.” They so often fail to first make their business competitive and then reflect that difference with their online presence.

The client comes to us for a website or site redesign in order to better reflect the gravity of their brand. They so often fail to notice that their brand is the problem; that the logo lacks gravity, that their copy writing lacks gravity and direction, that their company culture and client relationships are pure boilerplate.

Now, it is quite understandable that this can happen. After all, it is hard for any of us to grasp just how much we don’t know and to take steps to address those issues. What’s so very disappointing though is that when these kinds of oversights and deficiencies are pointed out, they’re almost always dismissed by the client as irrelevant.

In such cases, there is a high probability that the client will end up being unsatisfied with the agency and its work. After all, design cannot produce excellent results when it is being poorly employed. Design should never be the first step in dressing up or “fixing” a business or an organization.

Excellent design coupled with sound business strategy works. One without the other almost never does. But it’s too bad design so often takes the wrap for this failure.

Digital Marketing nowadays is a major component for Marketing of any Product, Service or Brand. Why Digital Marketing is taking precedence over traditional way of doing marketing is that it’s so fast & quick that it happens on a click of button with very minimal cost & efforts. If not handled properly, it could make or break any Person, Group or an Organization in less than 24 hours. Digital Marketing is nothing but Internet Marketing. Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Social Media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc) are components of Digital Marketing.


Digital Marketing is a field which is not restricted only to Sales & Marketing Professionals but now it’s mandatory that each & everyone, whether a Business owner, a Working Professional, Politician, Bureaucrats, Film Star or even Sportsperson’s can’t survive in coming years if they will not have knowledge or habit of using Digital Marketing.

According to Wikipedia, is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc. It can be defined as promoting of brands or products and services using all forms of digital advertising. Digital marketing uses Television, Radio, Internet, mobile and any form of digital media to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

A Primer of the term of digital marketing:

What is Digital Marketing - Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cell phones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

What is Social Media - Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media is a term used to collectively describe a set of tools that foster interaction, discussion and community, allowing people to build relationships and share information.

What is Search Engine Optimization - SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines. SEO covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.

Why Digital Marketing – With the increased amount of social media platforms, many companies are taking advantage of digital marketing strategies to promote and market their products and services. Since the Internet allows us to communicate instantaneously, launching a digital marketing campaign can take place more quickly than traditional marketing campaigns and are sometimes less expensive. The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that it’s immediate, thus you can monitor feedback, input and actions in real-time from your target market.

Methods of Digital Marketing & Social Media Use- This type of marketing enforcement or implementation is very integrated as various platforms can be utilized at once in promoting products or services. One can use websites, PPC ads, mobile apps, mobile websites, SMS, instant messaging, email among others to effectively communicate messages to his or her target audience. This mode of marketing is not only interactive but also very cost effective.

Email marketing - Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

Blog & Directory Submission - A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific categories and subcategories. A directory's servers provide relevant lists of registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance. However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm.

Google Analytic - Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyse a website's performance or the success of an Internet marketing campaign.

Meta Tagging - Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a page's content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance to description tags in lieu of actual page content.

Pull Digital Marketing – It is a method of advertising companies use to try and get consumers to find the company on their own. The idea is that people will find your company because your company was able to build a successful brand. This would mean that a company has offered a valuable product and created enough social media visibility to become something that a person wants all on his/her own.

Push Digital Marketing - is an approach that tries to put advertisements in front of someone who does not necessarily have any knowledge of your company. Push marketing strategies could involve cold calling, advertising banners, or generating referrals. They are designed to get others to really promote the company and “push” the idea that your company is something of value.

Google AdSense - Google AdSense is a paid service offered by Google that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site content, Query relevancy, ad "quality scores," and other factors.

Google AdWords - Google AdWords is a paid and often expensive Keyword Submission program that determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses. Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.

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Apart from using many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, digital marketing extends beyond this by including other channels that do not require the use of the Internet. Due to non-dependence on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole lot of elements such as mobile phones or cell phones, display / banner ads, sms /mms, digital outdoor, and many more.

Digital marketing is now being enlarged in vast areas to support the "servicing" and "engagement" of customers.

What is the role of a web designer nowadays? An article about the changes that came with the awareness of responsive web design and the new workflow of designing in the browser.

THE WEB OF YESTERDAY

When I started doing this we were what you’d call a petit-comitè. I called myself a developer and worked with a great graphic designer, one of a kind. Our roles were crystal clear back then. Seasons came, seasons went and we started getting deeper and deeper into it. As our imagination kept moving forward, our websites grew more and more complicated. We soon found ourselves in a crossroads and we were forced to rethink our whole model.

My journey into design started with typography, perhaps the only field where my man was not stunningly fluid. I never called myself ‘designer’, though, until I cut off from Adobe’s Creative Suite cold-turkey. Slowly but steadily my role evolved on to designing for functionality and interactivity, copywriting, structuring content, making layouts responsive, building strange custom web applications… Then I was designing. The Graphic Designer’s role evolved too, as he started getting gradually into development, my former side of things. It was from working together that we both expanded our notions and eventually our process. We were naturally responding to a new kind of situation.

THE WEB, TODAY

‘A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures’.

‘Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works’ – Steve Jobs

It’s been a few years now since the Mobile-First/Responsive meteorite shook the Web community. It has been an arduous but beautiful process. Hard in rethinking the way we work but beautiful in that it opened up a wild ground for madly intense collaboration between everyone involved. We’ve seen every field of the profession coming together and sharing their wonders: techies on Progressive Enhancement, typographers on lettering, grids and layout, designers on workflow, content strategists on sensible structure, top-notch freelancers on how to handle clients…
To remain on top of the situation, every kind of Web professional has had to cross enemy lines to create symbiotic partnerships, in some cases lifelong friendships. And of course, the up-and-coming generation finds itself full of strange creatures that don’t fall under any of the previous categories. They are something in and of themselves.

‘Web Design is Product Design’ – Andy Rutledge

Some time ago, thinking of a designer as just a ‘Graphic designer’ wouldn’t have made much sense. Designers were actively involved in obscure parts of the process. Carving wood, painting, modelling, sometimes building, gardening…

So who killed the product designer?

I haven’t been around long enough to have a clear view, but my guess would be compartmentalization. The sudden boom in demand might have driven companies to define enclosed cells of roles and responsibilities, or ‘silos’; then to hire disposable professionals that would fit, silently contributing to the creation of a thick, standardized, leaden model that would stand the test of time and ensure high-level productivity.

Some people are making public the interest of high-end companies in finding a new sort of profile. They call it the Unicorn. They even went as far as creating the Unicorn Institute to groom this sort of designer. He is defining a position, a new Experience designer or UX Generalist, whose skills make them ready for this entirely new scenario.

He makes a clear division between Specialists (experts in one field over others), Generalists (experts in more than one field) and Compartmentalists (having expertise in only one area). He argues that neglecting the possibility of expanding your boundaries and falling into the compartmentalist category is a career-limiting decision. Plus it’s no fun.

Today’s way of things calls for a new kind of Web designer. A Jack-of-All-Trades, master of none. Startups are looking for the kind of folk that can follow the process end to end. Big enterprises for a more flexible worker that can move swiftly between the many aspects of a project, without hiding behind the barriers of their specialty.

THE WEB OF TOMORROW

A designer today has to be able to dodge dangers of many kinds. Today’s Web is dynamic, fast, adaptive, mobile-optimized, ready for the modern consumer, which is pretty much everywhere and thus totally unpredictable, very intelligent and thus easily annoyed; and capable of showing an unbelievable capacity to dive blindfolded, headfirst into information overload and not only survive but make something of it.

We’ve been exposed to some groundbreaking design work recently:

• The journalistic community has seen incredible new layout techniques that may get to redefine the way content will be presented.
• More and more services are going online. We are seeing smarter, faster, stronger web applications that are way closer to software than what a blog ever was. Plus many either benefit from the advantage of being an online tool. Many are based upon collaboration, and what better place than the web?
• Experiments with 3D graphics that resemble high-end videogames, straight in the browser. And so on.
• We are not in a header-nav-content-sidebar-footer scenario anymore.
• The skills needed to achieve the Web of tomorrow will mutate with the scenario. So changing the way we do websites starts by revising our process.

IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL

The First step is the hardest

There’s always a phase to devise how to build a product. It is critical that designers and their teams are aware of the technology at their disposal and show little fear in trying something new. Most of the time all this new tech is out there to make our lives easier, and yet you see so many people reject it every day.
Then there’s a time for envisioning the application.

‘Hanging on to older processes that include creating static wireframes and pixel-perfect mockups for design is counter-productive […]. Instead of spending time designing for […] device widths […], designers now have to focus on designing for content’.

The static mockup has seen its time in the spotlight. We are designing for dynamic scenarios now, so we need dynamic prototypes.

‘Designing in the browser’ said: ‘Print tools give you an illusion of control that doesn’t exist on the Web’. It goes on to point out a number of things a Photoshop mockup will never be able to account for:

• Pixel perfection: never happened
• Feature uncertainty: browsers differ when handling effects, even the syntax is different
• Things never designed to interact together will end up interacting
• No control over content: take Google+ as a modern dynamic application. Never will anyone be able to mockup something such as this on Photoshop without a million problems.

So what better way to achieve this than diving straight into HTML? Here are some of her reasons. Out of the box, it makes you able to:

• Design around content and user interaction
• Design for complexity and uncertainty
• Find where design breaks the user experience
• Find where data breaks design
• The outcome is a template ready for any use
• Use print tools later on to optimize prototypes

There are tools out there to prototype in HTML in a very visual and easy way.

DESIGNING IN THE BROWSER

I’ve seen way too many comments on blog posts saying something like ‘But that’s not designing in the browser, you’re using an editor!’. So let’s clear some assumptions first. Designing in the browser is not about using the browser as the one and only tool for designing.

‘Don’t design in the browser, decide in the browser.’ – Unknown

It is all about having direct communication between design, code AND the browser. Start designing, see it in the browser. Change stuff, see it in the browser. And if you get to do it in mobile at the same time, all the better.

There are a number of concerns in Web design that can be cleared straight away with this method. For instance, your site’s readability. It is a great way to gain time too: when you’re deep into designing for different states and screen sizes you tend to focus and lose that habit of moving stuff one pixel up or down. The perfectionist inside of you will be too busy checking relationships between elements, fine-tuning interaction details, etc. The big picture will benefit from this as well, as you are producing something that works, as opposed to a picture of it. It feels like moving from a flight simulator onto the real deal… kinda.
In the browser I learned the value of letting content drive my way of developing.

For example, I stopped using device media queries altogether. I started relying on visual cues when deciding where to insert a breakpoint. There was another time when suddenly it made no sense to make complex calculations anymore to account for margins, paddings, positioning… I started trusting my gut and experimenting with Developer Tools and learning to accept what was happening before my eyes. I grew so used to inspecting elements, rearranging them, playing with measurements, content and interactions that the habit ended up trickling down onto my everyday Internet activity. Now, whenever I stumble upon something that catches my eye – some layout detail, typography or anything interesting -, I find it very difficult to stop my urge to inspect it and play around with it. Questions start arising, like ‘What would happen to this thing if it had more text in it?’, ‘How does this guy float that there?’, ‘How in hell are the inline comments on Medium laid out?’. That last one I just had to include.

In the end, it’s all about learning how the browser handles the Web. It is not only possible but easy to learn to speak its language.

The first website I ever did I did in Chrome. I had no idea that by simply switching to Firefox it would look completely screwed. And my troubles got worse because I started testing it when I felt I’d finished it. It was a terrible week. But I’ll never stumble two times over that same stone. From that moment on I integrated visual testing in the development phase. And later on it became a crucial part of the design process. I ask myself how could I be OK with something if I never knew it would work?

Today I design and develop with my devices connected to the computer and I kind of catch problems before they even appear, this way. It’s become essential to me. I don’t trust my beautiful Apple stuff to fully represent the Wild, Wild Web, though. I never do 480, 768 or 1024px media queries anymore. And it feels liberating. It chooses random values each time (Small-ish. Medium-ish. Large-ish). Your site should look great in all of those. For the mad ones, it includes a ‘Disco’ mode, like those old Casio keyboards, ‘to watch the viewport bounce around like a maniac’. Is your site up to this?

THE LEAP OF FAITH

In Spain, a lot of us speak English. Most of us don’t, really. It’s more like this: we think of something in Spanish, in our heads we translate it into English and then we verbalize it, with an accent. And we look like morons. That’s not really speaking languages. It’s more like half-assed interpreting. The day you start thinking in English you start speaking in English. The more confident you grow, the better you speak.
But the key lies in the method. What makes the fluent speakers different from those who plainly interpret languages? It’s the lack of fear when challenged with a conversation. You learn to speak by speaking.
As I see it, this is very related to a designer learning to code. After all, it’s language we’re talking about. It’s not until you make that leap of faith that you’re starting to truly learn how an application works. It might look scary but there’s many people that have already done it and loved it.

The time you spend in learning to design for the Web comes back full circle.

Back in the day it was an odd feeling for us. On one hand we felt like we were somehow breaking out a proven way of working. On the other hand it felt like we were gradually let in on a big secret. We were making up our own rules as we went along. We were making our journey more interesting and as we grew more confident, the result was becoming stronger.

We were redefining ourselves as designers.

When it comes to online marketing – good copywriting is essential. Flashy websites are great, but copy is what ultimately sells. But, good copy isn’t as easy as slapping a few words on a page. It takes fineness. These 10 copywriting tips will help you take your copywriting to the next level.

Copywriting Tips That’ll Make Your Online Copy Shine

1 – Write your copy first

Often the hardest step is the first one. This can be especially true for copywriting. Get your thoughts down on paper. Don’t worry about making them perfect. Just say what you want to say.

2 – Let it sit for five (or more)

Nothing will kill your credibility like typos. While it’s best to have a fresh set of eyes review your work, even the best of the best have editors, sometimes that’s just not possible. But, there is rarely a time your copy can’t sit for at least five minutes.

2 – Edit. Edit. EDIT

Similar to letting your piece sit, editing is critical. From the simple typo and punctuation mistake to the misspelled and misused word – it can be easy to publish copy littered with mistakes. The end results not only make you and your business look bad, but also can deliver a message you didn’t intend.

3 – Optimise your text

While spending the time to optimise your text with search engine optimisation (SEO) rich keywords may not seem like actual copywriting, in the online marketing world it is. And, it is essential to your success. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how good your copywriting is if no one reads it.

4 – Address the reader

“You” addresses the reader. It brings the reader inside the story and engages them on a personal level. In short – “you” is one of the most powerful words you have as a copywriter.

5 – Tell your reader a story

Nothing bridges the gap from sleazy car salesmen to personal relationship like stories. By telling your reader a story, you speak to their wants and needs. You can address their problems and eventually present your product and/or service as the solution.

6 – Make your headlines catchy

Most people scan web pages. It’s the unfortunate truth. And, if they aren’t engaged they click away. Engage them immediately with a catchy headline.

7 – Use Calls-to-Action

The reason you’re writing copy is to get your readers to act. Adding calls-to-action in your copy shows them and tells them what that next step is. It makes it easy for them. And if there’s anything we all know about readers, they will not work hard.

8 – Call attention to your important facts and figures

Like headlines, calling attention to the most important parts of your copy helps readers navigate the page. You can do this by:

• Putting important facts in bold
• Breaking up long paragraphs
• Adding bulleted lists
• Using reader friendly text size, font and colour

9 – Enhance your copy with images

The old saying, “A picture’s worth a thousand words,” couldn’t be truer when it comes to online copywriting. Utilise pictures to help tell your story.

10 – Get social

Social Media may seem like a big can of worms you want to keep shut. It’s open. Ignoring it leaves you behind. Share your writing on social media platforms. Add share buttons to your copy to make it easy for readers to also share.

Have you used any of these copywriting tips? Have you used other copywriting tips? What works best for you?