3 Major Challenges in Creating Responsive Designs

There was a time when businesses thought of going mobile. But that’s no longer a choice. It’s a necessity. Designers and developers understand this and are shifting to responsive design more than ever. But, it is also a fact that it is much more complex than a normal site or a dedicated mobile website. This article looks at the major problems that designers face and provides tips on how to recover from them in order to ensure that your site is properly optimized.

Website Loading Time

The main reason behind going for responsive websites is to enable convenience for mobile users. Yet most of them fail in this attempt. A recent study tested more than 300 sites and found that irrespective of the site under test, the page size and load-time results were almost the same. All that you need to do is the following:

Avoid using larger Image Files and Videos

Avoid large assets on a web page, particularly Javascript.

Avoid using unwanted links and personal comment icons

Restrict ads and social media pop-ups

Avoid having too many Widgets

Over-Resourcing

Responsive designs rely on multiple images and CSS scripts for getting a customised layout that matches different screen sizes. At times, this might cud lead to a user downloading images that are not required as well.

This is where you conditional loading comes into play. If you want your design to run on desktops too as a dedicated mobile website, do care to check the code two to three times to ensure it is fully optimized to run smoothly.

Poor User Interface

That your ecommerce website runs well on mobiles need not at all mean that it is mobile friendly. Don’t look at only the aesthetics when you create a mobile web design but look keenly at the differences between needs of users who visit your site from different places.

Above all, it is important to know your customer’s feedback on what they intend to do on a mobile device as against their desktops. Make sure your responsive design adequately meets those needs.

 

Why Responsive Design Matters To You

It’s not desktops any more. Mobile phones have long replaced them as the primary device for web browsing what with the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and e-readers. Chrome, Firefox, IE, all of them are now readable on mobile devices. But does that guarantee viewership for your site. No. Not if your site’s not responsive. Being responsive means having scalable and adjustable images that adapt to mobile device settings.

So what is the first main idea in a responsive design? The first one is a fluid grid. It is this design that enables layouts to fit or adapt to any screen size. In responsive designs, fluid grids work hand in hand with CSS3 media queries. The media queries are supported by a wide selection of browsers, and they allow you to collect information from the site user. You can then use the CSS styles for the collected data.

So, what are the advantages of having a responsive design? Firstly, you don’t need to give your user two different URLs. With a responsive design, you will have only one website for both your desktop and mobile versions. And this is done as the design process includes formatting the site to be compatible on different platforms and operating systems.

Multiple URLs are more difficult to use than they appear at the outset. Multiple URLs means multiple websites and maintaining all of them can be very expensive. Also, a responsive web design keeps you from spending extra money on designing multiple websites for supporting different devices. When you want to make changes to your current website, having a responsive web design will allow you to make alterations to only one design. A mobile web design, on one hand, will need you to make specific changes to all the multiple websites you own. Building a responsive web design also increases your chances for greater ROI, since your website will become uniformly user-friendly across different devices.

But creating a responsive website demands competence and experience. Now, the next question is competence and experience from whom? The answer is, from developers, of course! Have you chosen the right partner to deliver the goods to build a truly responsive website that takes your business where it belongs?

 

7 Steps to an Ideal Landing Page

Every business wants to convert visitors to customers. Though there are many factors that determine this conversion, key among those is the design and ease of use of the landing page of the website. In this article, we take a look at the ingredients that go into the making of the ‘perfect’ landing page and how one goes about achieving it.

1. Page headlines and Ad Copy

• The landing page headline and advertisement copy should complement each other

• Your Adwords score allows the site to discover the cost-per-click. This score can be improved by having consistent content between the ad message and landing page text.

2. Clear and Concise Headlines

• Being one of the first things the visitor will read, the landing page headlines should not confuse or bore, but compel a visitor to take a closer look.

• Addressing a specific point that is related to the content of a website will catch a reader’s attention more than having a vague and uninteresting headline.

3. Taking Advantage of Trust Indicators

• For an effective way of building trust, incorporate testimonials, press mentions, guarantee seals, and third party trust and security certification

4. Proper Grammar

• In the example of an online reader who is asking the visitor to purchase and provide personal and billing information, the trust of the customer will be risked if there are spelling errors and sloppy grammar.

5. Using a Strong Call to Action

• After a visitor reads the landing page headline, it is crucial that they know what to do next.

• In the case of Mozilla Firefox, when they changed their call-to-action from ‘Try Firefox 3’ to ‘Download now-Free’, it outperformed the original call-to-action by 3.6% and had a confidence level of over 99%.

6. Use Images and Videos That Connect

• Implementing motivational speeches, videos of user testimonials, and product images into a home page can have a positive impact on viewers, as well as give shoppers an extra push to look further into a product.

7. Buttons and Call to Actions Must Stand Out

• Identify the keywords people interested in your service might be searching for and use words such as ‘free’, ‘new’, ‘buy’ or ‘download now’.

• The conversion button should stand out and be placed right below a call-to-action. The button should be big, bright, and above where a user would have to scroll to it.

To create the ideal landing page, you’ll have to get the services of an expert web design and development company, one that combines expertise with experience. If you’re looking for that, you’ve got it at Openwave!

 

How You Can Leverage WordPress for SEO

You might write a very readable business blog on wordpress, stuff it with all information required, have wonderful pictures, audios and even exciting videos to accompany them, but that is not enough for your site to attract traffic on the internet. For that, you need to know how to optimise your site for SEO. If you can ensure that you optimise your site according to best practices, you not only stand to improve your rankings, but also gain customers.

Let’s now look at what you should do to optimise SEO for your site.

On-Page SEO

1. Make sure you include the keyword in your post URL. Change your permalink structure under settings->Permalinks and then select custom structure to change the value to include the category.

2. Include your keyword in your title and make sure it is attractive, explanatory but not too long (within 65 characters). Do not waste time in chasing keywords that are highly competitive. Choose one of the phrases and see if the search result number is large. If yes, avoid it.

3. Use your keyword within the post, but make sure you didn’t stuff it too much. Your post should have a keyword density of not more than 1-2%

4. Ensure your website content contains references and links to other important and relevant local businesses, places and events. It would also help if you included your city and region in important meta titles and descriptions.

5. You need to identify images that suit your keyword/phrase. Name your images prior to uploading them and ensure you fill out the title and alt descriptions when you upload.

Off-Page SEO

1. Make sure you’ve linked your post to any older/related posts. You should have also pinned your pos using my title or meta description which includes the keywords.

2. Complete and optimise your Google places for business listing and add your logo, bio and other keyword rich services and links to your website.

3. Ensure you add your business name and address to your facebook, Google+ pages adding a unique description and link them to your website.

4. Make sure that you have functional social sharing buttons available within your posts to enable others to share content your easily.

5. Encourage client reviews on local websites and make sure you reply every time as positive reviews set you apart from competitors.

Along with a linear, responsive site, if you’ve followed these 10 commandments, your site would well be on top of Google’s results next week!

 

Why WordPress Scores Over The Rest

WordPress content management system is highly sought after today with many other competitors vying for the same space. That WordPress is Open Source is an added advantage in creating blogs that are highly customizable. Creating content and feature rich websites and having full control over your blog is what WordPress gives you. Join us as we take a sneek at the features that make WordPress Development the most sought after CMS.

Being open source, WordPress is freely available for users. The only cost that it involves is on the WordPress blog development, which means one only needs to pay for hiring a reliable and reputed WordPress development company to fulfill his/her online business requirements. For those who have sufficient knowledge about WordPress or are WordPress experts can easily create advanced blogs and websites according to their WordPress CMS structure.

One easy way of getting an attractive and completely professional website from a professional WordPress CMS Development Service Provider is WordPress Theme Integration Services at affordable prices. We all know, WordPress framework supports a lot of themes , templates, etc and with WordPress Blog Integration Services you can put a powerful WordPress blog to your website as well.

Another exciting component of WordPress development are WordPress plugins, that allow you to install robust plugins to your site and adds new, innovative features to your WordPress blog or website. WordPress plugin integration also enables you to improve search engine rankings, remove spams, monitor traffic, add podcasts, galleries, permalinks, videos and a lot more.

Another benefit of opting for WordPress development is that with WordPress development you get WordPress maintenance services along with it and that too at an affordable rate. WordPress Theme Maintenance, WordPress blog Maintenance are some of the solutions that are important to make your blog or website run smoothly and without any hassle.

In this competitive world, if you seek to remain a step ahead of your competitors then you need to empower yourself with WordPress Integration Services. Apart from this, WordPress forum integration enables you to add powerful forum softwares in your website or blog such as BBPress.

If you already have a theme in your site or blog, then a trusted wordpress development company can provide you with amazing WordPress theme integration services as well. What we’ve mentioned above are just some of the key points that make people line up behind WordPress. There’s much more, for sure.

 

5 Steps to Building a Small Business Website

Whatever business you run, today it is necessary to have a website. This is true for any service, product or manufacturing business because having a website is the cheapest and easiest way to reaching a customer. It not only brings you customers and thereby increases sales, it also builds your brand value and credibility. You have two options to create a website:

1. Hiring a Web Developer

2. Do It Yourself

You will know which one to choose only when you weigh in all the options based on your app functionality, platform of your choice, business objective, sales target, etc. Now, let’s take a look at the five phases of developing your business website.

Phase 1: Information Assembling

This is the first step towards the development of your website: Gathering information. This includes the several criteria that you need to take into account when you start to develop your website. This step is of particular importance since this is where concept building is accomplished, i.e. the purpose for which the website is going to be established takes final form here. The things you need to consider here are:

• Purpose

• Goals

• Target audience

• Content

Phase 2: Planning

Once you’ve finished gathering all the information, you need to put together a plan for the website. This will be your sitemap for the rest of the development process. Here is where you need to list all the headings and subheadings showing which content goes where. Customer friendliness and easy navigation must be your watchwords.

To this end, you must decide upon which Content management system to use such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla.

Phase 3: Design

This is the phase that decides the look and feel of the website. A website that serves a financial institution needs to have a different design from a website that sells books for children. You need to decide upon the colour, logo and the elements in order to establish a proper communication with the customer.

Phase 4: Development

This is the phase of the nitty-gritty. This is where technically speaking, the real work begins. Have a homepage followed by a ‘shell’ page (on the inner side). This would be your template for the main content on your site. This is also where your CMS elements or shopping carts (in case of an ecommerce website) become functional.

Phase 5: Testing and Delivery

The final stage of the web development process, this phase is crucial owing to its impact on UX. The testing has to be rigorous for if defects are detected post production, it will invariably result in negative review which cannot be rectified later.

 

5 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Setting Up a New Website

A website is at the heart of your business irrespective of what you’re into. And it is incumbent upon you to ensure that it is professionally designed and well maintained. This is because the website is your gateway to the global customer, and therefore your primary brand value builder. So, how do you ensure that you succeed in your effort and do not fall for the common mistakes that occur when you set up a new website?

For that, you first need to know the mistakes. So, here are the 5 mistakes we think you should avoid when you look to build a website:

1. Lack of a Legitimate Business Plan

Do you have a legitimate business plan? And if so, do you follow it scrupulously before you begin to develop your website? A business plan is not confined to just describing how you’re going to develop the website but exactly what you expect to get out of it.

So, does your plan answer questions as to what products and services you would want your business to sell? Does it detail the role of third parties in it?

And what solutions do your customers require that you provide?

And, it must have the most important question of all? Identification of the target market.

2. Lack of a Proper Marketing Plan For Your Website

This deals with getting more visitors to your website and converting them into customers.

• Understanding the difference between SEO and PPC
• Integrating social media platforms
• Getting to know Google Goog and other such ecommerce analytics tracking systems
• Researching affiliate market and selling through 3rd party platforms

3. Undervaluing the Work Involved

You don’t set up a website to get quick and easy money. There are other professions for that. From taking an order to integrating the payment system to shipping the product, there’s a huge amt of work involved that needs coordinating many heads together.

Make sure you get your business structure right. Because success doesn’t depend on you alone.

4. Don’t Be Too Blog-Focussed

WordPress might be a hugely popular blogging platform. But to develop a full-fledged website requires more than just a blog. Yes, you need content that attracts visitors, but you also need a whole list of other functionalities and tools for your website to function.

5. Great Optics but Little Message

This is often the case with upstarts. They invest heavily in the design, but let the content and core functionality go horribly wrong. Remember the design, content and all the marketing is for the core functionality. You get that part wrong, and you go wrong completely.

 

Private Messaging in Drupal – Yes, Like a Social Network

Ever pined for a mechanism by which you would be able to send and receive text messages immediately without page reload? Well the latest module developed by Drupal does just that. Initially Drupal was started only as an open-source Content Management system that contained basic features such as account registration and maintenance, menu management, sys admin and layout customization. Over time it built additional modules that offered customized features such as WYSIWIG editors, image galleries, third party integration and private messaging.

Its module Privatemsg (developed more than 10 yrs ago) opened users to community sites and forums by allowing them to send private messages to each other. You could send and receive private messages between multiple recipients, search messages, make threaded conversations and receive e-mail notifications of new messages.

Node.js module allows for building real-time features by providing an API for socket-based polling and pushing of updates to open connected clients. Once you build real-time dashboards, clients have the power to respond faster to activity on their side.

This has been taken to the next level with private messaging with node.js module that eliminates page reload and increases the speed manifold by integrating the already existing functionality in drupal with node.js. The crucial advantage here is that since Node.js does not overload the server, the process of exchanging private messages is accelerated substantially.

Here, the User is capable of sending and receiving messages without reloading the thread page. The User is also capable of receiving a new message alert on every page. Again, without the page being reloaded. One of the more interesting features in this module is that the User can open mini chats to open communication on several threads at a time.

Other attractive features include the option to select between dialogue page and mini chat, typing indicator and notification sound settings.

The built-in module of the API ensures that it is now easier to add, expand or modify anything and fits perfectly well for any website, especially where faster communication between users is required.

 

4 Ways to Create a Good Website on a Small Budget

Having a good website is necessary to generate leads and sales thereof, for your business. But how do you create a website that does not exceed the budget but still delivers on performance?  As a new entrepreneur on a shoestring budget, the thought of investing in a website can be quite scary, which is why we share with you 4 top notch tips for creating a website well within your budget:

1) You could simply develop a one-page landing page instead of a full-fledged website. Once you generate leads from that landing page, you can invest again into your business to create the website you want. You could use software like Optimize Press or Lead Pages to create a landing page, cutting costs as well as making it easy for you to edit and maintain the page by yourself.

2) Another option you could avail is purchasing a WordPress website template and then have your web developer simply install the theme on your site (and customize it to your brand). If you go via this route, you will find that a lot of developers would lower the cost of their total packages for you. (P.S.: Don’t get a free WordPress template. Not only is that going a bit overboard in the cheap stuff department, it is also settling for mediocrity as the template there are no good!)

3) If you’ve hired somebody to develop a custom website for you, get a designer to do mock up of the home and interior pages in the first place. This way, you let the developer know precisely what you want and also have a graphic design file (editable) to use, which enables faster coding by the developer. If you fail to do a mock up first, you either end up with a design you don’t like, or you end up wasting a lot of money on having the developer alter the code to fit your revisions.

4) Sometimes, what increases your website development costs are plugins that integrate with your marketing software (email). Therefore, if you intend to capture people’s talking points on your site (which is a necessity), using LeadPages’ “LeadBoxes” feature is an easy way to set up opt-in boxes without any special coding involved.

If you take these suggestions, you will have to invest some money into your website of course, but it will cut some of the costs for you to make the investment easier on your cashflow.

 

5 Advantages of Using CMS for Your Website

You can build a site even without a content management system. So, why then is a CMS required? And, why exactly are businesses moving towards CMS driven sites? These are some of the questions that we wish to answer in this article as we discuss the benefits of using CMS for your website.

1. Its Easy For the Novice

All users are not techies, and so the functionalities of CMS are designed in such a way that they can be understood even by those who have little introduction to programming. If you can use the word processor, then you can use a CMS too.

2. It Allows Multiple Users

A Content Management System makes it easy for you to manage roles and publishing permissions for all users so that only those who you allow can publish content and it only goes live when you are ready.

3. Streamlined Scheduling

Any CMS worth the name will provide you an at a glance view of all the content’s status, those that are live, under review or draft. CMS allows you to assign tasks and see to it that they have been done. It makes it easy to integrate the content with your marketing plan and ensures all-round transparency.

4. Easy To Make Changes

Making changes to your site’s structure and content has never been easier. CMS separates the content and design, keeping them in two different virtual boxes. So, you can make changes to the design while the content remains untouched. You can also make changes in your administrative dashboard and propagate it automatically to the entire site. This is great from the branding point of view as it gives your site a consistent appearance.

5. Improves Site Maintenance

Sorting maintenance issues in a non-CMS site can be extremely difficult as you need to make changes separately in each page. You needn’t do that in a CMS as the underlying architecture is the same and you can add functionality just as you would update content.