Are you barreling down on your latest design without a clue on what to do? Are you looking to roll out 5 more blog post this week without any topics in mind? Are you generally struggling to come up with any ideas? Your first thought may be to force through the creative process and work it out for better or worse. You keep pushing until you hit a breakthrough. You think if you put enough time and effort into your work something is bound to turn up. Fact of the matter is, what turns up will not be worth all of the agony.
Stay Creative at Your Own Pace
Simply put, if you are not in the mood to do something do not force yourself to do it. For the time being work on something else, stay productive, and avoid getting burnt out on a piece of work that was going no where to begin with. Putting all of your time and effort in a failing attempt to produce something creative will only frustrate you further.
One of the most popular lines from the 1989 film Field of Dreams is “If you build it, he will come.” A great quote from an excellent movie. Sadly, this quote does not hold true to that of web design. Building a website will not get you visitors and writing in a blog will not get you readers. You must advertise and promote your website accordingly. Today, with the help of social media, gaining publicity has become increasingly easier. There are however many outlets that are often quickly overlooked. One of these outlets being user submitted community news.
With CSS3 gaining popularity so are CSS attribute selectors. CSS attribute selectors have been around for some time however CSS3 adds more selectors to the mix bringing new light to subject. Increased browser support, with nearly every major browser currently supporting attribute selectors (Internet Explorer 6 still struggles), has also added to the popularity.
So what benefit do CSS attribute selectors have to adding style to document links? CSS attribute selectors allow you to quickly and easily add styles to document links while keeping your code clean and clutter free. Ultimately, the more attractive looking your links are the more clicks they will receive.
Multivariate testing (MVT), testing multiple elements of a live web page at a time, is becoming more and more popular amongst the web design and development community. Understandably so, multivariate testing allows you to test a large amount of combinations and see exactly how those combinations stack up against one another. You will quickly find out that the smallest changes can produce the biggest results.
Smashing Magazine is one of the largest web design and development blogs online. They publish high quality content on a regular basis and are often seen as one of the most reliable sources within the industry. When they started kicking around the idea of creating a book the community widely encouraged it. After much talk the idea of creating a book, The Smashing Book, became a reality and Smashing Magazine went to work. To say that it was a difficult process for Smashing Magazine would be an understatement. As with every project they had their fair amount of roadblocks and then some. Regardless of what was put in from of them Smashing Magazine managed to release a book filled with excellent content written by none other than their own community.
Each chapter is written by a different author or authors, of which has appeared on Smashing Magazine before. Perhaps they have written an article for the blog before or maybe they have appeared within the articles themselves. The authors of the book are well established within the community and are experts in their line of work. Each chapter is well crafted to the personal style of the author(s) and is packed with valued content. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we.
When it comes to designing a website, content is often overlooked, but why? Very rarely do users browse the web looking for a good design or decent experience. Users come for the content. Not giving them what they want with poorly written content will frustrate users. Not only does it waste their time, but your time as well.
Writing for the Web: The Right Strategy presented by Shay Howe
It is not uncommon for companies to sink large amounts of money into obtaining traffic to their websites in an attempt to increase conversions. Some of their money might go towards search engine optimization and some might go towards pay per click or search engine marketing. Little do they know their problem might not be about getting more traffic. The real problem could be that they have a poor call to action.
Online sales are growing rapidly year over year and now more than ever is a great time to have an e-commerce website. While maintaining and optimizing an e-commerce website may be quite the assignment, taking little steps in the right direction will greatly help the overall improvement. Begin with small improvements you can tackle quickly. Then move on to more complex tasks that may require extra effort. Slowly, but surely, you will fine tune your website into an outstanding website. Outlined here are 10 quick e-commerce tips to get you on your way.
Start Your E-commerce Optimization
1. Accommodate All Users Types
When a user visits your website it is virtually impossible to know where they stand within the purchase process. Some users are just browsing around gathering information for a future purchase while other users may be in a dead heat to make a purchase as quickly and easily as possible. Take note of all the potential user types and try to accommodate them all equally.
Guido Daniele is an extremely talented artist and his collection of "Handimals" is proof.
After attending art school he began working as a hyper-realistic illustrator in 1972 with many large promotional and advertising corporations throughout the world. After experimenting and trying a few different painting methods he found his stroke with body painting in 1990. What started as body painting for advertising pictures, commercial, fashion events, and other exhibitions has turned into more than Guido could have possible imagined.
The "Handimals" collection originally started when Daniele was hired by an advertising agency to do some body paintings of animals. Instantly he took passion in the idea. "I researched each animal in depth to see how I could transfer it to a hand, and then set about bringing it to life." The first "Handimal" was the cheetah, and to this day is still his favorite. "It turned out perfectly the first time and gave me the courage to complete the rest of the set."
One of the most valuable resources you have is sitting right under your nose and you may not even know it. What is this indispensable resource you may ask? Email marketing. For those of you who are currently practicing email marketing you may already know of the potential benefits at hand. For those of you who are not, please take note, this may greatly increase the performance of your business.
Many companies are profitable simply from their email marketing campaigns alone. With help of these time tested methods and a touch of your own fine-tuning you too can earn extra profit as well. Broken down here are the two parts to smart email marketing: Sending and Ensuring Delivery of Emails, as well as, Considerations for Designing Emails.
Sending and Ensuring Delivery of Emails
Send Emails on a Consistent Time Table
When you send your emails on a regular basis you create a pattern of which readers will become familiar with. The less likely you are to catch readers by surprise the lower your non-subscription rate will be. Internet service providers (ISPs) will also take note of regular sending patterns and credit you accordingly.
