A checklist of issues to consider in a responsive website redesign project
If there’s one thing that every Web and Digital marketing manager has had on their agenda in recent times it’s responsive design! Responsive Web Design has become the defacto standard of web sites in a very short space of time. But is it a silver bullet? Is it a magic cure for many digital illnesses our sites (and visitors!) have been suffering from? It certainly gives many challenges, and in this post I'll share 9 key issues that site managers need to talk through with their designers.
When I first started looking at the concept of responsive websites back in 2010 - I fell in love. This seemed like a proper working implementation of the “fluid websites” that were largely a dream back in the days when we were moving from table based layouts to CSS based ones.
Over the past…
Learning from Zig Ziglar and Marc Benioff
As a busy marketer working client-side, you'll often hear yourself - and others - talk about not having enough time. That there aren't enough hours in the day. I know from my own (sometimes painful) experiences, when I sometimes sit working on the wrong stuff at 1 AM, that this is rubbish - that we all get the same minutes in the day, it's how we choose to spend them that matters. I believe that it's a matter of focus.
The challenge of focus
Seth Godin recently wrote about FOMO (fear of missing out) and it really resonated from a marketing perspective. Passionate marketers often run themselves and each other ragged, worrying if we're all missing out on the latest insight, learning, app, model, idea, case study or news piece. I understand that, it's often…
A practical guide to setting up categories and tags on your blog or website
For every content project I’ve been involved with, categories and tags have had a role to play. Sometimes, there are clearly defined systems, which make a positive contribution to the user experience. However, it must be said that very often something goes awry. There is no set plan, and users find themselves confused by numerous and options. Over a period of years, this can lead to a sort of digital rabbit warren that can be expensive to sort out. Thus it’s important to have a defined approach to categories and tags to order your content.
Categories and Tags – What’s the Difference?
Any users of Wordpress will be familiar with categories and tags, but a number of sites I’ve worked with have struggled to differentiate between the two. Typically I define the two as follows:
Categories – grouping of content…
6 actions you can take to keep your website relaunch project "on track"
Every marketer or business will at some stage create a website, or relaunch their website. Whether it is a small site, or an "all singing all dancing site", in my experience as a marketing manager, they all take up more time and resources than you though they would.
Having worked on a number of websites for a range of companies in various sectors, I have been there and "have the T-shirt". I have also seen peers in similar stressful situations that have the marketing team working all hours to complete the website as they look on at their ever-growing lists of other marketing tasks. To help avoid some of this stress I have distilled this experience into the new Smart Insights website relaunch project planning template. In this timeline, Dave Chaffey and I have set out all the…
How to improve your Site Speed in five simple steps
We live in the age of now where everyone wants everything instantly, especially when browsing by desktop or mobile. If your website is subjecting users to never-ending visions of hour-glasses or self-chasing blue spheres then your conversions are going to suffer along with your search engine results.
Site speed is one of the metrics Google uses to rank websites, stating in its Webmaster Central Blog:
“Our users place a lot of value in speed, that's why we've decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”
As well as being included in its metrics Google also outlines the importance of speed in its 10-rule ethos:
“We know that your time is valuable, so when you’re seeking an answer on the web, you want it right away and we aim to…
I think the way in which site design style evolves on the web is fascinating . Any site visitor can tell within a second or two when a site appears dated, and if it is, then it's immediately damaging to the brand. Getting the relationship off on the wrong foot.
Whether a site design is effective naturally depends on the ability of the designers at a web design agency to select a modern design style with interactive design elements.
That's why all marketers need to keep in touch with rationale behind the latest design styles and why I was keen to talk to a Twitter contact, Jim Callender of Callender Creates, a web design agency whose client portfolio showcases current design styles well.
As a freelancer, Jim has worked on many high profile site such as the Times Online redesign, eBay, Royal Mail, Travelbag, Expedia, Halifax and Audi. Awarded 'Digital Freelancer of the…
5 tips to help create the perfect web design brief
Writing the perfect brief may not be a wholly realistic goal, but you can go a long way to ensuring the success of your new (or refreshed) website by aiming for just this.
The aim is to create a brief that is as comprehensive and informative as possible to elicit accurate estimates / proposals and ultimately a brilliant website. There will probably still be a couple of questions coming back from who ever you've sent the brief to – but the first step in creating a great website (one that meets its objectives) is writing a comprehensive, actionable brief. This post explains best practices around creating a website design brief to support a new site redesign brief template I have developed for Smart Insights.
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February 19, 2013
Introducing Card Sorting and two tools for managing it
We read a huge amount of visitor feedback from our clients’ sites. One of the most common complaints from visitors is that they can’t find what they are looking for. This is a serious problem: these visitors are actually unable to spend money.
Fortunately, there are several straightforward ways of fixing the problem. One of them is to optimize the information architecture of your site. “Card sorting” is a simple technique that allows your users to do this for you.
With card sorting, you write the name of each section of your site onto an index card. You then ask one of your users to arrange the cards into groups that make logical sense. If you do this with several users, you’ll start to notice trends (and new ideas) about how your…
Using eyetracking to assess the 3Ws of your landing pages
Imagine that you are at a reception in a massive hotel ballroom, and Barack Obama is the guest of honor. You desperately want to speak with him about a brilliant idea, but know that you will only have a few seconds to catch his attention before he is whisked away by his security detail. So, what do you do? Flash your accreditations and references? Dress up in a clown costume and perform your rendition of the robot? Launch into a slam-poetry version of your master’s thesis?
These tactics to get attention may seem improbable, but they are precisely the kinds of mistakes in building a landing page that we see at Eyequant all the time.
Landing pages are designed to give the user a branded and actionable gateway into an online offer. Without stretching our poetic muscles too far, a…
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January 7, 2013
Answering the right questions on the path to conversion
Whether you're working on increasing conversions for an online enquiry form, quote request form, e-commerce transactions or an online application process, answering more of your visitors questions will help them and your business. It's a fundamental of web marketing.
For more practical examples of testing and optimisation approaches to increase leads and sales, hear Paul Rouke of PRWD speak in a webcast at the free Smart Insights #marketingpriorities2013 Digital Marketing Summit on 11.01.2013. View the full programme of speakers at http://bit.ly/priorities2013.
Of course, what you're asking visitors to complete and what your product/service is will dictate the amount and type of questions that they may have, but by identifying and answering typical questions you are more likely to encourage more visitors to ‘do what you want them to’.
In this post I'll look at:
A case study showing the potential of this approach
Some…
