The field of website design is constantly changing, with the availability of new technologies providing a sometimes challenging environment for web designers. Over just the past decade, we’ve watched the internet rise from nothing. Very few other industries can claim such a dramatic rise.
Currently, website design is morphing into an entirely new technology as developments enable an increasing amount if interactivity between users and computers. New interface options, such as multi touch interfaces, have led developers and designers to a whole new area of design, as has how we handle ecommerce web design.
Some of the other things that are hot among web designers are high end artwork and front pages that pop off of the screen. Aesthetics and design have always been a huge part of web design, but there is a return of focus right now. Part of the reason may be the fact that people are going big with their monitors. As the average monitor size grows, there is a trend to use huge images and huge text that seems to jump right off the page and into the viewers psyche. If you want to make an impact, this is a great way to start.
The other thing that is gaining serious popularity is magazine style layouts. Using blocks of independent text and large headers has worked for years in the printing industry. With the appearance of larger screens, there is more space for designers to work with when laying out a website. Using white space to break up text and images is a great way to increase a site’s usability and readability.
Website design is a constantly evolving practice that is providing designers more freedom as the way that people are accessing the internet continues to change. While there is a growing trend toward larger monitors and therefore larger designs, keep in mind that the use of mobile devices is also on the rise. This means that web design is now a two-fold practice. Going bigger is what counts for desktop browsers, while compact designs that load quickly are the key for catering to the mobile crowd.
The much talked about Caffeine algo update is released today and most SEO’s are on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what this will mean to their websites.
It is expected to reduce the phrase “It will take 6 months to index your new site”. In theory new sites should be in the listings as soon as they are indexed. Twitter posts will be just about live. Actually, you should be able to watch them. If you Google “caffeine google” right now and probably for the next week or so you will be able to see the Twitter results scrolling along. Which makes it pretty hard to game in terms of getting a static ranking for a tweet.
Does this mean the end of the “Google Sandbox”?
It’s hard to tell. Really I think Caffeine is just going to pull in more news and social media results, that is results that are following a trend, rather than make much of an impact for business to business websites where the content only changes monthly at best.
Of course we will be experimenting with some of our sites to see how we can benefit from this new change.
This site provides an interesting column layout which is carried throughout their site. I’m not sure it works so well throughout the rest of the site, but it makes me want to read everything on the home page.
It’s so nice to feel we’re not alone. This cartoon from The Oatmeal has happened to us and if you’re involved in any kind of web development I’d hazard a guess it’s happened to you to. If you’re feeling frazzled by your clients this might make you feel better:
I’ve just read an article by Axandra, the people who make IBP the do-it-yourself SEO software. This article is a concise and easy way to explain to customers the different approaches needed in SEO depending on the level of competition. It also outlines the importance of links when trying to achieve a top ranking on a competitive term.
It reiterates the importance Google places on incoming links, so let me repeat again, if you want to go after a competitive keyword term then you better have a lot of high quality links. For help on link building visit our link building packages.
Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, discusses how he sees the future of the web. The clip below is a 6 minute excerpt TechCrunch cut as the meat in the sandwich.
Google has released a statement about having low quality backlinks to your website. In typical Google fashion it’s not very specific, however I’m reading that having a heap of low quality links to a site that doesn’t hold a lot of weight can effect rankings. Read the article here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/dealing-with-low-quality-backlinks.html
The more time you spend shopping online, the more you want to shake web developers and site owners. If each site owner spent some time buying from their top competitors and then tested their own site, then surely they too would be pulling their hair out in frustration at the stupidity of their website.
Well e-shop owners, if you just read and implement this guide from Smashing Magazine there will be no more hair-pulling for us customers…if you need help in implementing these efforts into your e-commerce websitecontact us.
Todays hottest 100 website is home to the French first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Ok, so she’s an ex-model so it had to be pretty and she’s French so it had to be stylish, but as an ambassador for her country it also had to be practical and it is. A fashion first – no Flash!
How much time do you think visitors spend at your website? I know most site owners like to think visitors will spend in excess of 15 minutes browsing pages in their website whilst sipping on a cup of tea. Jakob Nielsen, usability guru, has an interesting article about the power of 10 and roughly how long each website action should take (or not take)…
Read the article here to make sure you aren’t losing customers in the first second. Not sure if any of these apply to your website? We can audit your website to find out.
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