5 Rules of Web Design

Being in web design is cool and fun; you get to be creative and often help people out. You can create websites for yourself or for other people, either way, you're actually helping people. However, did you know there are unwritten rules for web design? Yup! I mean, you won't get prosecuted if you violate these rules but you can (and probably will) end up with a bad website.

1. The first rule is be clear in your writing. When someone visits your website, you have mere seconds to get their attention and keep them on your site. Use clear, concrete language. Put your something on the landing page, or homepage, that will get visitors to realize that your site is worth staying on. As for deeper pages, you want your writing to be clear so they understand what each page is about and they don't just move on after a second of struggling to read your page. 
2. The second rule is be easy. Make your website easy to navigate; you want it to be easy to navigate for two reasons: 1) search engines like sites that are easy to find your way around so they can rank them better. 2) People like sites they can find their way around so they get to see the whole thing and know they aren't wasting their time. Think about it, when you find a site that is confusing and you get lost in, you don't think, "This is a great site!" You most likely think, "Well, I'm out of here. Stupid website." Don't be a stupid website. 
3. The third rule is optimize your site. If you do not optimize your site, then your site will not rank well and doing any search engine optimization or other internet marketing will be worthless. This means having good title & H1 tags, using keywords in your text, having image tags, etc. 
4. Be real is the fourth rule. Ditch the "impressive" language and jargon as well as the cheesy, cliché, "clearly it is not real"stock photos. If you have to use stock photos, fine, but use ones that are believable. 
5. The fifth rule is be mobile. Having a website that is not mobile-friendly is like having a car with three tires; yeah, you have the car but people will only ride in it if it's life or death. If you don't have a mobile-friendly site, you have a website but people will only look at it on a mobile device when there's absolutely no other way to view it. Why is this a problem? Well, because smartphones and tablets are getting somewhat popular these days and apparently people like going on the internet with them. Have a mobile-friendly version of your website even if you have  an app as well. 

Like we said, web design can be really fun and helpful. In today's society, every business needs a website; if your company needs a website, then contact Integraphix - a Chicago web design company who can give you  a great site. If you have a site that needs to be optimized or search engine optimization, then you can again contact Integraphix. 

A Trend of Web Design in 2013

2013 has had a lot of changes in web design and some of the changes have been good and some of the changes have been... mediocre. Overall, whether good or "bad" changes that happen in the web design world, that still means there is progress being made. In this blog, I have compiled a list of 8 trends that happened in 2013. Some of the trends were welcomed with open arms and some were welcomed with crossed arms.

1. The first trend that was seen was the emergence of layouts that were responsive. Responsive layouts became a huge hit this year because of the continuing rise in popularity of smartphones and tablets. People look at websites on any device that gets internet, wherever they are. Think about it, if you have a smartphone or tablet; how many times in the past week or two weeks have you looked at a website on your smartphone or tablet? Maybe you were inline at a store or just sitting on a bench at a park waiting for your child who was playing on the jungle gym. As people, we love to be able to view information and see a website wherever we are. 
2. A second trend that was seen in 2013 was the rise in retina displays. The practicality of this trend was not quite as big as other trends but it sure was a big hit for those who love a good picture when looking at their phones, tablets, or computers. Perhaps the first thing you thought of when I mentioned retina displays was Apple. This year they rolled out the new laptops with retina displays and on their iPads too. 
3. A third trend for web design seen in 2013 was menu bars that are permanent. A lot of websites have moved to this feature so people can still see the tabs and search bar when scrolling down the page; as you know, in the past, when you would scroll down the page, the menu bar would disappear once you scrolled past a certain point on the page. 
4. A fourth trend seen in 2013 for web design was larger photos on websites. People love to see visuals; no matter what people look at, analyzing a visual or merely observing it lies in our core. Think about it, when you read something like a newspaper or a book, you either see a picture you can appreciate or you create the image in your mind because of the mind's love for visuals. Our eyes are drawn to pictures and scenery. 
5. A fifth trend for web design seen this year was the idea of "less is more." If you take a look at some web pages on the net, quite a few of them have moved to more simple landing pages. Along with loving visuals, the eye loves what it can understand; our eyes have a bad time when trying to sort out a complex and busy landing page, or any web page for that matter. When there are too many designs, crazy colors, links upon links upon links, etc. our eyes get exhausted. Instead, websites have moved to focus more on simple web pages that allow the eye to sort out what is going on, make the product look good, and get the sales. 
6. A sixth trend seen this year is the QR code. Now, this trend did not perform as admirably as the world forecasted but it was still a big deal for the first few months of the year. It's original intent was to create a quick and easy way for people to get to a website or wherever the QR code was linked to. 
7. A seventh trend was making social media placement on the web page a premium. This year, it was observed that social media became a necessity for websites and that the sites place the badges in prime spots on the page. As Americans, we read left to right, thus, a prime spot was to place the badges in the top left corner of the page; however, should the top left corner of the web page be taken, the top right was a welcome spot as well. 
8. An eight trend seen this year was the emergence of the tour. Have you ever gone to a website, especially after it has been reconstructed or introduced, and you get a tour of the site? You see all the spots where it says what each link or tab, etc will do for you and such. That was a biggie this year and it seems to have worked out well, however, sometimes annoying. But, it still worked so kudos to the inventor of that. 

These were just eight trends seen in web design this year, there are plenty more out there. As a Chicago web design company who loves to be creative and know the latest trends, seeing these trends happen was a fun sight. If you happen to need a website or a revamped website, consider calling Integraphix. 

Useful Web Development Resources

As a web design company in Chicago, the Integraphix creative team is always looking out for new web trends and resources that can help enhance our websites. Our marketing company in Chicago understands that the design and development industry is very fast paced and is always evolving. We have gathered a list of some of our favorite resources when developing. From text editors to plugins, there are many resources you can find on the internet that can be useful during the development of your website.

Less Framework 4: Our marketing company in Chicago has found that many clients have been coming to us seeking mobile ready websites and responsive designs. With so many people using cell phones and tablets during their everyday lives, it has become essential to integrate responsive or mobile friendly designs in websites. Our Chicago marketing company has found that using Less Framework 4 has become a useful tool in creating a functioning responsive website. The program contains 4 layouts and 3 sets of typography presents that are all based on a single grid.

Dev Shed: Looking to expand your knowledge on web development? Our creative agency has found Dev Shed to be one of the best online resources for a variety of different ideas and tutorials relating to web development. With many ranges of styles and difficulties, our Chicago marketing company is confident that you will find something your interested in! We recommend you check out their website.

Pictaculous: This online program not only can help the web gurus but any kind of artist out there. Our Chicago Marketing Company found the found the program Picaculous through MailChimp, who created the program. The program is a color palette generator. All our designers in Chicago have to do is upload an image into Pictaculous and it generates a color palette using our images! It’s not only useful, but it’s also fun to use.

Dash: For the Mac web designers, our designers in Chicago recommends trying out “Dash”. Dash is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager. Our marketing company in Chicago recommends any web developer to use Dash throughout the process of creating websites. The tool is super useful for our creative agency as it has the ability to check offline documentation and code! Even in your beginning stages of developing a website, you can always have the security of knowing your code is up to standards.

Do you have a favorite web development resource? Our Creative Team would love to learn what you like to work with! Leave us a comment below!

Awesome Wordpress Plugins (Part 2)

Since Wordpress is one of the richest and most user-friendly content management systems available, our Chicago web designers decided to blog about another group of plugins we love for Wordpress. Wordpress originally impacted the web design industry by being a free and very customizable software. The amount of extensions and plugins available make the platform truly one of a kind. With hundreds of Wordpress plugins available, it may be overwhelming to try to find exactly what you’re looking for, but regardless you will end up finding a variety of options to choose from. Our web designers in Chicago have compiled an extension to a previous post, Awesome Wordpress Plugins, so here’s our second list of awesome Wordpress plugins:

Akismet

Unfortunately for our Chicago web designers and many other Wordpress fanatics, Wordpress is not flawless. It has been brought to our attention that Wordpress-based blogs occasionally have issues with spam messages being posted in the comments section. As a Chicago web design company that likes building websites in Wordpress, we grew concerned about the issue.  We started seeking out plugins to help in case we have an issue with spammy blogs.  We found a plugin called Akismet that works wonders when you want to ensure all unwanted comment posts are kept far away from your Wordpress blog.

Slider Revolution Responsive

At the moment, we are in the middle of a website redesign of our own company’s website. We are currently moving our site to WordPress to create more functionality and help improve our search engine optimization. While planning our new redesign, we couldn’t find the perfect front slider for our homepage. Our web designers eventually found the WordPress plugin, Slider Revolution Responsive. This plugin creates a responsive and mobile friendly slider for your WordPress page. This allows you to display animation effects and it can be very easily customized.

Quform

There is no need to use online form generators that charge your company a monthly fee when you install the Quform plugin for your website. This plugin allows web designers to create totally custom forms in a very short amount of time. The setup and maintenance is very easy for WordPress users and gives users total control over their forms. Our designers in Chicago now have the ability to create a fully functional form without even touching any code.

Styles with Shortcodes

If your building your own WordPress site or customizing a theme, it may be hard to stay consist between all of your pages and blog posts. With the Styles and Shortcodes plugin, users can easily create short codes to generate consistent style between each of their pages. If you are a graphic designer that is not fully familiar with PHP, CSS or Javascript, this plugin can definitely help you out a ton. Style your website and content faster and easier with shortcodes.

wpStickies

As demonstrated on Facebook, pictures may be easier to identify if they are tagged images. Just like tagging photos on your Facebook page, web designers can tag pictures on their web creations with a premium image tagging plugin called wpStickies. Not only is wpStickies a highly customizable plugin for your WordPress page, it is also deeply integrated with WordPress. The best thing about this particular plugin is how compatible the it is with most web browsers. With this plugin, our designers in Chicago can also allow users and visitors to tag photos on their pages.

Which Wordpress plugins are your favorites?  Feel free to leave us a comment or contact us.   

Things to Consider When Building an E-commerce Website

With millions of different websites out there on the Internet, it is very important to keep your website on top and stand out from the crowd. With a rise in the need for web development, E-commerce websites, compared to other types of websites, are being seen more frequently by our Chicago web designers. E-commerce websites are one of the most complicated and interactive types of websites to build. E-commerce sites can be very complicated to construct and can be difficult to understand when building. If you are shopping around for a marketing company or web design firm to provide web design services, be sure to read up on the topic before making the big decision. Even if you come across a marketing company or a web design company that has been designing websites for years they may still not have the full capabilities of creating a total, interactive e-commerce website.

Platform your website is built on

It is very important to keep in mind what platform your web developers are looking to build your website on. When creating a website, web designers usually build the site on a Content Management System. If you are looking to create an e-commerce website chances are you are going to be doing a lot of maintenance to it. You will probably want to make sure that your website is built on a flexible, user-friendly CMS, which will help you enormously in the long run when it comes to making changes and updates to your website. Before beginning your e-commerce web design project, gather ideas on what kinds of chance you will want to be making to your website on a regular basis. Will you be adding new products to your website everyday?  Will you be swapping out pictures frequently? Will descriptions be added in or changed? Always take the time before starting a web design project to think about how you are looking to use the website. Your website is your strongest marketing tool for your business and probably the most important, so put a good deal of time into the planning phrase.

Make your website stand out

Make your e-commerce site stand out. The design of your e-commerce site should have all of your products organized nicely and it should be easy to navigate through the site. Your website speaks volumes about your company and a lot of times your website serves as a first impression.  It is very important to keep a professional appearance and show your potential customers that you are the expert in your industry. With many different retail online stores out there, you need to show your customers that you are not just a business with no face.  Your goal should be to give your company a face.  Personalize your brand and show consumers that you care. Become a business that they can trust and will want to shop online with. Not only are you wanting people to find your website, you want them to stay and buy your products. The main focus of your homepage is to make a good first impression for your viewers.

Enhance with details

When adding your products to your website, don’t skimp on the details of your products. The product details and product descriptions are what shoppers are primarily focused on.  The main goal of an e-commerce site is to sell your company and your products or services. If your products are not well-highlighted, featured or described you could be doing yourself and your company a major disservice. Let your descriptions enhance your products and help separate you from your competition. Of course be sure to add images to go along with your fabulous descriptions on your product pages, so your customers can see first hand what they are about to purchase.

Comment or questions on constructing an e-commerce website?  Feel free to leave us a comment below or contact us.

Signs Your Website Needs a Redesign

Is it time to update your website? Odds are if you think your website could look a lot better, you’re probably right, so make 2013 the year to redesign your web site. The importance of keeping your website up to date is often ignored. Technology and design trends are constantly changing. Not only is redesigning websites today about changing the look and design, but with technology constantly evolving website redesigns are mandatory for success. As Chicago web designers, we have met many people who have ignored site maintenance for years and years and their websites show it. Your website is the most powerful online marketing tool you have at your disposal, so neglecting it won’t do you any good.  Keeping up with regular maintenance and making updates is essential to make sure that your website is always serving your business to the best of its ability. The functionality, presentation, and load time are all important components that impact whether your web design is successful or not. Are all the signs there that you need to redesign your website?  Ask yourself the following questions:

Is it a hassle to update?

It is very important to constantly update your website. As Chicago web designers, we work with many different clients that come to us with a multitude of web design needs.  Some clients already have a website, but doing the updates for it are just a hassle for them.  Some clients are in need of a new website design and don’t want to do the updating or maintenance that is necessary.  Some clients are more than willing to do the updates.  Everyone is different. If your website is a hassle to update, perhaps it’s outdated or the format it is built in is too difficult for you to modify or work in, then you may want to consider a website redesign.   Depending on what you are hoping to do with your website, you may want to be able to do all of the updates and be able to make changes to content or pictures whenever you want. Some people are looking to be more involved with their websites rather than others and really, we all have different computer skills, which is why this varies from person to person. If you cannot make the necessary changes you want to your website, you may want to contact a web design firm to help make it easier for you. It could be as simple as building your website on a CMS (content management system). Content management systems can make doing edits to your website a breeze. We often times build our websites for clients on Wordpress, which is a very user-friendly CMS. To read more on Wordpress and other content management systems visit our previous blog, Choosing a CMS.

Does your website take a long time to load?

If the load time on your website is too long, viewers will stay far, far away. As it has been noticed by our very own web designers, the time it takes to load your website can greatly affect the amount of viewers who return to your site. We believe that if your website takes longer than 5 seconds to load, you need to consider a redesign of your website and internal optimization of your website. If your site takes longer than 5 seconds to load, there is a big chance you will lose your site visitors quickly. This can be tricky because there are many different Internet providers and cell phone providers that provide different quality of service. If you’re experiencing load time that is lengthy, contact Integraphix for a free website analysis and consider a website redesign.

When was the last time you redesigned your website?

If you can’t remember the last time you had your website redesigned, then this might be a good sign that it is time. As an integrated marketing company in Chicago we have worked with clients in multiple industries including, PR agencies, dental practices, hotels, restaurants and more. No matter what your competitors are doing and no matter what others in your industry are doing, you must maintain and keep up with your website regardless.  Although these businesses and the industries that they belong to are very different, we keep one general rule when it comes to all websites: you should completely redesign the look of your website about every three years. With the change in technology and web design trends changing daily, revamping your website every three years is a necessity for the success of your business. Since it’s a new year, take the time to go through your website. If your website is outdated, contact Integraphix for design support.

Can the search engines find you?

As a marketing company in Chicago we provide a variety of different services including web design and search engine optimization. Your website design and your SEO should go hand in hand. If your website is not being crawled by Google or any other search engine, your website is not doing your business any justice. There are many different factors that make up SEO and what makes websites searchable. Keeping up with the SEO of your company is a full time job, and we certainly recognize that, but if it’s not done at all or done correctly your website will stand no chance being ranked by search engines. Since most people find websites through Google, Bing and Yahoo, search engine optimization for your website is essential. If you are looking for SEO services, contact Integraphix for more information and tips on getting your website on the first page of Google.

Up top is our own website's redesign sneak peak. Not only have we built it on a new, easier CMS, it will provide us with better SEO capabilities and has a slick new, appealing design.

Have comments or question on website redesigning?  Feel free to comment below or contact us.