How To Make a Good Website: 2 Tips

A website that is intriguing and effective is something that is not always the easiest thing to do; sure, in the past, all you had to do to get business from your website was to simply have one on the web. Nowadays, you need to do more than just put your site on the web, you have to make it worth while.

Your website has to be intriguing and eye-catching, there are two things you can do to keep your site up-to-date, fresh, contemporary, and worthwhile.

The first thing you should remember when you do web design is that sometimes, simple is best. You need a website that caters to the needs of someone who is viewing your site; one of those needs is to navigate through your site without having to jump through hoops and have a compass. Have a simple design that is not complicated or busy and makes viewers feel at home. Now, this does not mean you should have little content and images on your site. You need plenty of content on your site, 300-500 words per page, include pictures, etc. Make it appealing and cool but do not make it complicated and busy.

The second thing you should remember is that your site should feature storytelling. Use compelling copy on your site with captivating images to draw people in. Make your site fun to look at. Let people who view your site to be wanting more and establish that connection. Your site can be like an adventure. Yes, this can be a challenge but it is a challenge that is worth while and should be one you'd like to conquer.

If you have questions about web design, then contact Integraphix - a Chicago web design agency. See how we can help improve your presence on the web.

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. 

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.   

Choosing a CMS

Have you ever wondered what is lurking behind all of your favorite websites? Web designers in Chicago have many different options when they are first presented with a web design project. There are many different Content Management Systems available for web designers such as Wordpress, Joomla and Krypton. With so many options how to you choose the one that is right for your website?

There are many different types of CMS available for editing and managing.  When considering a content management software there are many things that may come into play with your decision. Some CMS platforms are more based around blogging than a pure CMS website. Other CMS platforms are more compatible Search Engine Optimization. Before the design comes into play, you always need to consider what your main target is with your web design. Things to consider when choosing a CMS:

1- Cost: Cost is always an important aspect when making a business decision. There are many different types of CMS available for free and commercial.

2- Security: There is nothing worse than experiencing spam on your beautiful web page. Commercial CMS are licensed version platforms. They may be expensive, but they will be worth the money when it comes to security.

3- Flexibility: Open source CMS provides the flexibility that most designers in Chicago strive for. With flexibility you will be able to create exactly what you are envisioning on your computer screen.

We have collaborated a list of different Open Source CMS to highlight the differences.

­Wordpress:

Wordpress was released in May of 2003. Wordpress is a free content management system based on PHP and MySQL.  It was first introduced and geared towards bloggers and is now used by over 65 million users and not just for blogs, but for websites as well.  As mentioned in the previous blog Awesome Wordpress Plugins, Wordpress allows for many different customizations.  Plugins allow Wordpress users to extend their abilities with web development in a multitude of ways.  There are over 18 million Wordpress plugins available.  Wordpress is very well-organized and very easily learned by new users.  It is a favorite CMS among SEO companies due to its ability to implement and track Search Engine Optimization results.

Joomla:

Joomla is also a free content management software and is written in PHP.  There are over 30 million Joomla users and it is still rapidly growing.  Joomla was introduced in 2005 and just recently released their newest version, 3.0.2, which was produced last month.  There are over 10,000 free and commercial extensions available for Joomla users.  The Joomla extensions include plugins, templates, modules, components and languages.

Drupal:

Drupal is another content management system that has a very large amount of users.  Instead of focusing on blogging like Wordpress, Drupal is purely CMS for websites.  There are a wide variety of optional modules that can add forums, user blogs, profiles and more to your website.  The Drupal CMS is used by 2.1% of websites worldwide.  Although Drupal is seems quite difficult to use, it has very basic website administration and installation.