The latest web trends we love

You can easily tell the year a photo was taken based on the hairstyles that people are spotting or even the clothes that they are wearing. It is the same case when it comes to web design; you can quickly ballpark the year a given website has been created just by looking at the design it has.

However, it is not about using a web design that is hip and cool; it is about having a web design that is responsive to the changing needs of your users. The needs of users are dynamic; it is all thanks to the evolving ways people can easily access content. With the changes taking place in technology, this means there is also a change in interfaces. Thus, web design will need to keep up. Below are four of the latest web trends that we love.

1.       Rich Typography
The internet has suddenly seen the real beauty the written word possesses. As websites are being filled with images full of color, text is also forced to find creative ways to compete. Accordingly, texts are evolving and becoming more like the colorful pictures, as they can offer users a visual enticement to read on.  The trick behind this is to pair decadent typeface with the conventional one; this will allow readability while it is still able to capitalize on the visual appeal.

2.       Go bright and bold
Throwbacks are the new trend in town especially when it comes to color combination. Lets us try to think back to the 1980’s family pictures, now imagine those bright and bold colors on a wed design. It is going to be one of the web trends we love, as it reminds us of when the muted hues and earth tones were more fashionable.

3.       Moving elements
The use of animation is also a hot trend; however, the key is to keep the animation relevant and small. It is important that you clearly define what a simple animation would serve. Let us say; the animation could keep your users entertained while content is loading or even while they are processing a transaction. On the other hand, it could be used to draw the user’s attention to a particular page. The essential thing you will need to note is to keep it low key rather than distracting.

4.       Having some video headers
When you include a video header, it gives your website that extra wow factor, especially in this era where the connection speeds are increasing to ensure video loads seamlessly. Additionally, your users are also becoming more accustomed to the concept of embedded videos, so this concept does not feel as intrusive as it did a few years back.

With the advances taking place, websites are increasingly becoming a place where users feel they have expanded autonomy, while they are still establishing a personal connection through their screens. Accordingly, it is important to note, the ways that we consume the web it changes how we design websites, thus keeping up with the trend is paramount.   

Contact Blast Creative for all of your website development needs!

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Color may sometimes seem arbitrary, but it can make or break a website. The right color scheme will make your website look memorable and appealing, but the wrong color scheme will make your site look garish and difficult to navigate. In some cases, a poor choice of color can turn off visitors and drive them away from your site and your business. 

While many of the factors that define your color choices will depend on your industry, there are still some tips that everyone should consider when it comes to their websites.

Stick to a Natural Color Palette

A natural color palette is much more pleasing to the eye than bright shades of green, blue or red. Brighter colors tend to cause eye fatigue, which will prevent visitors from spending too much time on your site or even coming back at all. Try to stick to darker, cooler colors whenever you can.

Create a Contrast Between Text and Background

Any text that you have on your site should be legible, so it should stick out against your background colors. Black text against a white background is always easy to read, but there are other combinations that could work if you want to add a little color. Dark blue, gray or black with white text might be easier for some eyes to handle. 

Stick Mostly to a Palette of Three Colors

While vibrant color can make your website stand out, you shouldn’t go overboard when it comes to your palette. If you want to create a consistent appearance that is still pleasing to the eye, try to stick with just three main colors on every page. Most recognizable logos consist of only a few colors at the most, so a website advertising your business should follow suit. It’s obviously more than a logo, but it should follow the same principle of simplicity. You can add some small accents of other colors when you feel it’s appropriate or if you want something to really stand out, but try to stick to about three colors most of the time. Not only will your site be easier on the eyes, but it will be that much more memorable.

Learn the Common Meanings of Certain Colors

Colors convey certain meanings for people. Think about your business and chosen industry and what you want it to represent, and choose your main colors accordingly. Red is a good choice if you want to convey energy and passion, but know that it can also represent danger and anger. Shades of blue can be calming and peaceful, but they can also indicate sadness and depression. Green can convey nature and prosperity, but it can also represent decay and toxicity in certain contexts. You may have to do some experimenting to find the right color for your website, but with a little searching you should find something that fits the mood you want it to convey. As long as it doesn’t make your website difficult to read or navigate, you have the freedom to choose whatever you want. 

Contact Blast Creative for all of your website design needs.

The post Which Colors Should I Use for My Website and Why? appeared first on Website Design and Marketing.

Running any sort of business is difficult, and it can be tempting to take a few short cuts along the way.  One thing you don’t want to do, however, is skip having an online presence.  According to Internet Live Stats, there are currently over 3.4 billion internet users in the world viewing over 1 billion websites.  Here is what your company is missing by not having a website.

Loss of Business

Above all else, if you don’t have a website, you’re going to lose business.  SCORE, a division of the U.S. Small Business Administration, reports some surprising numbers.  While 97 percent of consumers are now searching for products and services online, over half (51 percent) of small businesses still don’t have a web site.

These consumers are researching companies to read reviews, get information on products and services, and locate contact information.  If they can’t find these details about your company, they’ll likely move along to the next candidate on their list.

Build Stronger Local Presence

Do you have the mindset that you don’t need a website because you’re a local business that gets word-of-mouth referrals?  This is a common mistake, and a quick online search will likely reveal that many of your competitors are already online.  In fact, more people than ever are searching for local products and services on the internet, so the small business with a professional website will be the ultimate winner.

Develop Relationships

A website allows your business to forge deeper relationships with customers, suppliers, and even your local community.  The most visited page of many websites is the “About” page because visitors are interested in knowing more about who they are doing business with.

Having a website allows you to promote your company’s vision while building trust and loyalty.  A website also permits customers to be in closer contact with your business, giving them the ability to contact you with questions about products and services, make requests for support, or provide valuable feedback.

Future Proof Your Business

If you want your business to grow and survive long into the future, a dedicated web site is a must. It’s estimated that 5 billion people will be active internet users by 2020, with a 25 percent annual growth rate in mobile during that period.  With more and more people searching online and through mobile devices for products and services, it makes little difference what your business provides, having a web site is the only way to remain viable and capture this growing audience.

In recent years, having an online presence has become more a necessity than a luxury.  A professional website that reflects your company’s services and vision could make the difference in its long-term success.

Contact Blast Creative today for all of your website needs!

The post What Your Business Misses by Not Having a Web Site appeared first on Website Design and Marketing.

It seems that everyone reads online reviews before buying a product, or working with a company. Are online reviews legitimate, or are companies uploading fake reviews to gain favor? How can you tell a legitimate review from a false review? The advice you can learn is great, and can help you to make a smart purchasing decision. The problem is, one out of three reviews are fake.

Several websites are promoting online reviews for a fee. Companies know the importance of reviews, and several of them are paying companies to post fake reviews for them as it helps to boost their reputation. Some companies are making upwards of $30K a month just to create fake reviews for companies on websites like Amazon.com.

Some of the things you can find that are similar with the false reviews are the way a person emphasizes with a company, or if they have a lot of online reviews with their profile. However, only having a single review can also lead to a concern related to the legitimacy of the review as it can show false profiles are being set up.

Fake online reviews tend to have the words “I” and “We” used in the review often. They are normally vague when it comes to the way they describe the product or service. Companies are using new programs to detect false reviews and other concerns related to false online reviews. These companies want their customers to receive legitimate information before they buy a product. Facebook has already started working on cracking down on the companies that are buying “likes” for their account. These methods will help to cut down on the problems related to fake reviews, helping customers to find the right information they need to make an informed decision.

We had our own issues with fake reviews from a local company in Billings Montana. The owner created fake Facebook profiles and then used those profiles to give Blast Creative bad reviews. In turn, he gave himself,  5 stars. So competitors are doing it with malice to try and drive business to themselves. See the photos.

Regulators in several states are cracking down on fake reviews. Some companies are being fined upwards of $350,000 for fake reviews. This false advertising practice has shown several companies the importance of asking their customers to leave feedback, regardless of if it is positive or negative. The positive element is that you do have the ability to rebuttal any of the reviews that you do feel are not legitimate.

The other thing to notice with a fake online review is that it will focus on boosting the SEO of the company. When you see a review saying something like “The pizza at City Pizza in Denver is the best pizza in Denver. We just love the pizza at City Pizza in Denver.” It is a clear message that this is a fake review and the company is posting it to try and boost their SEO rankings.

There are some websites that verify their reviews. Certain sites will not allow a person to review a product unless they purchased it from their website. This is a great way to know the reviews you read are trustworthy, and not coming from a fake reviewer.

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This past week I’ve received over a dozen calls, “Please HELP, my page rankhas changed and I don’t know why!”

Well, let me share with everyone the WHY on the page rank changed! Google has once again changed the way that it does things. It all has to do with those paid backlinks! Google isn’t counting them and that is not an absolute, some they count.

And some sites weren’t affected by the changes while others were. There is no need to panic! Let me say that one more time, there is no need to panic! The best thing that you can do for your business and your web site is to continue with both white hat and organic seo tactics.

Keep networking your site. Use MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other social networking sites to get the word out about your business. These sites also let you add backlinks to your site. Post often.

There are a ton of directories out there, use them! That is why they are there, find your category and get your company listed! But most of all, don’t give up, just keep working at it and you will see results!

For more information on SEO Services and Internet Marketing, please contact BLaST creative today!

SEO Resources

Google Page Ranker

Who Links 2Me

WordPress

GoDaddy

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It’s the most-asked question from PPC managers and clients both: what is a good click-through-rate percentage on PPC ads? Of course, there will always be debate over what is considered good and what should be labeled subpar, but everyone agrees that higher is better. Many factors go into the CTR for PPC ads, so let’s look at these a little closer.

What is CTR?
Since you’re reading this, you likely already know that CTR is short for click-through rate. This measures the percentage of people who end up clicking on your ad after they’ve seen it. Why is it important? A high CTR tells Google and other search engines that your ad is attractive to people, indicating that it’s helping people find services or products that they want. Put simply, search engines evaluate data like this when determining ad placement for searches. A higher CTR helps secure a higher position on a search page, among other things. Most experts agree that 2% is considered a good CTR rate for pay-per-click advertising. Certainly, there are other factors or circumstances to consider, but this number is a great goal to start with. Keep reading for information on how to start improving your CTR.

How Can I Improve My CTR?
Click-through rate can be improved in numerous ways.

• Rethink your keywords. Using keywords is a given, but you don’t want to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Use targeted keywords that match with user intent.
• Create compelling ads. No one sets out to write a poor ad, but some are more effective than others. Highlight testimonials and reviews. Be highly specific about the problem your product or service will solve. Appeal to the person’s desire to solve their problem immediately by offering time-sensitive product bonuses or service upgrades.
• Use strong verbs. Strong verbs spur people to action. Think about using verbs like double, improve, create, and get.

As mentioned above, 2% is considered a good CTR. This may vary a bit from industry to industry, platform to platform, and campaign to campaign. The “magic number” might be a little different for your ad. Be sure to have a testing system in place so you can measure the efficacy of any ad placement and to see where you can improve your CTR percentage.

The post What is a good percentage for a PPC ads Click-through-Rate? appeared first on Website Design and Marketing.

This article will give you sufficient knowledge on how to maintain a site’s quality level that avoids visibility and usability problems.
You may ask yourself why site maintenance is relevant to search engine optimization, promotion, and internet marketing – isn’t this the job of the webmaster or site administrator?

Remember that the Integrated Approach considers site quality maintenance as a secondary yet obligatory addition to your promotion campaigns and traffic analysis. The content of the website is the foundation upon which to build the online business. The higher the quality of this material, the more successful the business will be.

It is strongly recommended that you start your SEO campaign with a site quality assessment, especially in the following situations:

• When providing SEO / SEM services and being hired to promote a website already created by somebody else. In this case, you should cooperate (if possible) with the site development and administration team to properly prepare the website for the SEO campaign.
• When you have just developed a website of considerable size but cannot afford the time or resources to double-test every page and function.
• When a website you’re working with uses a dynamic technology and/or is constantly changed and updated with new materials, products, news, etc.
• When the website you’re working with is developed, maintained and managed by a group of people on a regular basis. Even if the team is well coordinated, this usually means that site quality will still yield some gaps.

Site quality assessment means detecting and troubleshooting the two principal factors that ultimately determine site traffic and visitor conversion: site visibility and usability.META and TITLE tags and other elements important for the search engines), it means you’re having visibility problems.
When you’ve removed all errors and breaches that could potentially damage your visibility, pay attention to usability flaws: missing or incorrectly displayed images, broken links (these can frustrate not only spiders but human visitors also), missing JavaScript included or CSS styles. These types of usability problems appear in your site by not displaying or functioning correctly.
Remember your audience is always split into human visitors (the “visible” audience) and search engine spiders (the “invisible” audience). If your site isn’t initially spider-compatible (has broken links, lacks META and TITLE tags and other elements important for the search engines), it means you’re having visibility problems.
Finally, whether you’re a hired hand or running an SEM campaign for your own site, you may want to clean up the technical waste which emerges when a website has been on the Web for a long time or when it lacks proper supervision. This generally means orphaned files which are no longer included or linked to from anywhere and just clutter your hosting space.
For more information on Search Engine Optimization,Internet Marketing or Web Design, please contact BLaST creative today.

SEO Resources

Google Page Ranker

Who Links 2Me

WordPress

GoDaddy

The post Auditing and Improving Your Website appeared first on Website Design and Marketing.

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