The dilemma on whether you really need the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology for your website is normal as such puzzles arise quite often especially when one is in the deciding phase of implementation of a new technology.

You might consider it an easy affair when it comes to taking such decisions. Just weigh the pros against the cons, and if the pros outweigh the cons implement the technology else discard it. But, the decision is not that simple, you need to consider a host of other aspects as well before you can arrive at a solid decision.

But before discussing whether to use AMP or not, let us first understand what it is along with the pros and cons.

What is AMP?

AMP is an open-source framework that bears the capability of accelerating the loading speed of mobile web pages even if the pages contain heavy content, like infographics, PDFs, audio or video files. AMP disables all the elements that retard the speed and performance of your website. The framework was developed by Google as a competitor to Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News in response to the growing usage of mobiles in internet search.

The underlying rationale is pretty clear—to accelerate loading speeds of web pages in mobiles, as users hate slow loading websites. And users often tend to abandon a page if it takes more than 53 seconds to load, research shows.

Technically speaking, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is built with three major components for speeding up loading mobile web pages. The components are:

AMP HTML

It is an extension of HTML with some custom AMP properties for better as well as reliable properties. The custom elements enable easy implementation of the common tags and speed up site performance. The AMP library can be called upon as it is linked within the code itself.

With the traditionally designed pages, browsers might not be able to detect in what way the content has to be laid out until the entire code is loaded. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) takes care of this aspect by ensuring that the position and the size of each element are determined within the HTML prior to the loading of the actual resources.

AMP JS

It is a library in which scripts are interlinked to allow only good and clean code to be used instead of bloated code to prevent slow loading times. The library enables asynchronous (parallel) loading JavaScript instead of sequentially and that imparts speed to web page loading times.

AMP Cache

It improves the page performances by extracting and caching AMP HTML automatically and thus accelerates page load times. As preferred by Google search results, it allows the web pages to be discoverable by search engines quickly.

AMP Characteristics

AMP has a few characteristics:

• Its focus is to limit the slow parts of web technologies. Although the major focus is on the virtual elimination of JavaScript, it also curtails some HTML and CSS portions
• Adding custom <amp> tags to substitute parts of the functionality lost due to the
• above restrictions for limited, predefined, performant, web components
• Ads are supported in a limited way using custom <amp> tags
• Works mainly for static web pages, such as news, blogs and so on. However, feature-rich web applications will not work. And these are often the pages that struggle the most on mobile

AMP Benefits

AMP entails the remarkable benefit of providing users a smooth and engaging browsing experience by speeding up loading times for web pages. It also delivers successful SEO campaigns by helping the corresponding websites to rank higher in search engine results.

So, with AMP, you can:

• Speed up loading times of web pages
• Engage you audience
• Maintain control as well as flexibility
• Reduce complexity
• Run better SEO campaigns

AMP Downsides

You have now understood the advantages of AMP, but do not get carried away and finalize your decision to implement the technology straight away. Wait a while as there are some drawbacks too. Let us then understand the downsides, so that figuring out whether to implement or not will become relatively easy.

The following are the main drawbacks:

• No doubt, AMP increases the loading times of web pages, but it does so depending on the cache. That means you have to depend on the cache to speed up the loading times
• Google Analytics becomes a time-consuming affair. You need to implement a different tag at all the AMP pages
• Despite the AMP pages are mobile-friendly, their limited capacity to support ads is likely to reduce your revenue from ads

Is AMP Really a Need?

Now comes the moot point: do we really need AMP? Weighing the pros against the cons, you might not be able to arrive at a concrete answer. You need to take into consideration other factors as well. And our straight forward suggestion is: skip AMP for the time being if your website is already mobile-friendly and let the technology withstand the test of time.

If AMP cannot prove its worth, then there is also a chance of Google eventually declaring it as a failed technology. However, if you really find the technology worth implementing, then restrict from using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in all pages of your website. Use AMP is pages like, blogs and critical information.

The post Do we really need Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)? appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

A well-designed website is a must to have an asset to your business. It helps you to better connect with your target audience and at the same time enhances your brand image.

You might have noticed that website design elements change frequently. So, you should take ample care to keep yourself updated on the latest trends for keeping your website up-to-date. What was trending yesterday might be out-of-date today.

The modern web design trends do no longer retain simplicity but find themselves at the confluence of graphic design and evolving technology.

So, to enable you to create the best web design plan, we have put together the following effective trends for 2020:

Web Design Trends

#1 Bold Typography

The trend of using big and bold typography in anchoring homepages is becoming increasingly popular. This style elicits the strongest appeal when the rest of the page is kept minimal. Visitors can feel the design of your website if the homepage is kept clean. Therefore, minimal aesthetics for homepages are among the hottest trends for 2020.

#2 Videos

You can draw the interest of your website visitors by putting high-quality dynamic videos or GIFs that move in a continuous loop. Make sure that you use video on your website as that is also the wave for the future, besides among the hottest trends today.

#3 Overlapping Design Elements

When design elements overlap, they can create more depth and at the same time render the transition from one element to the other visually appealing. It can help a lot in attracting website visitors and create awareness of your brand.

#4 Brutalism

Designers have implemented some convention-defying patterns to differentiate your website from the rest. The technique is called Brutalism and involves shadowing techniques and texturing styles like halftones. With the technique, you will find your website standing apart from that of your competitors.

#5Excessive White Space

Excessive white space in website designs helps in bringing to the focus of visitors certain parts of the webpage. It is an increasingly popular web designing technique. It also has a classic look and feel, and also can fit in any kind of design structure. And many businesses have implemented it, and more are expected to implement it in 2020.

#6 3D Design

3D is among the top web designs to consider in 2020. 3D designs are advantageous as they impart more depth as well as realism to images. Given its appeal to visitors, 3D designs in all forms—static, animated and interactive—are expected to dominate in 2020.

#7 Big Buttons

Big buttons are among the hot trends in the web design sphere. From calls to action to navigation, big buttons have become a popular trend in web design as that ease website visitors to navigate. Big buttons are coloured in various shades to enable visitors to figure out what action is to be taken.

#8 Gradient Styles

The practice of using flat colors is giving way to the use of gradients in 2020. As gradients instill more depth, visitors find it interesting to look at. At the same time, gradients are versatile and can be used in various contexts. One of the striking features of the gradient design is the more clickable the call-to-action buttons become. Moreover, with gradient designs, you can incorporate any background styles.

#9 Organic Shapes

Web designs in 2020 will all be about organic shapes, comprising of curves. The days of grid layouts and sharp edges in web designs are slowly becoming out-dated. Organic shapes render a website with a strong appeal with a mix of colors.

#10 Hand Drawn Fonts

Recently, customized hand-drawn fonts have become trendy in web design. And, in 2020, these fonts are expected to be the order of the day. These kinds of fonts enable designers to create websites with charm and appealing look and feel.

#11 Dark Mode

Preference for the dark mode among website designers is increasing day by day. It enables web designers to create fashionable and creative interfaces. A notable aspect of dark mode designs is that it is pleasing to the eyes, unlike light-colored interfaces that cause strain in the eyes when viewed at the night. Moreover, dark modes help to catch the eye of website visitors.

#12 Mix of Horizontal and Vertical Texts

A popular trend doing the rounds in the modern web design space is the usage of a mix of horizontal as well as vertical texts. And the trend is expected to attain strong momentum in 2020. Existing websites with the trending design shows that the appeal factor magnifies manifold, helping in attracting more and more website visitors.

#13 Illustration

In 2020, websites with beautiful illustrations are becoming more and more popular among businesses. In a recent trend, an increasing number of businesses are turning towards illustrators and graphic designers to create stunning illustrations for enhancing the appeal of their websites.

#14 Appealing Scroll Patterns

Scroll patterns have a lot to do in engaging website visitors. And interesting scroll patterns are one of the hottest web design trends in 2020. The more interesting the scroll pattern is, the more likely are the visitors tend to keep moving through the content. Appealing scroll patterns are more about interesting designs to attract visitors through the content.

#15 Creative Animations

Animations on websites that are creative are set to dominate web designs in 2020. Attractive animations play a big role in attracting as well as delighting website visitors. Creative animations have revolutionized the website design trends of late.

The post 15 Web Design Trends to Watch in 2020 appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Every time when a new visitor visits your website’s homepage, your business needs to create an indelible impression on the visitor’s mind. Today’s online user will do a detailed analysis and establish an opinion of your brand, and determine if you are worth getting to know further, and doing business with.

Why a riveting home page matters?

The homepage of the website is the front door to all the catchy details that build up the rest of your website. It becomes a blueprint for every successful business and converts visitors into customers. So don’t you think should it be as remarkable as possible?

In this blog, we will share 13 key elements every homepage should have to create the right first impression.
Before heading towards important elements, let’s first understand the primal purpose of your website.

There is no doubt that different kinds of websites have different purposes depending on the intended audience is. Some websites are informative while some are entertainment websites.

But at the end, the main intention of any website is to convert visitors into consumers, build trust, educate visitors about their business, build a long-lasting relationship with existing clients, and to do branding of their business.

Let’s see the quick overview of the purposes:

1) Get Found

Your website layout and content must be optimized for search. It will help visitors to find you online easily.

2) Build Credibility

Your website is the most important element for building trust. When any visitor arrives at your website, your website should work the way your visitor expect it to work.

3) Instruct

Your website should teach people how to be acquainted with what their issues and challenges actually are.

4) Inform

Your website’s one of the main intentions should be to inform visitors how you can solve their problems.

5) Cultivate

People require visiting your website often times before making a purchase. So try to capture the email address of your visitors and create valuable content that is significant to their stage in the consumer journey. It will help you to nurture them through to the sale.

6) Convert

It is the main objective of your website. A conversion can come from many things like when a visitor subscribe to a newsletter, make a call to you, to do a product or service purchase from your website. You should keep in mind this objective during the designing and development of your website’s homepage to assist guide the journey.
To achieve all these targets your website must be as attractive as it is possible.

What are the primal things/elements your Homepage needs?

As per the studies, it takes only 0.05 seconds for users to build an opinion about your business and website. So you just have only 50 milliseconds to make a good impression and keep them engaged on your website. So use the following key elements wisely to create an attractive layout for your website.

Let’s look at all these elements one by one.

1. Clear and Simple Headline and Sub-headline

• Your website should convey what your business is offering to customers within 3 seconds. Keep your headline and sub-headline simple, catchy, and clear.
• Always keep in mind you will never get a second chance to make a first impression. So keep a good and interesting headline. It can grab the visitor’s attention and can drag them throughout into your site.
  For instance, ‘Google Drive’ headline is very simple but powerful. “A safe place for all your files”.
• If you want to optimize your headlines and text for mobile and want to give a better experience then make use of larger fonts at least 22px.
• Podio’s sub-headline is another great example. Its sub-headline is also attention-grabbing and engaging: “Try the customizable work management solution leaders trust and employees love working on”.

2. Give Your Word

• You should include something on your website that demonstrates that you understand your visitors and the challenges they face.
• It is, in reality, a trust factor. You need to make them a promise that will solve their problems.
• By including promise text and sub-promise text you can establish trust and credibility.
• For example, you can go through Neil Patel’s website. Where he has included 2 simple lines which establish credibility and trust: “Learn why your competitors rank so high and how you can outrank them”. “Type in your competitor’s domain below and I’ll show you how to beat them”.

3. Prominent Calls-to-action ( Primary and Secondary Call-to-actions)

• When a visitor arrives on your website’s homepage, make it clear what action you want them to take next.
• There must be a top-of-the-funnel (primary) and bottom-of-the-funnel (secondary) action on your website’s homepage.
• If you include your call to action located at the top part of your homepage that is visible without scrolling then it will definitely increase your conversion rate.
• Your primary call-to-action will be like you want your visitors to do a subscription to your blog or connect with you for purchasing a product, service or for a consultation.
• Don’t include more than 2 calls-to-action on your website because it will confuse your visitor and mess your customer’s journey.

4. Lightweight Supporting Images

• There is no doubt in that HD and original images build credibility for your company or engage your audience. But if they take a longer time to load then your visitors will leave your website.
• According to research, 39% of people will leave your website if images take a long time to load or won’t load.
• That’s why always use lightweight images in your website as it will not take a long time to load so engagement rate will increase.
• Keep a balance between offering attractive images and faster loading time. You can make use of tools like PageSpeed Insights and TinyPNG for image optimization.

5. Social Proof

• Social Proof is an influential pointer of trust and reliability. You are offering the best product or service in the world but people will not believe you until they hear it from other people, too.
• You can include some references, case studies, testimonials for your visitors to glance over. If you have reviews or accolades then capitalize on them, make them easy to find, and place them on your website’s homepage.
• These social proofs can build credibility for your business and drive more conversions.
• As per research, 79% of customers trust online reviews and testimonials so if you have positive reviews then include it. Let your would-be consumers know that you’re not just boasting about accomplishments.
• You can most definitely go for the industry best social media.

6. Clear Path into Your Website From the Homepage – Intuitive Navigation

• To reduce the bounce rate give your visitors a clear path into your website from the home page.
• If the layout and content of your website home page is well-structured and navigation is smooth then it can definitely create influence on a website conversion rate.
• Make the navigation menu noticeable at the top of the webpage and systematize links in a hierarchical structure.
• Conduct user tests to ensure your website navigation is simple and intuitive and visitors can easily find what they are looking for.

7. Visual Branding

• Visual branding gives your brand an exclusive identity in a crowded market that’s why it is a vital part of your story. Visual branding can become a huge trust factor for website visitors.
• Your visual personality is an accurate reflection of your company, so you require putting in the time and research to ensure it’s represented precisely and optimistically, and that it is in line with your verbal and written messaging.
• Slack is one of the best examples of visual branding. They try to demonstrate their brand’s personality at every touch point.

8. Embed a Product or Service Video

• A video is one of the best ways to let people know who you really are and what services or products you are offering.
• Videos let people hear your story in a sensible way. It is actually a great way to generate content to engage your audience.
• Research of Treepodia shows embedding video to your website can increase conversion rates.
• You can embed an explainer, customer testimonial, product demo, or even a quick tour of your store on your website’s homepage.

9. Your Key Features

• Include your core services, products, and features on your homepage. It provides a bit more details for your visitors and also boosts your website’s SEO.
• So list some of your key features on your website homepage. It will present people in of what’s offered by your products and services.
• For example, Presbyterian senior living website’s home page.

10. Resource Menu

• It will keep your visitors on your webpage for a longer time and help you in building your credibility as they will feel like you are a leader in your industry.
• Make sure to include resource menu at the bottom of your website’s homepage with links to important resource pages, site pages, and social media channels.

11. Trust Elements

• Trust elements are content and image material on a website which can strengthen the level of user trust in you.
• The main objective of these trust elements is to increase sales and ensure customer loyalty.
• Common trust elements are customer opinions, integration into social media using widgets, positive test results, quality technical seal, testimonials, and facts and figures.
• So include a few of these confidence-creating elements on your website’s homepage to build credibility.

12. Success Indicators

• Has your company received any recognition or certificate lately? Then don’t let these awards just collect dust in your office and put them on display. Let your visitors know of your achievements.
• These success indicators build credibility, speaks about the quality of your work, and give you support to establish you as an expert in your industry.
• These success indicators prove that you are not just promoting or boasting your own horn; your work quality proves that.

13. Valuable and Changing Content

• Valuable content plays an important role in audience engagement. Offer people the ability to download quality content if they exchange their email address with you.
• It is a vital element for conversion on your website. If they download this content, this means they have an interest in what you do.
• Grab this opportunity and provide them more valuable content moving forward in an attempt to nurture them through to the sale.
• Feature your changing content from your website on your homepage. To that, you can place your blog or social feed on the homepage which shows recent activity.
• It is one of the best ways to show people that your company is active and to keep content fresh on the homepage.
• Hire the best content marketing strategists in order to convey your business’s goals and vision in a simple yet powerful way.

Signing Off

In a nutshell, you should include elements that attract traffic, invite a conversion, and educate visitors. Your homepage should not look like a typical landing page but design it to serve different audiences from different origins. Your website homepage should play an active role in your marketing strategy and bring more sales opportunities for you by repeating your branding message to prospective consumers.

If your website homepage is lacking somewhere then improve the performance of your homepage by including above-discussed must-have homepage elements. Keep a fine balance while designing your homepage and use the right fonts, spacing, photos, responsive design, stylish buttons, and other important web design elements. If you include above-listed elements on your homepage then you are already on your way to give your brand the winning edge against your competitors.

If you are interested in accelerating your efficient homepage design strategy with the help of the above elements in an impactful way, feel free to hire our industry-best web design services and boost your business bottom-lines to the epitome.

Which of these elements will you focus on your next rounds of website re-design? Do write to us and let us know your views in the comments below.

The post 13 Primal Elements You Should Have on Your Homepage appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Web design is an evolving art. There is an evident difference in the way web pages used to appear once, and how they appear now. They are far more streamlined and user-friendly than before. Online marketing also is a far more lucrative option than outbound marketing, as Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound.

Websites, over the span of the last 15 years have grown out to be more than just digital presence. Its affiliation to business and the potential it has to increase your brand’s sales is simply incredible. There is a direct correlation between website feedback and design. A certain study found out that 94% of negative website feedback was design related.

And as we all are well aware of the fact that wherever there is business involved, there is competition. To get leverage over the competition, designers are now trying to understand the most basic aspects of web designing – “what is it that the users are looking for?”

How Impactful Can The ‘Design’ Element Be?

Getting visitors to your website is similar to getting people to visit a restaurant or a luxury villa; the neater the place, more the visitors. A neat and optimized website encourages trust. Studies show that 84% of the searchers online will not make a purchase if they are dealing with an unsecured website.

As the digital era progresses into 2019, there are key elements about modern web design that need to be borne in mind, to ace the web designing game. Below, you will find a list of those elements, explained in detail to make you realise of each crucial aspect of making a successful website.

The 20 Key Elements of Modern Web Designing

1.Minimal Design

How to Approach

Minimalism may look far too simple but is the hardest to achieve. It is a simplistic layout minus the clutter. Some of the finest examples of exceptionally neat websites are Studiorotate.com and MikiyaKobayashi.com.

The central idea of minimalism is to focus on just one thing about your website that you want your visitor to leave with and make it the most memorable thing about your website’s landing page.

Hire the industry best web designers to make your website interactive that have better user experience, lesser bounce rates, stand out to give you an edge over competitors & have that wow factor can compel your visitors to convert.

Benefits of Adopting Minimal Design

People usually do not enjoy reading online that much. They need more visual aesthetics, and fewer things to remember (simply because they already have so much to). When you focus your website on informative pictures and videos over text, plain typography, and a remarkable use of white space (in the examples you saw above) you end up garnering their attention longer, and it also helps in total recall value.

Minimalism shifts the focus on a visual representation of what your brand has to offer, which is the crux of website designing.

2. Unique and Large Typography

How to Approach

A peculiar font that is unique to you will go a long way in reminding people of your brand. If you look at the Coca-cola font, you can instantly make it out. Font has a large part to play on your website. Therefore, making it small would just make it unrecognizable.

For people to recognize and remember the font on your site, make sure you showcase it on your landing page itself. If you see Sergey Makhno Architects (mahno.com.ua/en), you will see a geometric font representing their architectural expertise spilling into their website design.

Benefits of Unique and Large Typography

Unique and large typography add to the overall aesthetics of the website. Studies show that 38% of user will stop visiting your website if the layout is unattractive. And if the font does not match with the design of your website, your layout goes for a massive toss, which would reflect on your business sooner rather than later.

3. Storytelling – Character Design

How to Approach

Custom graphics have emerged as a new trend, and there is a specific way you have to go about it. The custom graphics you choose for your website has to be immensely unique. If you look at ToskaChocolates.com – a chocolate website from India, you will see a chocolate being peeled off its wrapper as you scroll down.

This arouses the tasting sense of the user scrolling down the site, making the user want to buy the chocolate.

Benefits of Character Design

Studies show that 75% of consumers make judgments about a company’s credibility based on the website design. Back in the 90s, when the Sprite’s curly haired mascot – Fido Dido – donned the television screens, it took the brand’s marketing charts off the roof. That is the power character design holds, when it comes to endorsing your brand over a virtual media.

4. Mobile-Friendly Design

How to Approach

Smartphones are remarkably accessible. That is one of the prime reasons why 60% of consumers click on mobile ads at least weekly. The engagement and the traffic received by users on a mobile phone are far more than any other device. 80% of Smartphone users use their mobile device to access the net, and that shows how really important a mobile-friendly design is.

Making the website responsive to various dimensions of mobile devices is crucial. The Hamburger layout for the menu tab is a good pointer in making the website more mobile-friendly. The Indian Clothes and merchandise brand TheSouledStore.com is a good example of a responsive website, which shrinks or expands as per the dimension of the screen of the device you access the site from.

Opt for the best Responsive Website Design services in this multi-device world where in 83% of mobile users say that a seamless experience across all devices is very important.

Benefits of a Mobile-Friendly Design

When there is a website that loads without any hassles on your user’s mobile device, you will notice that the user can spend more time on the site. And the obvious outcome of this would be a higher sales ratio.

Statistics suggest that in the last quarter of 2017, close to 52% of all global web traffic originated from mobile devices. Hence, if there is a way your user can spend more time on your website, you should make the necessary provisions to make that happen.

5. Large and Responsive Hero Images

How to Approach

Hero images are huge banner images which are placed with the intention of grabbing the potential customer’s attention. They are supposed to be eye-catching and visible. If you happen to hide it behind text or a shabby clutter of menu options, then the hero image would lose its charm.

Measponte.it is a prime example of how hero images should be placed on the website. The text should blend with the banner image in a seemingly seamless manner.

Benefits of Responsive and Large Hero Images

Large and responsive hero images set the expectation right for the customer. They would not be expecting anything other than the products or the services you offer. Like Onirim.com does on its page, every image that flashes elicits a sense of vogue and panache. Having creative images flashing on your page would interest the user and make them keep coming for more.

6. Apply the Rule of Thirds

How to Approach

An important element in website designing is composition. It helps structuring your website’s layout. Even the best font and hero images and UI/UX would fail if your website’s overall composition remains to be a mess. The basic idea as per the Rule of Thirds or the Divine rule of Photography is basically aligning the pictures or texts on the site on the four focal points of six intersecting lines. It could be aligned on the two left focal points, or two right.

Benefits of The Rule of Thirds

On applying the rule of thirds, the page looks a whole lot organised and appealing. The font and the pictures do justice to what it is deemed to accomplish. If you see MarcusSchramm.net website, you will see the rule of thirds being applied incredibly, making the landing page look harmonious and a safe site to be at.

7. White Space

How to Approach

For those of you unaware of what white space is it basically is the negative area in any composition. An unmarked distance between two objects that ends up giving the viewer a sort of visual break, by minimizing distractions and making it easier to focus on the subject at hand.

Benefits of The White Space

If you check out the website Welikesmall.com, you will notice white space used in a video format, where their homepage displays a demo reel of their recent video projects. This manages to attract the attention of the viewer.

They have added the call-to-action button at the centre, with nothing much around it, giving it all the space on the page to be visible to the viewer. Undoubtedly, this would make the viewer click on the button and check out more things on the site.

White space enhances usability, and that is found to be one of the most sought after characteristic of a website as per a survey conducted in the United States. 60% of the respondents have agreed that they prefer usability. Pair usability with aesthetics and what you have is a fabulous website.

8. Short Product or Feature videos

How to Approach

A short video regarding the product you offer or services you provide livens the page up. The Website Watson.la is an impeccable example of this. They use white space and short videos, with hero images and amazingly contrasting colors in such a wonderful manner, that you cannot move away from the charms of the site.

Benefits of the Feature videos

A feature video enhances the user’s experience. As we already are aware that video content is currently the most sought-after form of content. Cashing in on this potential is undoubtedly a good option.

A video is the most attractive form of content and since it just 2.6 seconds for a user’s eyes to land on the area that most influences their first impression, grabbing their attention hook, line and sinker through a video is a sure-fire method.

9. Background Videos

How to Approach

Background videos are innovative alternation to hero images or banner images. If your brand deals with videos, then this would be the best approach to follow. It basically is a stream of videos playing in the background of your site header, making the page come alive.

Techyscouts.com is a prime example of a background video constantly in motion. This breaks the monotony of a static landing page, making the website all the more memorable.

Benefits of Background Videos

A background video adds attractiveness to a rather motionless website. It sometimes just takes 17 ms to form an opinion about a website. In order to make this super fast formed opinion tilt in the direction of your site for longer; using an interesting background video would benefit your site.

10. Giant Product Images

How to Approach

Being very distinct about what you are selling is the key to an effective website. Genesis.com understands this, as you can see a giant product image making up the most of the landing page. Also, if you minutely observe, it also applies the Rule of Thirds and Negative spacing has been effectively used to contrast the color of the car.

Benefits of Giant Product Images

When a product is displayed through a giant image, the highlights of the product are highlighted. This reinforces the benefits that come with the product. The end user understands exactly what is happening on the page, and the product receives total and undivided attention of the user – which, by the way, is the ultimate goal of a neat website design.

11. A Distinct Call-to-Action

How to Approach It

The call-to-action is pivotal in encouraging engagement. For you to get maximum interaction from the user, you have to focus on the button. Do not hide the button within too much design. The entire motive of minimalization and using adequate white space is to enhance the appearance of the call-to-action button.

The call-to-action button is everything your website design works toward. If the design of the website has impressed the user enough, they will click on the button to venture deeper into your site. That is your one shot to generating leads. Make sure you do not miss out on this.

Benefits of a Distinct Call-to-Action Button

One of the most innovative call-to-action button is the one shown by Ultranoir.com, where in the image is water-like, and reacts to the pointer. It tempts you to take action, just to see where it leads you. The page it eventually leads you to, is amazingly contrasted and innovative designed.

12. Get Your Website SEO optimized

How to Approach It

Everything online will pay off only if you make it visible to the search engines. If the search engines are unable to find your site, all your aesthetic efforts value to nothing profitable. Basically, SEO is a set of rules to follow while designing a site.

The most important motive of SEO is to make the site a comfortable experience for the end user. The guidelines to SEO are centered on user-friendliness. The aspects of effective SEO include adding Meta tags, title tags, heading tags, etc.

Consider hiring a team of expert SEO consultants who carve to provide an awesome SEO service experience with a blend of social signals & content marketing efforts.

Benefits of SEO

SEO helps bring your site to the light of the day. If you have managed to crack it down to the core, then you would see that whenever the user types the keywords you have used, your site would pop up immediately. With an aesthetic site that has everything pleasing to offer, right from font artistry to visual aesthetics and on-point content, you can be rest assured that the user will keep coming back to your site.

13. The Usage of Few But Effective Colors

How to Approach It

Colors have a lot to do when it comes to adding to the aesthetics of a website. After all, it is what enhances the visual appearance of the site. You have to wrack your brains to understand the nuances of colors and predict interplay between them to suit your site.

Adding too many colors would make your site seem shoddy, and the user, most likely, may not return. Using just a few, but thoroughly planned out colors, would enhance customer experience, making them want to keep coming for more.

Benefits of Effective Colors on The Website

Using different shades of the same hue can make your website appear subtle and pleasing to the eyes. Bambora.com is a good example of this as you could see that every aspect of the site is in a purplish hue, including the call-to-action buttons.

A well-colored site like this falls easy on the eyes of the viewer, and earns you enough brownie points that the end user plans on visiting again.

14. SVG Graphics

How to Approach

SVG graphics or Scalable Vector Graphics are a designer’s main tools these days. They amp up any website to be far more than what it can be. These graphics make the website come to life.

One such brilliant example of a website that has extensively used SVG is Waaark.com. Every aspect of this website reeks SVG and it is so enthralling an experience that one does not feel like leaving the site.

Hire an expert graphic designer who can effectively communicate your intended message through visuals given form and structure, where by visual information is so as to communicate your unique message and reflect your unique identity.

Benefits of SVG

SVG makes the user stay on the site longer than they intended to be. This extended stay on the website, if encourages regularly, would lead to definite sales over time. A website studded with graphics leads to better leads generation and sales turnovers.

15. Easy to Navigate Menu

How to Approach

Easy navigation is a definite lure to non-tech savvy niche of your audience. It may be hard to believe that such a niche exists in today’s era, but it does. And as a website designer, you have to keep such a niche of people in mind too. Apart from these, simplicity is often appreciated. It may be the hardest to achieve, but the results are sure.
Easier navigation encourages audiences to visit your site often, as they know their way around and would not be lost finding the things they were looking out for in the first place. If you look at DinamicaPlataforma.com, you will see an easier navigation panel with interesting animations that make you want to visit the site again.

Benefits of an Easier Navigation Menu

Easy navigation menu creates the first impression in the mind of a person visiting your site for the first time. They account for 94% of the total first impressions. You can therefore analyse the impact an easy navigation menu would have on the traffic flow on your site.

16. Use of Organic Shapes

How to Approach It

When one uses imperfection on the design; the design takes the form of art. Gone are the days when proper, inorganic shapes made the cut. These days imperfection is celebrated, and that is adding all the aesthetic value to the websites.

If you visit the website MakeMePulse (2019.makemepulse.com), you will see the loading bar to be a crooked line representing the nomadic feel, which is exactly what we are talking about. Without many efforts, just this small artistic touch renders a rustic feel to the whole website.

Benefits of Organic Shapes

Organic shapes are an oddity. And the best part about oddities is that they stand out. Something that stands out in business is what sets you apart from the competition and therefore has better recall value. Your customers would instantly remember any aspect of your website the moment they see the slightest of glimpses.

17. Social Media Integration

How to Approach It

Social media integration is a pivotal part of every website out there. Social media can be approached in a way that suits your brand and the products you offer. If you have fashionable and glamorous things to sell, visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat could come in handy. There are various tools that aid social media integration in a funky manner, to make your website appear neat and simplistically awesome.

Multinational companies like Nike, Dolce and Gabbana, Adidas, etc. that always have to be deeply integrated with social media could guide you the best on how they integrated social media on their site in the most seamless fashion.

Hire the best social media consultants who can offer ultimate solution to all of your social media marketing problems, thus helping you get your word out to a majority of people, in fact your word will get out to more than half of the world’s population, who is using one or other platform of social media.

Benefits of Social Media Integration

A staggering amount of people are glued to their mobile devices. And much to no one’s surprise, they are massively surfing some social media platform or another while they are at it. There is extensive research being done on this, as to why the relationship of people with their phones seems to evolve. That being said, if social media integration is done accurately, it makes your website more engage-worthy, and increases the chances of you making more sales eventually.

18. Hamburger Menu

How to Approach It

People who are on your site for information would appreciate if you provide it to them readily. Dispersing information across your website is a hassle for the “Infosnacker”. To beat this, use the Hamburger menu, which usually is seen as three lines stacked up on each other on the top left or top right of the site.

Benefits of Hamburger Menu

This stack of lines bind the menu in one small space, giving your website enough space to display pictures and videos and enhance the aesthetics of the site. Almost every popular website these days uses the Hamburger menu to make navigation easy for the user.

19. Custom Digital Illustrations

How to Approach It

Nike has done some great work when it comes to creating custom digital illustrations. To stay true to their ethos, and the comfort their products offer, they have made whacky animatronics, thereby making use of complete creative liberty. You can see it for yourself here. This website also makes fabulous use of the Hamburger Menu.

Benefits of Custom Digital Illustration

When custom illustrations are used, there is a better chance of people relating to what you offer. Custom illustrations manifest the virtues of your brand and lead to the creation of a better recall value, which the audience will never forget.

20. Speed-optimized design

How to Approach It

Know that your audience’s attention span online is less than a couple of seconds. In fact, studies reveal that it is less than 50 milliseconds. That is all the time you have to impress your audience. That cannot happen if your site takes that much time to just load. You have to figure out a way where you site loads faster than a blink.

An easier way to go about it is to include images with lesser weight so that your load time lessens and sites load faster. Getting a dedicated server space instead of a shared server would also boost up your load speed incredibly.

Benefits of Speed-Pptimized Design

Speed-optimization impacts your website design. Your viewer will like the design only if they reach to it fast enough. In case they don’t, they will bounce off your site and you will have a higher bounce rate which will lead to poor SEO rankings and eventually spiral your site down to the void of oblivion. All that effort you put into making a site should never face a fate like that. NFL.com is known to be one of the fastest loading sites.

In Conclusion

These essential mandates are what contribute to making a website effective and efficient, and aesthetic at the same time. A holistic website that offers functionality and design is revered by many and visited by many more. If you lay the foundation of your website keeping in mind these aforementioned criteria and sticking to them down to the core, there is no doubt that your website will thrive in a span of mere days or even hours.

In 2019, sticking to the basics is in trend. And following these tips would basically uplift your online business to the heights of success like you never imagined.

The post 20 Key Elements of Modern Web Design to Follow In 2020 And Beyond appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Do you think that having a responsive and elegant website design is all that you need to enhance your visitor’s experience? Well, yes, but partially! Without the right content to flaunt your design, no matter how swift and smooth your website’s UI and UX experience is, it is bound to go wasted.

It is essential to have synchronization between the design and content such that design complements the words, and gives users a quick idea regarding what you’re trying to say even without reading the content fully. This is what a content-first design focuses on.

Would you like to give this approach of design a try? Well, rest assured, the content-first approach would only bless your design process with significant visible improvements. All set? Let’s have a quick insight into it in detail.

I: What is Content-First Design?

Content is the uncrowned king of your website. It is the content that makes the users visit your site and subscribe to your newsletter and follow you on social media. When content is so important, why should it be considered second? Consider, for example, you want to populate a slider.

There are two approaches to achieve that: One, you write carefully thought taglines and then design the background with suitable images to complement the text. Second, you design the slider first as per your requirements and write the content accordingly.

Now, supposedly, you run an e-commerce business that sells women apparel. Following the second approach, you thought that the images of women skirts and tops on the slider background would look perfect. Indeed, they would! Now, it is time to populate the content.

Supposedly, the content head has thought of talking about 100% customer satisfaction and payment guarantee, but, now he would have to optimize his tagline as per the background image as well. This is nothing but the death of an idea! This is exactly what happens when you follow a design-first approach instead of a content-first approach.

For composing a story through design, you have to be aware of the message you intend to communicate through the content. Your visitors will be frustrated if they find discord between your content and design. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to keep content on priority in the process of development.

Talking factually, Content-First design approach was founded by Jeff Zeldman in the year 2008. It emphasizes that content is to be determined ‘first’ before designing. For instance, any editorial designer starts working out only after the design book is written.

Similarly, an architect draws a blueprint after knowing the function of the building. Following the same pattern, a web designer should determine the ‘content’ first before starting the designing. Briefly, the content-first design aims at knowing the purpose of design and how it can be achieved.

II: Effective Implementation of Content-First Approach

With all that being said, do you want to implement the content-first strategy and keep the processes under control without disarraying the whole development cycle? Well, here are a few tips to sort this out!

a) Prepare

The first and foremost step is to conduct an in-depth session with your client and enquire him about his requirements. If he already owns a website, talk with him regarding what he likes and dislikes about his current website. On the basis of the inputs so received, make a collection of all required contents whether they be plain text, rich text, image, video, link and so on.

It is highly recommended to keep everything well-organized and streamlined. Create proper spec sheets with a brief outline for each page along with the stipulated timelines in accordance with SEO inputs to make sure that everything is completed on time.

However, to keep the processes on track right from the first step, it is highly recommended to hire SEO professionals who would help you in keeping site SEO optimized right from the beginning.

However, if you are working on a big portal, it would be logical to make the team work on home page first while you sort out other pages with the client just to ensure that production is not at halt at any point of time.

b) Create

Creating a model for your content is just as creating a site map. Your content first strategy should be such that, instead of focusing on pages, you give more attention to the types of content and their characteristics. It helps you in mapping out your content types, requirements and relationships among them.

For eliminating gaps between content and design, start the design process keeping the conversion goals in mind. For defining the goals, evaluate the good and bad performers on your current website.

Complete a content audit for creating a content plan by asking the following questions:

1. What are the actions that the users are likely to take while visiting your website?
2. Which factors are more likely to encourage your visitors to take this action?

Your content first approach must appropriately answer these questions.

Once you have extracted all the answers, provide the required inputs to the writer, editor, and SEO experts.

Start the process by asking them to write content for header tags, calls to action, sidebars, and others. Make sure that the content is mobile-friendly too, in addition to the design. Content could be made responsive by writing briefly such that the mobile website doesn’t look crowded.

Make the content prototype in a Word Document Text file or Google Doc. Get the prototype tested with your client to find out if you are speaking in their language so that they assimilate the very objective of the content presented before them.

For the most effective prototype, you can Hire SEO Professionals such as content strategists and copywriters, who have adequate experience in working with a content-first approach similar to yours.

It is highly recommended to get the content approved in small chunks rather than sending all of it for approval. This would save your team’s efforts in rewriting all of it and would further help in designing accordingly.

c) Design and Develop

Now that all the content is ready, it is the right time to design and develop. Craft a design which would help visitors enliven the conversation, irrespective of the technology adopted. Bring into consideration your client’s design guidelines and select various design elements like typography, color, and images in accordance with the website’s theme. Further, it is highly recommended to place CTAs strategically in order to make sure that the website meets its objectives flawlessly.

The following are the challenges, which you should utilize as opportunities:

1. Flexibility: For long headlines, a list view will work better. On the other hand, the legibility for texts on photos will improve with a shadow image or overlaid image.
2. Content style guide: Add an entry to the style guide, backed by CMS functionality. You may use character count limit or may enforce a 3-words-for-button-copy rule. You may add help text for explaining the limitation.

III: Pros of Content-First Design

Needless to say, the content-first approach comes with an array of benefits that would surely boost the overall vision of your design. Here are a few pros for a quick look:

a) Higher quality content

With the adoption of content-first design, you need not ask your writer or client for cutting down extra lines just because the written text would overflow the already approved design. This further means that your writer won’t need to cut down his/her creativity.

b) Greater consistency and streamlined process

If you consider design and content differently of each other, something tends to be lost in the union. Under such situations, contents are cut, the story is told with inconsistency and designs are reshuffled. But by adopting the content-first strategy, both the content and designs are synchronized to work together, as a whole.

The present process followed by you may indicate to be effective and efficient. But, if you are not building the sites around the content, then you may have to be confronted with unexpected timeline and scopes, which is ruled out by the content-first approach.

c) Improved productivity and higher profit margin

Design-first web development leads to clashes between the stories narrated on the site. Besides, it leads to clashes between the team members because the content creator interprets the vision in some way and the designers in some other way.

Instead of wasting time pursuing each other’s points, you can increase productivity with collaborative working on the story of your site.

If your customers are not satisfied with your website, you will be the ultimate sufferer by losing your margin of money.

On the other hand, if you attend regularly to the complaints or revision requests made by your clients, the adoption of content-first will reduce waste and will provide more time for you to create well tough-out websites.

IV: Cons of Content-First Design

But as it is said, everything comes with its own pros and cons. Let’s have a quick look at a few cons that this approach might have:

a) Restructuring process

Changing from design-first to content-first web development could mean a bigger change in an already triggered off project. This will affect time and money for restructuring. It will also affect the team members who are to be retrained.

b) Additional cost

In case, you do not have trusted content writers, this might prove to be an additional overhead, but at the end, it is worth it!

Over To You

Needless to say, the content-first approach offers impeccable benefits over design-first approach. Some things are best achieved when done in a particular order, and website development is no exception here. It is thus highly recommended to develop the content first before designing the layout of the website, and see the wonders happening!

The post Content-First Design-3 Steps To Effectively Implement It appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

2016 was the year that web design disciples the world over proved themselves to be the singular champions of free thought in design. Slack’s outstanding UX propelled the startup to unicorn status amidst a flurry of competitors, responsive design flourished and gave birth to a new era of mobile-friendliness and device agnosticism, and the web as a whole experienced a shift in consciousness as sites became easier to use, apps became more intuitive to navigate, and services became all the more delightful and engaging to interact with.

I am proud to say that the field has finally come of age and found itself. At long last, UX experts, Digital Empaths, and Interaction Designers have risen to the highest echelons of the creative class to further the bleeding edge of technology, design, and user delight.

With Web Design Evangelists like Tobias van Schneider, Jennifer Aldrich and Chase Buckley behind the wheel, we are steering towards a brighter future. A future where little big details bring about user delight at every corner, where device agnostic pixel perfection is the norm, and where simple day-to-day experiences engage, excite, and stimulate users in new and innovative ways.

So where do you fit into all of this? To architect the experiences of tomorrow, you must first design the interactions of today. It is not enough to look in front of you. You must look ahead, to the future where the real paradigm shifting trends of tomorrow lie in wait:

To sum things up, website owners aren’t focusing anymore on providing the most detailed information to their visitors, but are instead choosing to convey their message in the most efficient and immediate way. Don’t misunderstand us: all the content is still there, it’s just displayed in a more streamlined and “sexy” way.

Just to give you an example, see how Blogabet’s website has evolved in the past 3 years.

Past website looking pretty static, not a lot of colors, annoying banners on both sidebars and non- responsive.

Blogabet Before

Blogabet After

Now, that you know what I mean, let’s see what the trendiest styles are for 2017:

1. Minimalism

This ought to be one of the major 2017 patterns in web design. Very nearly 90% of all presentation sites are utilizing an insignificant site accentuating on execution (speed) and uncluttered UX.

To some degree, the pattern was begun by the move to responsive sites, which not just should be sure about a portable screen, yet have likewise energized looking over, which means clients don’t anticipate that all substance will be stuck in the crease.

Typography, complexity and space are extremely imperative too.

2. The usage of more SVGs

SVGs (adaptable vector illustrations) display website specialists and engineers with a great deal of favorable circumstances over more conventional picture designs like JPG, PNG, and GIF.

The key preferences of SVGs come through noisy and demonstrate in the configuration innocence itself: adaptable and vector. Rather than being raster or pixel-based, SVGs are made out of vectors: scientific portrayals of the question’s shape.

This implies SVGs are determination free, so they’ll look extraordinary on any screen, on any gadget sort. No compelling reason to stress over making everything retina-prepared.

In any case, that is not all. SVGs additionally shake since they don’t require any HTTP asks. Furthermore, in the event that you’ve ever run a page-speed test on one of your sites, you’ve presumably seen that those HTTP solicitations can truly back off your site. Not so with SVGs!

SVG is used to define vector graphics on the web, can be animated and works alongside JavaScript and CSS. It’s also indexed by search engines and currently a W3C recommendation. In addition, you can invigorate them!

3. Google Fonts

Once upon a time, the web was filled with boring, standard fonts. In order to ensure compatibility across the greatest number of users, web designers were forced to limit their live text font choices to those typefaces commonly found on most machines.

Things started to change starting 2010 when Google made the open-source library of fonts called Google Fonts.

In 2016, as Google kept on taking a shot at Material Design, it additionally patched up the Google Fonts benefit. Reviewing textual styles is snappier and less demanding, including the capacity to see textual styles on an entire swatch of foundation hues. It’s likewise less demanding to arrange textual styles, and Google highlights Featured Fonts that it feels are appropriate to Material Design.

Strikingly, Google has additionally built up a free text style called Noto, intended to bring a firm visual dialect to 800 unique dialects (read the full story by means of Wired), so that there will be a coherence while changing dialect settings or comparing scripts.

Anticipate that more web designers will examine Google Fonts in 2017.

4. Google AMP

You have probably heard a lot about AMP lately. According to Google, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) “is an open-source initiative that embodies the vision that publishers can create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere.”

What does that mean in plain speak?
AMP is an initiative by Google to improve the mobile experience. By stripping down webpages to just the important parts, it allows them to load much, much faster. Have you ever spent 30 seconds waiting for an article load, just to give up and head back to Facebook?

AMP is designed to help you avoid that scenario. AMP works in two ways. First, it narrows the technologies used by developers to create content. It requires simplified coding and does not permit the use of JAVA.

This helps streamline pages. Second, it serves up pages from its own servers, which means it doesn’t have to connect with each publisher’s server, which can take time. To do this, developers must create a stripped-down version of their site specifically designed to meet AMP requirements.

The main benefits of AMP are that users get a better, faster experience, which means they read more, search more, and possibly even buy more. For publishers, it results in higher SERP rankings, though Google has been quick to say it isn’t a ranking factor, but, AMP helps increase mobile-friendliness and speed, which are very important ranking factors.

5. Usage of 3D geometric shapes

Presently for a little history. Quite a long time ago, the huge computerized pattern was skeuomorphism. The thought was to copy genuine protests on advanced interfaces. For instance, you most likely recall the scratch pad on the iPhone that resembled a real notebook.

While cool and clear, it didn’t feel present-day enough. At that point, Flat Design assumed control over the web (Microsoft Windows 8 style) with moderate symbols and solid shading obstructs with no reference to our genuine world at all it began showing up all over.

While imaginative, individuals got somewhat lost. At long last, Google turned out with Material outline and conveyed some crisp point of view to geometric shapes, including a few shadows, movement, and strength to the geometric style.

Why the hell would we say we are recounting to you this story? Since when Google folds a wing the whole Web is shaken. Also, on the off chance that they’re utilizing geometric shapes, as should we. Outwardly, be prepared to see increasingly 3D geometric shapes in sites foundations and design support as a rule. Why? Since Google (other than your mother) knows best.

6. Stop using stock photos

There’s a fascinating website architecture incline worth specifying. It’s a significant basic, yet inquisitive one.

While perusing the web in the most recent couple of months, I do have the inclination that we see a decay of stock photographs on sites. As individuals, we do want to see bespoke pictures which truly identify with the organization or business, as opposed to a non-specific picture.

I additionally have the inclination that website specialists would rather utilize no picture at all then utilizing a stock photograph.

Photography is an artistic expression and one which maybe got somewhat lost for a couple of years. Be that as it may, in 2017 it’s back and more capable than any time in recent memory. The vital thing to recall, however, is that your site fills a need and in this manner, everything on it, including the picture, must do as such as well.

Pictures of your kin (meet the group) are famous as well – put a face to the brand.

Not just bona fide symbolism are on the ascent. Kid’s shows, funny cartoons, and different delineations are as well. Particularly among tech groups, a funny cartoon can be an awesome organization to talk about a specific theme or clarify something in detail.

7. Using a long scrolling website

While long scrolling websites are exceptionally well known, they’re not implied for each sort of business or site. This approach is an extraordinary decision for sites that:

• Have portable activity as a key wellspring of guests.
• Have a ton of data that works best when exhibited on a solitary page, for example, a one-page online resume or a magazine.
• Have content that is every now and again overhauled in a turnaround sequential request, for example, a blog, a survey website or any webpage with client produced content.

Remember that if your site has huge amounts of photographs and recordings, you might not have any desire to make a long scrolling page. A lot of media can influence stacking time and make a baffling experience for guests.

If you do have a portfolio website or a photo album, please don’t use long scrolling website, because your visitors will hate it (we all hate scrolling through high quality images).

8. Next generation of responsive design and it’s wider implementation

Although responsive design is also something which has been around for a few years, what we predict to see over the coming year is an even bigger uptake in the number of brands, both big and small, who are building responsive-based sites.

For those who may not know what responsive design is, it’s essentially an approach to building a site using CSS media queries and flexible grids layouts to create a single, dynamic site that adjusts and re- jigs it’s content to best display itself on various sized devices. It works hand-in-hand with mobile-first, as mobile-first designs the experience and the look, and responsive implements it.

Responsive outline will proceed command since it is a standout amongst the best methods for accomplishing a decent UX. One of the bonuses of responsive design is that it allows businesses to pay for just a single site build which effectively delivers content on mobile and tablet, all the way to laptops to big-screened desktops.

Back in April 2016, Google changed its positioning calculation to organize sites which have advanced substance and all through the following year we’ll see organizations rushing to re-support their Google positions.

Rankings aside, what’s also interesting to note is how user behavior has changed over the last couple of years. Internet users have quickly taken to mobile-optimized sites which make their browsing experience easier, and any site which now doesn’t meet these standards simply won’t cut it.

As site suppliers, we should acknowledge the circumstance, however, that there’s not a one size fits all circumstance here. I do trust that offering fewer choices, less responsive perspectives, changes of those sites will go up.

9. More hand-drawn animation

Since designers try to provide visitors with a comforting, user-friendly presentations, they tend to use hand-drawn and hand-written elements moderately. Sometimes, only few design elements are designed accordingly while the rest of the design is focused on clean content presentation and isn’t drawn at all.

For instance, often only category headers, search boxes or navigation are hand-written. However, it is important to understand that there are still many examples of the exaggerated use of hand-writing and hand-drawn elements. Yet we’ve observed a growing number of designs where such elements are used sparsely and accurately. As old fashion returns, we shall see plenty of websites this year adopting this technique.

10. The translation from “web design” to “user experience”

Web design is dead. Face it! The concept of web design in the traditional sense is fading away. Or as Eric Meyer stated in a recent Offscreen magazine he stopped calling himself a web designer but rather calls himself an “experience designer”.

Indeed, to state that you are a simple website specialist is doing unfair given the numerous parts that you need to play in the lives of the clients of your framework.

Today’s website specialist is responsible for planning a whole ordeal for the client. On the off chance that we take a gander at a website specialist’s set of working responsibilities, we’ll discover a ton of prerequisites that go past the conventional thought of “website architecture”.

So don’t think in terms of a web designer, put yourself in the client position and feel the real user experience.

11. Material Design

Material Design is a Google’s conceptual design philosophy that outlines how apps should look and work on mobile devices. It breaks down everything — such as animation, style, layout — and gives guidance on patterns, components and usability.

According to Google: “We challenged ourselves to create a visual language for our users that synthesizes the classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science. This is material design.”

The material starts with mobile but extends to any other device. It is rooted in a few principles:

Realistic visual cues: The design is grounded in reality and actually inspired by design with paper and ink.

Bold, graphic and intentional: Fundamental design techniques drive the visuals. Typography, grids, space, scale, color and imagery guide the entire design. Elements live in defined spaces with a clear hierarchy. Color and type choices are bold and deliberate.

Motion provides meaning: Animation is a key component of Material Design, but it can’t just be there for the sake of movement. Animations need to happen in a single environment, serve to focus the design and include simple and easy transitions. Movements and actions should mirror the physical world.

12. Building Digital Trust

Ask anyone: from CEO to Marketer, from Salesmen to Designer what the most imperative factor an effective business relationship is and they’ll give you a similar reply: trust. The same is valid for a client’s relationship to an item. Causing the sentiment confide in an item is among the central parts of any great UX creator. In any case, the essentialness of trust in advanced items has yet to be completely figured it out.

With developing worries over security and information, trust is harder than at any other time to manufacture and keep up on the web — the larger part of Americans don’t believe the web at all, giving item owners a glaring situation.

As information breaks endanger increasingly item client connections, distinguishing new channels for setting up a trust is basic to brand separation and achievement. By 2017, the weapons contest for computerized trust-building will be going all out, and another type of originator will be entrusted with architecting trust on the web.

Few final words:

Here are the 12 prominent web design trends which would rule throughout 2017. Whilst we think that the above trends are pretty good, try not to implement all of them onto your website at once. Opting for the appropriate moves in your website design and development process so as to fulfill your vision and goals is the right thing to do. So be selective, be careful and most importantly be smart & creative. Have a great 2017 ahead.

The post 12 Essential Web Design Trends of 2017 To Watch Out For appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

User Experience design has perhaps been latently existent in the market long before the nomenclature ‘UX’ even happened. However, the more technology is advancing; ‘UX’ design is reforming itself every now and then. Due to its continuous enhancement, ‘UX’ is always suspected as a new concept, although it is nothing but a revolutionary approach to befit both the business and customer’s needs.

The transition from websites to mobile apps has remarkably altered the experiences users and the customers undergo. It is this ‘experience’ which decides the user’s inclination towards the product. Along these lines, it is quite evident that the ‘UX’ designing is much the same as advertising your product persuasively enough to be sold.

The Profession of UX Designing is a Broad Spectrum

UX designing is literally too daunting for one to tackle single-handedly. Predominantly, UX designer is understood as an embellisher who does nothing more than fancying up the product a tad more. But ‘UX’ is truly not a one-man venture. A UX designer does loads more than just embellishing a product. Mind it, he is not a make-up artist who just prettifies the looks but is also a strategist who takes cares of the product inside-out.

Panoramic look at UX Designing

As far as the designations in the job are taken into account, a UX Designer is more like ten different professions fused into ‘one’. Copywriting, visual designing, interaction designing, content presentation and so on are all elements of UX designing. A UX designer is meant to be thus and so. He is bound to work beyond the bounds of any specific job-designations. What’s in the title they hold? It is in the role they perform to rack up the profits for any business organization.

How Can UX Designing be revamped?

The market around is a perfect display of rat race. Setting-up of mobile based applications is rising significantly and so is the corresponding competition. This has led to the bifurcation and dispersion of users. Hence, what the organizations lay emphasis on is the smooth and frictionless interface between the users and the product.

With extraordinary competition, companies have perceived the importance of user experience designing in reinforcing the positive outcomes in business. The demand for UX designers in the strategic operations of the business is shooting up profusely as the rate of success of an organization is very much dependent upon the UX.

1) Merge UX and the Product

With profound reliance of every company upon the user experience designing, the day isn’t much far when the UX design and product would overlap.

UX in near future won’t be an independent entity. It would hold in the same substance as the product itself does. In other words, the companies won’t only be bothered about the user’s purchase of any product, but would be equally interested in tracking his or her steps from the very login phase till the exit.

Industries are vying with each other to concretize their position in the market. Same products are rendered by different companies today. In such scenario, it is only and only through the smooth interface that an organization can reach a greater number of audiences. It won’t be wrong to say that organizations’ intent to sell their UX design and the customers settle down for the easiest of the interfaces.

2) Let UX design be selectively reflexive to the users

Anticipated feedback is the communicator’s satisfaction. The users too in the same fashion look forward to the desired response from the application.

Companies today are using big data, predictive analytics, and cognitive computing to respond to user’s action automatically. There is no defiance to the fact that better the person knows you; stronger is your bond with him.

3) Indelible impressions in the user’s mind

The companies should indulge in fabricating UX design in a way that solely takes into account the user’s comfort. Make the user sail through the interface so smooth that he gets a hang of it and reverts again.
Investment of time in the budding stage of any product launch is better than tampering with the interface after the launch of the product. It is always advisable for any company not to haste while forming the interface.

4) Buy their time at the cost of details

Designers track the steps users opt for to meet their ends and correspondingly become their guiding light.
UX design, as calculated, will soon shift towards detailing minuscule data to the users and delivering them a natural experience.

To cite an example, the trend of the companies has been to minimize the number of clicks use rs make, in other words, reduce the time they invest in buying a product. But the fashion would change soon. The customers will be doled out with meticulous details at the cost of their time to make it a worthy experience for them.

Tiny details help users in picking out the best from a lot and it is the intricacy of UX design that drags users to the product.

Inference

Novelty in technology is soaring high and so are the users’ expectations from it. Technology in simple words is equivalent to sharpening the user’s comfort ceaselessly. And this is why; the success of a brand thrives upon the ease that the concerned UX design is imparting to the user.

To conclude, there are no rigid parameters to define UX designing but the era has come where the companies would keep re-defining the apparently vague UX Design to behove the majority of the users and cement

The post Future of UX Design: 4 Path-Breaking Trends Slowly Invading the UX World appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

“There are three responses to a website design- yes, no and Wow! Wow is the one to aim for.”
–Milton Glaser

Web designing entails certain traps for the beginners. And when these traps are overlooked by the web designers, it leads to not-so-good experiences for users, which cause a considerable loss of website traffic.

There are many websites that botch up the web designs and beginners are lead astray when exposed to such unsuccessful web designs. Well, the web design mistakes are not only made by the beginners or amateurs. Sometimes big brands and professionals even end up committing such web design mistakes. Is your web design agency also a culprit of committing such blunders? Check out!

Web Design Mistakes You Ought To Avoid

The crux of the plight of web designing lies in the approach of the beginners. There are times when these inexperienced web designers fail to realize that the website needs to be designed for the users to access it.

So it is vital for the beginners to prioritize usability and utility rather than creativity.

Here, the 8 beginner web design mistakes are pointed out. Check it for yourself.

1) Overlooking the business goals when creating the web design

Mistake:
This has been almost every time that the web designer has settled down to design a website and forgot the main goal of creation itself. The beginners often overlook the business goals and concentrate on embellishing the website.

The entire concept of web designing goes wrong here. A website is designed to meet the business goals that include luring the maximum online traffic to the site and increasing the sales by providing the users with great user experience (UX). A web designer should focus on the business goals of improving the accessibility of the site rather than working on its beautification.

Suggestion:
In order to avoid this mistake, you need to approach the designing of the website, keeping the business goals in mind. First, decide what the website owner aims to achieve through the site and then find out what is the most vital goal for the site. You can work further on what tools to avail for achieving the business goals and create the design based on those particular goals.

2) Neglecting the typography of the site and giving preference to the design

Mistake:
It has been viewed that many web designers keep the notion of typography aside while focusing on the designing of the website. And as a result, first the website is designed and then the typography is fitted in to suit the design.

It is high time you realize that this is a beginner web design mistake you should definitely avoid. The presentation of the content of your website is much more important than the design surrounding it.

Users may not pay so much attention to the header, logo, etc. if the typography is not appealing enough. Even though it’s quite surprising, typography is one of the major tools of content presentation of your website and if the designers do not work on it, the website will soon start losing its online traffic.

Suggestion:
Typography of the website should be given preference over the website design. In fact, the typography should be enhanced by the designers whereas the website design should be customized to compliment the typography.

3) Incorporating frequent modals and pop-ups

Mistake:
We all are guilty of bombarding users with popups and modals as soon as they land on our website. When a user is surfing through your website, and frequent modal windows and pop-ups constantly keep appearing, it gets on their nerves.

The act of incorporating modals and popping-up windows on your website as soon as a user lands on your website seems to be very desperate.

The modals also ruin the user’s experience by intervening in their research. So if you do not rectify this mistake, then users will not think twice to switch to competitor websites.

Suggestion:
The very first thing to keep in mind is that do not incorporate modals and pop-ups at frequent intervals and make sure the modals are definitely not the first thing that the users view while entering your website.

It is pointless to redirect users to different blog posts and advertisements and interrupting their research. If any user is interested in any advertisement then they should be free to click on them at their disposal. It shouldn’t be imposed on them by such modal windows and pop-ups.

4) Bad legibility and readability of the website

Mistake:
There has been many a time when beginners got so engrossed in designing the website that they almost forgot to keep a check on the readability and legibility of the site. Some websites look attractive but they repel users the very next moment due to the poor readability of the content displayed on the website.

Some designers lack the knowledge of which colors would complement and highlight what kind of font style and font color of the text.

What font and style of text are highly noticeable and readable in what kind of background should be known by the web designers. If the users are not able to view or read or comprehend the text of the website, then the entire purpose of setting up the website goes in vain.

Suggestion:
To improve the users’ reading experience you can study other major sites’ color schemes and patterns. You can also use Adobe Kuler to experiment with varied color schemes and improve the reading experience of your website.

You can resort to Sans serif typeface which allows easy reading on the web, as well.

5) Availing too much Whitespace remover

Mistake:
Are you using too much Whitespace remover for the designing of their website? Too much use of the Whitespace remover makes the website appear dense and cluttered all over with texts, tabs, buttons, checkboxes, comments, etc.

Whitespace remover is an important tool for web designing but going overboard with it only hampers the web design, making the legibility of the site poor.

Suggestion:
The Whitespace remover should be used appropriately to highlight certain portions of the website, few texts, and images so that the user experience is improved by a better user interface design.

The tool which enables designers like you to highlight and enhance the efficiency of any website shouldn’t be over-used to suffocate the site with excessive attributes.

6) Using stock copy for the website

Mistake:
Paying attention to stock copies and using them for your website is a mistake which should be avoided. Stock copies always do not end up tuning with the website design and hence, you are sure to face the problem.

Suggestion:
The web designer should prepare the majority of the copy before the designing of the website or at least should have the framework of the copy created beforehand. This would help effectively in the designing of the website.

7) Too much use of images and animations

Mistake:
Using too many images and animations in your website can test the patience of the users and result in a loss. It is a mistake to go overboard with unnecessary images and long-stretched animations.

It is beneficial to attract user’s attention but too much of it is distressing.

Suggestion:
Use images where it is necessary or where the users need to view few things in order to grasp the meaning of any text.

You can also add animations to your website but it should be kept optional by providing the ‘Skip’ button.

8) Neglecting the need to design for the mobile devices

Mistake:
Web designers fail to give priority to the designing of the website for mobile devices. And as a result, website doesn’t load properly on the mobiles and force users to punch in and punch out to adjust the text.

Suggestion:
Instead of neglecting it, the website should be designed primarily for users to view it on their mobile screens. As per a ComScore report, 60% of the online traffic comes from tablets and smartphones.

So it is high time you start designing sites in a way that is easily accessible on the mobile screens. Images and texts should be uploaded within seconds on the screens as users do not wait for long minutes for pages to get uploaded.

Wrapping Up

After a quick overview of the beginner web design mistakes, it is quite evident that the main point lies in the simplicity of the web design. Hire experienced web designers to improve your website design and make it all more user-friendly.

The simpler and uncomplicated website you design, the more users will flock your site.

Keep it simple, follow the guidelines and steer away from these common mistakes. Did we skip mentioning a design mistake that you feel is as horrendous as these are? Feel free to mention in the comments!

The post 8 Beginner Web Design Mistakes You Ought To Avoid appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

First impression is the last impression! True to each word, first impression does matter, at least when we are talking about landing page design. A poorly designed landing page with poor navigation, shabby colors, and unreadable fonts is sure to turn the users off.

So how a landing page should be ideally designed? What are the various factors that define the efficiency of a landing page?

There is a popular misconception that a landing page or a home page should contain all the possible information about the company and its services. Actually, for a landing page to be a good one, it should contain only the necessary information that will engage the visitors and give them a good overall experience. It should contain a catchy message for one and all and should be attractive enough to draw more and more attention.

Let’s talk more about this in detail. Check out the effective landing page creation secrets that work here!

A) Pre-Requisites to Consider For Building a Landing Page

There are some pre-requisites to consider while building an affluent landing page for your website.

1) What is the goal?

Before creating a good landing page, you must have a clear cut idea and a goal for your landing page planned. Then you must figure out an appropriate strategy as to how you want to reach the goal in the first place.

Only when you know where you are heading and the path to choose, can it lead you to the ultimate success! You have everything in your hands.

Be very clear about what you want your user to do. Should he just go happy about it, or take a call to action, should he visit your store, should share his email id or whatsoever?

2) Who am I competing against?

One must realize as to who they are up against. Having knowledge about competitors and judging their strengths and weaknesses can be beneficial in the path of success.

Keep your competitors close to you! Have a look on all the strategies that worked for them. Work on the same strategies with different flavor as per your brand’s identity.

3) Who is my audience?

Determining the target audience is essential. If the target audience can be fixed beforehand, it can help the maker of the landing page create the content of the page in such a way that it can cater to their basic requirements, needs and wants.

4) How did they get to my landing page?

How the audience was directed to the landing page, is an important factor in determining the kind of message that the landing page will have. Obviously, there is no one-fit-solution for all. The landing page that one lands on after getting redirected from Facebook should be different from the one when he lands from AdWords, and so forth.

B) Things to Consider While Building a Landing Page

Now that the pre-requisites for creating a landing page have been taken care of, one must move on to consider the things required while building a landing page.

1) Short, sweet, and uncluttered

The landing page should be short and sweet and should contain only the necessary information in the right form. Keep it balanced.

While too less information can keep various questions of your users unanswered, too much information can overwhelm them. Thus, the information should be provided just in a short form but should describe everything in it.

2) Provide high-quality content that inspires confidence

If the information provided on the landing page is not inspirational, it might not be so alluring for the audience as you want it to be. The visitors should be drawn to the website and inspired to know more about the website and all it has to offer.

3) Have a flawless design

A landing page with a crisp content is the best thing you can have. The design should be made such that it is more approachable by the audience and should be user-friendly. Navigation should be kept simple and information should be provided in an attractive format so that it can be viewed right away.

4) Have a clear call to action

Having a clear call to action is a must. After all, this is what you have designed your landing page for, right? If you expect your audiences to fill a form, make sure it is properly placed. Similarly, pay proper attention on other call to action buttons like ‘register’ and ‘submit’ buttons.

Basically, this is to make sure that the audience should not have any trouble following various instructions.

5) Create eye-catching headlines

Headlines are what grab maximum eyes. ‘Lose extra weight in 5 days with proven results’ is far better than ‘How to lose weight’. Do you notice the difference? The headline should be such that it excites the users and prompts them to take the required call to action.

If the headlines are dull and boring, the audience might not be as interested as the landing page owner wants them to be.

6) Make it about the visitor

Talk about what the visitor will get if they do business with you. After all, not many of them will be interested to hear only about your inspirations and aspirations. They would rather want to know what service and information the company can offer them.

7) Should be easy to scan at a quick glance

Who wants to read those boring piles of texts one after the other? They hinder the readability. The better way here is to make the content easily scannable such that the important points get attention in the blink of an eye.

How to do this? Simply by bolding the important points! Pointers also work well. Representing the info in various subheads and pointers not only enhances its readability but also makes it look organized.

8) Contain relevant, quality images

To work on the quality of the landing page and make it more attractive for the audience, colorful images that are relevant to the page should be added as and when necessary. This will help to hold on to the interest of the audience all along.

9) Have clickable share buttons

If the landing page has clickable share buttons, there are chances that the visitors will like it more. This is because in the present day a lot of people like sharing their experiences and purchases with their friends, family, and others.

‘Like’ and ‘share’ buttons have proved to be beneficial for various brands time and again. How many times have you checked the products when your friends have shared them on Facebook? The same concept applies here.

10) Mobile friendly

As most of the users prefer to visit pages and make transactions and purchases from the mobiles these days, it is essential that the landing page of any company website should be mobile friendly and easily accessible.

This is one of the important elements of modern web design. It not only pays to have a mobile-friendly landing page but having a mobile friendly website is equally important too.

11) Broadcast their trust signals

To prove the authenticity of the services, the landing page should contain trust signals and logos of big, well-known and popular companies on their website to build trust for the visitor.

Logos of companies that you have worked for or provided services to, can be the right signal. It will prove the goodwill of the company to the audience in the first place and will be very beneficial for the business.

12) Have been through many rounds of A/B testing

It is very necessary to ensure that the landing pages are in accordance with your requirements and behave as you intended.

To achieve this, A/B testing is conducted wherein a simultaneous test is conducted between two or more pages and the page which performs the best is studied. Tests are conducted to check headlines, call to action, content placement, etc. on the landing page and the traffic so achieved is calculated.

To excel in the art of landing page creation, it is necessary that the landing page simple, lucid and readable for the dedicated audience.

Make sure you use the simplest of the font, highlight heading and put in the main information in the subheadings. The information should be put in a bullet format to make it more approachable by the audience.

Thus, just creating a random landing page for a good website is not enough. Following the necessary steps and meeting the pre-requisites is essential to lead to a good landing page and attracting more and more visitors to the page altogether.

If the steps are followed genuinely then it will create an appropriate landing page for any type of business and prove to be a unique selling point for the business and its services altogether.

The post Landing Page Design: Adopting Best Practices to Build an Affluent Landing Page appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Are you one among those who think that e-commerce store features are the only thing which impact the customers and boost conversion? Well, that might be partially true! In order to attract customers and to catch more eyes, it is equally necessary that your website looks modern and visually impressive. And this is when Magento comes to your rescue.

Magento with its inbuilt high-end features, speed, reliability and scalability is the perfect platform to gear up an e-commerce store. It is easy to customize, and thus one can craft out top-notch user experience with a minimalistic design. What else? There are various game-changing trends that you can vouch for!

Below are some of the best Magento Web Design you should look out for:

1) Full-Screen Background Image Sliders

Full-screen background image sliders are not new! They have existed in this business for some time now and are now taking the world of designing by storm. Full-screen background image sliders are perfect if you have a lot of features in your store and you want your customer to get through them on the first look. Sliders are eye catchy, and thus, showcasing the new offers and latest trends on them are sure to win hearts. Further, sliders keep your site clean. You must make the slider big so that it is noticeable, perhaps also a full screen so that you grab the attention of your visitors and turn your website look beautiful and trendy.

2) Sticky Main Menu

So you are on an infinite scrolling e-commerce store and suddenly you need to check out the menu. What do you do? You require scrolling back to find the menu. Not anymore! Pinned or the sticky menu meets the purpose now. The main purpose of a sticky menu is to enhance the navigation. Navigation is particularly important for an e-commerce store where there is already a cut-throat competition. If the menu stays on the page constantly, the users can navigate through the web pages without delays and obstacles and that is truly great. What’s more? You can browse through TISIndia for an exemplification of a perfectly executed sticky main menu.

3) Ghost Buttons

What are ghost buttons? These are empty transparent buttons which have a fundamental form. Such buttons are also often called as hollow and empty buttons. Whatever the name may be, they look different when compared to standard colored buttons. A hollow button goes well with the theme of the website, and can easily catch visitors’ attention if it is strategically placed as far as position and background are concerned. These buttons are perfect for sites which have flat or minimalist user interface, or also those which make use of the large scale background photo. One of perfect examples of Ghost buttons can be seen on Jimmy Raheriarisoa’s portfolio site.

4) White Space

White space generally just acts as filler between elements of design. However, only a few notice that. Well, this so-called white space is actually an important element of design too. Compare it with a mortar between the bricks. White space is what focuses on enhancing the user experience, on the organization of the content and layout, and serves as a base for graphics and text.

However, you need not restrict your creativity with white space. You can opt for the colored background too. The only rule is that it should look visually attractive.

5) Hover/Animated Effects

Web designs, these days have evolved to become the micro interactions. The perfect blend of HTML and CSS animation can boost the user experience manifold by making every element respond to the actions.
These hover or animated effects come into action when a user hovers a mouse over a certain area. This then encourages the user to explore the website further.

You would also probably agree upon the fact that a static layout might not create the same interest. Hence, animations on your site could prevent tedium, making the navigation simple yet thrilling. Titanyshop Magento theme is one of perfect examples which implements Hover effects.

6) Custom Drawn Illustrations

The illustrations are a web design trend that is all set to make a comeback. A good custom drawn illustration would instantaneously put you apart from your contenders. Illustrations might not go well with every niche of business. But if you can use illustrations to define your niche, nothing like that! You can follow the present trends so that your website is designed uniquely. Bonobos.com exemplifies the perfect custom drawn illustrations within its website.

7) Background Video

Web sites are no more just about providing a static user experience to the users. Dynamic content like images and videos is rocking the web, taking the web experience to an all new level.

A background video can provide a depth to your website that you have been looking for. It is that key which can turn your site into something more impressive, interesting as well as remarkable. You can use a background video to demonstrate your products and services or how your product works or just to create a unique atmosphere and mood. You can also choose to display your products or narrate a story through background video which would not have been fun and easy as with a common web page. Christian Louboutin attracts its audiences with a perfect background video.

8) Story Telling

Undoubtedly, it is all about weaving stories that sell! Each design has its own story. To ensure that your story sells, it is necessary that you make use of user interface and visual designs for creating something that people would want to interact with. Nice stories are simple to tell. Good stories are always believable, emotional and truthful. Whereas the best stories are great real stories that are valid and can have an impact on any audience.

9) Parallax Scrolling Effect

Parallax scrolling effect is not new! It has been with us for quite some time now and is expected to stay for longer. Parallax is just a simple illusion wherein the background pictures move with the mouse, but slower than the foreground images. This creates an illusion of depth, thus catching the attention of users immediately. What more can one ask for? Puffin E-Juice demonstrates the perfectly crafted parallax scrolling effect.

10) Grid or Card Layouts

Grid or card layouts have probably gained property with the advent of Pinterest, twitter and Facebook. The layout has become so popular that a lot of organizations are now swearing by it as their ultimate web design. The only reason is their neat layout which organizes everything perfectly at the same time giving the website a minimalistic clean look. They are not just pleasing visually, but also useful in terms of their utility. Olympus has adopted nice looking grid layouts onto their websites. Well, it looks awesome.

These trends are really helpful in making your website a great experience for the users. However, you would not be technically sound enough to tactically use these trends. Hence, it is always better to hire a Magento web developer who can assist you in making a great website for you! Ask your Magento developer to pick the perfect Magento edition which goes well with your requirements

The post Magento Web Design: Top 10 Game-Changing Trends to Look Out For appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.