Why Your Website Needs to be Mobile Friendly Right Now

There’s a fairly significant change coming next month to organic search and it has the potential to cause some major disruption in how your site performs in the search engines. Google announced at the end of February that it was increasing the use of “mobile-friendliness” as an organic ranking factor for a Web site. So, the main question you need to consider: is my site ready for this change?

Why Mobile Friendly Sites are Important to Google

It’s no secret that mobile devices are quickly overtaking desktop as the primary way we connect to the Internet on a regular basis. Smartphones now make up nearly 76% of all mobile devices according to the latest comScore data. And with all those devices come lots and lots of mobile searches.

Google reports that it handles about 3 billion searches each day. And while Google doesn’t tell us exactly how many of those searches are mobile (some estimate it is as much as 50% of all searches), we can be pretty confident that mobile search is a fairly significant share. Why? Consider the rise of the “virtual assistants” like Siri, Google Now and Cortana. Owners of smartphones are increasingly turning to these tools to conduct searches and those take place through mobile devices.

With that in mind, Google needs to display search results in a way that will provide the best experience for the user. And if the user is searching on a mobile device, they want to provide a result that will work well on that user’s device. Google, for some time now, has used “mobile friendliness” as a ranking factor in organic search. But with the growth in the use of mobile, Google needs to give more weight to sites that have been optimized for mobile. And that’s what’s driving the change next month.

Will Google’s “Mobile Friendly” Change Impact Your Site?

While no one can say for certain whether or not your site will be impacted by this change, there are a few things you can check to see if you are ready for the transition:

Will Google’s “Mobile Friendly” Change Impact Your Site?

While no one can say for certain whether or not your site will be impacted by this change, there are a few things you can check to see if you are ready for the transition:

1. Test your site using Google’s Mobile Friendliness Tool. Google has created a tool to test your site for mobile friendliness. The test is simple and straightforward: enter your site’s URL in the search box, Google conducts a quick analysis, and lets you know whether your site is mobile friendly or not. If it is not mobile friendly, Google provides a link to a technical guide you can follow to improve your site. If you’re not comfortable with Web design/development, you’ll need to reach out to a Web developer to help you get the site ready. 
2. Ask: Is mobile search important for your business? Depending on the type of business, mobile search may be very important to your visibility in the search engines. Retail shops, restaurants, venues and pretty much any place with a location where customers come to you will need to provide a great mobile experience. Engaged in eCommerce? Mobile commerce (called mCommerce) is on the rise, so providing shoppers with a good mobile experience is more important than ever. Bottom line: if being found on mobile devices is important, you need to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly.
3. Find out: Do you get a significant number of visitors through mobile search today? Take a look at your Google Analytics data. What percentage of your organic traffic comes in on mobile devices? How is that data trending? If your mobile audience growing? If so, you need to create a great user experience for them while also getting your site ready for a greater emphasis on being mobile friendly.

What You Need to Do if You Believe Your Site Will Be Impacted

1. Be prepared to act quickly. The April 21 deadline is approaching quickly, so you do not have a lot of time. Every day you delay taking action puts you at risk for the potential to fall in organic rankings.
2. Explore a temporary solution. Depending upon the type of content management system you are using, you may be able to put in place a mobile switcher or mobile-friendly theme. If this is an option for your site, it is one you may want to put in place while working on a better, long-term solution.
3. Redesign your site to use a responsive design. The best, long-term solution is to redesign your site with a mobile-first philosophy. This approach allows you to create a site design that is responsive to the device your visitors are using (mobile, tablet or desktop) to give them a better experience, while also helping you maintain (or even improve) your organic mobile search rankings.

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7 Psychological Traps that Hold Web Designers Back

Let’s talk about self-confidence and psychological misconceptions that may hold web designers and web professionals back from getting ahead in their career.

When it comes to daily routine tasks most of us are not that diligent and logical as we used to think (or want to think). Everybody knows what to do, but somehow we try to avoid following our own pretty plan. The good news is that most people are actually able to get themselves together and control the balance of work and rest. However, there are some creative beings who are just too creative for that – they feel depressed when they need to strongly manage their activity. You must admit that such feeling is pretty much one of the biggest traps for all of the beginnings.

Whether you are subjected to psychological stress or not it’s always better to know the threats that can hurt you (even if you think they have nothing to do with you). So let’s go ahead and examine the most typical self-confidence failures and try to find the solutions that everybody can accept and apply.

Trap #1. Mania to Meet Client’s Approval

Sometimes people are so dependent on pleasing others that they stop thinking critically and ignore their own experience, knowledge and point of view.

On the web there is a lot of examples of bad web designs that were probably made under pressure of clients who were too pushy about their vision of designs. Sometimes it’s really easier to accept the client’s vision of design and walk away than to explain him why this or that is a bad idea. But every time you say ‘yes’ when you want to say ‘no’, remember that this design becomes a part of your portfolio regardless of your wish.

Rule of thumb: ask yourself whether you’d be ready to proudly show the result to potential partners. If the answer is no – try to convince the current client somehow.

Moreover, clients will blame on you in case a new design doesn’t work well. They wouldn’t care that the idea was not yours – it’s still you who they will be angry at for wasted money. So again – you’d better try to convince clients of the effectiveness of your suggestions at the very beginning.

Trap#2. Lack of Face-to-Face Communication

Let’s face it and be honest with ourselves – when sitting at the computer for hours every day, designers and developers kind of lose touch with reality. They chat, send emails and instant messages, comment on Facebook and tweet news. They don’t have time for real communications that distracts from virtual reality. The lack of real life becomes your comfort zone.

It’s easy to imagine a situation when 4 people are sitting in front of monitors in one room and discuss a problem in a group chat. It never occurs to them that actually talking to each other will solve the whole thing faster. All emotions are transformed into simple emoticons. This story is not a fiction or anything, I’ve heard it from many people I personally know (in emails and IMs of course).

Rule of thumb: get out there and talk to people. For a start, just talk to them more often than you have been doing before! Communication is a skill that needs constant practice and disappears when you stay isolated from the real world. Don’t wait till relatives, partners and clients start stumbling over you – keep smiling and say hello to them!

Trap #3. Avoiding Contacts with New People

When you’re not self-confident enough it’s easy to start having second thoughts about your proficiency level, previous works quality and clients loyalty. It’s always easier to play it safe and only do stuff that you’ve done before. The same goes about reaching out to new people. Right? Not quite so!

When you’re not able to initiate new contacts you lose many opportunities. IT professionals are inclined to work individually and the danger of locking up inside their shells is more than realistic.

Rule of thumb: remember that you’re not alone and web design community will help you solve almost any problem as well as find inspirational ideas. There are many communities whose only aim is to have designers and developers communicate with each other, and these communities are real good at their job. You may start with StackOverflow, Behance, Dribble, Quora, GitHub, Freenode or whatever you like most.

Trap#4. Concealing Your Thoughts from Others

Not pleased with your salary? Ask for more!

It sounds so easy, but the truth is most never try it. It’s almost too easy to be true. People, especially those whose work doesn’t imply rich communication, can’t ask for something. They are afraid of looking unprofessional, unprepared or just stupid. Moreover, it may not show their work at its best light and a client/partner will reject them with all the creative ideas.

However, the skill of asking can improve your work dramatically. A project manager will never know that your computer needs updates for software until you tell him about it. Of course it can be rather uncomfortable to ask for something for yourself.

Rule of thumb: try to think of it from another angle. That little personal improvement will help you be more effective – therefore you’ll design a better logo or code an app that’s more valuable for the company.

Trap#5. Savoring Past Mistakes

Feeling embarrassed about past failures and being afraid of them is a frequent trouble of creative personalities. Web designers are also likely to fall for that. They clearly remember their worst projects and clients who drove them crazy. It’s kind of fun to tell such nightmare stories to other developers and to observe their reactions.

Rule of thumb: just relax and forget it, will you? All designers and developers had some negative experience in the past. But being able to get over those failures and move on is a real sign of professionals. Head over to LinkedIn.com, connect with other designers of different specialties and ask them about their mistakes. You’ll be surprised to see that there were a lot funny incidents and serious troubles, so you’re able to get through them too.

Trap#6. Procrastination

Everybody procrastinates… Sometimes.

But there is this kind of people who start acting just before a deadline. A hard stress and a lack of time are strong motivational triggers for them. These circumstances artists and designers think they can conquer the world and inspire them for outstanding achievements.

When you’re designing a website or an app you usually work in a team and other people depend on you. Thus a small delay from your side can entail serious failures of the whole project… Is procrastinating really worth it?

Deadlines are quite strange things. They are good and bad at the same time. From one point of view strong deadlines help team members be more productive. On the other hand, a strong need to do something brings frustration to a lot of creative people. It’s really hard to stay inspired in a ‘do or die’ environment.

Rule of thumb: Choose a time period you’re able to allow yourself to relax and then start working. This little trick may help a lot. Probably some of you will prefer having a random but short lunch breaks – that’s also great. The idea is to finish a project on time without a disproportionally large amount of efforts. As a result, you’ll complete a design faster and more efficiently.

Trap #7. Being Too Shy

Web designers and developers are rarely as sensitive as other people. Coders are too logical and designers are too inspired to ‘normally’ react on reality. Thus they may feel a bit shy about contacting other people, getting public peer reviews and negotiating.

There are more and more talks about Shy Developer Syndrome that means professional developers are afraid of working in public places (office space is also a public place in a way). For them software environment is much better than joining actual environment of actual people. Generally coders have problems with communications because they didn’t learn it in tech colleges and had few chances to practice real-life interactions. Online world and work pace have become more real for them than everyday living.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqDEgNlyjvo#t=247

Rule of thumb: The most common solution for such people is to practice talking and writing in addition to coding. Preferably, you should start with writing because it doesn’t require constant interactions with others and you have more than enough time to think over the reply. This will change the way people think and help them feel more comfortable among clients and co-workers.

Remember: You Create Awesome Stuff Out of Nothing

Let’s not get carried away by all these self-confidence traps and mistakes. I’m pretty sure people will get over them sooner or later. It’s just a matter of whether you’re ready for that. And don’t forget about the most important thing – you create awesome stuff out of nothing. That alone is a lot more of an accomplishment than many people achieve in years. Don’t be afraid of anything and forget unnecessary doubts – go on and create!

Article by - Ann Davlin, Design Psychology

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Website Redesign – SEO Considerations

All websites will undergo redesign at some point of time during their virtual existence. It is inevitable and has to be carried out due to many factors like aesthetics, changes in technology, been too long with the same design, change in brand image, not doing well in search, for better usability, and many other such factors. Whatever your reason may be for a website redesign, it goes without saying that redesigning a new or relatively unknown site is much easier than the decision to redesign or revamp a site that is doing well in SEO. My other article here discusses a few points for considering a website redesign which may interest you: 5 Strong Indicators That You Should Redesign Your Website

Risk Of Dip In Rankings After Website Redesign

The reasons are clear of course, as any website redesign brings with it the danger of dropping considerably in rankings if certain points are not followed or observed. The chances of making a mistake or oversee certain points is high, therefore it is important to be attentive and take into consideration all points possible to minimize the risk. Though I personally believe that after a redesign, it is certain that there will be a dip in the rankings, however small, for a certain amount of time. The precautions are just a means to minimize that. I have seen sites that have not been updated for years. I suppose they are scared of the dip if they do something stupid to their site by accident. I know, freshness of content is important. For this I believe we should generally divide websites into two types.

Typical blog or an article site: For an article site, freshness of content is very important and it should be updated regularly for better rankings.

Websites selling products or services: These website are typically self advertising in nature and usually consist of two parts, Static or informational pages and a blog. Informational page, I believe should not be updated if not absolutely necessary. You should not simply update those pages on a regular interval for the sake of freshness only. You may do yourself more harm that way. Rather, update the blog as often you can which will take care of the “freshness of content” part.

This is to show how minimal changes can also affect rankings. Given below are some points that one should keep in mind during a redesign. Though redesigns can be of many types, from minor updates to major ones; from the point of view of writing this article, I am considering major changes to sites that are doing well in organic search results.

Duplication Of Content

During a website redesign, the temporary site or files are usually hosted on a separate domain or sub domain. And typically one would redesign the whole site here and test it before moving it to the production server or to your actual domain. It is important to take care that you block search engine spiders to crawl the temporary domain or files by using robots.txt file. Otherwise, you will end up with search engines indexing the temporary files causing unwanted duplicate content issues.

Change in URLs

It is recommended to keep the URLs same and not to change them. However, a major redesign may involve structural changes and moving of files from one folder to another causing your URLs to change. You may voluntarily want to change the URLs sometimes, like making them shorter for better readability; or perhaps removing unwanted characters or keywords to make them look less spammy. Though changing the URL and folder structure may make it better in the long run, you run a huge risk of losing the traffic for that particular page. If you do decide to change the URL for a particular page, do not forget to 301 redirect the old page to the new one. Also, if some pages have been permanently deleted, do not 301 redirect that page to the homepage of the website. It may do you more harm than good. However, if you have a very similar or related page, then it might not be a bad idea to 301 redirect to the related page instead.

Changes In Content

Again it will be helpful if too much content changes are not carried out on any of the pages. Try to keep the placement of the content, as much similar to the existing site, as possible. Take extra care of the h1 tags and other heading tags. Make sure you include any images or videos that exist on that particular page. The idea is to minimize the change in HTML as much as possible.

Page Title & Descriptions

Page Titles are very important and only change them if absolutely necessary. The same goes for Description. The Title as well as the Description contain your primary keyword or key phrase for the page and should not be changed unless you are targeting a new keyword now.

Final Check Before Going Live

When the new site is ready, it is important to go over the details again and again to make sure that everything is in place and that you have not missed anything. As I have said in the beginning, these considerations may not be important for a new site. But for a site that dependents on search engines for traffic and business, these considerations are of prime importance.

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You Must Need to Know about: Ecommerce Development

Ecommerce also known as Electronic Commerce is the buying and selling of services and products online. What Ecommerce Development creates is a system that permits an online selling business to get their services to the customers. Ecommerce includes all kinds of business ideas from retail shopping, banking, investing, and rentals to personal services such as hair and nail salons.

Product - Carefully choose the product or services to sell. By entering into an Ecommerce business it is assumed that you have a business in mind.

Target Consumers - Determine your potential consumers will be. Ecommerce Development is to attract, influence and satisfy the target consumers to buy on your Ecommerce site.

Web Hosting - Consider buying a domain name then choose a web host that has an Ecommerce Development tools that will be responsible for the SSL capability, uptime, data transfer per month and upgrade values.

Responsive Web Design & Development - Hire a right web designing company to develop your Ecommerce application with CMS & Mobile Compatibility where you can manage your store yourself .

Payment Methods - Make a decision on what method payment your Ecommerce site will prefer. You can choose from many payment methods online such as Paypal (For US) or other Merchant Accounts (CCAvenue, EBS & PayU). Or you may choose to receive payments via check delivery, cash on delivery or wire transfers.

Security - Providing a security is one of the main purposes of Ecommerce development. Make it a point to settle your privacy, return and warranty policies as well as money back guarantees if you prefer to have one.

Shopping Cart - The most evident part of Ecommerce development is the use of shopping cart software. By using an online shopping cart, customers are able to view items for sale, select quantity of items and the item they want. After shopping is done, customers will receive or view the summary of the transaction they made.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Design

In this article, we’ll look at some of the worst offenses committed by designers and how to avoid them. When your design project is judged, will you be held accountable for any of these sins?

A design project requires preparation. There are protocols to follow, theories to consider, briefs to dissect and, as we’ll see, sins to avoid!

In any design project, pitfalls are to be expected. These pitfalls can impede progress or even derail the project. Most experienced designers are able to avoid them by recognizing the warning signs.

The following seven deadly sins of design have their warning signs, too. They are worse than your average pitfall, though, because they can kill your design if you are not vigilant. So, stay on the straight and narrow and beware the traps on either side of the path.

Beware the Reaper, who lies in wait to claim your design project.

1. Lust

The first sin on our list is lust. You might be familiar with this one, which is characterized by an excessive love of the work of others, to the detriment of your own.

In the grip of this sin, one is so enthralled with the designs of their peers that they become more concerned with paying homage to them than in demonstrating their own style. Admiring someone else’s contribution to the Internet is one thing, but your work should feel like your own, not theirs.

Clear your head before beginning a new project, so that you are less likely to emulate someone else’s work. If the impulse to copy takes hold as you start, reboot and try again. Do whatever you can to imbue originality into your work.

Keep those lustful impulses under control.

2. Gluttony

This sin is easily recognizable. Design gluttony is the impulse to do way too much on one website. Offenders might simply be overachievers who confuse a website’s message by stuffing in unnecessary elements. Once you cross this line, the entire project is compromised. You need to be sensitive to balancing the elements and ideas of a design.

Sure, some clients will ask you to squeeze in more ideas than a design can plausibly fit. In such cases, step back and find subtle and creative ways to incorporate them. If the user has to process too much, then they will likely absorb very little.

If you risk committing this sin, have a second set of eyes look over your work. You might need to make drastic cuts to keep the website from over-stimulating its users.

Your design is full! Put down the jammy dodger.

3. Greed

Here is another easy sin to commit. It is obvious when a designer under-delivers on a product usually when money takes priority over the design.

Perhaps the freelancer has too many projects on the go, making it impossible for them to give their full attention to any one task. Or they might be financially stressed. Whatever the reason, when money takes over, the design suffers.

Take pride in every design that you create. Don’t ever deliver a product that is sub-par. We are artists, and this is our craft. When a pay check starts clouding your judgment, revisit why you got excited about the project in the first place.

Greed is a powerful motivator, but it should never be your inspiration. Another way to reignite your passion is to push the envelope and challenge yourself creatively.

It’s not all about the Benjamins.

4. Sloth

Sloth is a hard one to slip by the design community. When a designer repeats patterns or combinations of elements over and over in their projects, they are guilty of this sin. Becoming lazy in one’s design is nearly unforgivable, and there may be no way to revive one’s reputation.

A designer should strive to make each of their websites unique. If you catch yourself becoming lazy or repetitious, look to new sources of inspiration. Different styles and influences will breathe life into your work, taking you in exciting new directions.

Take the lazy way at your own peril.

5. Wrath

Don’t let wrath strike you in the course of a project. This sin shows not in your work but in your words and actions. You have to look within yourself to avoid crossing this line. Designer wrath is self-destructive and instigates endless unnecessary feuds with clients over insignificant details.

Sure, you have to take pride in your work, but the client has to make the final call, and you have to respect that. There is no need to get defensive or provoke a client.

Picking a fight merely bogs down the entire process. Take time to process your thoughts before responding to antagonistic messages from clients, so that you don’t burn any bridges or derail the project.

Losing your cool is not the way to get a job done.

6. Envy

Design envy is characterized as one’s fascination with the success of another design model.

To capture some of the popularity that another designer is enjoying, you aim your work in the same direction, compromising your unique voice and style. There are ways to borrow from a model that you admire without blatantly copying the approach or style.

Design envy is harmful because you’ll lose credibility with your peers. There are ways to resist the urge to copy someone else’s work. Identify the essential idea that appeals to you about a design, and then distill it into an original approach.

You could also find a way to say something similar to the general message behind a website; this isn’t copying, but rather presenting a new interpretation of a proven model.

“I want what he’s got”.

7. Pride

This final sin is easy to commit, given how much pride designers take in their work. As mentioned, pride ensures quality, but too much takes you off track.

When a designer’s understanding of a project gets clouded by an inflated sense of self-importance, pride has kicked in. The design then becomes about the designer, and the mission of the client gets lost. Users see the designer’s fingerprints all over the work and notice them instead of the message.

The designer needs to remain more or less anonymous. A user should recognize that a designer was behind the website they’re viewing, but you should be wary of leaving too personal a stamp on your designs. Pride is good but, like all things, needs moderation. Keeping it in check is your responsibility.

Too much of a good thing is bad.

In Conclusion

Making progress in a project is much easier when you’re cognizant of these seven deadly sins of design. Awareness is the key.