• Although new users may be attracted to the enhanced redesigning, how will your trusted readers react to the sudden change, when they had been used to the previous design?
• Ask yourself how will your search engine ranking be affected by the new restructured content?
• Are you sure the changes you want to implement will make the website better than it is now?

These three issues can be easily dealt with if you follow three essential steps when redesigning your website.

If you have decided to redesign your website, do not do it too radically as this will have a negative impact on your habitual users. Imagine one of your readers who lands on a completely strange page, he or she will be wondering if they are on the right website and so would you. This should not stall your imagination; you can make changes to improve your design while keeping certain key elements that will be easily recognizable by your readers.

When a logo already has a strong impact, the website will go through the change smoothly, if not you can go through your website and find those elements that carry the website’s brand. These elements could simply be color schemes, icons or images; use these on your new design and try to keep them in the same places they were before you redesigned the website.

When you redesign the website keep these key elements upfront, as they carry your website’s brand and change other design aspect on your pages, just enough to make it more attractive but still retaining the feel of the previous version.

Another important aspect of redesigning a website is your search engine ranking. You have to avoid losing these. You may experience a few indexing problems as you restructure your website, however, you can take some steps to minimize the decrease in search engine ranking.

Keep your previous title tags or Meta descriptions and keywords and stick with the URLs you had before. Should you really find it necessary to change these, then use 301 directs as suggested by Google. This 301 redirect alerts Google when a page has changed location, which means that it should transfer all the old link data to the new one. You should use this 301 redirect system for every page you have changed or re-located. Any other pages including those you have permanently removed should also be redirected by pointing them towards others on your website.

It is also essential you modify any rules present within your robots.txt as well as creating a new sitemap that must be sent to Google when you are ready to launch the new version of your website; this will allow for enhanced search engine ranking and is essential for search engines.

Feature image

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

You can obtain customized themes for use with all of the most popular platforms, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. If you want to see what you can do with themes, you should check out some examples online.

Firefox

Miami Heat internet browser is a good example of a theme that you can use with Firefox. The browser has the initial appearance of an ordinary fan page. The Miami Head logo as well as all of the colors used for this theme. Everything, ranging from the tabs to the buttons, follows this theme. After further inspection of the theme, you will see how convenient it can be to use themes. You can easily access a range of links, ranging from team page to the twitter accounts of the team. There is also a quick link for purchasing tickets and using the fan made forums. If you are a Heat fan, you should definitely consider checking out this theme. It makes it easy for you to interact with your passion. This is a great example of how well a theme can build brand recognition for businesses.

Internet Explorer

If you are a fan of IGN, you can now access their official theme for Internet Explorer. The features, design and colors are all styled after the IGN home page. There is also a useful side bar that gives you easy access to new stories and also reviews.

IGN can now give users the experience of using their website, no matter what site they are actually looking at. Imagine what this could do for your brand. People could access the information that is on your site, without actually visiting it.

Google Chrome and Brand Thunder are working together as partners. The themes that they make are available on the Chrome e commerce website. A very popular theme that they have brought out is the CollegeHumor site’s theme.

When you first start up your browser, you will be greeted by the CollegeHumor logo. If you visit the CollegeHumor website on a regular basis, you will love this theme. You can access the latest news, articles and stories, which are posted on the website.

Each of the above mentioned browsers have a great number of themes, which are available by using Brand Thunder. They also have a theme builder on offer, which is called BT:Engage. It is easy to make your own customized themes using this tool. If you want to offer people a better way to interact with your website, without having to actually visit it, custom themes are the way to go. Every time a user surfs the web, they will have access to the core content on your site.

Feature image

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When using a search engine, results are likely what lead us back to using the same one over and over again. However, have you ever stopped to think about the usability of these top search engines web pages? Chances are you have not.

There are hundreds of millions of people that use Bing and Google every single day. Think about how much time can be saved if the sites took the time to tweak a few of the usability options. These little changes can lead to higher satisfaction and a better experience with the site overall.

The test that is outlined below will take into account how both Bing and Google stack up against each other when it comes to usability. You can then take this information and use it for your own web page. Learn how you can create a better-designed page that is easy for your customers to use.

The Test

This test is designed to be fair, with half of the people being directed to Bing’s home page screen shots and the other half going to Google. The test consists of seven questions that are simple and easy to answer.

Each person that takes the test will be shown a homepage of one of the search engine giants. They will read the question and click on the area in which they think they can find this information. The site will keep track of the time it takes you to answer the question and will generate a heat map of where everyone who takes the test clicks. These results will reflect the time it takes users to navigate the site to find the information they are looking for.

Processing the Data

The questions that are asked are simple, yet give important information about the site and how easy it is to navigate. You can view the results at http://video.intuitionhq.com/pub/405.

1.    Where do you click to search for a topic?

For the first question, Google users were faster, but they often did not click in the right place. For this reason, the point goes to Bing.

2.    Click on the area you would use to view maps

The second question results in a virtual tie.

3.    How do you navigate to the New Zealand site?

The third question goes to Bing, with the speed of the users on their site beating Google users by two seconds.

4.    If you have an email account with this provider, how do you access it?

The fourth question is a definite win for Google, with the users almost four seconds faster.
5.    What part of the screen attracts your attention the most?

When it comes to the page design, most of the people on Google’s page said the word Google was the most attractive and on Bing, many people chose the crop circles.

6.    Where would you click to learn about advertising with this provider?

If you are looking to get your brand out there, Google is the clear winner.

7.    How do you sign in on this site?

Signing in on both pages ends up in a tie that is to close to call.

Overall, Google is slightly better than Bing is, but not much. This is rather surprising considering that Google has been around for much longer. While both sites can use some minor tweaking, they are both very streamlined and user friendly.

Feature image

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Before going overboard advertising internationally, look into business ventures near you. No matter where you live, there is always someone who could use your services.  Try using the following six approaches to find local clients by attracting the attention of business leaders.

Online your list is extremely important, offline it is also a very useful tool, and easier too. To obtain an online mailing list requires a lot of content creation and patience. The point to having an offline the mailing list is not to gather email addresses but to research local business to find clients that don’t have a website or an effective one.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Step away from the computer and make a cold call or go straight to a potential client’s office. Chances are an email would be ignored, but if you made a phone call it could work wonders. If you went directly to the office, you could demonstrate your services and make a sound pitch. If you could save them money, offering to work on a contract basis, they would appreciate knowing that.

Get You Website On Google Local
Optimizing your website for Google Local is a perfect way to get noticed. A lot of businesses still prefer to deal with people that they can meet in person. If you optimize for keywords such as signage design, web design and graphic design you will open the doors to potential clients and leads.

Offer Commissions for Referrals
Most business owners in the same market are a tight knit group. They are constantly speaking to each other, no matter what field. If you were to offer commissions for referrals from business owners, it could supply you with an endless supply of work.
People love to save money, and they also take recommendations from people they know, very seriously. Networking through referrals could save you money as well, in advertising.

Offer to Work For Free
At first it may seem like a scary idea, but if you think about it, you would see that it is a great business decision. Offering your work for free is a way for businesses to get to know you, and they would for sure talk about you to other business owners. Word of mouth is one of the oldest and best ways to expand a business.

Design a Template
Designing a template and pitching it to a business provides security for a potential client. If you approached a client with a template tailored specifically to them, they could visualize what your services could do for them.

Feature image

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The best way to learn how to match font types together is to check out good examples. There are different websites, which offer combinations of fonts that you can use. Whether you want to find some ideas, or simply use what you see, you can find some great examples. This article will give you a crash course in font matching and send you in the right direction, but you should do your own research if you truly want to master font matching.

Take a look at Douglas Bonneville’s 19 top fonts in 19 top combinations. This is a cheat sheet which shows 19 of the most popular web fonts as headers, and couples them with good body text choices. The sheet even has the pairs shown together, so all you need to do is peruse the list and select a combination that you like. This is a great way to choose the right fonts with some guidance.

If you would like an alternative, check out arrayed infographic codifying 22 possible type combinations. There is not a visual key with this one, but it does give you a lot of suggestions for possible pairings. Now you do not have to select your fonts without some helpful guidance. If you are interested in finding similar cheat sheets it would be a good idea to do a search on Google. Take a look at popular websites and see what types of fonts they have combines to get some ideas.

Making well balanced contrast pairs

Now that you have your sheets of possible pairings, it is to look at a method for choosing your own. Many cheat sheets use contrast as a theme. For example, you can couple serif fonts with sans-serif, which can be done the other way around. The main idea is to find fonts which have small similarities, so that they will go well together while still contrasting.

More reading

Four ways to mix fonts by Hoefler and Frere-Jones list a large amount of font combinations and ideas for using them. The pairings in this article are used as guidelines, rather than listing hard and fast rules for you to follow. Something these designers teach is to find one thing that should stay the same between the fonts, and find something else that will vary.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.