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Web design is a crucial component of creating an effective online presence. It involves not only the aesthetic appearance of a website but also its usability, functionality, and accessibility. With billions of websites on the internet, it's more important than ever to create a website that stands out from the crowd and delivers a great user experience. In this blog post, we will explore the key elements of web design and how they contribute to creating an effective website. Firstly, let's consider the visual design of a website. The visual appearance of a website is what initially captures a user's attention. It's important to have a design that is visually appealing, modern, and consistent with your brand identity. The color scheme, typography, and images used on the website should be consistent with your brand guidelines and convey your messaging effectively. The layout of a website is also critical to its success. A well-structured layout makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for and navigate around the site. The content should be presented in a logical and organized manner, with clear headings and subheadings, and a consistent layout across all pages. Another key aspect of web design is usability. A website should be designed to be user-friendly, with an intuitive navigation system that enables users to quickly find the information they need. The website's functionality should also be easy to use, with clear calls-to-action that encourage users to take the desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. Accessibility is another important consideration in web design. A website should be accessible to all users, regardless of their physical abilities. This means ensuring that the website is optimized for assistive technologies such as screen readers and that the content is presented in a clear and easy-to-understand format. Finally, the performance of a website is critical to its success. A website that is slow to load or experiences frequent downtime will result in a poor user experience and can drive users away from the site. It's important to optimize the website's performance by minimizing the use of large images or videos and ensuring that the website is hosted on a reliable and fast server. In conclusion, web design is a crucial component of creating an effective online presence. A well-designed website that is visually appealing, user-friendly, accessible, and performs well is more likely to attract and retain users, drive conversions, and ultimately contribute to the success of your business. By considering the key elements of web design, you can create a website that stands out from the crowd and delivers a great user experience.

What comes to your mind when you see or hear the term “Search Engine Optimization”? Some people think having a couple of articles on their blog is enough to make their blog rank higher. Some even believe their active social media presence is enough to drive audiences to their website. Although all these assumptions can help you gain comments, likes, and followers, they aren’t true about Search Engine Optimization and are not enough to boost any website’s SEO ranking. In this post, we’ll take a look at SEO ranking and ways to boost your website’s SEO ranking. SEO is basically getting your web pages to rank on search engines, and it’s a vital part of your overall online strategy. In SEO, ranking refers to the position of your content on search engine results pages. Some quick stats to help you understand Ever since the introduction of the Google search engine in 1997, all search engines’ worldwide market share has been somewhat lopsided. Google receives over 75,000 searches per second, of which over 60% of the searches come from mobile devices. Videos help you get 157% more organic traffic from search engines. 50% of companies monitor their search rankings weekly. In July 2020, the online search engine Bing accounted for 6.43% of the global search market, while market leader Google had a market share of 86.86%. There is a small correlation between keywords in the title tag and high rankings. Mobile devices account for 71% of total online time in the United States. How can you boost your SEO ranking? Below are tips you can use to improve the SEO ranking of your website. 1. Create Unique Content Rome was not built in a day, so they say. There is no hidden way to create lasting SEO success overnight. The great importance of creating authentic content when it comes to boosting your SEO ranking cannot be overemphasized. Content creation such as videos, articles, and blog posts is an excellent way for you to showcase what you offer and draw the attention of your prospects to how you work. Boosting your SEO ranking takes time, so invest in it till it yields tremendous results. 2. Include Effective Keywords Keywords are a crucial part of Search Engine Optimization ranking. They are topics and ideas that define the purpose of your content. SEO keywords are the phrases and targeted keywords you include in content that makes it possible for your targeted audience to find your website on search engines. Including the right keywords in your content might be a delicate process, but are easy to understand. There are steps you can take to boost your SEO ranking through keywords. Use keyword tools: Brainstorming keywords for your content should not be your only approach. Using keyword tools helps a great deal – this is so because they provide you with real user data to help you ascertain whether or not your chosen keyword(s) will boost your website ranking on search engines. Search your chosen keywords before concluding: Irrespective of the keyword you intend to use. It is essential to search your keywords on search engines before using them; this is to be sure you’re using the right keyword for the right content. 3. Optimize your Images People say a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures and images are crucial to making sure your website content is attractive, accessible, and engaging to your audiences. What is image optimization? Optimizing web images is a process of producing quality images in the ideal size, format, and resolution to improve user engagement, give search engines important background information, and boost search engine rankings. How can you optimize your images? Below are tips to optimize your images for better user engagement: Use unique images Resize your images Optimize the image title Include captions that complement the images Use alt tags. 4. Include Outbound Links Increasing your site’s credibility is not about creating quality content alone; linking your content to external sources of high quality may also help boost your SEO ranking in some ways. When another website links to your website, it is considered an outbound link, like linking your website to another relevant content website. The importance of outbound links include; improved reputation, improved value, and trust in your content; it builds relationships and increases popularity and relevance. While outbound links are essential to your website’s growth, including too many outbound links is not ideal as it can distract people’s attention away from your website. 5. Use Infographics Creating powerful infographics for your web content is essential to rank your website higher on search engines. With a well-designed infographic embedded in your site, you automatically have a permanent linkable asset that will continue to retain relevance on your website. Infographics catch people’s interest, facilitates higher SEO rankings, and make you closer to your customers. 6. Optimize your website for mobile devices It is not news that the use of mobile devices is on the rise globally. It is rising rapidly that it has surpassed computer devices. The setting of mobile search can be a little different than that of desktop devices. Besides, mobile devices are used on the go. Google and other search engines recognize these factors and rank websites accordingly. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it will deter its user experience and harmfully affect your SEO ranking. 7. Ensure your site is readable Readability, which is the practice of making your content easy to understand for your target audience, is a significant factor in website content, and it can increase your website’s SEO ranking. If you want to drive traffic to your website, you need to communicate to people in terms they can understand. People get turned off easily when they find it difficult to know what they read on a website. Conclusion SEO is recognized to be a vital strategy when it comes to marketing your business. It isn’t just a trend that’s going to die soon; it’s something your website needs to focus on right now, and in the future, the requirements are changing continuously.

From improved planning and scheduling to working remotely, project management tools' benefits cannot be exaggerated. As time goes on, technology evolves. The emergence of project management tools has replaced all the orthodox methods of managing projects in the past years. These software applications are easy to use, providing numerous functionalities and features to its users. WHY DO YOU NEED PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE Although this question might sound funny, the truth of the matter is that project management software applications, like all other tools, are designed to make our day-to-day lives more convenient than ever. Rather than communicating with your team members on a long and tedious email chain, or managing your projects on a piece of paper, or even trying your best to track the progress of your other employees through calls and series of meetings, project management software combines all these functionalities and other incredible features in an easy-to-use tool. With these software applications, you can quickly prioritize and schedule your tasks, track and manage your time and other resources efficiently, store all your documents in an easily accessible location, and collaborate (communicate, share files and projects) with your team members and clients from your comfort zone. BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR WORKING AT HOME The eight best project management software are as follows; TRELLO Trello is a user-friendly and easy-to-learn Kanban application. This project management software application is quick to set up on your mobile device and your desktop computer. It allows the user to layout the Kanban flow very smoothly to look at all the different sections such as the 'to-do,' 'doing,' 'done,' and the likes. The application comes with great visualization and color-coding. You can change the background, the different color schemes, and even a feature that allows you to have different images on the tasks. The application allows for easy team collaboration – this means you can add additional team members. In addition to the features mentioned above, there are so many features and functionalities for you to manage your different projects with your various clients. SLACK This project management application is more of a communication type of tool with project management capabilities and functionalities. It's a potent tool that is free up to a certain level. This tool allows you to send thousands of messages that you're able to send within your team. The tool has larger packages that you can pick up if you are looking to have multiple team members. With the free version of this project management tool, you have access to 10,000 of your team's most recent messages. You have access to 1:1 voice and video calls with your team members and ten integrations with other applications like office 365, google drive, and so on. The pricing is quite friendly too! ASANA Asana is also one of the most effective management tools out there. They also have different features, the Kanban board, the list, and so on. This tool is relatively competitive; they have a friendly user interface, a lovely team environment, and quite a competitive pricing. Although Asana is quite universal, you will have to organize your work around this excellent tool since it's not primarily a web design project management software. BASECAMP Basecamp is a great project management tool for working remotely. This tool is a lot needed for larger organizations because the pricing is relatively high; this project management tool allows you to bring your clients on board to collaborate within the project and give them feedback on your project. Apart from web design, basecamp can also track projects that require a lot of creative input, such as graphic design, developing marketing campaigns for social media platforms, organizing event promotions, and many more. Basecamp offers its users the ability to create up to 3 projects, use up to 1GB of storage and bring up to 20 team members onboard. FREEDCAMP This tool is kind of similar to basecamp. With this project management tool, you can get anything done regarding your project. It comes with a Kanban board, which serves as a modern way to manage your tasks. You can stay in touch with all your tasks with the 'task list' feature and also have an ultimate bird's eye view of your tasks. NOTION Another project management software in the marketplace is Notion . This tool is pretty much complicated compared to the tools above. However, the pricing is very low, and also there is a free version for personal use. The working environment is calm, and it allows users to customize it to their satisfaction. PROPROFS PROJECT This project management tool is considered a solution to project management problems, especially in the web design marketplace. In addition to ensuring a satisfying experience while tracking each of your projects' progress, the ProProfs project allows its users 24/7 access reports to have complete control of their project. Other innovative features of this project management software include; automated billing, quick invoicing, time tracking, and many more. With the ProProfs project, you can easily monitor your progress, find loopholes, and rectify any error that might deter your work progress. WRIKE The last project management tool on this list is Wrike. With Wrike, you can quickly gain information on all your projects. In addition to that, Wrike provides the ability to share any web design project component with your team members and clients. Unlike other project management tools, Wrike doesn't have restrictions that contain other people from collaborating with you and your project. And also, they keep your client's information secure. Choosing the right project management software for your need is essential to the growth of your business. This is just a quick overview of the different project management tools. It is highly recommended you check all these tools out, do some free trials, and figure out which one will work best for you as a web designer.

The world has gone digital, and technology is what holds everything together. However, technological and digital trends are changing fast. Web designs and features that were once trendy at a point in our lives can and will become obsolete within a short period of time. Which begs the question; what does one do to make sure your consumers don't lose interest in your site overtime or on their first visit? According to research by WebFX , 66% of users prefer to stare at a gorgeously designed website if given a few minutes to consume a website content notwithstanding the quality of the content. WebFX further added that, if there's one thing to know when it comes to web design, it's that users desire a beautiful and engaging website. When a particular style of design becomes overused, it loses the conversion factor it once had due to the uniqueness; what you don't want on your website is for leads to walk away from your business because of the design. 2021 will bring a lot of new design trends for websites. More of the current designs will become washed, and you have to keep up, else you will be left behind. So you won't be left behind, we have come up with a list of web design trends that will rock it in 2021. The common factors about the listed design trends are easy navigation, high level of functionality, user friendly, and a great look. Some of the current trends keep their place, but several design trends shoot up to the top. 1. DARK MODE Dark Mode has a lot of advantages to it. This web design trend will grow in popularity in 2021. As awkward as it may sound, or maybe not entirely comfortable to you; I have met people who prefer dark themed websites to bright ones. I remember when Twitter rolled out the dark mode option on their mobile app, a lot of people moved immediately and ever since refused to go back to the 'white' themed Twitter. Facebook likewise implemented the dark themed option on WhatsApp, which received wide adoption amongst the users. These are mobile application, but it can be implemented on website design likewise. Our website is one example of how attractive a dark themed website can look after design. The functions of the dark-themed website are both practical and aesthetics. Website designers must learn how to apply this trend if they want to create better-looking websites. At a time when a lot of people spend more time on the internet than ever; users are also alert to what bright lights could do to their sight. For this reason, users spend more time on eye-friendly websites. Dark Mode helps to reduce strain on the eyes, and this means users will spend more time on websites with this design element. Aesthetically, the dark mode design gives a website an ultra-modern look. This look appeals to more users, and they want to spend more time on the website. For designers, it also increases the chance of showing off other elements in the design. All you need to do is to darken the features around it. 2. PROFESSIONAL PRODUCT PHOTOS Visuals are the most prominent communication element in digital space. Users are influenced by great images more than anything. The time spent scanning through an image is less than reading a piece – at a time when users have a short attention span than ever, it is essential to communicate through photos. In 2021, designers need to know the professional power photos carry. Because of the attention span of modern users, you should pass your message or promote your business through images. Professional product photos help to quickly promote the product, as it easily gets the website user's attention. Once they are drawn in, it means you can now communicate what your product does better than ever. Also note, it has to be professional product photos and not low-quality ones. The better the image quality, the higher the chance of holding them down on your website, and you have an increased chance of selling your product. You can either DIY or acquire the services of a professional photographer. 3. HAND-DRAWN ELEMENTS Hand-drawing is a popular style used in website design. Hand-drawing helps to convey an individual tone more than any other element. Hand-drawn elements give a unique view to design; it also helps to provide an organic look to your design. More websites are adopting hand-drawn elements, and it will grow more significant in 2021. Hand-drawn elements pass a message through design on a personal level and portray a lot of emotions. The tone is informal, and it appeals to the users by connecting with them. The users now see hand-drawn elements as a break from the norm, which is blending a lot of colors. Hand-drawn elements give a website a more inviting look, as it gives it a funky feel. Besides, hand-drawn elements complement great written content on a website. Well written content with hand-drawn elements helps to convey the message better than plainly written content. When it comes to friendliness, hand-drawn elements convey this more than most elements. It gives a website a close look when perfectly blended with the site's theme. 4. ASYMMETRIC LAYOUTS Asymmetrical layouts are one of the emerging trends in the world of web design. Asymmetrical layouts are going to be one of the leading web design trends in 2021. It challenges a part of the essential foundational elements in the user interfaces part of web design, which is the grid system. Asymmetrical layouts come from designers' experimentation with unbalanced, yet dynamic composition. It is a result of the movement away from the usual, entirely created symmetrical designs. Collapse gutters, overlay multiple elements, and embracing empty spaces are the trends in asymmetrical layouts. In collapse gutters, the space between the columns or rows in a grid is for eliminating gutters—this spacing help to give structure and an adequate level of consistency to the design interface. Overlaying multiple elements helps to increase creativity in design. The typography, imagery, and other elements in the design are overlaid – this gives the user interface layout more character and dimension. This gives you the room to exaggerate with your design – you can combine bold Andrew large font headings with images that are small in size. Another one is embracing empty spaces. White spaces help to transform designs. You do not need to fill up every area on your interface. You only need to use these spaces to your advantage. There are other ways to apply asymmetrical layouts. But these three are part of the top expected trends under asymmetrical designs in 2021. 5. SOFT SHADOWS AND FLOATING ELEMENTS Soft Shadows gives your design a 3D look that adds draws in the user and immerses them. You can easily magnify this effect by using photos and text – this is a trend that is expected to become even more popular in the website design world, come 2021. Borrowing material design principles, web designers can add some shadow to 2D layouts, and give the image a 3D look. Designers can now combine these shadow elements are with the floating effect. The result is a sharp, crisp, and classy design. It eliminates the usual flat look that could have being. 6. INFORMATIVE DESIGN STRUCTURES Before you create a website, you must have a design structure in place. Web users are hungry, and they need to be fed. Every layer of your website must educate the visitor and make them want to go further. This trend has always been significant in web design, and it will not change in 2021. Your website design must show that you understand your audience. You must have your user in mind, rather than what you want; they need to have easy navigation on your website. No web user wants to enter a website that feels like a maze. You have to avoid website user fatigue by creating something for your users to find their way easily. 7. BLEND GRAPHICS AND IMAGES The trend of blended graphics on images is getting a lot of love on social media. It is a design trend that has infused a lot of creativity and funkiness to stock photos. This trend will spread its wings even further in 2021. This trend has moved on to website designs. In 2021, web designers must adopt the template of the mixture of photography and graphics – this will help to keep their branding on point, as well as increasing visitors' engagement on the website. 8. BOLD TYPOGRAPHY The most significant websites of top corporations have adopted bold typography. The use of bulky and bold fonts means the users get the message instantly. The use of neutral colors with bold fonts will emphasize headlines, which registers as an image in the mind of website users. Truth be told, users are already fed up with overly simplistic designs, with boring white websites and stylish subtlety. At the point, trends like the bold typography are making designs most especially turn towards boldly designed websites that will pique the readers' attention and in the process, keeping them glued to the website. That implies using colorful design, modern animations – and not to forget one of the most critical, bold typography! 9. VOICE USER INTERFACE The style of accessing information is fast changing. Users can now ask search engines question by voicing, rather than type it – this shows the trend in web design is fast moving towards voice user interface and away from typing. Web designers now have to move towards using virtual assistants and voice chatbots. In 2021, this trend will increase, and more websites will go this route – this doesn't mean traditional texts will go away; instead, both will be used side by side. 10. MOBILE-FRIENDLY- FAST LOADING TIMES An essential element in web design is high-speed load time and a mobile-friendly website. Fast loading times have always been an important factor in web design for years. It remains as important as ever, as it is a vital element in websites ranking well and converting better. According to a number of studies, it shows that over half of web users believe a website needs to load as fast as only two seconds when they click on the URL. These studies have shown that a slow loading speed will make you lose your audience, and they may never return. Conversation rates for businesses correlate with their website loading speed. The higher your loading speed, the higher you rank on search engines, which means you will get more people on your website. CONCLUSION
Web designing is an industry that operates at a fast pace. Web designers have to continually educate themselves and get accustomed to the latest trends in the industry. It is easy to be out of touch in such a sector that requires constant creativity. 2020 brought a lot of trends. 2021 promises even more and more significant trends in the world of web designing. Usability and search engine ranking are the common grounds of every design element. These are the factors that lead to a better conversion rate that will help your website and business.

For business owners like yourself, looking to be found in the ultra-competitive niche that you are in, search engine optimization or SEO is the best way of taking the fight to the big boys. No longer are you going to be shoved around in this digital marketing place, but the time to fight is now. In this article, we will give you an overview of why SEO is essential to gain a foothold and start winning in business online. The importance of SEO has been a point of debate for several years. For every guru that believes SEO is dead, we can give you two reasons, that will say that it is not. There is plenty of information available online to manipulate the rankings in one way or the other, but one factor is constant, and that is SEO. SEO usage is on an ever-increasing rise. The popularity is immense, and the results can be game-changing.
Importance of SEO for Business SEO is the process of helping your website to appear in the results of search engines like Google. SEO requires the knowledge of the ever-changing search engine algorithms, which can be confusing, to say the least. Because of this, most people have very little understanding of what it takes to rank highly in these search engines. Search engines are not really candid when it comes to algorithm updates, which makes website SEO challenging as it often requires a constant update. So, is all of the effort worth it? Is the time spent researching keywords, carefully placing them in title tags, headers, and meta descriptions and creating great content really worth the results? And is SEO still relevant now that so many marketers seem to be focusing solely on content? In a word, YES!
People use the internet and enter millions of keywords daily. The internet has become the number one method for consumers to get answers to their everyday questions. Since past couple of years, the place where the majority of consumers spend at least some of their time every day is The Internet. So, you have to excel at SEO, meeting your customers' needs in the place where they spend most of their time. Benefits of SEO More than 80% of consumers of businesses search over the internet before buying products and services. They search the keywords in search engines and get a list of relevant websites in return. People visit websites which are top in the search results because they appear more relevant to that search query. The issues if your website is not on the top of the search results is that it becomes difficult to reach your customers online. Websites on page 1 get 95% of all traffic compared to page two and three. If you think why your competitor ranks higher than you, the reason is SEO. SEO, when appropriately applied, helps rank your website higher than your competitor website in response to specific keyword search. When you page rank higher, it gets more people to find you. If you want to rank higher, then you need to put all the ingredients the search engine is looking for in your web design. It includes website architecture, HTML tags, text content, visual content, inbound, and outbound links. If you know how websites operate, you may be able to understand the sumptuous benefits of SEO. In the digital environment today, competitiveness is the key. So, how can you connect with the users who can potentially become your customers? The best way is with SEO. Even though it requires time and energy, it's worth doing. Components that Affect User's Search Where the customers begin their journey? Yep, you guessed it, Google, Bing, and Yahoo. When the user types in a question, they are rewarded with an endless selection of websites specifically designed to answer their query. Three major components affect the information that a user sees in their customized search results. Location When searching for information, search engines track location of the user performing the search. This can be a GPS connection on a cell phone or as simple as the IP address on your personal computer. This is especially impactful if the user inserts the location for his search term. For example, Dentist, Las Vegas. This is going to provide hyper-local results that give the user with information on the best places to get their teeth taken care of in Las Vegas. Personal Search History This is one of the things that you, as a business owner, can't really impact. However, Google has done an incredible job of tracking how internet users find and interact with the information available to them on the web. You would likely notice that as you search for things on the web, personalized advertisements pop up on the websites that you visit. For example, yesterday you may have been searching for a Coleman grill and today while scrolling through cat photos on Facebook, your newsfeed probably is interrupted by an ad alerting you for a once-in-a-lifetime deal for a top-of-the-line golden grill at Sears. Coincidence? I think not! SEO Performed by Companies After you make your way to the results of the pages of Google, Bing or Yahoo, the information that is laid out in front of you is the result of an incredibly competitive sport known as SEO. In a nutshell, companies are competing for your attention in every way known to man, and you get a front-row seat to the Super-Bowl that is page 1. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are fiercely competitive. They want to earn your search loyalty, and if a website is failing to deliver relevant and easy-to-read answers to the questions that are being typed into the search box, they won't do business with that website in the future. They want the customers to get the information they need quickly, so they'll keep searching with their site. Learn more about different web design trends.