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3 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Graphic Designer

Over the years, it has become so easy to find a web designer, and this state of affairs is attributable to the rising number of courses that train on the area, both in brick and mortar institutions and over the internet. There are designers that will work for anything while others take only the top dollar jobs. While it is always great to be mindful of the price involved in hiring a design specialist, it should never be the only factor. You may hire a designer at what you consider a good bargain, only to find that they are completely incompetent at their work. Now, this is just one of the many mistakes people make in acquiring the services of design specialists. Let us have a look a few more.

Language

The market is currently flooded with Chinese and Indian specialists. They might be good at what they do, but the programming code you are using is essentially English, and foreign designers will always struggle with that. The best way to go about things involves finding a native English speaker, preferably one from the country.

Attaching people with shallow academic backgrounds

A designer needs a lot more than just programming knowledge. You are looking to spend your money on someone who knows marketing, search engine optimization and communication. Do not fall for hype; ask for evidence of the work your designer has done in the past in order to evaluate how good they are at all facets of the online business environment.

Paying for everything upfront

If the specialist you want to engage asks for money upfront, walk away. This is never a good idea because most of the so-called professional developers will start slacking in their work once they cash in. Pay a deposit and keep the remainder until some work is done, at which point you will dole out another installment. Draw out the payment over the time the web designer takes to get the job done.

To learn more, click here.

All About Search Engine Optmization

What is SEO?

SEO involves generating traffic from free, organic search results that appear on search engines. It’s a long-term strategy with many factors being considered to achieve success such as key word research, site architecture, on-site content, completion analysis and internal or external links; naming just a few.

Ranking well on search engines requires 3 things:

Your website ought to be coded in a way that makes it easy for the search engines’ software to crawl, find, and categorize your website. You should create web pages made of relevant, unique and remarkable content. You must promote your site to other relevant, authoritative websites and get them to reference, link to and cite you as an authority.

Practically, SEO involves:

  • Bing, Google and Yahoo Places account creation.
  • Local business page optimization on major business listings.
  • Analyzing then optimizing 2-10 keywords.
  • Creating quality back links from relevant sources.
  • Unlimited updates on Google, Bing and Yahoo Places.
  • Manual submissions to chosen relevant niche directory.
  • Special offers promotions through the Google’s network.

Importance of SEO for your business:

  • It will raise search rankings. This might obvious but very few people clearly comprehend how important these rankings really are. Most clients are usually lazy when making their online searches. They always wish for the best answers to their queries and they require it on the first page. Well, make the best decision now and get better search Rankings.
  • It will make sure that the right people find your website pages. This is the main purpose of SEO, putting your pages to the attention of people that will most likely take action because they are looking for enterprises similar to yours within their vicinity.
  • It will make your website easy to find. Regardless of how good that business idea is, you can’t expect clients to magically know about it. You have help them find you. This is exactly what seo strategies will help you do.
  • It will make your website more valuable. While website content is just a single part of SEO, it`s one of its most significant entities. Google are now even more focused on placing the most valuable content to the eyes of searchers more than they have ever been, which means that you have to put content that readers will find valuable.
  • It will bring in more customers. Very few consumers have the willingness or time to crack the yellow pages when they wish to find something even in their immediate locations. This only means that you must be highly ranked in those search results if you are to be found.
  • It will raise your conversion rates. Local search results make up the most targeted type of search results. For instance, if you search “shoe stores found in Maryland”, what will be brought to you first are the shoe stores found in Maryland. What this means is that people who click on your links are more likely to be interested in whatever you have to provide to them.
  • It will guarantee better returns on investment. SEO is a relatively cheap marketing tactic that is sure to bring in great returns immediately after it has taken its hold. It aids companies grow and improves their visibility.
  • Compliments other marketing tactics. In case you’re running other television advertisements or social media campaigns, seo makes it easy for the consumers looking for your businesses, spurred by such advertisements to find your webpages and other important information they might need about you.

 

Website design: An Analysis and the Associated Benefits

Website design is a concept that has hit the world since the advent of the strong force of the internet and cybernetics. Since the web world has brought in a large number of associated benefits, it is obvious that those actively involved in the web business shall require the aid of concepts to keep themselves up and above the counterparts. In brief, if you own a website, you need it to be designed professionally and in the right manner. Wondering why? The basic reason cited can be that – the designing aspect brings in customers – since the look decides the first impression of a site on customers.

Website design actually comprise of a number of things including the content, the structure, the search engine optimization tools, marketing related tools and the like. Thus, it seems evident that bringing together all these points and designing a platform where they match shoulders is indeed a highly complex job best left to a professional web designer. The underlining factor of any web design remains that the website must not be synonymous with unclarity or clumsy placement of information. Rather, the users or customers should be able to grasp the purpose of the site within seconds. Moreover, it should not be a storehouse of multimedia and the like. Overt use of such tools or a plug in takes away the real purpose of the website.

Whatever be the nature of the business you are into, having a competent and crisp website design for the same allows you to reap the harvest of a list of benefits.

Here are the most obvious and helpful advantages of a professional web design:

Great marketing tool

Of course, it is understood that the website is a way to promote a product or service. Thus, if you get a great design for your website, it is bound to gain greater degrees of visibility as compared to the hoards of other websites. This acts as a marketing pull strategy whereby consumers are pulled in to buying or seeking services by getting attracted to the outer look of the same.

Enhances global reachablilty

The web design, if done in the right manner, brings in a wide range of global reachablilty. The better the design of a site, the business base and access gradually increases.

Website design spares daily maintenance hassles

There is no hassle for maintaining your list of services available for clients, daily! Confused? This just means that there shall be the least amount of paperwork promotional and updating for the same, once a website with a unique design in established. Click here for more information.

Web Design Inspiration

Starting a new web design with no clue which direction to go in can be incredibly frustrating.  Whether you are working for a client or yourself, you are bound to get stuck on some part of the design.  This video by 1st Web Designer offers some help on finding inspiration and get you out of that design rut!