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Creative Footers in Modern Web Design

Typography - essential for good web design

Typography is an essential part of good web design. Good web designers know typography should be eye-catching and that it adds personality to the website, giving it an overall theme. Thanks to CSS developments, web designers are no longer limited to a few fonts. The latest trend in web design is the use of big fonts. It seems the bigger the better. Of course there are some rules to follow:

Keep the design minimal and choose 2-3 fonts. Use more and there is a danger of too having too much going on, driving the user away from your site.
Pay attention to letter-spacing and line-height for easy reading. Words that are bunched-up are difficult to read and looks ugly. Don't forget to give some breathing space in between characters.
Use sans-serif fonts for the content as its easy to read, keeping serif fonts for headings.

I have chosen examples of the creative use of typography below to inspire you:

V iew Website

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Cookie Consent Laws

Book Review - The Thank you Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk

How Do You Know If The Time Is Right For A Re-Design?

The Navigation Structure Of A Website Good Examples

Book Review - The Thank you Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk

Creative Footers in Modern Web Design

The Footer appears at the bottom of a page and is not considered the most important part of a website. Whereas before the footer contained nothing more than contact details and copyright information, now web designers are embracing the possibilites of a multi-functional footer.

Today's web designer is coming up with creative designs for the footer. More space is given, sometimes up to half a page and can include anything from a contact form, twitter updates, a secondary navigation to various calls to action. Overall it is more dynamic and involves the user offering a more user-friendly experience. So, its time to let go of minimal information and open to the possibilites of including more on your business and yourself. Take the opportunity to remind the user why they came to your website in the first place and give them the opportunity to interact with your website, it will keep them happy.

Below are examples to inspire you on your next design:

Cookie Consent Laws

What you should know. Rules set out by the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive give web designers just one year to make sure they gain user's consent before placing cookies that track programmes on their devices such as computer or mobile. However, the cookie consent laws will be phased in to allow British businesses time to make the necessary changes.

The Information Commissioner's Office, (ICO) published a document that outlines ways to comply. They define a cookie as a small file of letters and numbers downloaded on to a device when the user accesses certain websites. Cookies allow a website to recognise a user's device.

What should I do? The ICO advise taking the following steps:

Check what type of cookies and similar technologies you use and how you use them. Start to clean up your webpages and stop using any cookies that are unnecessary.
Assess how intrusive your use of cookies is. Some uses of cookies can capture detailed profiles of an individual's browsing activity which the EU considers to be very intrusive the more privacy intrusive your activity, the greater the need to gain consent from the user.
Decide what solution to obtain consent will be best in your circumstances. There are a number of ways to get user consent.

The user's browser settings are one way. Another way is to have pop ups that ask the user directly if they agree with a yes/no option. You could use a Splash page to make users aware of changes to the site. Or opt for a Terms and conditions page where you ask the user to tick a box to show they give consent to the new terms. The ICO stress the need to be open and specific about how your website operates and user compliance will only be accepted only when the user is made aware of what they are agreeing to and have shown their acceptance in some way. To read the ICO document in full, click on link below. They have promised to give more guidance in the future. ICO document

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Book Review: The Thank you Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk

This is Gary's second book. The first Crush It! was on how to build your career around your passion.

The Thank you Economy is a must-read for small businesses and start-ups. It gives plenty of examples of business successes thanks to using twitter and facebook not as a means to push company products or sales but as a part of a two way conversation with the customer, as a way to show you care for them. There is a need to return to the caring that our grandparents's businesses showed towards their customers.

Gary writes about caring for your customer through personalized thank yous not general ones. The power of word of mouth cannot be underestimated. This works in both positive way and negative way. To deal with the latter Gary thinks it is better to deal with an unhappy customer openly and address in confident manner rather than have an unhappy customer who keeps quiet and who you never see again. As an example, to show his appreciation for customers, he has given away free bottles of wine with thank you notes. And this is someone who knows how to do business and who walks his talk. His entrepreneurial skills turned his family business around, increasing annual profits from $4million to $60 million in ten years.

In 2006 he launched Wine Library TV and turned from traditional media tools to the social web using twitter and facebook to connect with his customers. Today he is an internet celebrity. He has become hugely popular and businesses have begun to notice his approach. He is invited to talk at conferences on the subject of social media and in his talks he is passionate about how businesses need to embrace these communication tools to develop intimate relationships with their customers. Today the tools are twitter and facebook, tomorrow they could be something else. The key is to stay current or be left behind. What I have learnt from reading this book is that social media is not about pushing your sales, product or message, it's about interacting with people. It is a two way conversation. It is about listening to people and addressing their concerns. You need to be transparent, real, and have meaningful conversations.

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The Benefits of a Single Page Website

Recently, I have noticed single page websites popping up everywhere on the internet. Although they have been around for a long time, often used for low-budget static websites, the ones around today are beautifully crafted designs that are dynamic thanks to CSS3.

PRESENTATION
CLARITY
CONTENT IS KING

The single page website layout is presented in a way that is easy on the eye. Small chunks of content will appeal to your visitors and make them want to stay on your site for longer. The focus is strong design.

There is a clear content organization structure. Instead of having different pages for each section of the website, all content is on one page. Anchor links allow the user to navigate from one part of the page to another.

The constraints of space helps you to choose your words and images carefully to get your message across and avoid superfluous words. Marketeers are always telling us that simple messages are the key to success as they are easy to understand and good web designers know this. The visitor will be impressed that they instantly know what you offer and can make a decision on whether to buy straight away. This can lead to higher conversion rates.

6 examples of single page websites.

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Bold colour in web design

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The Essence of a Contact page

To create a successful Contact page you need to ask yourself 2 important questions.

1. What is it you want from your visitors? Sales enquiries? Bookings? Customer feedback? When you can answer this question, it will be easier to design your page. You will know the best and most convenient way for customers to contact you, either by contact form, telephone, email, postal address or through social media such as facebook and twitter. Increasingly, businesses are providing plenty of contact options. It is quite common to see social media icons such as facebook and twitter on contact pages. This is a smart move as you don't want your visitor to become frustrated at the limited contact options before they contact you. Some businesses choose to have a contact form as it is a sure way to know what the visitor wants from them. All the necessary details of the visitor enquiries are presented in a way that's easy to address. Other businesses, put their email address on their website instead. There is an increased chance of receiving spam emails this way.

2. What can you do to make it a valuable resource for your visitors? Visitors pass through your Contact page to get in touch with you, either to enquire about your services or simply to talk to you, so it deserves the same attention that you give other pages on your website. Done successfully, it can help boost online sales. It is now popular to add a google map that shows the location of the business and a web designer can embed the map in the contact page. Please see an example below.

Here are examples of modern Contact pages:

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How to create a perfect 'About Us' page

Your 'About Us' page matters. It matters to the visitors who come to your site to find out more about you, your services or your products. Imagine a face-to-face meeting with a prospective client. You meet, introduce yourself, say a little about what you offer, how long you've been in business, mention your unique selling proposition (USP) and upon leaving hand out your business card. Well, I want you to think of the 'About Us' page as a faceless meeting, with the same elements as a face-to-face meeting firmly in place. To recap, here are 6 key points:

Presentation
Introduction
What you offer
What you stand for
Company history
Contact details

1. Presentation First impressions count. You wouldn't dress scruffily for a business meeting so the same applies here. A cluttered about us page will do you no favours and it looks tacky. People don't like too much going on in a website, so don't fill every area with a different image or piece of text. Instead, go for a clean, professional look. Here is a good example:

2. Introduction Here you get to say who you are, introduce yourself, your team, your company. You may want to include photos of yourself and/or your team. Keep the content in this section short and to the point. Web surfers can only read so much on a website and you don't want to bore them or send them away with large chunks of text. Here is a good example:

3. What you offer Time to shine. Make your content informative, crisp and clear. Showcase your skills if you are a designer. How about making it visually interesting by presenting your skills in bullet point format or highlighting your USP in another colour. Here is a good example:

4. What you stand for What are your aims? Write your mission statement here. If you have a code of ethics, put it in here. Here is a good example:

5. Company History How long have you been in business? Do you have any awards, statements of recognition, great testimonials that you could put in here? Building credibility and trust in your business is key. Here is a good example:

6. Contact details It is good business etiquette to give out a business card at a meeting. So make sure your contact details are visible on the page. You want to make it easy for your prospective client to contact you. It could be you've impressed him/her and now they want to buy your product. Having an address shows you are in a real place in a real location and that you exist! This creates trust and credibility in you as a company and the client feels safe to do business with you. Here is a good example:

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Custom Website versus Template Website?

There are a lot of "do-it-yourself" templates around these days which virtually anyone can adapt to suit their needs. For example you can upload your logo, decide on your colour scheme and text, but your business brand will not come across in the same way as if you have a website built specifically for you by a professional web designer.

Just One Example Of A Template Website Home Page

One of the hardest things for a small business owner to do is to differentiate themselves from their competition. However, it is still very common to see pre-made website templates that make all small businesses look very alike! Quite simply put, templates do not offer you the flexibility that having your own site does. Next to the ready made website templates, the word template also describes a framework or structure which is used when developing a complex website and CMS. When visitors navigate their way around websites they notice that some content is repeated and structured in a defined way. If the navigational elements were placed in a different position on every page or the design was graphically different throughout the site it would make confusing reading. In this example, a template creates a framework for the elements.

A Unique Design Is A Must The worst templates are those which don't allow you to use your own branding or design within them. You can't build your brand if others are also using a similar template if you want a unique identity it is important to choose a designer who can produce a unique website design for you. Newsletters can be a good example of this. If you want to keep at the top of your customers minds when sending out newsletters, yours needs to stand apart from the rest. Templates are often seen as a "quick fix" solution but actually, by having the long-term foresight to see that you may want to make some major changes to your site later on, it is false economy to spend anything at all on template sites it is far more cost effective to employ the services of a web designer who can make those changes for you in keeping with your brand and image.

Also, did you know that if you do choose to use a pre-designed template, you may not own the copyright to that design?

An Example Of A Unique Design

Here are some very good pointers to keep in mind if you feel tempted to use a pre-designed template for your website:

Your visitors will judge you by how professional and unique your website looks.
The distinction that you worked hard to create for your brand and business will be lost if you opt for a pre-designed website.
The most popular pre-designed templates are used to create thousands of other websites and are therefore easily recognised by your potential customers who are browsing your industry in search of a resource.
Your creative options are vastly limited and it can become extremely frustrating if everything you want to do with your site has to conform to the design template you chose.

To summarise, remember that one size never fits all and you usually get what you pay for. However, templates as frameworks to house information is an important part of creating highly-functional web sites.

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