September 9, 2009
Say a new visitor to your website finds you through a search engine. They’re impressed with your content, which was written to get their attention. They like your professional design, which establishes that you’re a trustworthy brand. So then what? Give them a call-to-action and tell them what they should do, that’s what! Continue reading
August 31, 2009
We all know that different types of people use and read websites differently. Most of the time when you think of who the target audience is, the answers are in broad demographic categories: gender, age, people who have an interest in this particular topic, etc. Add to that category higher vs. lower literacy users. Continue reading
June 9, 2009
As web content writers, we work hard on what we write and hope that people read every word of it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen that way. Most people tend to scan content on a website rather than read it, which … Continue reading
June 2, 2009
From a web designer’s perspective, creating a better and more usable form usually means coming up with a nice, clean design. That’s definitely true, but it’s not 100% accurate, because how usable your form is also depends on how well … Continue reading
April 29, 2009
WordPress doesn’t have a default way of creating breadcrumbs, so when you’re designing a website in it, you have to include them on your own, either by adding some code to your theme’s files or by using a plugin. Here … Continue reading
April 16, 2009
Links are one of the most fundamental building blocks of successful content on your website, yet many people create them – knowingly or unknowingly – in ways that decrease their effectiveness. Here are some tips that you can use when … Continue reading
April 7, 2009
Usability is always a concern of web designers, but when it comes to web content writers, that’s not always the case. There’s no better example of this than the continued use of “click here” in link text. Here are 4 … Continue reading
February 12, 2009
In the Brothers Grimm fairytale, Hansel and Gretel get lost in the woods, yet are able to find their way home because they left a trail of breadcrumbs on the path. Web designers use breadcrumbs for the same reasons – … Continue reading
January 28, 2009
Although web designers don’t have to specialize in knowing all things SEO, it certainly can’t hurt if they know at least the basics. There are a lot of simple things that can be done when building a website for a … Continue reading
December 12, 2008
As a designer, I have to stop and ask myself, why bother styling text links? It’s done so that it is plainly obvious what is a link and what isn’t. That way, the user doesn’t have to spend any additional … Continue reading