Guest Post - Midnightson Designs

The Next Big Thing in Web Design

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Trends in the world of web design are always changing and it is extremely important to stay updated with them to make your website better. Some design elements seem to be making it big in 2023 and are being eyed by all designers wanting to create something extraordinary. If you also want to jump on the bandwagon, here are a few trends you should look at.

Custom Visuals

We are all aware of the importance of visuals in web design. For example, when I am building my website, I would create my logo in a way that tells the story of my brand while also being visually appealing. However, custom visuals are the new big thing in design. This means that complex and intricate animations with responsive designs are now ruling the world of websites. This is because custom visuals give stunning results and they serve as data visualization tools that help create interactive dashboards as well.

Human-Centric Design

People love simple designs that are easy for them to comprehend. This is exactly what Artificial Intelligence is trying to achieve. Human-centric designs are meant to enhance user experience. This design serves the purpose of a website by first asking why a website exists and understanding its goal and then, working towards achieving it. It is different from user- centric website design in a way that it focuses on the more “human” and “cognitive” needs of the users by taking a more emotionally empathetic approach towards the entire process of designing.

AI Chatbots

If there is one trend you can expect to blow up in 2023, it has to be AI Chatbots. Even though they have been around for a few years, they are predicted to grow by more than 30 percent this decade. The increase in their accuracy and usability is making them more and more popular with each passing day. It is also super cost-efficient and convenient for companies as they can easily cut down on their customer support staff and replace them with AI chatbots.

Ethical Design

Responsible and ethical designs are definitely at the forefront this year. Designers are now becoming more conscious about the impact of their products on users as well as overall society. This encompasses a lot of factors such as the usability of design which is the basis of every design. Designers are also making designs that are accessible to more people such as people who are visually impaired and cannot access many websites but as part of ethics, designers are consciously trying to make designs accessible to them. Privacy issues are now being taken more seriously as part of the ethical design to protect people’s data and information. Transparency is another important part of the ethical design as it allows users to make informed choices and works in their best interests.

Static Website Generators

Creating websites from plain text is another big thing in the world of web design. Many of these generators are being used as they help increase website speed and security. Static website design is also preferred for ease of setup. Businesses that do not want to invest a huge amount of time into building perfect websites but want to have a space where customers can learn about them and their business like to opt for this form of website design. As these websites load faster, it is also easier to make them rank on Google which increases visibility. It is also simple to build and costs fairly less money than any other website design would. This is why it is expected to become more popular this year.

90’s Navigation

The 90s may not be coming back but its designs are making a huge comeback. The 90’s retro theme is becoming a big success in 2023 due to its nostalgic feel and craving for the innocent designs of the early days of the internet. By emphasizing navigation and adding an emotional appeal to design with the retro theme, designers are seeking to create phenomenal website designs. This design is all about imitating the real world and real-life objects into web design in a way that reminds people of the old internet days. This not only adds to the aesthetics of the design but is also highly functional and convenient for users.

Conclusion

Every year brings new design trends with it but some trends are expected to have a more meaningful impact than others. All the trends discussed above have already been introduced and are gradually becoming more popular. As these design elements have many benefits apart from being unique, they are more likely to last and become the next big thing in web design than anything else. If you can use these on your website, you might be able to attract a whole new group of customers.

Why Google Reviews Are Your Business’s BFF

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Getting the word out about your business requires a bit of internet savvy and an eye for new trends. If you haven't considered Google Reviews as a way to pull in new customers, you may be missing out on clients, even on a local level.

People are far more likely to trust the word of a peer than what you say about your own company. Surprisingly, even negative reviews may help boost conversion rates. In a study on social commerce, researchers found an 85% increase in conversion rates when customers spent time interacting with negative reviews rather than positive ones.

As the world turns ever more to an online shopping or omnichannel model, people expect fair reviews to help them determine if a product is right for them. There are many ways you can utilize reviews to boost sales and customer satisfaction, and this list shows a few of them:

1. Meet Customer Expectations

People shopping online expect access to reviews and customer testimonials. If you want an excellent customer experience (CX), make reviews of your products and services easy to find. The more detail the reviews allow, the more likely people will pay attention to what they say. Add a review section to your e-commerce store, embed a link to Google reviews of your business and highlight the best ones on your landing pages.

embedsocial

Embed Social grabs short snippets from Google reviews and uses them on their website as testimonials. They show the number of stars given, a snippet from the review and the person's name. The reviews scroll through different selections, highlighting some of the best features of the company's software.

2. Edge Out the Competition

Put yourself in the shoes of a first-time visitor to your site. They've never heard of your brand. The person may compare you to other companies in the area offering similar products or services. You can stand out and edge out the competition by utilizing Google reviews. Some searchers never hit the actual websites of brands in your niche.

Instead, they search for something like "tour companies in Little Rock" and see what pulls up. They then look over to the right side on the results page and see which businesses have the best reviews. They may even read through some of the comments, choose which site to visit and potentially book a tour while there.

3. Engage Current Customers

Invite those who already love you to leave a review of your business on Google. The more reviews you have, the more chances someone might give you an opportunity to meet their needs. Who better to leave positive reviews than already happy customers? You can invite your clients to provide their insights via email, by sending a text message or through a link on your website.

familydentistryofnj

Family Dentistry of New Jersey invites current clients to leave a Google review. They share a little of what they're about and then share the link to the reviews page for the search engine giant. By reaching out to those who already know them and what they're about, they encourage positive reviews. They also explain their mission as a brand, which guides the user on the type of feedback to leave.

4. Embrace Poor Reviews

The longer you're in business, the higher the chances that you'll have at least one unhappy customer. At some point, you'll encounter a negative review, whether it's fair or not. Think through how you'll handle nasty comments and establish a plan.

You should first respond on the platform where the user left the review, such as Google. Try to make amends. If the person is genuinely unreasonable and just wants to trash your name, leave a list of how you attempted to rectify the problem and let other consumers decide if it was a warranted complaint.

5. Gain Consumer Trust

Unless they've done business with you in the past, people have no reason to trust your company. There are a lot of brands out there who don't put customers first. You must add trust factors to your site to show leads you'll stand behind your product. One of the simplest ways is implementing a page filled with glowing reviews of your brand.

efgcompanies

EFG Companies includes a section on their site dedicated to embedded Google reviews. Site visitors can look through the latest comments and highest or lowest ratings. When you embed something like this on your site, it's essential to pay attention to the feedback you receive and work quickly to fix any damaging comments.

6. Gain a Feedback Loop

If you want to improve your business year after year, you must look for ways to better meet customers' needs. Keep track of both positive and negative feedback. Study your own Google ratings and see if there are any areas you can improve. If people regularly give you a four-star rating, how can you get to five?

7. Highlight Your UVP

What is your unique value proposition (UVP) as a brand? What do you do better than any of your competitors? You can use reviews to highlight the advantages you have over the competition. Show your users that you do the basics just as well as other businesses, but you also have a few tricks up your sleeve they'll love.

bergenbagels

Bergen Bagels does an excellent job of showing off their food quality and freshness by listing reviews stating how great they are. They mix the Google reviews with comments from TripAdvisor and Yelp, showing they meet customer standards no matter where they're mentioned.

Encourage Reading and Writing Reviews

The best way of encouraging your customers to write feedback about your company is by adding a link directly to your Google business page. However, you should also be upfront with sharing all reviews written about your brand. Embed the latest ones, link to the full list of comments and mix them in with your mission or value statements for a full picture of what you do and who you are as a company.

LixieLexie is a digital nomad and web designer. When she’s not traveling to various parts of the country, you can find her at the local flea markets or hiking with her Goldendoodle. Check out her design blog, Design Roast, and connect with her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.

How to Seasonal Brand the Right Way

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Seasonal branding is a great way to take advantage of holidays and changing weather to market your company. Holidays drive a huge amount of traffic — and the bigger they are, the more customers you may get.

Doing seasonal branding well, however, can be a little tricky. Without the right prep and approach, it can fall flat, fail to encourage conversions or even disrupt the consistency of your company's tone.

When you're building your season branding plan this year, apply these strategies.

1. Build Some Drama

Most major holiday seasons have some major lead-up. There are a few different ways you can use this to your advantage.

hubspot brand

One of HubSpot's promotions for Cyber Monday used a countdown timer on a page filled with resources
on how brands could get the most out of the holiday season.

HubSpot's use of the timer is probably a bit of inversion of what your brand is likely to do as the holidays
approach — advertise gifts to customers, rather than other businesses.

The principle, however, is the same — and the idea behind the timer is universally applicable. The holiday
season requires a lot of planning and prep for people to get the best gifts possible for friends and family.
At the same time, it's also exciting and worth looking forward to. The timer is a simple way to take
advantage of this lead-up period and build some excitement and drama before the holiday season.

2. Change Things up With Daily Offers

During the lead-up to a major holiday, you can swap out old offers for new ones every day.

Like the countdown timer, daily deals add a little bit of drama and flair to your seasonal branding. If a customer knows you're revealing new specials every day, they have a reason to keep coming back — generating repeat engagement for your brand. This is more likely to create repeat customers, which are the foundation of just about every successful e-commerce business.

Planning several weeks' worth of daily deals will also ensure you're getting the most out of the build-up to a major holiday.

3. Promote Seasonal Products

Many holidays offer some great opportunities for specialty products and bundles related to the season.

ftd brand

These curated Mother's Day listings of highly-relevant products from FTD are a great example of how you can use the season to provide some extra value to consumers. They're looking for gift ideas and products — putting together a list of the best ones is a great way to deliver what they need.

Be sure to advertise these listings clearly. You can also go beyond creating lists of individual products. Holiday and seasonal bundles are effective at boosting sales because they encourage customers to consider items they may have overlooked by packaging them with more obvious options.

4. Go Beyond Holidays and the Four Seasons

Often, brands will limit their seasonal branding to major holidays. It's great to take advantage of these big-traffic events, but you can really use any part of the year with distinct characteristics to market your brand.

bank overhead doors

Rather than advertise using a typical seasonal or holiday event, Banko Garage Doors focuses on hurricane season. It reminds people that they can make their homes more ready for strong wind and rain with the right preparations.

If you want to convince people to shop with your brand, take advantage of the unique benefits your products may offer at certain times of the year.

5. Keep Seasonal Branding Aligned With Your Normal Style

There are some dangers to seasonal branding. If you let it drift too far from your typical style, you risk overshadowing or contradicting your usual voice. Ideally, seasonal branding will reinforce and underscore your year-round message. This consistency will ensure customers stick around once the season is over and still feel like they're working with the same company.

If your seasonal voice is too distinct from your brand during the rest of the year, the sudden shifts in tone may be confusing or even jarring.

6. Customize Guides and Product Lists

Simple changes to existing content can do a lot to drive holiday and seasonal traffic. If your website already hosts lists, bundles and product guides, you can subtly tweak them to fit the time of year.

These changes don't need to be substantial — just updating the copy on an existing list to add some seasonal flair, for example, can make your website a lot more relevant to visitors. This will help your website appear in holiday searches and draw the attention of customers looking for gift ideas.

7. Offer Special Packaging Options

For many of the big holidays, we're buying things for each other, not ourselves. Special packaging offers at checkout are a great option for people who plan on sending your items as gifts.

Even the little things — like customizable cards — can do a lot to add a personal touch to your holiday offerings.

These options will add a little extra labor on your end that you'll need to budget for — but the difference they make can be massive.

Best Strategies for Seasonal Branding

With the right seasonal branding plan, you can take advantage of the major traffic holidays drive. These techniques are a great place to start if you want to build an effective strategy. Just be sure it lines up with your usual brand voice — otherwise, you risk a jarring or confusing customer experience once the holiday is over.

Seasonal Brand

LixieLexie is a digital nomad and web designer. When she’s not traveling to various parts of the country, you can find her at the local flea markets or hiking with her Goldendoodle. Check out her design blog, Design Roast, and connect with her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.

What is the Relevance of a Responsive Website Design?

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webdesign-3411373_960_720.jpg

Responsive web design, what is it really?

Responsive designing means the approach that the designer makes in creating a web page that ‘responds’ or resizes itself, depending on what device is used. This either could be a laptop, desktop computer monitor or smartphones, and tablets. Web design and development that uses responsive elements has become an integral part of the process for just about anyone who has a digital web presence.

With the escalating use of smartphones and other mobile computing devices, more and more people are making use of smaller screens to see web pages. In a nutshell, a website should be smartphone user-friendly. Otherwise, the brand could lose out on leads and of course sales. As a matter of fact, 40 percent of users have proceeded to the website of the competition after an inferior mobile experience.

responsice web design

RESPONSIVE DESIGN, THE BIG THING

These days, responsive design is a huge thing in web design and development. However, for those who are not designers, they may wonder what this truly means and even uncertain as to whether or not the website of the business should implement a responsive design, particularly if one does not comprehend the concept. Responsive design could help solve numerous issues of a website. It does not only make the site mobile-friendly but enhance its look on devices as well.

The ultimate aim of responsive design is to steer clear of unnecessary scrolling, resizing, panning or zooming that happens with a website that is not optimized for various devices. It is usually very hard to navigate these websites and could make prospective customers frustrated trying to determine how to find what they need.

THE RELEVANCE OF A RESPONSIVE WEBSITE DESIGN

A website for a business is not enough. It has to be user-friendly and responsive to boost customer retention and sales. For any online business, responsive web design is the best solution. Websites that are responsive is a game-changer in industries these days. Responsive means the content on all pages is flexible across all sizes, resolutions of screen and devices. It also means users could read and navigate a website with less scrolling and resizing.

A website that is responsive could boost user experience that translates to a positive perception of the business and brand. If customers are able to gain access to a website seamlessly on all platforms, they’re likely to return for more business in the future, which of course would mean a higher rate of conversion for the site. In today’s world where there is so much traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s vital to accommodate this factor throughout the website.

Responsive websites in general load faster, which likely boost ranking and minimize the bounce rate. Furthermore, it could make for easier social sharing, helping to grow a larger brand audience. Web maintenance and SEO campaigns also are much smoother processes with a mobile-friendly website. Responsive means only having only one website to look after. Moreover, it’s also faster and less costly compared to creating a stand-alone mobile app aside from the desktop website.

Mobile-friendly websites are now industry standard, special thanks to mobile-first indexing, taking a minute to ensure the best web design possible. Google recently has changed the web ranking algorithm, giving priority to a website that’s optimized. Even if a page is entirely relevant to their search, but visitors are having difficulty accessing it in any device, the website would not get a positive review and would be put lower in the SEO results.

Branding is another way of building trust and relationships with customers and keep them coming back for more business and sales. A responsive site could help since it could help produce a web appearance that’s consistent. To stay ahead of the competition, a responsive design could help push a website to new heights.

THE RELEVANCE OF A RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN

With the birth of responsive website design, one could view pages on any device, such as desktops, tablets, and smartphones in exactly the same manner. This makes a website get the same functionality degree, regardless of what device is used. A web developer who prefers creating the best responsive web design makes it accessible to each and every visitor and provide them with an optimal experience. Features of responsive web design are the following.

  • 1. Media Queries:

    Filters are added to the CSS to impact the feel and look of pages. CSS is extremely useful for web designers and helps in resizing layouts as well as rendering a page to make it easier to read.

  • 2. Flexible Layout:

    This helps format margins and positioning of the major elements of a page. This helps web designers select the number of columns based on a page. Furthermore, this removes the need to rework texts and layouts across many devices. Rather than numbers, a designer makes use of percentages, making it more fluid to produce more pages. One pixel can seem entirely different on a smartphone than on a desktop.

  • 3. Using CSS or dynamic resizing:

    This helps to create content. Dynamic resizing provides a designer more control on the pages and allows them to replace or add modules depending on the requirements. 

    All the features mentioned above help visitors get familiar with the brand, whether they are using desktops, smartphones or tablets. The intuitive design helps ascertain that the page will be accordingly resized and resizes the elements present in the pages as well. 

    Responsive web design is more popular these days because of the cleaner look it provides. With a small screen, adding more widgets and buttons made it appear unattractive and crowded. Responsive website design makes a site robust, with plenty of utility. And with high-quality content, the user-focused experience will boost the time users spend on a website and make them stick around for a longer. A bi-product of the longer time on your site will result in a lower bounce rate too.

    Google recommends a responsive web design pattern. Aside from that, it makes for good user experience and improves search engine optimization efforts in all search engines.

    In conclusion, a responsive website could save on maintenance time, save a lot of money and also help in conversions and retention of more customers for years to come.

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Biography:

Joanna Baretto is a Business Analyst at tatvasoft.com.au, which is a leading web application development in Australia, She has been working for four years in a Technological domain. Her work across multiple disciplines broadly addresses the narratives of techno experience. You can find her on twitter @BarettoJoanna.

7 Tips to Sell and Promote Products on Amazon

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Holyoke MA Website Design Services

When you are getting into selling on Amazon it can be a lucrative and competitive arena to be in. With more than 2 million sellers to compete with, not to mention Amazon themselves, it can be difficult to have your listings stand out among the crowd.

There are many techniques out there that can help you to be a more successful seller but it can be hard to sort through the noise to figure out what tips will actually help your business succeed. With so many consumers shopping on Amazon at any given moment, you too can stand out and be found when you follow these 7 tips.

These strategies will help buyers find your listings and improve your seller’s account on a statistical level. You certainly can be the champion of the marketplace and find success on Amazon with a little bit of hard work.

Below are the 7 Tips to Sell and Promote Products on Amazon

1. Adjust Your Visibility

You’ve probably heard all about search engine optimization (SEO) but if you aren’t actually tweaking your listings and item descriptions to enhance your visibility to consumers then you need another reminder.

If your customers can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. You can use keyword tools to determine whether your listings are relevant and will come up more frequently in searches. There are many resources for figuring out the most popular keywords. Getting your keywords figured out will help you rank higher, as will getting more sales.

It may seem unfair that Amazon rewards top sellers with top rankings but that should just motivate you to be sure your rankings are top-notch. You can update your descriptions often, but make sure you’ve hit the key points in an item description. (Size, color, brand, etc.)

However, it is important to note that more words are not always better, especially when it comes to your listing’s name. Stick to Amazon’s recommendations here and don’t have overly lengthy names, save pertinent information for your item detail sections.

coupons

2. Coupons

Who doesn’t love a good deal? Customers shop on Amazon because they have a reputation for excellence as well as being a low-cost leader. Obviously, you want to make a profit but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer a coupon on your shoppers occasionally to boost interest on your listings.

Customers love to feel like they’re saving money and if they click into your listing and see a coupon it could be the deciding motivating factor for buying from you. Coupons don’t need to be fancy or huge, but if you have some room to spare in your profit margin, consider adding a coupon to your listings.

promotions

3. Promotions

Similar to coupons but a little different, when you want to move merchandise to improve your sellers ranking (remember Amazon rewards sellers who sell the most items) then you can add a promotion to your listings.

As it happens, promotions are underutilized compared to coupons but they have a similar effect for consumers who want to get a bargain or the best deal possible. With a promotion, you decide how you want it to work, but typically it’s something similar to “Save 10% When You Buy 2” or a “Buy 3 Get 1 Free” kind of a deal.

You can figure out how to best feature your items to make the profit you need to be successful knowing that by selling many of the same items your ranking on searches and lists will improve simply because of sales.

rankings high

4. Keep Your Seller Ranking High

Amazon has many rules and regulations and it is important as a third-party seller that you read your seller’s agreement in order to make sure that you are following their guidelines. Amazon is not shy about suspending or canceling seller’s accounts they feel are in violation of their terms and conditions.

Obviously, you won’t be able to sell if your account is deactivated, but Amazon also takes into account customer feedback on a seller’s ranking. One way to make sure you get good customer feedback is to have great item descriptions. If sellers are unhappy with their received goods because you didn’t describe them well, you’re going to get negative feedback.

Providing excellent customer service is important to your seller ranking, this means you should reach out to customers who leave negative feedback to attempt to resolve their issue and improve their satisfaction. Remember a customer can adjust their review so stepping in to help may improve their feedback of you as a seller.

shipping

5. Don’t Skimp on Shipping

Shipping can be the most challenging aspect of selling on Amazon. Consumers expect to receive their items quickly and for smaller third-party sellers it can be hard to keep up. Consider whether you want to be an FBA seller, which is fulfilled by Amazon. This means you ship your inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and they will ship it for you.

There are many benefits to becoming an FBA seller, and there are multiple Amazon fee calculators that can help you decide whether or not it will be profitable for you. Many customers prefer to buy from FBA sellers since they guarantee their Prime shipping speeds and can receive all their desired items in the same package.

Amazon likes to keep their shoppers happy so if you get a lot of negative feedback on your shipping, with speed, accuracy or damage, you run the risk of having your account suspended for a review, or your rating dropping lower and not appearing in as many searches.

Keeping your items in stock is also important to have a great seller’s ranking since if you run out often your ranking will suffer. Ensure that your inventory is well stocked so you don’t run the risk of alienating your customers.

lighting

6. Run a Lightning Deal

Amazon is well known for its Lightning Deals, time-limited specials that appear right on the main landing page of the site. Lighting Deals can bring a lot of focus to your listing and also generate a lot of sales due to their extremely limited nature. Customers enjoy snagging a deal and feeling as though they’ve beat someone else for the best deal.

Lighting deals have a lot of rules associated with them and each item is only eligible to become a deal once a week. But in 4-12 hours your deal runs you could generate more sales than you typically get in a week. There is a fee you will need to pay to have a deal of your own but most sellers consider it well worth it for the interest it drives towards their listings.

7. Buy Ad Space

Even with the best SEO and running deals if you aren’t seeing the sales you are expecting then you should consider opting into buying an ad. Amazon can promote your listing for you when customers search for relevant items.

The downside is you have to spend money to run the ads, the good news is that you will only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad, giving you a higher likelihood that your listing will be found and actually purchased.

Amazon listings

Conclusion

Make the most of your Amazon listings and use these tips to increase your visibility and sales potential. The more often you tweak your listings and use these techniques you will be better suited as a third-party seller. Your experience will pay off and you will find what works best for your listens to generate sales.

Midnightson Designs is featured on WDD