Designing is a news website is a lot more difficult than any other type of website. Homepage of a news website is the most important page because the important news headlines are displayed on this page. Controlling the amount of content in homepage is a challenging task. Web designers try rigorously to keep the homepage clean, but unfortunately, so many things happen in a day that the homepage gets cluttered.

So, how do the web designers of BBC and CNN handle so many news articles everyday and still keep the layout tidy? Here are some news website design guidelines for you.

• Working with the Headers- Header is the most important part of a news website. It helps people check the latest headlines and they can also navigate the sub pages from the header area. Some sites use a dropdown menu to organize the content in “political news”, “foreign news”, “sports news” section, but a drop down menu can confuse the readers as well. You should give a better option to the readers so that the can scan through different stories comfortably.

Instead of designing a drop down menu, give tabs and horizontal links for navigation purpose. You should also embed a search tool and place your logo near the header area. Link the header with your homepage to give your readers a one click access to the major news articles.

• Working with Featured Stories- Some of your readers may not know which news is important and your dynamic website design must help them identify the important stories. You should use bold headlines and large images to highlight the featured stories. However, if possible, then instead of highlighting multiple feature stories, you should give importance to the latest and most important news.
• Working with Three Column Layout- News channels often design three column layouts as it allows them insert more content in each page. However, web users generally ignore the third column. Over the years, readers have seen that websites use the third column for ads and if you place any important news in the third column, they may overlook it. If you want to design a three column layout, then offer something really interesting in the third column to capture your readers’ attention.

Designing a two column layout is a more intelligent idea. It helps you give enough white space in between lines and you can also organize the content in a systematic way. Readers also like two column layouts because they can scan the website lot faster.

When clients hire website designer, they ask him to cram everything on the homepage. Unfortunately, site owners don’t realize that too much content can hamper usability. If your client pressurizes you to design a congested news site, tell him that readers love information rich but usable sites.

A mood board looks like a poster and it contains graphics, text and sample objects. Mood boarding helps designers develop unique design concepts and communicate the same with other team members. If you are a web designer, you can use a mood board, created manually or digitally, to express your web design concepts and show people what you want to achieve.

Why and Where?

When you work in a web designing company, you have to handle multiple projects simultaneously, and every project has a deadline. Mood boarding saves you time and allows you solve some of the problems that designers normally face during a project. For instance, demands for change in layout or color when the site is half complete.

Deciding the aesthetic flow of a site is challenging. However, using a mood board, you can plan the layout and identify the essential elements of a site, then submit it to your client for his feedback. If he likes the concept, you can start work, or keep modifying until you get the go-ahead.

You can also prove your expertise through mood boarding. Most clients are not familiar with web trends and explaining a point to them can be difficult. Showing images and color combinations on the mood board can help you explain your points easily, and be easier for your client to comprehend the plan for his website.

Elements

Decide the necessary elements of a project and start including them in the mood board. You should be able to project a glimpse of the final design. Use of catchy lines can assist you convey your design concept to the client.

Mood boarding can be executed both, on paper and on the computer. If you are more comfortable with a digital format and your web design company follows a “go green” policy, use applications like Sampleboard, Evernote or Polvore to design a useful mood board.

Graphic designing is a vast field and a professional designer should be well aware of all the important aspects of graphic design.

Graphic designers are not only brilliant artists; they are technically sound people as well. In this field, art and technology walk hand in hand and a seasoned designer knows how to maintain a balance between designing ideas and technical nitty-gritty.

When people see a logo and an icon, they often get confused and think that there is no difference between these two items. Though both these elements are essential for corporate identity design and they look alike, there is a lot of difference between a logo and an icon.

What is an Icon? - An icon is a graphic symbol that shows a direct concept, idea or operation. There is no hidden message in an icon. Icons are used for navigation and content sharing purpose in websites and simplify a complicated action. For instance, a magnifying glass icon tells the viewer that it should be used for search purpose.

What is a Logo? – Logo is also a graphic symbol that connects an original idea with the symbol and gives either a direct or hidden message. It can contain both symbol and fonts to highlight the brand identity of a company. A logo relays the brand message of a company, add value to their products/services and help people connect with that brand. For instance, the Apple logo has no direct meaning like a magnifying glass icon, but apple is the fruit of knowledge and the logo relays a message of “constant innovation” to the viewers.

Technical Difference between a Logo and a Symbol- Some people may say that logo based icons look exactly the same, then what makes them different? The technical aspects of logo and icon separate these two important corporate identity symbols.

• A logo is easily scalable. You can use it in websites, brochures, business cards, billboard ads and in many more places. On the contrary, an icon is designed in either a 16×16 pixel or 256×256 pixel format. If you resize an icon, it will look blurry. Therefore, you have to create an icon in multiple dimensions for different purposes.

• Most of the times, icons are shaped as squares, but a logo has no shape boundaries. As long as the logo looks beautiful and meaningful, you can give it any shape you wish to.

After reading the aforementioned points, you must have realized the conceptual and technical differences between a logo design and an icon.

Web programming is a very complicated subject and it takes years to learn different programming techniques. Unlike web designing, there is no “10 things you need to know about programming.” There are just so many different programming languages and each of them has its own code writing principles.

You must have patience to learn different web programming languages and practice rigorously to improve your coding skills.

Programming is like mathematics and it’s based on logic. For example, when a web user inserts wrong data in a web form, the form informs him about the error. A common man overlooks this small function, but as a programmer, you should be inquisitive and try and find out how a form identifies wrong data.

Here are some guidelines that will help you improve your programming logic.

1. Learn “C” Language- Some programmers may not like this suggestion. Web programmers mainly use Java, .NET and PHP programming for web development, then why am I recommending C?C is a powerful programming language, but more importantly, it has an organized structure. C allows you to experiment directly with computer memory and helps you understand how data moves forward from once block to another. If you have any doubts about data processing system of programming languages, then C will clear all your doubts.
2. Develop Programs that Improve Your Logic- Try to write simple, but logical programs in C to test your programming skills. Obviously, you will make mistakes at the beginning, but your mistakes and failures will help you find new solutions.
3. Find Interesting Codes and Try to Understand the Logic Behind It- You have probably come across cool effects and features in websites while surfing the net. Find the source code behind those effects and understand how it was created. Once you understand the coding logic, try to modify it by adding custom functions.
4. Solve Logic Puzzles- Every standard newspaper publishes logic puzzles everyday. Try solving them regularly and train your brain to think differently. When working in a web development company, you have to face different programming challenges everyday. Sharpen your thinking capabilities and use your problem solving skills in web programming.
5. Help Other People and Learn from Them- Every newbie programmer should join a website programming forum and share his knowledge with others. Read the programming challenges other developers are facing and try to provide them a solution. If you are facing any problem, then share it with other members and take their help. This problem sharing habit will help you learn new programming secrets and easier ways to solve critical programming challenges.

Whether you are a newbie programmer or an experienced developer, you should always try to increase your knowledge. Web programming is like a riddle and solving it gives you immense satisfaction.

When companies think about developing a website, they consider various aspects of web development, such as design, website programming, hosting, maintenance etc. and look for a value-for-money solution. Deciding the layout design and finding a hosting service provider is not that tough, but what about programming language? Which language is perfect for any small or large web project?

Though there are several popular web programming languages available in the market, PHP is the ideal choice for any web development project. It is flexible, developer- friendly and resourceful. Most importantly, with the help of PHP programming, you can design a user-friendly website or application and serve your customers efficiently.

PHP is an open-source, free, server-side scripting language. The coding pattern is easily understandable and it works on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Unix.

PHP has grown exponentially in the past few years and has made a web developer’s job simpler. For instance, you can now develop large and small websites, CRM solutions, e-commerce shopping carts, informative forums, chatting platforms, community websites etc. with the help of PHP. A dynamic website refreshes its web pages automatically and offers updated content. Using this language, you can develop a dynamic business website comfortably.

PHP data management system is also pretty simple. Web programmers can easily store data, create cookies and calculate the number of viewers by cookies and sessions. PHP has its own memory and stores important data in it, reducing pressure on servers and increases processing speed.

PHP can run multimedia files quite easily as well.Code is executed by the server and therefore, it does not require any additional plug-in support for multimedia files. If you want to develop a PHP application, use a popular framework like, CodeIgniter, Zend to reduce work pressure.

Every company has a fixed budget for their corporate web project and if you don’t have thousands of dollars, then PHP is your ‘knight in shining armor’. It has all the features you need, with the none of the cost you’d want to bear. Even associated necessary software like MySQL, Text Editors and Apache Server are completely free. It gives you the same output for any paid web programming language, but saves your web development costs.

Let me ask you a simple question – which is the world’s second largest search engine? Yahoo, Bing or YouTube? Most people will guess the answer is Yahoo, but its not! YouTube is currently world’s second largest search engine.

If you run a SEO services company India, then concentrate on YouTube search engine optimization techniques and offer your clients better SEO solutions. Since YouTube is a video hosting website, most people overlook its importance. Everyday millions of web users search YouTube to find video content. YouTube users are more qualified web users than standard search engine users. They consume content in form of video and spend more time on YouTube result pages than a web user normally spends on Google SERP.

A few years ago, if you uploaded a video with proper keywords in the title, you could easily get a top-ten ranking. However, these days, thousands of videos on the same topic are uploaded everyday and you must follow proper SEO techniques to rank high in YouTube result pages.

Optimizing a YouTube video is not that difficult. Reputed SEO services India companies follow several simple yet effective methods to optimize YouTube video files. If you are not aware of those techniques, then start reading the points mentioned below.

1. Closed Captions-While watching a YouTube video, have you noticed the “CC” button at the right bottom corner? CC stands for Closed Captions. YouTube crawls the content of CC to understand the topic of your video and determines its rank in the search result pages.Earlier, the closed captions adding process was very difficult. You had to specify beginning and end of each line and it was a time consuming process. However, YouTube recently introduced a new technology called “speech recognition”. It automatically detects start and end of each line and matches it with the audio in your video file. If your video contains CC, then it will easily outrank the videos that don’t contain any CC.
2. Add Script in Description- Since, you have already created captions for your video file; add the same text file in description. Google gives importance to the description of video files.
3. Name the Video File with Keywords- Viewers may not give much importance to the title of your video, but YouTube pays attention to every video title and gives them points on the basis of relevancy. Therefore, give your video file a suitable name and insert keywords in it. For instance, if you are uploading a video on benefits of LCD monitor, then name it as “LCD Monitor Benefits.avi”, not “video123.avi”.
4. Create an Engaging Video-What if you create a boring video, but give flawless caption and important keywords? It should rank high in search results, right? Sorry to disappoint you, but YouTube gives high importance to viewership and if your video is not liked by the viewers, then it won’t get top position in search results.Therefore, create engaging videos to retain viewers’ attention. When viewers watch your video till the end, YouTube realizes its importance and gives it good rank in SERPs.
5. Select YouTube Channels Carefully- This video optimization rule is similar to website SEO. If you post a video in a not so famous YouTube channel, it won’t improve your search engine ranking, but if you post the same video in a popular YouTube channel, then it will get immediate attention from viewers and YouTube. When subscribers of a popular channel like and share your video, it quickly claims top spot in SERPs.
6. Post HD Videos- HD videos always get better rank than SD videos. YouTubbe thinks that if you are investing your time and money to create a HD video, then the content must be very important. Therefore, you should upload 720p or 1080p videos for effective product/service promotion.

Following these YouTube SEO techniques, a good SEO services companycan improve their clients’ search engine raking.

An ideal design blog should be beautiful and informative. Designers are creative people and web users expect to see a mesmerizing design from them. However, only beautiful layout and quality content cannot make a blog popular. A blog owner should customize his site and promote it in social media platforms to increase readership.

If you want to develop a blog, then here are some blog customization guidelines for you.

1. Post High Quality Content- A first time viewer may give importance to design, but a regular visitor gives more importance to content. Web users read blogs to enhance their knowledge and you should post high-quality articles to keep your readers satisfied. Select the topics related to design and make sure your articles are genuine.
2. Use high resolution images- Images help you relay a message more effectively than text content. Hence, you should include images in your articles to explain your points better. You can either draw some images or use stock photos to suit your purpose.
3. Extend Your Online Network- If you don’t have enough money for marketing, add other famous bloggers to your friend list to increase readership. When you refer to reputed website design India blogs from your friend list, some of these blogs will also reciprocate by adding you to their friend list. Following this strategy, you can redirect their readers to your blog.
4. Have Organized Categories- Create article categories and refer to related articles under each category to help readers find important articles easily. For instance, you can create “logo design”, “Flash design” and “graphic design” categories to organize articles on respective topics in your blog.
5. Show Recent Items- Show the “recent posts” in the right sidebar area. This will help readers understand that your blog is active. You can also show “recent comments” in the right sidebar to increase reader-writer interaction.
6. Design Customized Icons- Your blog must contain icons such as Faceboook, Twitter and RSS feed. Customize the icons to match them perfectly with the site background, for instance, if you are using grunge texture for layout design, give the icons the same look as well.
7. Place a Search Bar- Install a search tool in your site, so that the readers can type design related keywords and find articles immediately.
8. Design a Brief “About” Page- Design a beautiful “about” page and introduce yourself to the readers. Some of your readers can be your future clients as well. Provide your educational and professional background in the about page to attract more clients.
9. Place Ads Properly- Some bloggers earn huge amounts of money from blog advertisements. If you want to post ads in your blog, then place them carefully. Use either the left or right sidebar area for advertisements to give your blog a clean look.
10. Have a Contact Page- Some of your readers may want to offer you designing projects. For their benefit, you should design a “contact” page with your contact details.

Following these blog designing and customization guidelines, you can develop a user- friendly blog. However, if images and text is not good enough for you, you can also add some dynamic website designelements like Flash video and audio in your blog to set it apart from the rest.

Logos convey more than just your company name. This truth is known by every business owner today. However, the way your company logo conveys your brand identity depends a good deal on your designer’s personal selection and design decision.

Designers have a number of critical factors to make up their mind about and in this post, I would talk about some common logo designing styles and help you make the decision as to what style of a logo would be ideal for your business.

There would be various elements that you need to take into consideration such as whether your business message can be conveyed via a symbol-based or a text logo. Below are the different types of  designs that I have described for you. You can choose any of these depending on your company, your products and services and an array of other factors.

• Type-based: This is one of the commonest designing varieties out there. Text-based and type-based logos contain the company name in an artistically designed form and create an impression of the company’s name within a short time on the minds of consumers.
• Symbol-centric: Symbols can be anything – from a figure to a pictogram and they can easily penetrate the psyche of onlookers, which means if you want your target audience to register you company’s name within a short time, you can use symbols. Symbols are also good for presenting your brand identity in a nutshell.
• Abstract: This type of design is a little ‘out of the box’ but sometimes it is the best way to describe your business to consumers. Abstract logos can be tricky because, if not executed properly, they can do more harm than good. It can fail to create an impression or worse, it can create a wrong impression altogether about your company among consumers. So, be careful when you entrust a logo design company for designing an abstract logo for your business.
• Initials-based: Sometimes, you do not need to tell the full name of your company. Sometimes, initials are enough. A single letter logo can be great to express your brand identity and so can a combination of a few letters. Do a little research to find out whether it would be right to present your company name through initials or an acronym.
• Badge-like: Generally, these types of identity are used by automobile companies. Look around the city roads, and you will realize that almost every car company uses an emblem or badge as their unique identity. Even sports associations and clubs use such logos. Would a badge-like logo suit your business? What does your instinct tell you?
• Mascot: A mascot or cartoon character can be anything from an animal to a human figure. They are used by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. See if a mascot would be able to represent your company to your target audience. You need to do a little bit of homework for this.

Conclusion

When it comes to logo design , India is preferred choice for many companies. They say Indian companies can produce highly customized logos within your budget. Shop around well before you choose the graphic design company that will be taking care of your identity design. It is your corporate identity that we are talking about. You cannot afford to make a hasty decision. Do the required research. All the best.

Do not hesitate to share your experience!

SEO experts often feel neglected in a large IT firm. Companies give importance to the business managers and developers, but when they talk about the SEO personnel in the team, its like- “God knows what they do throughout the day!”

A Word to the SEO Expert

If you work in a SEO services company India and think that you are not getting the respect and value you deserve, here are few things you can do.

Prove Your Value by Reporting- Companies hire a expert to rank high in search engine results. A SEO genius actually increases the company’s profit margin by driving online traffic towards his company’s site, but only a handful of people accept this fact. So, how can you measure your effectiveness and get other employees’ respect?

After spending a few months in the SEO services company, you will get a clear idea about their work process. Find out how your employer measures cost-per-order (CPO), cost-per-acquisition (CPA), cost-per-lead (CPL) and lifetime value of a client (LTV). Once you know the metric of conversion measurement, start including it in your report every week to prove your worth.

Win Small Projects and Influence People- When a large overseas company hires you for their projects, don’t get intimated. If you find that the company is following a wrong Search Engine Optimization strategy for years, tell them that they are walking down the wrong path.

The company may not agree with your suggestion. In that case, take a small project, use your techniques and prove your point. An arrogant boss may not like suggestions, but he has to accept the performance data.

Offer Help in the Recruitment Process- A HR professional scans dozens of resumes everyday and hires the most eligible candidates. However, the HR personnel can’t be a jack of all trades. Therefore, you can offer your help to him in the recruitment process. Shortlist the really good Search Engine Optimization experts and ask the HR manager to hire them. When you help the company build a strong SEO team, the management realizes your value.

A Word to the Boss

If you are running an IT company and think these professionals are the least important part of your team, here is an eye opener for you.
They Can Lead - An expert in this field can guide your company’s marketing strategy and help you attract new clients. For instance, if you want to launch an online marketing campaign using a Flash banner, these professional can suggest important keywords for an attractive catch-phrase that will increase conversion rate.

Bring IT and Marketing Closer - IT and marketing teams are generally always caught arguing with conflicting ideas. One aims to provide quality services, the other aims to market that fashionably. IT’s complain has always been marketing professionals not understanding technical aspects, and the marketing’s, IT not understanding the value of packaging services that will sell.

An expert’s job is part marketing and part technical. He understands the difficulties of both these teams and can work as a bridge between marketing and IT.

True value of a SEO expert can never be measured accurately. Companies reap the benefits of their hardwork, but don’t understand their work procedure. Adding links and submitting articles to an article directory may seem nothing to untrained eyes, but a SEO expert can do magic with his search engine optimization techniques.

If you want to hire a serach engine optimization professional and improve your site’s search engine ranking, contact a SEO services India company for quality services at economical rates.

If you have launched shopping cart solutions recently, you may be trying desperately to enhance its conversion rates. Have you considered the idea of incorporating product videos in corporate identity design of your e commerce site? If not, consider this statistic-CBS Interactive Business Network states that websites that feature product videos have 30% higher conversion rate, as compared to websites that avoid using videos.

This report might have made you wonder about the reasons behind popularity of product videos amongst e commerce owners and consumers. Today, in this post, we will discuss the reasons that play an important factor in enhancing popularity of product videos.

Interpreting Video Requires Limited Effort

As compared to reading, watching a video takes less time and effort. This means that incorporating a video in your website will allow you to target people who are busy or do not want to invest effort in acquiring information.

In brief, delivering and digesting information via videos are easier, as compared to acquiring information via written content. For best results, keep your videos short and informative, while implementing shopping cart development.

It Adds a Personal Touch

Many people find chunks of text boring. They would rather prefer to watch a video that has a personal appeal and explains things more clearly. Herein lies one of the main advantages of product videos-they can provide a company with a humane appeal, thus allowing customers to understand in-depth about different aspects of the company.

If you want to add a unique appeal to the videos, you can offer your customers a sneak peek to your office. Alternatively, you can offer them a glimpse of different processes involved in developing your product or services.

Video Sharing is More Popular

As compared to articles, people are more interested in sharing videos. This is because sharing videos is fun (because of the interactive element). Also, watching videos take limited time. Therefore, people are more confident that their friends and family would also watch the shared content. This also motivates them to share the product video.

Acquiring High SEO Rankings is Easier with Videos

Studies reveal that currently, Google considers quality of videos, along with that of images and content to determine rank of a website. This means that if you optimize the product videos correctly, they would help you to rank higher in Google.

To stay on the safe side, you can opt for two strategies-

1. Post your videos in YouTube. Since Goggle owns YouTube, it assigns greater importance to videos posted in YouTube. Of course, the quality needs to be high.
2. Incorporate relevant keywords in the description, filename, tags, and title.

Video Offers Realistic View of Products

Product video is also popular because of the fact that it provides customers with a realistic view of the products. The experience is almost similar to observing products in real life. Incorporating a video, therefore, makes it easier for a customer to decide whether to buy the product or not.

We hope that this article helped you to understand the reasons behind popularity of product videos.