HTML 5 has clearly had a supernova effect on the web, but like black holes left after star bursts, Flash is the unavoidable truth of the Internet. Flash is here, doing well and will be so for quite some time in future.

Flash Designs have been around for many years now, best used to make attention-grabbing and dynamic website designs, and abused to create irritating, over-the-top advertisements that hijack our screens during website visits. However, where presentation is concerned, none does it quite like Flash.

Flash experience is wholly entertaining and captivating. One doesn’t have to be a web designer to appreciate the intricacies of Flash designs, nor a naïve web user to gawk at what Flash(es) on screen. For anyone who enjoys active interaction, Flash still offers enough to look forward to.

But change is constant, isn’t it? And so enter HTML 5, the newest addition to the web family.

HTML is the web’s lingua franca and anyone even slightly involved in producing web content, or blogging, should be fluent in HTML. Frankly, if you do not know HTML, you simply don’t belong to the Internet. And, where HTML 5 is concerned, it’ll certainly be easy on you if you already know HTML.

HTML 5 is quite the celebrity of the moment. The current favorite of the Internet, many web designers are making the switch from Flash to HTML 5. For designers, HTML 5 is easy to work on and code with. It is extremely user-friendly too.

Thus, if HTML 5 gives you a dynamic scripting option that makes navigation through pages easy, I don’t see why you can’t leverage on that. However, when it comes to creating truly beautiful websites, Flash outweighs HTML 5. Sure, HTML 5 will be fun, but Adobe Flash isn’t going anywhere yet.

There are those who are creative and abstract, and there are those who are creative and precise. As far as a website design is concerned, I’d go with creative and precise. The logic is simple: I’d like to relate to what I see. Intellectual speculation doesn’t work for me. No, it doesn’t work for other web users either!

If brilliantly abstruse compositions are what you are good at, do us a favor, and stay out of the web. Web designers with zeal to create genuinely user-friendly designs are welcome to read on…

Spare The Hypothesis. Get On With The Business…

What makes a website design good? I’d say anything that works on your user is good. If it appeals to your user, stop fiddling with color and images. As long as it gets you the money, it doesn’t matter if your design is unattractively attractive. Thank your lucky stars; you have a great bank of customers who are not the art gallery type. They only mean business and they give you business! Frankly, you don’t put up a website so people can stop by, admire, ooh and aah, and walk away. You want to be earning your bread, right?

Okay, yes, there has to be some modicum of aesthetics. Err…please do not confuse aesthetics with creativity. A florescent orange and deep purple combination is pretty creative, but where’s the aesthetics in that? Get the picture?

Most website designers are just assumptive of user response when they create a design. Everything they do is based on their perspective of what is good and bad. In fact, most don’t even think of users when they work on designs; their sole aim is to just get pretty nothings on screen.

BIG mistake!!

A Design Is All About User Experience

If you can keep that in mind every time you create designs, your website might just hit a home run. I say ‘might’ because web users are an elusive bunch. You can never fully satisfy all of them. But if your site’s design works for most, that’s good enough reason for you to celebrate.

When you start work on your website’s design, do yourself a service and keep the following in mind:

A Solid Layout Keeps Your Customers Firmly in Place: Your website’s layout is its foundation. If the foundation is weak, imagine what goes on the top. Always begin with a wireframe; basic lines and boxes and scribbles telling you where your text, images, and navigation panels are going to be.

Think of how much white space you can leave; give your pages enough to breathe. Overcrowding is exceptionally good at messing up things and driving visitors away.

Typography Use: You don’t have defective vision if you cannot read small fonts. Small fonts are not meant to be read. And inverted colors are a nightmare; light prints on dark backgrounds are just so strainful to the eye.

Size matters; keep your fonts legibly big so it’s easily readable. Use spacing between paragraphs and between lines of a paragraph. Generally, a 1.5em height difference between lines, that is 1.5 times greater than the font size, is good.

Additionally, please do some market research on which font style will work for your target audience. You don’t want something like Bank Gothic on a baby products site.

Color Scheme is Important: It gives your website character. But, it has to go with what your website is selling or providing. I would succumb to color stereotypes if I want to play safe. If blue is a corporate color, I’d give my client blue.

Of course, it doesn’t harm to be different, so I’d probably try with reds and greens and gradient shades. However, I would steer clear of powder blue and baby pink combinations for a software site.

Ease of Navigation: Your site’s usability is everything. You don’t want your user to get lost on the way to ordering your product, or keep visiting the same page over and over again. Things like link placement, link colors, internal links, top menu, sidebar menu, and page footer links will just have to be excellently organized to allow your users to move about your website with ease.

Also, don’t snowball your users with too many links, as it will confuse them. Check your site’s usability with someone who’s an absolute non-tech and completely new to your site. If he/she can use your site without stopping and too much questioning, majority of web users can too.

Most people have the tendency to accept and tuck away business cards without a secondary glance. Unfortunately, this is the fate shared by 99% of businesses that fade without leaving a trace in a sea of competitors. Assuming you don’t want to die a similar death, here are some helpful tips to make sure your business card cements your company’s identity in your clients’ minds:

1. Business Card Design – A business card is part of your corporate identity that reminds the client of you in your absence. While an amateurish design would mean lack of professionalism, flashy design does not scale well either. Your business card should therefore have the right balance of color and simplicity to make it attractive and look professional.

2.Message/Content – The purpose of handing business cards to clients is ensuring you are contacted later. Business cards can also be good advertising mediums. In both cases, make sure details on your business card are precise and necessary, like name, contact numbers, and emails. Your USP should be mentioned in crisp, professional terms. A good business logo with motto usually suffices as USP.

3.Feel of Your Card– How does your business card feel when held? Does your business card have good paper quality? Cheap, thin paper is never good to hold. Plastic and metal for business cards may project your business as rigid.

4.Color – Colors reflect your brand and expresses your business style. Most business cards are usually white with only the logo to add color. A solid background color with clear print is not such a bad idea, especially if you want your business card to stand out. Of course, aesthetics is important and contrasting background and text is better than a complimentary match of the same.

5.Typography – Font size must be legible and font style should be professional. Avoid using font styles like Comic Sans, Bookman Old Style, Monotype Corsiva, Arial Black, or basically any style that uses elaborate patterns or appears too bold. Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Calibri, Tahoma, and other sans-serif typeface fonts are smarter options to depict a ‘serious’ business.

6.Quality of Print – Good print quality will produce true colors and crisp letters that will enhance the look of your business card.

7. Size - Business cards have standard sizes of 3.75×2.25 inches. If you are going for smaller dimensions to bank on cuteness, chances are your card will be lost in a bunch of other standard size business cards. Large business cards will help you grab attention, but if it doesn’t fit in your client’s wallet, you know where it’s headed next.

Don’t treat your business card design as unimportant. It’s the only piece of your company your client will keep with himself for future use. You don’t want to hand your client a nondescript little piece of paper he can use to scrape chewing gum off his shoes!

People don’t write hardbound diaries anymore; they Blog. At the time of writing, there is an estimated 156 million blogs covering topics from baby care to investment plans. But regardless of the diversity of blog topics, every blog has a handful of features common to another. These features are essential to blogging. Besides, readers have come to expect these features on blog sites.

Although blog design and functionality can be customized to suit personal preference, there are some standard features that all blogs should have. These features improve the overall user experience by making posts easily findable, sharable, and more.

1. Blog Post Archive
When you first land on a blog, the blog’s homepage will typically display the latest blog posts in order of their dates of postings, i.e. from the most recent post at the top to the oldest post at the bottom. All blog readers expect to see this but it’s not the only thing they want to see.

Many readers will browse your blog for older posts, either for specific information or because they like what you have written and want to read more. Having a blog post archive enables readers to find content on your site.

The archive is a section of your blog listing older posts in a logical order – usually as main categories and respective articles under them, each arranged by the date of their posting in order from the newest to the oldest. Archives help to convert first-time blog visitors into dedicated readers by showing them the benefits of following your blog.
Archive construction is not difficult to achieve. Most blogging platforms and CMS will list and display your posts. For example, WordPress’ core functions, templates and API hooks specifically help implement with archives.

2. RSS Feed
RSS helps readers keep up with new content posts on their favorite blogs without having to check on them regularly. Subscribing to a RSS Feed notifies readers when their favorite blogger has posted a new article on his/her blog.

A RSS Feed for your blog is a necessity. Veteran readers will typically look for the conventional orange RSS Feed icon on blogs to subscribe to their favorite blog sites. RSS helps cultivate a loyal following of readers and grow your community.

Most content management systems will have in-built RSS. For a more robust feature, you can look up Feedburner that optimizes, checks and analyzes the use of your RSS Feed. You can also build your own RSS using SimplePie PHP class.

3. A Good Commenting System
Blog users enjoy the unique opportunity of conversing and sharing views with the blogger. From the blog visitor’s perspective, it is enticing to be able to leave a small remark after reading something they like.

Besides, the more people comment on your blog posts, share and exchange ideas with you and other readers, the higher the chances of building a dedicated community of readers. A commenting system also makes your blog interactive, which is ever so important to user experience.

Good publishing platforms like Drupal and WordPress have built-in commenting systems. If you use the Disqus and IntenseDebate services, you can couple conventional commenting systems with community building features such as voting on comments and Twitter, Facebook and other social media/networking integration, and also track commenter’s commenting history.

4. Protection Against Spam Comments
This feature primarily helps blog administrators and owners, although it benefits users too.

Internet marketers employing back-door SEO techniques will usually link-spam blogs to get link backs to their sites. Without any protection against spam, your blog’s commenting can quickly turn from something useful into a spam nest for shady internet marketers. Spam comments drown out legitimate comments leaving your readers with little incentive to post comments and interact with other readers.

Make sure your blogging platform has spam protection; WordPress has Askimet, TypePad has AntiSpam and Drupal has Spam Module automated spam protection systems. You can also delete spam posts through manual comment moderation.

5. A Search Option
Aside from your archives, your blog does not offer any other option to find older content in your blog. The only way readers can search for other indexed content is through the search engines. However, expecting readers to locate your blog posts through search engines is a bit too much.

Therefore, having a search feature on all pages of your blog is critical and helps users find content easily. In other words, a search is more user-friendly. Both WordPress and Drupal platforms offer in-built search features that can be implemented on your blog.

6. Integration of Social Media
Unless your blog has been around for a long time and targets popularly searched topics on lifestyle, technology, entertainment, etc, there is stiff chance it will be visited regularly and by a large number of visitors.

Integrating social media/networks like Facebook and Twitter in your blog will help share your posts with friends and followers and ensure a steady flow of traffic. Social network APIs comes handy; Twitter’s buttons and widgets can be customized and installed on your blog. Facebook, StumbleUpon and Delicious have similar offerings.

7. Contact Method
The human element behind a blog is what makes it so attractive to readers. You must make it easy for your readers to personally contact you. Your readers should be able to reach you with ideas, suggestions, questions and advice they are hesitant to share and ask publicly.

Most publishing platforms either offer built-in contact forms, or at least have plugins such as WordPress’ Contact Form 7 and Drupal’s Contact Forms module. You may also consider third-party form builders for robust web forms and forgoing the burden of dealing with incoming data on your server.

Emails still work. If you are not using contact forms, be sure to display an email address on your contact page, footer or sidebar.

So, you have set a target for yourself but you are adamant not to give into any pressure or temptation. But distractions come thick and fast when you hit the floor and you succumb to peer pressure and end up wasting half an hour or so chit-chatting with your friends. The result: you find yourself getting crushed under extreme work pressure that you can no longer handle. Moral of the story: Don’t get distracted!

Here’s how…

Reward Yourself: If you are allowed login to your Facebook or Twitter account, do it, get yourself updated with what’s happening around you, and get over it! Spending hours on a social network means you are wasting your time, effort and your company’s money. So stop this practice. It’s not that hard, especially if you reward yourself with few simple pleasures – spend some time on the balcony to give your parched brain some relief or unwind at the coffee shop located nearby. A fag-break maybe relaxing for you and its one time you can turn the “statutory warning” away from you.

Get The Right Music: There is no better way to keep yourself motivated throughput the day than listening to soulful music. Keep handy a collection that can inspire and relieve you from work pressure when it is most unbearable. Moreover, it will help you keep distractions at bay at the workplace and this will have direct and positive impact on your productivity.

Go Invisible: – No, I ain’t asking you to put on an “invisibility clock”. I am driving at solutions far simpler and less romantically inspired. Go “invisible” in GTalk, MSN, Skype or try custom message like ‘Busy. Do Not Disturb!’ And please, don’t start a conversation should someone ping you.

Also, if you want to get rid of a colleague whose habit is to stop by your desk and pester your life with silly questions, you need to put on your trusted head phones. They keep you busy and help deter “unwanted presence”. Of course, particularly distractive people will stop at nothing but ignorance is your best chance. Take it.

Find Interest in Work: Try to love your work. You are a creative person and website designing should be your role call for passionate engagement. Trust me…loving your work is the best and only way to ward off distractions and keep self inflictions of the same at bay.

The open secret of attaining a unique identity in the world of website design is to develop your unique designing style. But that does mean, you have to take gauntlet of challenges and do something that goes against the traditional values and standards set by your predecessors. It takes guts and grits to do, and as the outcome is largely unpredictable, most of us dilly-dally before making the move. Moreover, the way to attain a unique style is still unclear and this is what frustrates our attempts. Here in this article, we are going to share some tips that may prove helpful:

Try Other Design Programs: It has become a sacrilegious offence for a website designer to try something other than Photoshop when it comes to design a website template. It has become a de facto rule to stick to Photoshop. But if you are adamant to develop your own signature style, you can make a try at any other application other than Photoshop. Cinema4D is a powerful application that will let you add some dramatic twists in your design. A capital tool to attain a unique identity.

Have Your Unique Pattern: – If you have a thing or two for pattern, you are just compromising with your creativity. However, if you are hard pressed to use pattern in a website design project, you can still add some variations in the design by making some experiments with its styles. You can get some inspiration from some popular sources but do not get indoctrinated by the school of CopyCat. Try something on for the size first and after few attempts, you will be able to come up with a crazy beautiful pattern.

Bend It Like A Brave: Those of you who wish to trade a different path, here is a piece of advice. Unless you deviate from the traditions, you will find it really hard to think logically and independently. Now I am not encouraging you to break the laws. It is a crime, but you always have to option to bend it. Make a tweak here and there, until you reach the point where you feel that you acquired a signature style that you were looking for.

Do Not Use Stock Picture: – It has become a habit among website designers to make a search at iStock or any other stock image websites whenever they need an image for a particular website design project. Now, do not get me wrong, you can add a little variety in your design by using your own images. This will give you a chance to discover the streak of a photographer in you.

Edit Fonts: Now you might wonder why I am rubbing on this point when there are tons of great fonts available out there. No it is not about adding another dose of originality rather it is about giving your design a new lease of life. However, you will not have to design the font per se. You can do away with slight modifications. It will do the trick.

Website designing is both rewarding and challenging career. You have to be productive every single day, finish the assigned tasks in advance and have to be creative at the top of it. There is hardly any moment to indulge in light chit-chat as you have to proceed to the next project, as soon as you have done with one. But this is not enough; you need to improve your skills to keep your positions intact in this highly volatile industry. Here in this article, we are going to share some proven tips that may help you increase your productivity:

Hone Your Skills: If you think you do not need to upgrade your skills, you could not be more than mistaken. Since website design is an ever evolving field, you need to do your best to enhance your skills otherwise; you may find it really hard to land a good job. Technology will surge ahead and if you refuse to improve your skills, you will soon reach career plateau.

Do It Now: - There are basically two types of work – easy one and tough one. Most of us usually make a grab at the easy one first. But putting aside the tough one is not a good idea. You are less likely to meet the target, if you do so and at the end of the day, you will find that the task remains unfinished. As you wasted all your energy on the easy task, you will find it really hard to pull your socks up and complete all the projects in time.

Be organized: – You will not be able to increase productivity, if you are still finding it hard to organize staffs. You need to master the art of keeping things in order. Keep all files, including those rejected by clients in specified folders so that you can find them whenever you want. By doing so, you will save a lot of time and it will definitely have positive impacts on your productivity.

Stay Inspired: - Inspiration is the best stimulator to boost your productivity. If you do not feel like designing, you should take a leave, visit nearby countryside and get some fresh inspiration.

Have A Priority List: - Try to sort out things based on their priority. Start off your day with the most important tasks and then you can muddle with the lesser ones. By following this simple tip, you will never have to miss out on an important project.

Have An Alarm Clock: – Set time for each project to be delivered at the end of the day. This will help you get all the projects done well ahead of time and what’s more, you will be able to keep the distractions at bay.

You have had enough with Google Panda Update and the subsequent and never ending discussion about quality. Now as thing stands, you have to maintain quality while publishing content but wait, how come you can compromise with the visibility of the post. You need to maintain a fine balance between SEO and user-friendliness if you wish to draw a regular flow of traffic to your website without incurring the wrath of the Almighty Google. Now if you do not like the idea of keeping your fingers crossed every time you post something in your blog, you should take a look at these tips discussed here. With these tips, hopefully you will be able to make the cut:

Density Matters: Forcing keywords in the content to manipulate ranking is like inviting your own destruction. You need to blend keywords but that should not be at the cost of the creativity. Do not make it look like spam and do not press the writer to maintain keyword density because it will affect her writing style in one way or the other. Natural and simple writing style scores high than affected and sophisticated writing style.

Length of Content: Though there is no hard and fast rule regarding the ideal length of an SEO content, people are of the opinion that it should not be less than 250 words. However, you can extend it up to 100 words but make sure that you are adding subheadings and punch lines to make readers go through the entire article.

Concise Paragraphs: – Keep your content free of fluff. Do not keep on extending your blog post for the sake of making website design look long and good. People love to read short and interesting piece of content. But if you are unable to cut down on word count, you should at least keep the paragraphs short.

Bullets Points: - Do not start off the post with a list of bullet points. Bullet lists are treated as Broken content and search engines do not value them much. Put some content just before the starting of bullet points and try to keep at least 250 words of regular text. It will do the trick.

Use Interesting Headers: – If your content runs the risk of becoming boring over time, you should at least add some exciting headlines that may help you hold the attention of viewers for a few moments extra. You can add keywords in the headlines if you are obsessive with SEO but make sure that you are not over-optimizing it. Remember people love content not keywords and so does Google.

You seem hell bent on seeing a steady and uninterrupted growth in traffic volume but this is where you make the wrong move. You are blatantly ignoring another equally important thing – yes it is the design. People are much into the habit of forming a quick impression of a product or website by looking at its design. So, if you aspire to see a sizable growth in the conversion rate of your website, you should take into considerations these website design tips:

An Inviting Look: Look and feel of your website should offer an welcoming experience. Do not try to seduce the readers with a blazing background with a glowing red button clamoring for the attention of the readers. Keep things sober and do not over optimize your website from marketing perspective.

Do not bore your readers with a long and seemingly never ending content. People hate such things. Keep it short and compact. Speak directly and try to use some active words or phrases such as “Sign Up”, “Browse”, “Learn”, “Ask” and avoid using such words like “we”, “our” etc. Address directly, it is far more effective than using circumlocution.

Call To Action: Do not confuse your readers by adding multiple call to action buttons or sections. Do not let the users stand motionless in the middle of your online store overwhelmed with choices. You should add “Learn More”, “Compare”, “Suggestion” etc to help the users make the next move with confidence.

Make The Conversion Steps Simple: Overtly complex conversion steps will drive away the visitors. Do not ask too many questions if they are not absolutely needed. You can try Google Analytics funnel visualization report to track exactly where you are losing your visitors. Do not ask any confidential information and try to make your website look like an authority website.

Define Your Goal: – Set your goals first before you take your gloves off. You can set email registration or completed sales as goals but it depends on you. After defining your goals, you need to find out why people are leaving your website in the middle after triggering a goal conversion.

The Internet today, is the hub of interactivity and communication. Having an interesting site that relates to its audience will benefit your business many times more than a cold, sterile information source. A website’s personality has great impact over its audience. An ‘About Me’ page not only gives your site personality, but is an essential aspect of your website design.

As the name suggests, an ‘About Me’ page is supposed to talk about you, the site owner. Your biographical information should help you make a personal connection with your readers.

Following are some easy tips that will help you make your About Me page engrossing to your readers:

1. Answers: Your About Me page should answer the three basic questions – who are you, how you can help the visitor, and how you can be contacted.

• Who are you? A personal introduction is a good start off. Your narrative should be as it would be if you were introducing yourself to a stranger. A personal narrative starting off with “I am…” is effective for a personal website/blog. Professional websites can introduce themselves in third person…“WebGuru India is…”
  Keep your introduction short and simple, or as much is required to help readers connect to you and your product. You may refrain from putting down too much information like your first car, favorite color, etc.
• How you can help the visitor? Any visitor to your website will primarily want to answer one question… “What’s in it for me?” By telling the visitor how you can help him/her, you are answering their question, only in a roundabout, personal manner. This is okay, since in all likelihood you already have a sales page in place that talks about product benefits in very definite terms.
  If visitors have clicked on your About Me page, it is because they are interested to know more about you. Come across amiably while explaining your services, and let your sales copy take care of the business.
• How you can be contacted? You can have a separate Contact Me page, or include your contact details in the About Me page. Adding a social media link to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr pages is smart, especially if you are promoting a professional brand. Just make sure you have a professional product or self image in place, instead of a random stock image.

2. Photo: A photo can never go wrong. It just makes your site that much more authentic. Besides, it is safe to assume, if users want to know more about you, they will hardly object to your photo. In fact, your photo shows you are opening up to your audience, and gives them another way to connect with you.

There are many ways to include your photo: you can upload a reliable professional photo, or choose from childhood, to funny, to activity, to fashionable photos depending on your intended audience and your site.

Example: If you have a site on pets, it is a good idea to upload a photo of you and your pet dog/parrot/cat together. You would want to avoid photos where you are seen in surfer’s clothes. Your image and your site’s personality just don’t mix in this case.

Note: photos should be that of your face or be full-bodied photos. Avoid a random photo of your foot, hand, half face, or a stock photo.

3. Cross-Promotion: Often times, your About Me page is the first page a visitor will click after arriving on your home page. You can use your About Me page to drive visitors to your other site pages, or personal posts, that you are particularly proud of. This also helps your site’s internal linking.

4. Indented Listing: Not many are aware of this, but indented linking can drive more traffic to your site. By listing your About Me page as the second page directly under your main page on Google’s search page, you are ensuring web users click on your website.

The logic is simple: a personalized page piques curiosity, hence more clickable, and therefore can be used to full advantage in drawing traffic. Of course, your page will have to be within the first 10 Google search results for a particular keyword, to make sure this happens.

Start off by optimizing your About Me page. Use the same keyword from another page on your website which ranks within top 10 organic results. Link your About Me page to that page and create an anchor text on that page to link to your About Me page. If you can get inbound links from other sites, all the more better.

An About Me page is the face of your website. In life, we all feel uncomfortable talking to strangers lurking in shadows. Your site, without an About Me page, has the same effect on visitors.

Most sites have an About Me page. Your visitors will be expecting one on your site too. Sometimes it is good to stay with convention and not try anything too creative or radical.