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7 Web Development Trends CTOs Should Be Aware of in 2021

Author: Vitaly Kuprenko

Development trends change pretty fast. For tech specialists, it’s essential to stay informed for sharpening the knowledge, while for decision-makers being up-to-date means withstanding a competition.

To help you grasp the web development trends for 2021, we’ve analyzed the market demands across different industries and the latest web development trends.

Here’s a quick list of what we’ve got:

 

  • Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
  • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
  • Intelligent chatbots
  • Responsive websites
  • Optimization for voice search
  • API-first design
  • Web push notifications

Progressive Web Apps or PWA

It’s probably one of the most meaningful trends of recent years. It’s aimed to make the experience that users get from browsing a website closer to native mobile applications. Therefore, more user-friendly and intuitive.

 

In simple words, PWA is a website offering features that usually accessible on mobile natives apps. Push notifications, offline mode, access to a camera are among those features.

 

A plethora of case studies shows that companies get an increase in revenue, conversion rates, and user engagements after adopting the PWA. The launch of the PWA resulted in two times more daily active users for Starbucks, while Trivago saw an increase of 150% for users who add its PWA to the home screen.

 

PWA let developers improve aspects that users hate about websites: slow load, no hardware support, poor user experience.

Companies Using the PWA

You can find the following companies among those who are already making use of PWA:

  • Alaska Airlines
  • Twitter
  • Starbucks
  • Trivago
  • Uber
  • Pinterest
  • Spotify


 

Tech Aspect

You may want to use one of the following technologies to build a PWA:

  • Polymer
  • Angular
  • React
  • Vue

 

One more thing that makes PWA a worthy investment is that they take up to four times less time to develop than native apps for iOS and Android.

Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP

Accelerated Mobile Pages is the technology that Google first presented to the public in 2015. It has been keeping the position of the hotly debated web development trends since then.

In short, the AMP helps to build web pages that load insanely fast and work smoothly across a variety of mobile devices. Accelerated Mobile Pages load for about 2 seconds in comparison to up to 22 seconds for regular ones.


 

Google pays a lot of attention to the load speed when deciding how to rank them in SERP. It means that the AMP technology is also remarkably useful for building a healthy SEO.

Tech Aspect

To get started with accelerated pages, you should learn more about an open-source HTML framework built for this purpose on the official website. There, you’ll find documentation and everything else you may need to get started.

Intelligent Chat Bots

For those businesses working across multiple time zones and having a presence in different countries and continents, it’s essential to provide customers with timely support.

 

Human customer services are often costly and don’t provide the necessary 24/7 support, unlike chatbots. That’s why entrepreneurs wonder how to build a chatbot that’d cover their needs making it another web development trend for 2021.

 

The chatbots powered with machine learning has been a worthy replacement for humans in many customer support tasks. Chatbots can give answers to frequently asked questions, redirect users to the right customer support specialist, and even take an order.

 

What’s more, a recent study shows that 65% of customers feel comfortable handling an issue without a customer support specialist.

Tech Aspect

There are several open-source solutions that can help you build an intelligent chatbot faster:

 

Responsive Websites

Responsiveness is no longer a nice-to-have feature. It’s now a must-to-have feature for every website on the Internet. It has been a trend for many years and 2021 isn’t an exception.

 

Taking into account that an overwhelming number of users prefers mobile devices over desktops and regarding Google’s recent mobile-first indexing policies, there’s no other way to succeed on the Internet except for being responsive.

Optimization for Voice Search

The voice search has an ever-rising potential that businesses simply can’t ignore. The last year’s report shows that more than half of all smartphone users were using the voice search in 2020. This number is going to grow exponentially.

 

Bearing in mind the current state of voice search and its perspectives, it’s definitely a web development trend for this year. Companies will start losing money without adding voice search to their SEO strategy and providing the IT budget for it.

Tech Aspect

The Web Speech API from Mozilla can help you with this task. The API helps to recognize the voice context, respond to queries, and read text content.

API-First Design

With the rise of digital services and their connectivity with one another, API-first design has become a widespread web dev elopement approach. And it’s still a trend.

 

With the traditional development approach, teams rather focus on delivering a smoothly working app and pay little attention to an API. APIs are often perceived as side projects and might not be designed and tested properly.

 

The API-first development, unlike the traditional one, goes simultaneously so that one part of the team doesn’t have to wait until colleagues finish their part of work.


 

Tech Aspects

Here are some popular tools for developing a high-level API:

Web Push Notifications

Push notifications used to be a privilege of mobile apps for a long time. However, web apps with push notifications gain momentum. Push notifications on websites can be used for informing about a new blog post, telling that a thing you were interested in is back in stock, and many other situations.

Tech Aspects

There are plenty of tools on the market that can help you integrate push notifications:

Wrapping Up

So, we have the following web development trends for 2021:

 

  1. Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
  2. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
  3. Intelligent chatbots
  4. Responsive websites
  5. Optimization for voice search
  6. API-first design
  7. Web push notifications

 

If you’re building a new product or going to update the old one, it may be a good idea to identify what trends are right for you to start preparations.

 

Author’s bio

 

Vitaly Kuprenko is a writer for Cleveroad. It’s a web and mobile app development company with headquarters in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about technology and digital marketing.

Ways to Improve User Experience Through Web Design

Author: Shawn Byrne

Over the last few years, much has been said about user experience or UX, which, in a nutshell, pertains to how a user feels about using a product, application, service, or website.

For webmasters, the concept of UX just got real when Google announced that it would be an official ranking factor beginning in May 2021.

With Google rolling out page experience signals in ranking, it has become imperative for webmasters to ensure that people get nothing but the most helpful and enjoyable experience when visiting their sites.

So far, the best way to improve website UX is through web design. From boosting site speed to improving readability, here are some web design tweaks you can make to enhance the user experience.

Improve Page Speed

Internet users these days expect web pages to load in three seconds or less.

If loading your pages takes longer than that, they will likely bounce off to a website that loads faster.

If you’re not sure about your page speed, use Google’s Page Speed Tools.

As for web design tweaks that will help improve your page speed, some of the things you can do include optimizing your images and keeping the use of heavy graphics, custom fonts, and pop-ups to a minimum.

Make Website Navigation Easy

Bad website navigation can make a business lose customers. With the poor user experience that difficult-to-navigate sites provide their visitors, them bouncing off a website is understandable.

Website navigation needs to be easy to provide a good user experience. Some of the web design adjustments you can make to improve navigation include:

  • Making all navigational elements clickable
  • Featuring drop-down menus
  • Putting up a working search feature
  • Anchored navigation bars
  • Internal linking
  • Linking the logo back to the home page

Use The Power of White Space

Your website can offer a much better user experience if visitors find your content easy to read, and that is something that white space does very well.

Also referred to as a margin or negative space, white space gives your content a lot of breathing room, making it look more enticing to read than walls of text.

Aside from making pages more readable, white spaces also provide harmony and balance to your page. More importantly, white spaces make your calls to action (CTAs) stand out because the page no longer looks cluttered.

Keep the Design Clean

For a web designer, it’s easy to give in to the temptation of showing off their graphic design skills and end up with a website that’s practically begging for attention with the wanton use of animations, flashy colors, and other loud visual design elements.

Aside from slowing your website down, unnecessary visual elements also turn people off. In this day and age where minimalism is already a thing, keeping your web design simple and clean will always win people over.

Rid your web pages of unnecessary stuff, and you’ll have a much cleaner interface that will unfailingly enhance the user experience.

Make Mobile-friendliness A Priority

There are three billion smartphone users in the world today. Mobile users have long outnumbered desktop users, and they deserve every bit of effort you can make to make your pages look great on their devices.

Mobile users, in general, don’t relish the idea of pinching, zooming, scrolling sideways, or tapping on very tiny buttons of non-mobile-friendly sites. If your website forces them to do that on their devices, then you’re not providing them with an excellent user experience.

You can change that by switching to responsive web design, which will make your website adjust to the size of the screen people are using. Responsive web design gives mobile and desktop users alike an optimal browsing experience, which leads to a better UX.

These are just some of the ways you can enhance UX through web design. Partner with a reliable web design agency to make the necessary adjustments to your website design, and you’ll discover more ways to make the user experience even more remarkable for your visitors.

 

About the Author

Shawn Byrne is the founder and CEO of SEOPhoenix.net. Shawn started his career in I.T. troubleshooting workstations, servers and networks, then went on to doing SEO as a side project and quickly found success in ranking websites. It was easy for him to grasp not only the algorithms but also the technical side which most SEO strategists miss and neglect because of its complexities. SEO Phoenix then grew based on its own rankings and referrals.

 

5 Ways Technology Can Help You Grow Your Business

Author: Arslan Haider

Introduction

One of the key elements of running your business successfully is that you stay up to date with the technological advances taking place around the world. The faster you adapt to the new technology, the faster your business will be able to reap its benefit.

However, the key is to invest in tech products compatible with your business in the industry. Otherwise, you will end up confusing your employee, as well as the clients. Being a successful business leader requires you to constantly learn and implement growth strategies for your business.

Why make your business tech-friendly?

You might be wondering, so what if you do not make your business all tech-savvy? You are still earning. The answer here is, all these technological advances help your business reach its true potential. Especially if you are selling tech products like automated lock systems for houses or wireless outdoor security cameras, not adapting to technology is deviating from the tech mantra of your own business.

In this article, we have mention 5 ways you can use technology to grow your business and help it reach its full potential

5 Ways Technology can help grow your business

  1. Companies Website: Today, most businesses are operated on online platforms. Reason? Covid-19 pandemic! Even before the pandemic, many businesses were operating online, but this virus gave the business world an extra push, so much so that every business owner to survive had to take their businesses online.

    With the lockdowns and shutdowns in the year 2020 and social distancing protocols, a lot of our buyers are also going shopping online. Therefore, to neglect, the structure of your website will be a grave mistake you make, which will end up costing you a lot of money. You should work on your websites effectively, study analytics, and make it appealing to your customers.

    Many customers leave the website page if it’s working too slow or is too complicated to figure out, had dynamic confusing colors that take your attention away from the product, or just poor aesthetic. So invest wisely when making your website, focusing on not making all the mistakes we mentioned above, and focus on it being user-friendly.

  2. Mobility: Mobility has changed how the way businesses operate. It has made things simpler and easier. There was a time that you needed to be in the office physically to take care of all the tasks, but today due to all the technological advances you can attend office meetings remotely, or you can use mobile printers to print out the necessary documents.

    Mobility has made it easy for employees to stay connected with the company always. Could you have ever imagined that during the pandemic, with government shutdowns and lockdowns all over the world, businesses could still be regulating? This is all because of technology that we were and still can survive this pandemic.

  3. Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is all the rage since everything is being done digitally here. At first social media sites were only used as a networking platform for friends, family, and colleagues, but today they play an important role in the marketing of brands and products as well.

    One thing about social media marketing and why it is so popular with everyone is that it is cheap and can reach a larger audience compared to traditional marketing methods. So if you are someone who is working on branding their business or connecting with customers and not on social media, you are committing business suicide.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all offer good marketing packages in which they offer analytics for you to study and then make an informed decision about running an ad and marketing your product. The key, in social media marketing, is to read their analytics report, which plays a critical role in your business’s growth.

  1. Invest in Diverse Marketing Strategies: Technology has made it possible for you to take on, not just one, but multiple business marketing strategies at a time. However, the key is to sit and figure out which strategies. For this, you must understand what your short-term goal is? Do you want to build a brand image? Or do you want to manage good relationships with customers? Or it can be that you want to introduce a new product to the market.

Depending upon whatever the goal of your marketing campaign is, relevant strategies are adopted. Today, people also invest in marketing software that helps you in implementing geo-targeted advertisements. Or you can invest in a couple of digital marketing strategies such as SEO marketing, SEM marketing, influencer marketing, etc.

For example, if you are marketing a wireless outdoor security camera maybe get some influencer marketing, or you can try to get your product featured in a blog. On the other hand, if you are interested In creating a brand awareness campaign, that would require adapting to all digital and traditional marketing strategies.

  1. Use Management Software Products: Management software helps you stay organized, updated, and prepared. Doing a lot of things can make you lose focus or forget what your objective was, but these software products are a cheap way of staying on track. You can also hire a lot of employees to take care of the task, but when you can do the same thing more efficiently and cost-effectively, why not?

These project management software packages help the teams stay vigilant, active, and accurate. They are better able to complete their tasks on given deadlines. This helps your business’s growth, as a well organized and managed business is a pillar to success.

Conclusion

Technology is constantly evolving. Today you are using software, tomorrow there is going to be a better version of the same software that is going to be introduced. The key is for you to constantly learn about tech advances, so you can use them to the best ability for your business’s growth.

 

Author Bio:

Arslan Haider is author of the above blog. He has done his Bachelor in Computer Science from University of Wah. He is a professional Guest Blogger at Mediahicon and loves to write blogs on valuable topics.

How to Increase Customer Attraction Towards Your Online Business

Author: Arslan Haider

Online business revolve around customers. Customers are the key stakeholders in any business. Success of any business depends on the loyal customer base. Here we shall discuss a few of the ways to increase customer attraction towards your online business.

Sale:

Sale is the form of discount that you offer on products. Choose the product wisely for offering the discount. The product on sale must be having maximum customer’s interest rate. Though it is not a long-term strategy, it brings new customers to the business. After deciding about giving sale on a product, announce the sale on different social media forums including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Competition:

You can organize a competition awarding people about your business, product or services. It is recommended to arrange a competition that is purposeful. There must be a voting mechanism in which you attract maximum customers to your business. Spread the competition on different forums so that maximum people may participate in voting system.

Free sample:

Successful businesses do not hold any barrier between their services and the customer. In order to break the barrier, you can give free samples to the customers. If your product is worthy enough to buy, every customer will buy the product happily after experiencing the free sample package.

Partnership:

In order to enhance the customer base, you can collaborate with other businesses in the market having strong customer base. The partnership is not necessarily be with the established and competitive business. You can choose any business that has maximum traffic on the site for collaboration. In this way, you will get customers from your partner’s customer base and eventually, it will lead to increased customer base of your product.

Blogging:

Blogging is one of the effective long-term strategy for increasing the customer base of your business. Quality content plays a vital role in driving the customers to the product. It is recommended to create a high-quality content that is targeted specifically to customers. Targeted content increases the SEO of the site and improve the ranking of the website on search engine. Eventually, you get more traffic to your site. Customers will read the content and if they find it appealing, they will share the content with their fellows, friends, and family.

Advertisement:

Advertisement is the basic method to advertise your business in different dimensions. You can use Google Ads for advertising. Google Ads require you to spend money, but it is one of the quickest ways to get maximum customers.

Social Media:

21st century is a digital age in which you can reach to customers through different forums. Now you can reach to your customers through the channels which are frequently used by customers. Nowadays, every person has its account on social media forums including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and post relevant content that targets the customers. Through social media, you can get enormous sharing of your posts. So make sure to make an account on every forum.

First time purchase:

You can make the first time purchase experience of your customers memorable by offering incentives over it.In this way, the visitors of your online store or physical business will become regular customers.

Referrals:

Referrals are the most efficient and effective way of marketing your business and getting new customers. This type of marketing is usually done by existing customers by referring it to their friends and family. This strategy works if the product you are offering is of high quality and customers are satisfied with it. If you are running an online business, you can get an automated software for referral marketing.

Network:

Interact with new people by attending business seminars, events and tell them about your business. Introduce your business among gatherings of a chamber of commerce and trade associations. Your business will get a significant boost through your effective interaction.

Website:

Nowadays, customers find companies by looking at their websites first. Your website often serves as the first introduction of your business. So, frequently update your website according to the latest trends in the market. Visitor should not feel any inconvenience while browsing your business website. You can hire a professional website designer for professional web display.

New product:

Offering a new product will obviously attract the customers. It may seem expensive or complicated, but you do not need to launch an entirely new product or service. You can replace an existing product, reprice the product, or even change the packing of the product. It will be considered a new offer and customers will get attracted to the product. Suppose you are running a business of Bluetooth Party Speakers, you can change the color of the speaker that will be considered as a significant change in the product.

Expertise:

You can volunteer your expertise by speaking on different forums. Share your knowledge with your peers and customers. It will build your credibility among people.

4 Rules of Online Business to Achieve Better Results

Author: Arslan Haider

Online businesses are a critical and great initiative. It’s something that’s rapidly taking over the world right now. However, with its added benefits, it also brings a lot of competition.

Online businesses have the power to make their customer’s experiences as remember able as they want. With great power, comes great responsibility though, which is why here are the 4 main strategies and tips that are the rules and key to targeting your desired audience online.

  1. Web design. Every online business has a unique website that lures people in. If not, make one ASAP! The amount of effort and thought you give into making the perfect product will go to waste if you’re not portraying it properly on your website. You need to keep your website simple and organized. Apart from the informative content on your website, you also need to add a distinctive feature as a video or audio. It needs to stand out and attract your audience more than your competitors. Apart from this, remember to keep your text legible! It’s one of the biggest pet peeves on the web. The best way to stay in the safe zone is by using a lighter background with bold and dark text. To help you with creating an identity on the web, you can always hire a professional, or Titan is a solid example of a well-designed website. They used professionals to make their website, and you can check it out. Even though Titan has a vast market and products, its website is straightforward, it wouldn’t take you long to find titan sprayer parts and the required information about it.
  2. Customer service. You need to keep in mind that your online customers are real people. As a buyer needs guidance in a store, some issues can arise online too, especially with the fact that they’ve never seen the product in their hands. They’d be more skeptical and might need more support, hence be sure to make a good team that can help your customers in need. An easy and convenient way is the 24/7 hours live-chat feature, for instance, as mentioned above if I need information about titan sprayer parts, every hardware website has a comment section or chatbox that helps me decide. You need to respond fast, as the visitor may close your website if they don’t understand or can’t find what they came for. It really makes a customer-brand relation and makes the buyer trust you, generating more sales in the long run as well.
  3. Don’t let your visitors go! You need to keep your audience engaged and active participants. There are many ways to do this, newsletters that send them information about your launches, discount sales, etc. so you’re giving your visitors a reason to come back! You can add blogs and questions so your customer can leave comments and suggestions, and you then you need to add regular creative content too. Attach your links to your other social media platforms as well so they’re intrigued about your brand and products. This will also create more followers for you!
  4. Keep it professional. You might partner with other brands and ad extensions on your website, while this is an essential step, you need to be careful about it. Many pop-ups and ads might annoy your visitor and kill the charm of your own website. Market your website in proper spaces with proper links. This will help keep things structured and in line for you and your customer. No one likes a hassle, especially while shopping online.

Author Bio:

Arslan Haider is the author of the above blog. He has done his Bachelor in Computer Science from University of Wah. He is a professional Guest Blogger at Mediahicon and loves to write blogs on valuable topics.

SEO Trends To Pay Attention To In 2021

Author: Shawn Byrne

As we near the end of a truly tumultuous year that most people would rather forget, we look forward once again to the coming year and the changes that it brings, specifically to the world of search engine optimization.

SEO has evolved so much since its advent a couple of decades or so ago.

It only seems like yesterday when keyword stuffing was an acceptable way of getting high search engine rankings. Now it’s a widely-condemned practice by Google and other search engines.

The unmistakable emphasis on quality content today is also a far cry from the way search engines ignored it in the beginning. And who would have thought twenty years ago that mobile optimization would even become a thing?

Given that SEO is a relatively young and ever-changing field, we can only expect more and more optimization trends to pop up year in and year out. For 2021, here are some of the SEO trends we believe will impact the industry.

UX Will Blow Up

Over the last couple of years, people have been talking about how great user experience and SEO go hand in hand, but it’s in 2021 that we will see UX become a true-blue, honest-to-goodness ranking factor with the rollout of the Page Experience signal in May 2021.

When sizing up your page’s overall UX, Google will look at your site’s Core Web Vitals, a set of specific factors that focus on the most critical aspects of the user experience such as loading, interactivity, visual stability while loading.

The Core Web Vitals will then be combined with other search signals for page experience like mobile-friendliness, browsing safety, HTTPS-security, and lack of interstitial pop-ups to get a clear picture of the quality of the experience a user goes through when exploring a web page.

Although how Core Web Vitals will directly impact your rankings is still unknown, it’s probably safe to say that getting an excellent page experience score could increase your chances for higher rankings. We have to wait until next year to see what happens, though.

Site Speed Will Matter More Than Ever

Improving site speed has always been a trend year in and year out, mainly because users will always have an insatiable need for speed.

These days, users expect the web pages they access to load in three seconds or less.

If your pages load more slowly than that, you will need to speed things up by optimizing your images for size, content optimization, reducing redirects, and switching to a better web hosting provider.

Voice Search Will Grow Bigger

One clear indicator that voice search will only grow bigger in the coming years is the number of households with at least one smart speaker, the device of choice of voice searchers for their search engine queries.

According to Statista, 35% of U.S. households have at least one smart speaker as of 2019, but that figure is poised to balloon over the years to 75% by 2025.

With the continued rise of voice search, the people who do SEO would do well to optimize for it. They can do things like target long-tail key phrases, use conversational language when creating content, and improve content readability to perform well in voice search results.

Mobile-friendliness Will Grow In Importance

Being mobile-friendly has always been important over the last few years, given that it’s actually a ranking factor.

However, Google’s scheduled rollout of mobile-first indexing for all websites in March 2021 is going to change the mobile game forever.

Starting March next year, the mobile version of your website will be Google’s primary basis when indexing and ranking it. That means your site must perform well on mobile devices or face the risk of your pages dropping in Google search rankings.

Find out how mobile-friendly your site is by checking out Google’s Mobile Friendly Test.

These trends are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as 2021 SEO trends are concerned. While trends may come and go, the ones listed above are likely to be around for a long time. Then again, change is the only constant in SEO, and that’s why we all need to be on the lookout for trends that just might become a game-changer for everyone in the coming years.

About the Author

Shawn Byrne is the founder and CEO of SEOPhoenix.net. Shawn started his career in I.T. troubleshooting workstations, servers and networks, then went on to doing SEO as a side project and quickly found success in ranking websites. It was easy for him to grasp not only the algorithms but also the technical side which most SEO strategists miss and neglect because of its complexities. SEO Phoenix then grew based on its own rankings and referrals.

How to Increase Brand Awareness on Your Landing Page

Author: Lexie Lu

A good landing page will encourage your audience to keep moving through the sales funnel — and convince them that your business has services or products to soothe a pain point they’re dealing with.

However, advertising isn’t the only job your landing page has. It may be the first encounter a customer has with your brand, much like a product on a shelf or an ad on social media. Because you won’t get another chance for a first impression, your landing page also needs to be a good brand ambassador. A visitor should roughly understand your business with a quick scan and know what you do and why you do it.

With these strategies, you can use design landing pages that convince your audience and strengthen brand awareness.

1. Include Your Logo

Your logo is the face of your brand. It’s almost always a good idea to make sure it’s prominently featured on your landing page, even if you’re trying to keep the design as simple as possible.

In general, companies will opt for top-left logo placement, but some landing pages may change this up. A centered logo may be more effective, depending on the overall design. However, keep in mind that customers expect the logo to be in the top left, simply due to how many brands use this placement.

2. Use Custom or Distinct Brand Fonts

If your brand has some excellent typography backing up its look, you can lean on those design decisions to improve your landing pages.

Simple adjustments to your landing page fonts can help bring the page in line with your company’s overall look. They can reinforce the values or aesthetics you want customers to associate with your products.

While standing out is always helpful, it’s best not to go overboard. Some fonts that work great for a logo or header won’t translate well to body text or a form field. Ideally, you should have a standard font that works well for large chunks of text. When designing your landing page, it’s not always necessary to use the same font you use elsewhere in your branding. Sometimes, using one with similar characteristics will be enough to communicate the same values.

3. Use Your Branding Materials

Branding materials that show off what your company stands for — like graphics, videos and images that represent your products — can help a landing page show visitors what you’re offering. They can also quickly demonstrate your business’s values.

H.O. Penn Machinery is a dealer of Caterpillar heavy machinery and tools in southern New York state. The still background image here is actually a video, showing off some offered tools and machinery in action. The imagery in the video — heavy machinery used on construction sites and contractors overseeing work in a residential area — emphasizes the kind of utility and equipment new customers can expect from the brand.

Because H.O. Penn Machinery is a CAT dealer, the video also shows off the distinctive Caterpillar coloration and logos.

4. Build a Palette With Your Brand Colors

You can use almost every aspect of your landing page to subtly echo the look of your company. One of the simplest ways to do this is by basing the landing page palette off your brand colors.

This landing page from Vivino, an online wine marketplace and app, is a good example. The logo, center graphic and “Enter” button at the top-right are all in the company’s particular shade of wine-red burgundy. It provides a little bit of sophistication and re-emphasizes what the brand is all about.

Your landing page’s use of color doesn’t need to be complicated. This is especially true if your company, like many others, has adopted more of a minimalist aesthetic and may have a logo with just one color. Good design may just be a matter of remembering to use your logo shade as an accent, as with Vivino’s page.

5. Get Straight to the Point

A good landing page is scannable. You want customers to quickly know the benefits of working with your company — and it also improves awareness of your company. Your brand is about what you do and why, so if you can explain the products or services you offer in a sentence, you can boost your visibility.

Canva, a graphic design platform and software suite, is a good example of this. The page clearly communicates what the business has to offer — in this case, graphic design tools that anyone can use, regardless of experience level.

Breaking down your offerings into the simplest, most direct form possible will help customers know what you can provide. If your landing page makes things clear, it can help build that relationship between your look, logo and products in the customer’s mind.

6. Match Your Landing Page With Your Ad Campaigns

Consistency is critical in building brand awareness. The more often a customer sees your branding elements, the more likely they are to remember your design choices and associate them with your company.

Because of this, it’s best to keep your ad campaigns and the related landing pages as close as possible in terms of look and language.

Using Landing Pages to Strengthen Your Brand

With the right approach to design, your landing page can communicate a lot about your company and the products you offer. Keeping it in line with the overall look by using colors, fonts and imagery related to your brand will help the page build audience associations between your company and its values.

Lexie 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 Use TikTok Like A Pro: Secret Tips You Should Know

Author: Anne Joseph

While speaking about short-term videos, TikTok stands at its best, containing a wide variety of short-term videos from comedy clips to emotional clips. Being appreciative of this short term video-sharing app, we are here to share TikTok’s secret tips with you all. So. keep scrolling!

TikTok’s Secret Tips in 2020

If you are a creator, often get trolled for no reason, these secret tips act as a shield for you. Keep scrolling on!

1. Access Private Account

For users who are looking for their privacy on TikTok, this feature is handy. Once you enable the private account option, only approved users follow you and watch your videos and engage with your videos. If you are looking to get more people to look at your TikTok videos, you need to gain TikTok likes, hence boosting engagement. And also, remember that existing users won’t be affected anymore. To activate the private account, Open the TikTok app – click the profile option in the bottom-right corner – click the more option in the top-right corner – privacy and safety. You can see the private account option, turn on the option to activate it.

2. Restrict Everyone To Download Your Videos

If you hate when someone downloads your video, luckily, TikTok has an excellent feature of restricting everyone from downloading your videos. Open the TikTok app – click the profile option in the bottom-right corner – click the more options in the top-right corner – tap the privacy and safety option. Scroll to the safety option and choose the off option in the “Allow your videos to be downloaded” tab.

3. Bury The Comments With Certain Keywords

Social media sites might also include the home for negativity and trollers. And if you often get nasty comments, the comment filters on TikTok are ready to bring the best result for you. Yes, this option lets you restrict the words to your videos with specific keywords. To activate it, Open the TikTok app – click the profile option in the bottom-right corner – click the more options in the top-right corner – tap the privacy and safety option. Then, scroll down to the comment filters section. Here, turn on the option and add multiple keywords to restrict the comments.

4. Pick The One To Duet With Your Videos

If you want the specific persons to duet with your video, well, you can access the unique feature on TikTok to do so. To activate it, Open the TikTok app – click the profile option in the bottom-right corner – click the more options in the top-right corner – tap the privacy and safety option. Scroll down, and select friends on the “Who Can Duet With Your Friends” tab.

5. Enable Only Friends To Respond Your Videos

If you wish to be aware of unwanted reactions and comments to your videos from unknown persons, you can use the TikTok feature to stop the video reactions from new users. To activate it, Open the TikTok app – click the profile option in the bottom-right corner – click the more options in the top-right corner – tap the privacy and safety option. Choose the Friends option in the “Who Can React To Your Videos” under the safety section.

6. Save Your Favorite TikTok Videos

You can save the stunning and cool TikTok videos to watch them later, even if there is no internet connection. So, if you get any excellent videos that impress you, touch and hold on the video, a popup appears, then click the save option from the popup.

These are the simple secret tips you should know to use the TikTok platform like a pro. I hope you are benefited through these secret tips like responding to videos, staying away from unwanted comments, etc. Work it out, and shine like a TikTok pro.

Author Bio

Anne Joseph is a passionate social media writer and working at Bouxtie. She has strong strategy skills in developing and managing social media campaigns. She loves to make new connections and enjoy the opportunity to work with social media influencers.

How To Rank Your YouTube Videos – 5 Steps To Get Started

Author: Victoria Daniel

YouTube is a powerful marketing platform that helps to enhance your business and brand. Over 6 billion hours of YouTube video viewed per month. Also, YouTube is the second largest website in the world. One-third of the internet audience spends much time on YouTube.

YouTube marketing is the main key to getting videos ranked on both YouTube and Google search. It makes an automated flow to find the people with your videos, which is related to your business.

In this guide, we will discuss the importance of Youtube ranking with the help of 8 tips. Once you have followed these steps, it helps you get more likes and views by ranking your YouTube videos higher on Google and YouTube.

STEP 1: YOUTUBE VIDEO NAME

Naming is an identical factor in the marketing process. Most marketers made a mistake with improper naming for your videos. This naming structure will happen in two places.

  • Raw video file
  • Video title

YouTube has the algorithm for the raw video file, which helps to find the content. If you’re not familiar with raw video titles, this guide helps to work on it.

Below are the tips to optimize the raw video title:

  • Right-click on your YouTube video and choose “Get Info”.
  • Include tags which are related to your video’s and synonym keywords.
  • Give a name the file based on your main keywords
  • Use some comments about your YouTube video.

Once you upload your file on the YouTube channel, it will automatically throughout the raw file name.

The video title should be less than 60 characters. Use keywords at the beginning of the title. Also, it must be short and descriptive and easily attracted by the audience. Don’t forget to add the keywords to your title. It helps to be an essential part of the ranking progress.

STEP 2: VIDEO LENGTH

The YouTube algorithm is based on the views when YouTube was first launched. Once you get the most views for your video and it gets a high rank. But two years ago, YouTube changed its terms and conditions. They have counted your views, but at the same time, they do conjunction with engagement metrics.

The engagement metrics are,

  • Number of seconds viewed
  • Comments
  • Social shares and Likes

These additional metrics help to cut out the false clicks from the million click farms. At this moment, it can neglect a lot of videos with less focus content. It’s better to make rich content that drives user engagement. YouTube doesn’t have any guidelines regarding video length. Any user can upload extreme video length, but we suggest creating your video at least 60 seconds.

There are two main reasons:

  1. Your video length is longer, which means you can engage your viewers. Therefore, having your videos will add more seconds to your count and increase your watch time.
  2. In YouTube policy, short videos consider the spam your videos; So, avoid making length videos. It helps boost your video and enhance your YouTube likes & subscribers.

STEP 3: VIDEO TITLE & DESCRIPTION:

The audience first lands on your page; they can see the title. Your video title should be related to your video and descriptive. The length of the title is 55-60 characters. Use keywords at the beginning or mid of the title, which improves your chance for ranking higher in YouTube search.

Many YouTubers forget this section; the most important section is a video description. Basically, you can describe your video with the help of the keywords. Also, you can add the link to your website. A new member lands on your page, they first read the description part and click the link. Your video views are great, but YouTube is merely a means to something larger. Your videos should encourage your audience to take action. That action should be clicked on your website where you can finish the marketing process.

Here are some tips for creating a video description:

  • Create a unique style! Don’t copy the content from competitors and your previous videos. Each video is different and should be treated. Write a unique description for each video.
  • The character’s length of the description section is to be 5000. Use 2-3 keywords in part.
  • Avoid placing the same keywords twice. You’re stuffing the same keywords, and there is a chance of going spam.
  • Use synonyms of the keywords in your description. For Instance, your keyword is – how to rank on YouTube videos, how to rank on YouTube videos in Google-like.

STEP 4: MAKE A PLAYLIST

Make a playlist for your YouTube channel that helps your viewers easily find your videos. It is the easiest way to segregate your content and share it with others. You can create playlists for saving the multipurpose channel.

You can make a playlist with the help of keywords. Whatever you can split that music videos, news, funny videos, and entertainment videos. It is simple to add, edit, and delete from the YouTube playlist. You will drop your videos to change the order, change the priority, and rename the playlist.

Here are the steps on how to make a playlist:

  • Start to watch the video before you can add the playlist.
  • Save the video first, and create a “New Playlist.”
  • Give the name of the playlist and select the private or public.
  • Once created a playlist, add your favorite video and again save it.
  • After that, you have to check whether the videos are added or not. Note it – add more videos to your playlist at a time.

The playlist section is placed on the left-hand column of your YouTube homepage.

STEP 5: CUSTOMIZED THUMBNAIL

YouTube offers to choose the image that suits your YouTube videos—adding a thumbnail of your videos to make the best impression for your viewers. I suggest placing a thumbnail that tells the viewers what your video is about and why they click on it.

If you want to boost your subscribers, you have to use a proper thumbnail to your videos. It is the heart of YouTube videos. Also, you can easily include the custom thumbnail and upload it.

Here are the few tips to before uploading the content:

  • The thumbnail image size should be 1280 x 720
  • Images must be .JPG, .PNG, .GIF or .BMP
  • Under 2 MB
  • Use attractive colors like Yellow, Red & Green, and use stylish fonts.

FINAL THOUGHT:

YouTube is a robust platform when you have used it correctly. YouTube Video marketing is developing, and many marketers want to promote their product in the channel. Creating unique content and standing out the right people at the right time is important for success. Don’t forget to add the above steps to your videos and start ranking in Google & YouTube searches.

Author Bio

Victoria Daniel is a social media expert and writer who is working in PixelGroovy. She is a regular contributor to well established IOT blogs and she has been into Internet marketing for two years.

Why Business Longevity Matters (and How to Market It)

Author: Lexie Lu

The longer you’ve been in the business, the better known your brand becomes. People often look to see if you’re established and likely to remain operating for the foreseeable future. While longevity is never a promise of success, business owners who’ve already weathered a few storms are more likely to know some tricks to getting through new ones.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a mere 50% of businesses in the United States survive the five-year mark. About a third make it to 10 years and beyond. If you’re one of the lucky few to survive the first decade in business, you’ll have a much better chance of long-term success.

There are a lot of advantages to being around for decades and very few disadvantages. Here are some reasons why business longevity matters and how you can market your endurance.

1. Build Loyal Fans

Businesses that make it through economic downturns and tough times tend to have an army of devoted fans who talk them up to everyone they know. You essentially have a street team of influencers who let others know how great your product or service is.

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful forms of marketing you could hope for. You don’t have to do anything but make sure your current customers love you and know you appreciate them. Asking them to share what you do with others requires a simple email or message, and many will be happy to help.

The North Face has an entire team of athletes who serve as brand ambassadors. They manage teams of climbers and other rugged outdoor sports enthusiasts. Because they are in the throes of whatever sport they represent, their recommendations hold a lot of clout. Their athlete representatives use their products out in the field and can speak to the specifications others in the sport need to know about.

2. Promote Usability

When you’re in business for a long period of time, you learn what your customers need and how to make your site and products usable and reliable. When marketing your longevity, point out that you’ve made mistakes, rectified them and know how to create a quality product you stand behind.

You may have made mistakes along the way, but as long as you learn from them and continuously improve your product and service, you’ll gain traction.

3. Highlight Your Experience

When you’ve been in business for decades, you have a pretty good idea of what your clients need. Explain how long you’ve been around and why other companies trust you to get the job done. You can even highlight some testimonials from customers who’ve stayed with you for years. They can probably explain better than anyone why they choose to remain with your company year after year.

Louisiana CAT highlights their more than 80 years in the industry. They point out that they’re a trusted partner and know the equipment inside and out, as well as what clients need. For someone new to the industry or looking for an experienced equipment provider, the reassurance of their knowledge is helpful.

4. Present a Clear Vision

When your focus is on staying in business for the long haul, you have to develop a clear vision of where you’re headed. Perhaps your goal is to build a company that will be around for your grandchildren to inherit. What do you want that brand to look like in 50 years and what do you need to do today to get to that point?

5. Develop a Specialty

When you’re in business for many years, it’s easier to develop something your brand is known for. You should have a special item that no competitor carries or that you’re known to be the best at making. Think about the needs of your customers and come up with an amazing solution. Devote an adequate number of hours to creating the absolute best product imaginable.

G.A. Schimpff’s Confectionery has been around since the 1800s. They are known for their Modjeskas and red hots. When you visit their store, they’re often in the process of creating one of the two types of candy and offer a free sample to people passing through. Being famous for particular types of candy helps them gain customers and orders.

6. Train Your Leaders

If you want your brand to have longevity, you must train tomorrow’s leaders. Successful companies have long-term company culture goals. Not only should you invest in current leaders, but also encourage them to build up the next generation of managers, passing down their knowledge along the way.

7. Know Your Audience

Marketing is a critical component of longevity. You must know who your customers are and what their pain points are. Once you understand the situations your users face, it’s much easier to provide insightful solutions. Dig into more than just the demographics of your clients. Get to know them on a psychological and emotional level, so you can market to them from their perspective.

Otis Elevators has been around for about 160 years. Over time, the industry changed, and Otis has managed to change alongside it. They’ve kept pace with higher skyrises and new developments in sensor-driven data and smart features.

Marketing Strategies

Think about the advantages of being around for a long period of time. Talk up your experience in the industry and your ability to see what is a trend and what is something that will last. Know who your audience is and use your past challenges to overcome today’s. With a little marketing effort and a lot of hard work, your brand will outlast the others around you and you’ll be able to highlight why you’re the best of the best.

Lexie 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.