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Why Your Web Agency Should Be Committed to Creating Less E-Waste

Author: Eleanor Hecks

Old electronics — such as computers, televisions and cell phones — are considered e-waste. How you get rid of these items can impact the environment. Focusing on green production helps companies protect the environment for future generations, be good stewards of their local resources and reach like-minded consumers wanting to embrace an eco-cause.

Committing to reduced carbon output and preserving resources is easier than you might think. You will gain a lot of traction with those wanting to do business with eco-friendly companies. Here are some things you could do and why you should be doing them.

1. Recycle and Reuse

The Environmental Protection Agency mentions recycling electronics reduces pollution by lessening the amount of new materials necessary to produce new items. It also keeps old devices out of landfills. Some e-waste leaches into the soil and contaminates groundwater, impacting everything from local wildlife to human drinking water.

Upgrading a computer system rather than completely replacing it might also save your agency money. Electronics are a considerable expense, so stretching them further is sensible.

2. Sell Old Devices

Small businesses often need upgrades to keep software up to date or keep up with a growing enterprise. If you are scaling up by buying new electronics, consider how well the old ones work. Are they in a condition where you could reset them to factory settings, trade them in or sell them to make a few bucks?

You can even offset the cost of purchasing new electronics by selling your current equipment. You will reduce e-waste and get paid to do it.

3. Keep Devices Out of Landfills

It might be tempting to pitch that smartphone that no longer works and send it out with the trash. However, this is not the best way to dispose of electronic devices.

Experts estimate people around the globe contributed about 33.8 million metric tons of e-waste in 2010, but the number keeps rising as new phone models, computer hard drives and other modern electronics advance rapidly. Make it a policy to recycle responsibly if you must trade your old devices in for new ones.

4. Know the Laws in Your State

Regulations surrounding e-waste vary from state to state and even from one town to the next, so learn the rules where you run your business so you do not rack up any fines. Some laws are more stringent than others. If you are not sure you comply, talk with an expert on local regulations and ensure you change policies as necessary to meet expectations.

5. Pay Attention to Partnerships

Who does your web agency partner with and how do they handle e-waste? Look at all your service providers as well as suppliers. For example, if you work with a hosting company for your website, be aware of its ongoing impact on the environment and whether it throws old servers into landfills.

Web hosting is a $90.42 billion industry with steady growth. You can find an organization with similar policies to yours regarding reducing carbon footprint. Ask the tough questions to verify you are doing your part and any company you support is, too.

6. Be Aware of Toxic Substances

As electronic parts break down, they seep back into the environment, and can poison local land and water. Some items are worse than others. Do your due diligence and research how to reduce the toxic waste your enterprise produces. Also, take the time to look for ways to ensure your old electronics do not turn into a problem for future generations.

7. Fund Research

Taking items to dedicated recycling centers is sometimes the only option. However, scientists are researching how you can recycle different components and reuse them instead of just throwing them away.

For example, one European project called CROCODILE considers cobalt recycling and how old batteries can take on new life. Look for cutting-edge solutions to a growing problem and invest in them to improve the impact of e-waste in the future.

How Worried Should Your Brand Be About E-Waste?

It might seem like a small contribution to delay buying new machines or recycling responsibly. After all, giant corporations may not be overly concerned about doing the same and they have much more of an impact. It is crucial to remember that if smaller brands come together and do their part, they can set an example for the rest of the world and safeguard the environment.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.

Several Benefits of Having a Top-Performance Web Application for Business

Author: Timothy Miller

Looking for ways to optimize your business in 2022? The best way to keep distinguished from your competitors is by integrating web products. What is that all about? Check further!

Web applications are considered programs enabling more effective communication between businesses and their clients as well as inside a business. With the significant growth of utilizing the Internet, gig enterprises, small businesses, and startups transform the approach they operate and adopt more web applications. Getting the idea of what a web application is can support you in understanding its value in your daily routine. In this article, we will provide you with the fullest guide on what a web application is, its numerous benefits, and how it runs.

What is a Web Application?

It is a computer program that implements a web browser to execute a certain function. They frequently call it a web app. Web apps are represented on a wide range of websites. The easiest sample is a contact form on a website.

A web application is a customer-server program. What does it mean? The app possesses a customer-part and a server-part. Here, the notion of “customer” relates to the program the user applies to run the app. It is a piece of the customer-server surrounding, where many computers exchange data. For instance, when it comes to a database, the customer is the program with the help of which the user introduces info. The server is the app that keeps the info.

Businesses and startups require sharing data and conducting transactions with their target clients. The Internet can be a perfect and relatively cheap channel for that goal, on the condition that there is a method to collect and preserve must-have data and reveal the outcome to users. With the help of web applications, clients can partner with the business by utilizing content management platforms or shopping carts.

Web applications can be designed for numerous reasons and applied by businesses or individuals. The last category requires it to simplify their interaction or perform online shopping. Additionally, employees can teamwork on solutions and perform the job on shared docs with web applications. They can generate files, presentations, reports, and share data with any device from anywhere.

Web apps have thrived since their discovery. Perl, one of the first apps, a world-known server-part scripting language, was designed in the 80s. That occurred before the Internet became widespread outside tech circles. Those web apps were easy and got more advanced in the late 90s. Nowadays, they are an integral part of the daily lives of humans around the globe.

Web App Categories: Native and Hybrid

Platform-specific apps are considered native ones. They are designed for a particular platform or device and apply device-specific hardware that involves a camera system or GPS.

A combo of both native and web applications are hybrid apps. The internal operation of hybrid apps is identical to that of web apps. However, their installation is performed like natives’. Being platform-specific, native apps are more effective and quicker compared to hybrid apps. What is the reason? Hybrid apps should receive access to APIs that then obtain admittance to device-peculiar resources. Well, the experience is longer and adds to hybrid apps to operate slower on the contrary to the native counterparts.

So, based on your business objectives and needs, you can decide on whichever kind fits best.

Greatest Examples of Web Apps

Samples of web applications involve word processors, spreadsheets, webmail, photo/video editing, and file scanning/conversion. Among popular email programs, users apply Gmail, Yahoo, and instant messaging services.

Web applications that enable employees to collaborate on the same doc involve Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Docs, and cloud storage. Sharing calendars online is also a web app.

Web apps progress to respond to the growing requirement for mobile web utilization. Software engineers develop more and more mobile apps with access to the Internet. A wonderful sample of this progress is the Facebook app and Dropbox app users can download and utilize on their phones or iPads. Other samples are online retail sales, online banking, or wikis.

How a Web Application Operates

The access to Internet is everything you require to enter a web app. They utilize a web browser, such as Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox to connect to an app. There are 3 components the web app needs to operate: a web server to cope with customer requests, an app server to conduct the activities requested, and a database to keep the info.

Engineers use 2 kinds of languages to code web apps. An application traditionally utilizes a combo of server-part script and customer-part script to run. The server-part script handles preserving and receiving the data and needs languages, such as Java or Python. Engineers program server-part to design scripts the web application will utilize. The customer-part script demands languages, such as JavaScript or HTML5. Those languages depend upon the browser to conduct the program. They are defined as browser-assisted languages. The customer-part script is engaged in the data presented to the user.

The majority of web apps possess brief design cycles and can be developed by small teams. Several of the apps demand server-part processing. They are defined as “dynamic.” Some don’t require processing at the server-part and are defined as “static.”

Check the strategy a web app operates:

  • The user generates a kind of a query to the web server via the Internet through the app’s user interface;
  • The web server brings the query to the web app server;
  • The web app server implements the requested activity, then represents the outcome of the required info;
  • The web app server sends the outcome back to the web server (requested/processed data);
  • The web server delivers the requested data to the customer (smartphone, tablet, or desktop);
  • The requested data emerges on the customer’s display.

Benefits of Web Applications for Business

Now, it’s time to check all the tremendous benefits of having a top-performance web application for business.

Enjoying Great User Experience among Employees

In case you have ever applied unique login accounting data to obtain admittance to info or services on the Internet, you have utilized a web app. Many employees frequently use web applications, such as:

  • Google Docs;
  • PayPal/eBay;
  • Salesforce.com;
  • Online banking platform.

However, what else can be performed with the help of a web app? With the introduction of client verification and encrypted connections, complex apps can be supervised entirely online, leading to more simplified user experiences as well as strongly minimized downtime due to failover measures and system redundancy. A couple of activities currently being handled by web apps are as follows:

  • Client relationship control;
  • Project supervision;
  • Workflow control;
  • Client portals;
  • Loyalty initiatives;
  • E-commerce.

Now, discover a nice sample of a startup that could take advantage of a web application (customized) designed to satisfy a certain need.

Imagine that you control a design startup with 3 graphic designers who all work from various parts of the world. Most probably, all of them possess unique expertise as well as portfolios. Let’s suggest their involvement in solutions for your clients varies. It would significantly economize your budget and time if you implemented a safe, web-enabled method to interact with your staff, keep key client solution info and guarantee daily operational control of your business. You want to observe progress on solutions in real time, and for this, you need a central web app that is reliable, scalable, and effective.

Hire a web app engineer. With perfect communication regarding app specifications and efficiency expectations, a cost-saving web app solution can be developed and introduced in fewer periods than you might expect. Every requirement is unique, so a talented web developer will want to negotiate your specific needs to get the most precise design deadline and budget. Have no ideas where to find such a developer? Check Engre.

The benefit is to utilize web apps to ensure businesses and startups operate and collaborate with their contractors in a way that averts the tech constraints of the previous decade. As far as outdated apps are costly to run and get serviced, a web app can frequently pay for itself within a year of its launch and even faster!

Resolving More Challenges with More Apps

What other challenges could using a web app resolve? The most obvious advantage would be that you don’t need hardware to handle it. Web apps are commonly located on redundant servers that do not need get serviced by the client. Additionally, user access gets less artificial.

Moreover, there is no need for memory-hungry or cumbersome software that requires being installed, as well as regularly updated. As far as size is taken into account in every solution, modifying the ways the app operates is a simple procedure that can be performed with little to zero downtime. As your startup or business increases and adjusts, your web app acts the same, too.

Think about how much simpler it is to apply Quickbooks Online rather than a locally-installed type of software. With the web app, users remove the requirement to unpack software, install it, introduce hotfixes, supervise its solution keys, and care for it as they would do for any other local app.

Experiencing Access 24/7

Taking into account that business platforms generated by web apps are web-oriented, users can enjoy access 24/7 on the condition of they possess an Internet connection. Moreover, they are entirely flexible, delivering access from nearly any browser or equipment.

When desktop-oriented software requires updating, every other device on which the app is installed requires individual upgrading. This responsibility often falls to employees and may be disregarded in case they have no time, leading to your business or startup being vulnerable to safety violations.

Parallel that with a web app, where a functionality or safety upgrade can be realized for every version of the web app without downtime, providing employees with permanent access to the renewed app version.

Getting More Powerful Safety Level

Applying desktop-oriented software, a damaged/stolen computer usually becomes a very expensive and time-consuming case; risking your data and requesting you to address your software supplier and ask for the software to be re-installed on a novel desktop.

Using a web app (considering info preserved in the cloud), you can keep calm as in case your computer is damaged/stolen, it will very promptly be back to the “operate as usual” regime.

The benefit is that web apps keep data on a remote server and if you remember your web address, user name, and password, you can enter any computer or smartphone safely and your startup or business can be revitalized in the shortest period.

In case of data loss due to human/program error, it can be speedily recovered from the cloud. A perfect situation, agree?

Spending Less Budget for Design

A web app commonly operates in a web browser. Where does this lead? That implies that a single, adaptive web app can be utilized across various types of devices. Though web apps will require to be examined on several browsers, the advantage is that you shouldn’t test them on various operating platforms. This organizes development and testing simpler. This reduces the design budget and minimizes design time.

Reducing Hardware Budget

Web-oriented platforms can help avert the requirement for strong customer PCs because processing is executed on the host server, which can be designed to effectively handle peak simultaneous demand. So, they can minimize the preserving, memory, and processor needs for customer PCs. Considering the whole business or startup, this can result in a powerful budget economy.

To finalize, when it comes to revenue-generating, in the contemporary digital surrounding, web apps are getting more and more vital on the contrary to official businesses/startups’ websites. At a time when a website demonstrates only the data regarding a certain business or startup, a web app delivers more scalable client coverage due to its benefits that are more effective and exciting for clients. After all, web apps can be effortlessly accessed and utilized on various devices as they grasp lesser bytes when used or loaded.

Tips for Creating a Great Website for Your Small Business

Author: Eva Benoit

Do you run a small business or want to start one? If so, you might be thinking about creating a website to help market your company and increase sales. But before you start building a website, it’s important to make sure you’re not wasting your time and money by creating a site that won’t help you achieve your goals. To create a great website for your business, check out these tips presented by Designweb Louisville.

Tips on Designing Your Site

Designing your website is important. Even if your site gets 10,000 hits per day — if people don’t like the design they won’t come back. A successful business website needs to be clean and uncluttered so visitors can find what they want quickly and easily. Here are some simple steps you can take to design your website successfully:

  • Have clear calls to action (CTA)
  • Use consistent styling and colors
  • Make navigating your website easy
  • Make forms clear and easy to fill in
  • Making it accessible to those with disabilities
  • Provide a search function

Optimizing for Search Engines

The most important secret of all is search engine optimization (SEO), particularly if you’re running an e-commerce site or your business depends on traffic via search engines. Optimizing involves spending some time working out what keywords people are typing into Google to find products like yours, and making sure those keywords are used within your website. Search engines look at these words as signals of relevance, so they’ll send more visitors your way if they pick up on them.

Tracking Your Progress With Analytics

Once you’ve created your website, make sure you’re tracking its progress with analytics. If people aren’t coming back to your site and you don’t know why, then it will be almost impossible to make improvements. Using analytics allows you to focus on results that matter rather than guessing at what those results might be.

User Experience and Customer-Focused Content

A website doesn’t need to be flashy or complicated. In fact, you’ll get more traffic and more conversions if your site is uncomplicated and easy to use. The best way to optimize for user experience is to create customer-focused content: short, powerful descriptions of what you do and how you can help customers. When possible, include examples of work you’ve done so prospects can see your creativity in action.

Different Professionals You Can Hire

The right web development company can develop or redesign a website with branding colors and styles consistent with your identity. They can also ensure your website is fast, secure, and optimized. Finding an expert is as easy as using a good job board. If you need help with marketing your business in Crestwood, KY, there are professionals who can handle everything from content creation to social media management. If you do a search for “average cost freelance web developer,” you’ll find that they cost between $15 and $30 per hour, but you can expect to pay more depending on their skills and experience.

Knowledge is Power

Knowledge is power when creating a great website, and knowing what steps have worked for other small businesses in your industry can help point you in the right direction. Be sure to visit Designweb Louisville for help with business website development.

Author Bio

Eva Benoit specializes in helping professionals with stress and anxiety but welcomes working with people from all walks of life. She works with her clients to discover and explore avenues that will bring them balance, peace, and improved overall well-being that can last a lifetime. 

How to Design the Perfect Portfolio Page to Best Represent Your Brand’s Quality

Author: Eleanor Hecks

One of the best ways to attract new clients is showing them your top projects. Your website portfolio page is your chance to highlight your expertise in specific areas. You can use it to stand out from the competition and make a strong impression so they remember you when they are ready to hire someone.

According to Internet Live Stats, there are approximately 1.86 billion websites online. However, not all are active and some park on top of other domains. Still, you’re competing with a lot of noise to get your portfolio page noticed. People have many options on where to spend their time. Make your page interesting enough that they want to devote some of their day there.

What is the secret ingredient that makes one portfolio page stand out from another? You must grab attention, showcase the wide scope of your work and instill the idea your brand is high quality all with a few photos and text. Here are the steps to achieving the perfect online presence.

1. Choose Your Best Work

Selecting only the photos highlighting the top quality work you do might seem like a no-brainer. However, it’s easy to hone in on the project you completed and not realize the photos don’t truly do it justice. Your portfolio is about more than just great projects. It must encompass great pictures to highlight your abilities.

Make sure any photos you use clearly show the before and after of your work. Take the time to invest in photo editing and excellent equipment so your images aren’t filled with shadows and poor lighting. Select only the best images.

Ronald L. Receveur, DDS offers dental implants. They showcase their best work in their “Smile Gallery.” You can scroll through the different images to see the beautiful smiles they’ve created.

Something they add to their portfolio page that works particularly well is a link to patient testimonials. Click on any video to hear more about what their service did for the person and get a glimpse of what their smile looks like in real life.

2. Add Trust Factors

When people land on your page, they have no reason to trust you. Even if a friend or family member referred them, they’ve not done business with you before. You must show them you can be trusted. You can add several trust factors to your portfolio page to show you’re honest.

In addition to reviews and testimonials, make your contact information easy to find. People want to know they can get in touch if something goes wrong after their purchase. Add any organizations you belong to, such as professional trade associations or the Better Business Bureau.

3. Utilize Case Studies

There may be times when you have a particularly challenging task to complete. Highlighting how you were able to overcome difficulties shows clients you don’t stop until you find the right solution. Case studies give you an opportunity to share photos of the finished project, but also dig deeper into the story behind the job.

Illuminated Integration shares the details of a job they did for Otterbein Church. The task was to convert a gymnasium into a church sanctuary. They had to figure out how to create a welcoming atmosphere that suited the needs of a large, modern church. The company worked on lighting, acoustics, audio, video, curtains and atmospheric controls.

4. Tell Them Who You Are

In the midst of sharing stories about your projects, make sure you show potential clients who you are. While telling customer stories, tell your own story. What do you stand for? What is at the core of why you do the work you do?

At a minimum, include a short about section and a link to more details. Your portfolio page is an excellent location to share a video about your brand story.

5. Share the Details

Your portfolio is about more than just the finished product of your hard work. People want to know you understand the steps involved in getting from Point A to Point B. You must tell a story as you share examples of your work. What was particularly challenging about the job? How is it unique from other projects of a similar nature? Show off your expertise.

Walnut Ridge Landscape Design shares their three-dimensional plan for the space next to a photograph of the finished project. By showing site visitors their concept, they prove they can come up with a plan and bring it to life.

6. Include a Call to Action (CTA)

You might not naturally place a CTA button on your portfolio page, but the goal of the page is to seek new leads. When someone views your images, the ideal result will be they want to hire you.

Make your CTA easy to find. Ideally, you’ll include a link near the top of the page offering a free consultation or quote. Some people will click the button right away and others will spend time perusing your portfolio, so you may want to add a second button under your gallery or to the side.

Try different placements until you find the one your users respond best to. Conduct split testing, adjust the wording, try different colors and keep tweaking until you’re satisfied with your conversion rates.

Quality Over Quantity

Your photos are the face of your brand online. It’s better to have a few high-quality images taken by a professional photographer than a ton of pictures with fuzzy focus or dark shadows. Ideally, you’ll choose a wide range of projects so you can showcase your abilities, but don’t be afraid to limit yourself until you have the right ones to prove your worth as a business.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.