Why Your Website’s Design is Losing Readers

Designing a website that achieves your online goals can be a complex task. Although personal preferences vary when it comes to the look of a site, webmasters must recognize that every detail has an effect on the reader.

If you want to increase your website’s audience and conversion rate, you’ll need to design it in a way that supports these goals. Your content’s visual layout, color, and style will have an immediate impact on the actions users take once they’ve engaged with your site.

Guide Your Audience
Every website has a story to tell. How clearly that story is told determines how likely your readers will understand and connect with the content you provide. You must therefore guide them in a way that helps them understand the message of your site and what benefits they stand to gain.

Many websites are clunky and confusing. They have either too many options (menus, calls to action), or not enough. In either case, visitors can be confused and not know exactly what to do. More importantly, if the value of your offer isn’t clearly demonstrated within the first few seconds, they’ll quickly hit the “back” button.

Design That Engages
Although the concept of user engagement has become popular in online marketing, there’s much more to it than many realize. Engagement is more than simply getting a response from your audience. Your website must draw them into your content and give them a clarity.

Visual Path
By creating a visual path that’s easy to follow, your readers can quickly find what they’re looking for, and be compelled to take further action. When your value proposition is clear, your audience immediately understands the benefits they’ll receive.

Where you place your content will indicate its importance. By positioning more critical information towards the top, you can influence how your readers prioritize your content. You can make it larger and add more space around it to further emphasize your message.

Color
Using colors strategically will increase the response to your site. It’s been estimated that approximately 85% of a person’s reasons in purchasing a product is based on color. Colors can trigger emotional responses. The color blue can have a relaxing effect, while grey can be neutral and isolating. Pink is highly gender-specific and should only be used in light of your target audience.

Font Style
Your site’s font should be clear and easy on the eyes of your readers. This is one of the biggest mistakes many webmasters make. Although a particular font style might be appealing to you, it may not be easy for your audience to read.

Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana are a few examples of clear, easy-to-read styles that can enhance the performance of your site. Your text should contrast against the background, and its size should not be too small that readers find it difficult to read.

In addition to the quality of the content you provide on your website, you must also have a design that makes it easy for readers to understand. By considering the placement of your content, as well as the colors and fonts used in your design, you’ll keep your readers engaged longer and help them quickly understand the benefits they’ll gain by sticking around.

Read also: Make Your Website Mobile Compatible: Responsive Design

 

5 Reasons to Consider WordPress for Your CMS

Nearly 19% of the internet is run on WordPress because it is a fantastic content management system (CMS), which is fully customizable and adaptable to the needs of almost any type of professional. Here are five reasons why you should consider using WordPress as your CMS for your website:

1) YOU DON’T NEED ANY CODING SKILLS TO MANAGE YOUR CONTENT

If you don’t know your HTML from your CSS, you don’t need to worry about that with WordPress. You will be able to write and edit content, add web pages, create blog posts and respond to comments, add images and much more, all without learning even the most basic coding.

2) YOUR WEBSITE WILL LOOK FANTASTIC

Unlike many ‘build your own website’ or other business website services which offer overpriced, tired templates that look like something from 10 years ago, WordPress can look great. There are thousands upon thousands of different themes that have been pre-designed by professional web developers. You can easily choose from any of these themes to make your website look professional and up to date.

3) NO-COST LICENSING

WordPress is open source, which means that the code is free to use and improve upon, unlike many other Content Management Systems. While some of our clients do prefer enterprise-level content management systems such asEktron and Sitefinity, many of our clients place a higher value on the open-source GPL licensing by which WordPress is offered.

4) IT HAS GREAT SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an important aspect of building a website if your site is going to bring any revenue. Everyone wants their site to have every advantage to achieve one of the top 3 results in Google and Bing. WordPress is coded in a manner which is extremely Google friendly, meaning that a website built on WordPress lends an advantage if you also apply some SEO tactics. See our other posts on Optimizing your Website for Search Engines.

5) HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE

One fantastic part of WordPress is that it has a large number of plug-ins that allow you to customize your website. Essentially, plugins are add-ons that you can choose to include or exclude in the design of your webpages. For example, if you want an email newsletter sign up form, you can simply install a plug-in that will add one for you.

You can even get plugins to guide you through proper SEO when writing your pages or posts. You can select a group of target keywords, and the plugin will help you optimize your written content for those keywords.

WordPress is a high quality CMS which was built by some of the most knowledgeable programmers available. It is highly customizable and is designed to meet a wide array of user’s needs. WordPress has quickly become one of the most used blogging platforms, and for good reason.

If you are in need of a CMS for your business or even personal uses, WordPress definitely warrants serious consideration. Just keep in mind that the most effective websites usually require investment for maximum return and benefit for your business.

Additionally, if you do not have the time to invest in learning your way around WordPress on your own, YourDesignOnline does this day in and day out. We can build your site for you, based on your specifications and business objectives.

Do you use WordPress? Love it or hate it? Let us know in the comments below.

Property Maintenance Brickwork Repairs Pointing And Jointing

In general, masonry work that has been properly constructed requires only very minimal maintenance or repairs to retain it’s good condition. On older buildings it will be much more likely that the joints between the brickwork and stone will be degraded and be showing signs of deterioration which can be attributed to any number of problems.

Problems that can cause your brickwork or masonry to deteriorate include moister damage from leaking roofs, damaged guttering and drain pipes or leaking plumbing. Ingress of moister at ground floor level due to inadequate damp proofing is a major cause of masonry damage, other problems may even affect sills, lintels, eves and parapets. Structural settling can also be devastating to brickwork.

Sometimes it can be the case that problems with masonry and brickwork arise due to poor workmanship of the original Mason. Poor mixing of incorrect proportions can lead to frost damage and sulphate attack by soluble salts contained within the bricks themselves.

Sometimes issues of damp are hard to avoid. The normal evaporation of moister from the bricks and mortar can be affected restricting the normal evaporation process due to extreme shading by overhangs and close proximity of adjacent buildings.

Before attempting to take on any repair or restoration of your damaged brickwork or masonry, the underlying causes of your particular problems should be addressed. The amount of the repair will be governed by the degree to which the decay has penetrated. In the worst circumstances partial rebuilding of the structure may be the only remedy. Carefully probing in to the bed joints of the building will be the best indication of the condition of the brickwork. Where the mortar has completely degraded it is a waste of time simply to re-point and is often necessary to rebuild the entire structure.

Preparation of the mortar is paramount as it may vary in composition widely according to requirements, but the general rule is that the strength of the mortar should never exceed the strength of the actual bricks themselves. Over strength mixing can lead to serious degradation of softer bricks and stone, this being attributed to the hard mortar resisting and restricting evaporation through its dense surface leading to saturated bricks, the affected brick work is then subjected to a hard frost and it will crack and break down the structure of the bricks.

There are many different types and styles of pointing. Flush pointing is a common finish on all fair faced work, both internal and external. Joints are filled flush to the masonry surface forming no recess to collect dust. Struck and Cut style pointing is usually internal and used to pick out the bricks in a feature, which is done by running a trowel along the bed joint and pressing in at the lower edge of the joint. Rounded or Bucket handle and weather struck pointing, recessed pointing and tucked pointing are just a few more examples of jointing methods used by builders over the last 2000 years, luckily most property in need of maintenance today was only built in the last 300 years. If you need to carry out re-pointing or replacing of brickwork or stone to a listed building in Nottingham you should be aware that all repairs must dry to a shade that is consistent to that of the original property or you will be made to remove or color it until it does.

When your in need of brickwork repairs or building and restoration work doing and need the expertise of a seasoned professional, Dcs-Services have a gleaming reputation and are one of the finest builders in Essex.

Read also Location Ideas for Buying Property in Essex

5 Reasons to Consider WordPress for Your CMS

Nearly 19% of the web runs on WordPress because it is a fantastic content management system (CMS), which is fully customizable and adaptable to the needs of almost any type of professional. Here are five reasons why you should consider using WordPress as your CMS for your website:

1) YOU DON’T NEED ANY CODING SKILLS TO MANAGE YOUR CONTENT
If you don’t know your HTML from your CSS, you don’t need to worry about that with WordPress. You will be able to write and edit content, add web pages, create blog posts and respond to comments, add images and much more, all without learning even the most basic coding.

2) YOUR WEBSITE WILL LOOK FANTASTIC
Unlike many ‘build your own website’ or other business website services which offer overpriced, tired templates that look like something from 10 years ago, WordPress can look great. There are thousands upon thousands of different themes that have been pre-designed by professional web developers. You can easily choose from any of these themes to make your website look professional and up to date.

3) NO-COST LICENSING
WordPress is open source, which means that the code is free to use and improve upon, unlike many other Content Management Systems. While some of our clients do prefer enterprise-level content management systems such as Ektron and Sitefinity, many of our clients place a higher value on the open-source GPL licensing by which WordPress is offered.

4) IT HAS GREAT SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an important aspect of building a website if your site is going to bring any revenue. Everyone wants their site to have every advantage to achieve one of the top 3 results in Google and Bing. WordPress is coded in a manner which is extremely Google friendly, meaning that a website built on WordPress lends an advantage if you also apply some SEO tactics. See our other posts on Optimizing your Website for Search Engines.

5) HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE
One fantastic part of WordPress is that it has a large number of plug-ins that allow you to customize your website. Essentially, plugins are add-ons that you can choose to include or exclude in the design of your webpages. For example, if you want an email newsletter sign up form, you can simply install a plug-in that will add one for you.

You can even get plugins to guide you through proper SEO when writing your pages or posts. You can select a group of target keywords, and the plugin will help you optimize your written content for those keywords.

WordPress is a high quality CMS which was built by some of the most knowledgeable programmers available. It is highly customizable and is designed to meet a wide array of user’s needs. WordPress has quickly become one of the most used blogging platforms, and for good reason.

If you are in need of a CMS for your business or even personal uses, WordPress definitely warrants serious consideration. Just keep in mind that the most effective websites usually require investment for maximum return and benefit for your business.

Additionally, if you do not have the time to invest in learning your way around WordPress on your own, YourDesignOnline does this day in and day out. We can build your site for you, based on your specifications and business objectives.

Do you use WordPress? Love it or hate it? Let us know in the comments below.