The Basics

Every company should have a style guide. If you don’t, get on that. Within your company, you need to regulate your brand’s outward appearance, but you should also set the guidelines for external companies to use your brand properly. Even more importantly, you need to have a style guide for incoming and existing users and customers alike. Brand recognition is what drives sales and spreads your content around the web and material world.

All brand guidelines should include, at a very basic level, your brand colors, proper use of your logo, icons and images. It should also include any typography or fonts utilized by your company for web and printed materials. These can be as broad or as micro and specific as you would like. But the rule of thumb is the more specific the better, and the few outliers or one-off situations you may have can be resolved when the time comes.

I typically see two types of style guides, although they share many of the same parts. These are print and web style guides. A print style guide will include guidelines specific to the use of logos, colors, type, etc. for print media, billboards, pamphlets, business cards, and other print collateral. A web style guide will be presented the same, but the guidelines are specific to the web. This is because web and print are treated differently in units of measure, how colors are utilized, resolution, etc.

Always take both your print and online presence into consideration. Colors and fonts usually won’t look the same on digital devices as they do on printed materials.

Your Content

The design and execution of your website hold weight, but the content on your website carries more weight in order to properly communicate your brand. The message that you spread to your users or customers needs to be consistent and work to improve and strengthen your company or product image. When people say that something is “on brand,” this is what they’re referring to.

If your content works against your brand or could potentially hurt your appeal in the eyes of your users or just doesn’t apply to your mission, it’s off brand. Users expect consistent content that is fresh or new and information from your company that reflects progress and forward momentum. I’m not talking about tweets or Instagram posts, but blogs, advertisements, reviews, testimonials, or any other content-driven brand exposure.

Keeping in mind that your content reflects your brand accurately, the design that accompanies it and delivery should also be in line with all of your basic design principles. Content is what keeps people around, but the design is what keeps your brand in the zeitgeist, which is especially marked in the world outside your website in places like social media.

Social Media

Social media is a full-time job. It might not seem that way to someone not directly involved with internet communities, but it requires a lot of precision and dedication to grow your online presence and retain interest effectively.

Knowing what to post is less critical than knowing who you’re posting for and why you’re on the particular platform to begin with. Your brand is your brand and that won’t change, but the way you advertise to the public will be based on who you’re targeting. Facebook, for instance, is primarily comprised of women between the ages of 30-49 years, which has drastically shifted older in the last decade. So your strategy will need to accommodate that generation and group.

Twitter’s largest demographic are Millennials, who need a different marketing strategy and perhaps a different brand approach. To skew even lower, if you were to feel the need to advertise on Snapchat, you might find that you need to adjust even more, as their primary demographic is under 34 years of age with the vast majority being 18-24 years of age. Needless to say, you can’t expect the same strategy, content, or brand expression to affect every demographic in the same way.

Do your research and keep in mind that social media is targeted.

Imagery

Imagery is, of course, a must. With the attention of most users being under seconds on average, imagery is a requirement to get a user’s attention and keep it long enough for your content to take hold. There are now dozens of free stock photography websites out there like StockSnap, Pexels, and Unsplash which can help provide a sense of consistent imagery on your website, but I’m inclined to recommend that these be avoided for the sake of your brand.

If your brand is reliant on some sort of imagery, that should be something handled within your company by hiring a professional photographer with a consistent photographic aesthetic. Your brand identity is what makes you memorable, but for general brand aesthetic (business, lifestyle, fun, serious, etc.), your imagery says a lot. That translates over to places like Instagram, if your company utilizes the platform. Consistency and quality are key to providing a great experience for your consumer that informs the content and extends your brand aesthetic.

Clarity

Is your brand then, after taking into consideration your brand guidelines, target demographics, and brand aesthetic, accurately represented on your website? If not, contact us.

The goal to a consistent brand is really having your guidelines set in stone. There should be no wiggle room when your company’s reputation is on the line. Content, imagery, and social media help strengthen your brand aesthetic, memorability, and recognition only as much as your identity is managed properly. If you take only one thing away from this post, it should be that your brand’s style guide is a requirement for successful long-term branding.

The post Website Branding Basics appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Here are 13 reasons why it’s time.

1. Your Branding Has Changed

The most obvious reason for a redesign is that your company’s identity has changed.

Circumstance: You throw some dollar bills at a new logo or a new suite of fancy printed materials. That’s fantastic, congrats, but your website still reflects your old logo or brand materials.

New identity updates are a great time to unveil a sparkly new website to go along with it. In an ideal world, you roll out everything all at once. But in the real world, you can roll your brand updates out in phases. Either way, get it done; update your brand 100% or not at all. Discrepancies can hurt your bottom line and brand awareness. If you’ve made any updates to your brand that fundamentally changed the way the public perceives your company, you need a new website.

2. You Didn’t Think “Internet on Mobile Devices” Was Going to Be a Thing

Let me tell you a little story. Back in 2007, I had a client that had just rebuilt their entire website—spent the time and money to re-infrastructure their entire site from the ground up with a new design, new sitemap, and new SEO efforts. The thing looked pretty good. Despite the fact that responsive internet had been a thing for a few years at that point, he was certain that “mobile internet was just a fad.” A few weeks later, the first generation iPhone was released, cementing mobile internet and the need for a 100% responsive website.

Don’t be that guy. You don’t have to chase trends, but you need to be aware of how and where your website is used. Having a mobile-ready website has never been more important than it is today. As of Q3 of 2018, mobile traffic represents more than 52% of all internet traffic. You cannot afford to not have a mobile-ready website. If your website looks the same on your smartphone as it does on your Windows 95 desktop, you need a new website.

3. I Have a Collection of Snails Faster Than Your Website

I’ve mentioned this before on previous blogs of mine, but you have, at most, seven seconds for your website to load and grab your user’s attention before they’re likely to just bail altogether. With mobile traffic being so important, that number is even more important on slower mobile internet speeds—3G for example. Internet that slow really depends on your target demographic, but you get the point.  Google’s Lighthouse will test for this. I really don’t feel that I need to get into the details; it’s pretty self-explanatory. If I can sing the entire Wicked soundtrack before your website loads, you need a new website.

4. Half of Your Pages 404

I get it. The older your website ages and the more content you add, change, or remove, the more of a mess you make. It’s inevitable and expected. You can only do so much. The problem is that most users don’t understand or even care about the finer points of URL redirection or what a 301 code is. If your URL, according to the search engines, directs users to a web page that doesn’t exist, your website is broken and needs an audit. Nine times out of ten, you can resolve and redirect those URLs just fine without much problem. But if you have more 404s than you have pages, it’s time to burn your website down, treat yourself to a new one, and account for all of those 404s in your rebuild.

5. I Just Can’t Find Anything!

I’m talking specifically about organization and flow. Current website design trends take into consideration the philosophy that “less is more,” and the direction/navigation/call-to-actions should be clear and easily accessible. Ten years ago, it was popular to use fifteen content sliders, forty-seven modals, and paragraphs for days. Today, that’s not the case. I might argue that your website content needs an overhaul before you get a website redesign. It’s important to make sure that your users are finding what they need and are spending time on your website. If your Google Analytics tell you that your bounce rate is high (roughly 56-70%+), you might need to take a good hard look at your website. Pour yourself a celebratory glass of shandy because you need a new website. And… it… will… be… glorious!

6. You’ve Been Hacked More Than Zero Times in the Last 10 Years

Okay, that’s a low bar. Chances are that everyone has been hacked in one way or another over the years. Security and vulnerabilities pop up on the regular. However, if your site leaves you at risk of any privacy or security intrusions, you should take a look at your setup. Technologies that are typically considered “legacy” often slow down on active development or security patches. Look at what your website is built on and whether or not there are reported issues with it. Even older versions of WordPress can leave you vulnerable, so always err on the side of updating. They’re constantly looking to keep you safe with fairly-continuous active development, especially when security and privacy are concerned. If you:

• Can’t update your website’s framework
• Don’t know what your website is built on
• Have been hacked in any way in recent years
• Are unable to find a security statement from your host provider
• Require a 3.5″ floppy disk to save your new blog post

You need a new website.

7. TL;DR

Your website has too much content. No way I’m going to get through all that. Too long; didn’t read, and I guarantee that most of your user base is in the same boat. The only acceptable place for larger amounts of content are white papers, articles and blog posts, and even then, within reason. I’m busy. I have things to do, important things; I don’t have all day to absorb 22 pages of your thoughts on spreadsheet data entry. Your content really needs to be quick, targeted, well-articulated and broken into easily digestible parts.

*Pause for digestion.*

Your About page doesn’t need a 52-page dossier on your company’s history. I need to know simply: who, what, when, where, why, and your goals for the future. I might need a little info on each of your “notable” employees or information about your location, if that’s important. But if a page on your website takes more than five minutes to read (fifteen for articles), it’s too long. You need a good hard look at your content and to think about a new website.

8. I Can’t Find You on Any Search Engine

We all know that search engine results rankings are important. If you don’t show up on the first page or two, you’re likely to get lost on the internet. But choosing the best inline-keywords only goes so far, and in fact, I’ve still seen websites that utilize meta keywords which were deprecated some time ago. The truth of it is that so much more goes into determining where you fall in search results and how search engines find your website in the first place. As long as you’re updating your content continuously, you should be considered relevant to search engine spiders.

If search engines can’t find you, my bet is that your website doesn’t adhere to web standards, isn’t accessible, or isn’t set up in such a way that search engines can make sense of the content enough to properly rank you. This is probably more than a content issue. This could be a systemic issue that needs to be resolved. If you’re doing all you can to boost your rankings and are failing, I think it’s time you rebuild your website.

9. Your Goals Have Changed

This one is less obvious if you’ve been looking at the same website, or been with the same company for a while, but still important. You might have a relatively up-to-date website, maybe to match your new branding, but perhaps your demographic shifted after that rebrand, or you’ve pivoted to combat market changes. Either way, if your website is no longer effective at capturing users, it might be time to redesign or rebuild. There are lots of platforms out there to test before you commit, like Optimizely for A/B testing, and dipping a toe in the internet waters to find the best solution for your target. The important thing is that you keep an eye on your analytics and conversions, test, and if you’re not able to achieve the results you need with what you have, you might need a new website.

10. Your Website Looks Like a Vision Board

We all made those when we were kids, right? A collage of magazine cutouts and old receipts from Chuck E. Cheese’s would declare our intentions for the future. It works in that setting, since the idea of “putting it out into the universe” is all that’s required. We could make it as messy and overlaid as we wanted. On the internet, however, clarity is key. If your website resembles a vision board, you’ve got some issues to resolve. Chances are you’re dealing with “bad code” or “old code” that can be fixed with a little TLC and some elbow grease. Take some time to organize your content a bit better, reorganize, and clean things up. But if despite your intervention, your website just ends up looking like a Jackson Pollock painting, you have deeper problems that would probably take more work to dig through and fix than it would to start over. It might be time for a new website.

11. Your Website is Almost Back in Style, and Not In a Good Way

We all remember the old Geocities websites. No real conventions had been set in place yet, and the options were quite literally endless—tables and GIFs and Marquees, OH MY! Design trends have evolved over the years quite a bit, though we’re starting to see a trend into brutalist websites, which really plays off of what is acceptable and unacceptable on the web and challenges the currently accepted conventions. It does what any art movement does, questions the status quo. That said, your crappy website is not back in style, even though it looks that way. Under the brutal exterior, these sites utilize the current trends in code development, understand security and performance, and follow the rules required for search engines and users to find the site in the first place. Your website belongs back in 2001, but if you just LOVE that style, rebuild it right and get on the brutalist train.

12. Your Website Is More Than Four or Five Years Old

This one’s simple. Things change. Quickly. If your website is more than even a couple years old, I’d consider giving it a face lift. If it’s older than that, it’s time for a redesign and rebuild. At a certain point, band-aids, patches, and face lifts, like with people, don’t turn out great. You most certainly do not need all those flashy bells and whistles that you saw on the Awwwards website, but you do need to catch up, stay current, and rebuild your website to last you another several years, at the least. You owe it to your brother’s bratty children.

13. It Just Looks Old. You Know It’s Time.

Sometimes you just know. Maybe you don’t know why, but you know it’s time. It could be a combination of any of the things above, or it just feels outdated. Maybe it is heavily skeuomorphic circa Apple 2003 or just hasn’t been touched in a few years. I personally revamp my code base or website design every year. Things change way too fast to keep up with the current trends, and frankly, why would I want to? I don’t need a fad website, I need a future-proof website.

So, Let’s Get Going…

Before you take a drive to rebuild-town, use your best judgment. Audit your website, your content, and your sitemap. Take a look at your goals, your SEO, and your bounce rates. Compare your brand and your website. If you don’t like what you see, feel confused or uncertain of what you’re looking for, or you just need a second pair of eyes, we can help. Just give us a shout.

It might be time to rebuild your website.

The post 13 Reasons Why It’s Time for a Website Redesign appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Despite an internet of resources, most websites don’t use imagery well. Considering the quality of these images, chances are that most companies just haven’t given imagery as much thought as it needs or deserves. With platforms like Wix or Squarespace putting so much emphasis on website building, it’s difficult to fully comprehend the need for stunning imagery online. What they forget to tell you is that with great imagery comes great responsibility: write good content and use in moderation.

There is an extensive list of dos and don’ts when it comes to website design and content creation, but we’ve narrowed them down to a few that will immediately improve your online presence.

Do tell a story.

Don’t regurgitate details, but do craft a narrative. There is a place for more more information or specifications—products. Craft a story and punctuate them with images to help guide your user. Don’t just tell them how you do a thing; you need to tell them why and sell the idea.

Do use your images as needed only.

Content should be the focus; images should help illustrate the narrative. You want to tell your company’s story or any story, but like any children’s book, your audience needs visual stimulation to prevent reader’s fatigue. Highlight those key points in the story with some visual dynamite. A purposefully used image will engage your readers and keep them wanting more. Not enough imagery leaves the reader bored and willing to bounce. Too many images overwhelm them. It’s a delicate balance.

Don’t put your images on the back burner.

The biggest problem I see in sites is that images are often an afterthought or used only as design elements. We’ve all seen those sites with parallax animations and video backgrounds with very little text. Not only are you leaving your audience with a need for more information, but you’re also effectively confusing them. Without content to inform your image choices, you have only visual fluff that can alienate some users, or at the least, restrict discovery of your content. The primary goal of any website is to keep people engaged and well-fed. Any hurdles put up to the contrary affect that bottom line.

Do focus on the details.

This is important, especially if you sell products. One of the biggest downfalls of corporate sales is poorly photographed product and lack of detailed imagery. Anyone who compares products online expects to see items at 360 degrees, and in some cases, a look at the inside. Just because the back or side is unimportant to you as a company doesn’t mean it’s not important to your users. Apple, and recently Microsoft, are fantastic at exploring the ins and outs of a product visually. Though it’s always best to A/B test product pages to increase conversions, I venture to guess that you’ll find people convert better when given a detailed look, empowering them to make an informed decision.

Don’t rely too heavily on stock photography sites.

Your website’s imagery should be authentic and personal. I can’t stress this one enough. Stock photos have their uses, but your site isn’t one of them. To be successful online, you need to be seen and heard and stand out above the rest. Stock photos, if anything, tend to throw up a red flag for me; and I expect this is probably true for most people. Stock photo-heavy sites tend to feel fake or staged. Remove your stock photos and replace them with pictures of your actual company, product, story, or location. You’d be amazed how quickly you’ll improve the feel of your website.

If you have to rely on stock photos for some reason, look toward options like Unsplash or Pexels, which provide a source of professional, crowd-sourced images. To your users, these images will appear far more honest than the traditional stock photo site.

Do have an image hierarchy or focus.

Like content, images carry varying weight, some more significant than others. I like to tell people to refer to The New York Times or any newspaper to see how images are used.

You’ll find that the more relevant the content, the larger and more powerful the images. This should be true for websites, as well. Featured or focus content should be more important or more focused, supporting images next and so on.

Do take advantage of the GIF format (if it makes sense).

When most people think of GIFs I imagine they’re also thinking about memes, but the file format works informatively as well. From Amazon to Google and Apple to that app that just launched, companies are utilizing GIFs to help bring life to their products. The most common use of GIFs in this way are screen captures―desktop or app-specific animations to illustrate a feature or highlight a function (see below). Windows users could use an app like LICEcap. And while Mac users can also use it, I prefer Recordit.

Whether taking advantage of the meme craze to have a little fun, or showing a short repeating clip of video (or more likely a screen capture), a GIF is sure to help give your page a little pizzazz.

Summation

Websites are an expression and extension of your brand and your images are a direct representation of the quality of your work. Your users expect you to be authentic and they’re smart enough to know when things aren’t, in reality, how they appear online.

Trust us. This is what we do.

The post Effectively Using Images to Tell Your Company’s Story appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Storytelling can also be used on your website to connect with users and increase engagement. A website with a well–thought out hierarchy, carefully crafted content, and user-first approach to design can tell a story that people will remember and share with others. Do you remember the first time you watched a video on YouTube? You probably couldn’t wait to share the experience of watching hilarious cat videos with your friends! YouTube had created a method for people to share their stories, and contained that inside their own storytelling framework. With a net worth of over 70 billion dollars, I’d venture that this tactic is still working out for them. Before we dive into how to use this strategy on your own site, let’s look at why it’s so successful.

David Ogilvy was one of the original “Mad Men” of the fifties and sixties and is considered by most as the “Father of Advertising.” David walked to work every day and would pass by a homeless man begging for change and holding a sign that read “I am blind.” The homeless man would often hold a small cup of change to his ear and rattle it—trying to see how much he’d collected. One day, David was feeling particularly generous and tossed some change into the beggars cup,  to which he said to David “Thank you. God bless!”

David stopped to talk to him for a little bit. He explained to the beggar what he did for a living and asked him if he had permission to modify the sign a bit. The beggar told him to go ahead. David stooped down with a marker and changed the sign to read “It is spring and I am blind.”

Later that day when David was walking home from work, he noticed the beggar now had not only an entire cup full, but 4 cups overflowing with coins! David stopped to talk to him again and was met with praise: “What did you do to my sign? People have been amazingly generous today!”

David had taken a simple statement I am blind and turned it into a story It is Spring and I am blind. It was a story that everyone passing by could connect with on an emotional level. They were able to engage with the beggar and feel empathy towards him. The sign—the story—was a bridge between the beggar and everyone else.

This has long been a successful strategy of art directors, Disney animators, video game developers, and even website owners. The story is the bridge between the user and whatever the idea is you’re trying to get across to them is. Whether you goal is to get users to donate money to a cause or sign up for a newsletter—the formula is the same: create a story around it.

Let’s look at a company who has really taken the idea of emotional design and storytelling to a new level: MailChimp. MailChimp revolutionized the email marketing scene and continues to innovate in the UX space. They even offer a great UX newsletter. They were able to take something inherently boring—the dreaded email campaign—and turn into a fun and engaging task. Part of this is largely due to their hilarious mascot. When logging into your dashboard, you’re often greeted with a funny and light-hearted message.

The smart folks at MailChimp had taken the time to research their audience instead of just taking guesses about what might work or basing choices on their personal taste. They realized that adding a little humor into the interface and using bright pastel colors and friendly rounded corners would make a normally dull part of their users’ day actually fun!

So let’s go over a few things you can do to help create a story around your site that will engage with your users:

• Create Personas. Personas are documents you create based on your target audience. They aren’t real people necessarily, but representations of your actual users. These documents help you keep the user needs in mind, as well as their preferences and limitations. Having intimate knowledge of your users will open up lots of new possibilities for connecting with them.
• Just like MailChimp and other successful brands, do your research! You never know what valuable information will turn up that you can use to connect with them.
• Always ask why. Instead of saying “Let’s add an image slider to the homepage,” try asking “Why are we adding an image slider to the homepage?” Most of the time, you’ll realize you’re trying to address a deeper problem and can arrive at a solution that’s better for your users.
• Utilize some art direction in your site planning. Is there an overarching theme you can use? If your site is focused on highlighting the mental health struggles of combat soldiers returning home, brainstorm ways that you can connect your users with this subject matter. Perhaps you can focus on intimate photos of the soldiers with their families and look at it from the point of view of those family members.

Next time you’re making changes to your site or doing a new design, consider how you can create a story around it to draw your users in. If you have examples of sites you think already do a good job of this, feel free to drop them in the comments section below!

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