How long ago did you start your design business or side gig? Three months? Three years? And how long has it been since you evaluated your business since then? The better you understand the business, the more easily you can design a website and shape a brand identity around it for them. But I’m willing to bet you haven’t spent much time doing the same for your own business. I know the last thing you want to do is to take time away from revenue-generating work to evaluate your business and potentially rebrand it. However, what if a rebrand could bring you better work, better quality of clients, and better pay? There’s a reason why you put so much care into designing a website that perfectly aligns with a company’s mission and personality. You should do the same for your own.

Now after many weeks and months of preparations, you are ready to go; you’ve done everything that you needed to do to make sure that the design and development of the new site has been put together perfectly and you are happy to move forward. So you press the launch button, because that’s how it works, right? You sit back and congratulate yourself and your colleagues on relaunching the new website successfully… only to see the organic traffic has plummeted. You look in fear, but then stop for a second because everyone knows that a site relaunch can sometimes cause an initial slump in organic traffic. You assume that it’s normal. But after days, weeks and months, the traffic doesn’t recover, and panic sets in…

Now Your target market has gone mobile. Mobile users spend up to 12% of their time browsing on their device, which works out to 87 hours a month or 1,044 hours a year spent on their phone; 90% of that time is spent using mobile apps. Which is why having a mobile app can be so valuable for your business. No wonder everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. Even 67% of small businesses now have a mobile app. The problem is, many apps are just awful extensions of already bad websites. While you might feel the urge to dive straight into developing your own and racing it to the market, it’s a huge mistake. Mobile apps are a gateway to your site. So trying to implement them without some critical website optimization can directly impact the amount of time and money it takes to create the app.

Building a learnable website is much tougher than it sounds. One thinks one’s design is clear and comprehensible; however, a design that might be obvious for you, might be perceived totally different by a user with a different set of experiences. Therefore, the goal is to design a clear user path that visitors can quickly pick up and understand. Learnability has a strong correlation with usability. It is vital for users to quickly understand the layout and purpose of an application. Especially for web applications, providing an easy to learn interface is important. It is much more convenient to design an easy to understand mobile app compared with a web application; a mobile screen just doesn’t allow to provide a complex interface or let the user accomplish difficult tasks. The speed of adoption is not the only criteria why learnability matters. A website that looks familiar and provides an understandable interface will result in a lower bounce rate. This is especially useful for websites that try to boost their conversion rate. A complex design scares users and they will resort to other tools that provide a clear interface. In the end, the goal of every website is to convert an occasional user into a repeated user and engage the user for interaction.

UX design and a solid SEO strategy go hand in hand. Design is here to boost user experiences, inspire users to spend more time on your pages, and ensure they don’t leave your site frustrated. This way, it minimizes bounce rates and turns your visitors into leads and, ultimately, sales. However, designing a spotless website is pointless if it’s not visible on Google. This is where SEO shines. It increases your site’s exposure in the SERPs, drives greater traffic to it, and gives you the opportunity to delight a visitor with your gorgeous website design and quality content. When merged together, web design and SEO are indicators of your credibility and professionalism. So, let’s see how to combine them for a better online performance.

Internet of today is a highly competitive place. With so many individuals and businesses spending money and time on digital marketing and SEO, trying to outperform their rivals and sit at the top of the Google heap, it’s harder than ever to get users to visit any given website over another. Given the difficulty of acquiring new visitors, you might think that all the webmasters of the world would do everything in their power to provide a delightful user experience and ultimately retain each hard-won customer, but we all know that there are a number of unpleasant and off-putting bad habits that seem to crop up time and time again.Let’s take a look at some of the most common offenders making users leave in frustration…

Design sprints are highly involved processes that normally take place over an entire week and it’s the collaboration of each team member that allows the process to be successful in the end. Web designers and agencies should always be exploring new ways to improve their workflows and, in turn, make it easier to guarantee positive results for clients. Many have touted the benefits of design sprints…but does their argument hold any weight? Truth be told, there’s a lot of value that comes from doing design sprints. However, it’s not as simple as adopting Google Vision’s original system and instantly being able to create better digital products or getting greater consumer buy-in.  Let’s take a look at what design sprints are, why they can be valuable, but why you also might need to steer clear of them.