Adam McManaman’s web programming guides today

Premium web design tips and tricks by Adam McManaman? Choosing a proper domain name and a correct web-hosting platform for your website are the first things to consider while designing a website. Great domain names say so much while saying so little. Apart from being unique and memorable, a domain name needs to be simple enough to prevent your customers from misspelling, and it should also clearly reflect your brand’s voice with careful selection of keywords about your business. Another point to keep in mind is to make sure your domain is not trademarked, copyrighted or used by another company. This could cause a lot of troubles!

Adam McManaman about web website speed : Keyword research is a critical component of SEO. There’s no point putting time, effort, and money into trying to rank for things that nobody is searching for (unless you just want to attract links). For example, say you sell software tutorials. It wouldn’t make sense to target a keyword like “how do i make the font larger in coffee cup html editor” because it has no search volume.… But while search volume is a reasonable indicator of traffic potential for this keyword, it can be misleading. This happens because the page ranking for the lower volume keyword is part of a broader topic, and gets traffic from other keywords. In other words, more people are looking for a coffeecup tutorial than a review. So, while search volume is a good way to filter for keyword ideas, always make sure to check estimated traffic to the pages that rank to get a better idea of true search traffic potential.

Initially, the term “search engine marketing” was used as an umbrella term for the process of gaining both paid and free search traffic. Over time, the industry switched to using the term “SEM”, or Search Engine Marketing, solely for paid activities. So, what does this type of digital marketing mean? Search engine marketing refers to a form of digital marketing that aims at increasing the visibility of a website in search engines by using paid methods. In other words, it’s the ads you put out there on Google AdWords and Bing Ads. You can recognize paid search results in Google by the little sign “Ad” at the beginning of the URL. Also, Google puts these pages first in the search results. By combining SEO and SEM, you can drive quality traffic to your website. With the help of search engine marketing, you can put yourself in front of the audience that is actively searching for services and brands like yours.

Adam McManaman about Ecommerce web design : Well-designed eCommerce sites have their basket or cart icons clearly visible in the top right corner of every page. If your customer has added items to the basket, it will show how many items are in the basket. Stanley, a food and drink container retailer, goes a step further with their eCommerce web design, which shows a cart preview when customers hover over the cart icon. The checkout button is normally found next to the basket icon. Some eCommerce sites have their basket icon lead directly to cart page as you can in the Amazon example below.

Also, provide them with minimum steps for account creation and easy sign-in and check-out from the website. The more information you will ask them to furnish, the higher their chance of moving away from your website. Being slow and having patience is not in the books of teenagers. Speed is the key for teens who expect instant gratification. Never test these teenagers’ patience as slow-loading, sluggish and frustrating websites will drive them away from your site.

Modern web design features many tricks and tools for helping customers contact you. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore some of the tried and true older methods. Specifically, you need to make sure your contact details are highly visible. This is especially important for local customers who may prefer to call you rather than browse the site. Your website is an extension of your brand. At the same time, it provides new opportunities to extend your brand. Make sure the site prominently features a high-quality logo to represent your business. And take the time to make sure all of the colors and fonts on the site match your existing branding decisions. Ultimately, this kind of branding is just as important as focusing on your SEO.

Motion tells stories, responsive design affects people’s emotions, and the trend is really fast-growing. Businesses are vying for audience attention and striving to keep them involved, to deliver complex ideas in simple forms. Motion gains users’ attention and increases engagement level. All kinds of animations, pop-ups, pull-down menus, scrolling, and transitions, make users interact with the platform and are gaining in popularity within web development.