Marketing i e-marketing

poniedziałek, 28 stycznia 2019

Check out pros and cons of using Photoshop

Autor: Ania Wilczak

Photoshop is the most popular program for graphic and web design. Millions of users around the world who work with PSD files love this software. But do you need Photoshop for sure? Check out its advantages and disadvantages.

What is PSD file?

To understand the benefits of Photoshop, it's good to know what is PSD file. Well, it is so-called an Adobe Photoshop Document file. In other words – Adobe Photoshop’s default format for saving data.

What are advantages and disadvantages of Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop contains various high-quality graphics designing options. Not only artists and graphic artists, but also photographers use Photoshop. Are you a web designer and are wondering how to cut PSD to HTML? Photoshop is also for you, as it is the software most widely used for web design and works best for the design-to-code process. But, despite many functionalities and high popularity, Photoshop also has its drawbacks. Below you will find the pros and cons of this most popular graphics program.

Popularity and a large community

Almost all graphic books on the market are about Photoshop or Illustrator. These popular products from Adobe have won over a lot of fans around the world. So, you will not have any problems finding literature or tutorials, from which you will learn almost everything about Photoshop. A large community also affects the continuous improvement of the product through relatively frequent updates.

The functionality of connected intelligent objects

This is a new option introduced by Adobe. It speeds up the design process, especially in the context of making corrections to PSD files. What is the functionality of connected intelligent objects? Let's assume that we design a website for the client. Instead of one PSD file, we have several of them – for example, a separate menu, headline, footer and so on. As a result, the change introduced in one file, e.g. in the footer, will also automatically appear in the other files.

Libraries that improve work on projects

Libraries are a feature of Adobe software that speeds up and streamlines work on projects. You will most appreciate them when working on large projects when styles, colors or icons are repeated. Importantly, you can transfer libraries from one Adobe program to another. You can also share them with other members of the project team.

Relatively high price

Photoshop is a relatively expensive program. A one-year license for an individual user costs 240 USD. At the same time, Adobe gives customers the flexibility to choose. For example, it positions prices depending on the type of client (business, individual, students, etc.) as well as payments (monthly, annual). For example, if you are a student for a license for all Adobe products, you will pay 20 USD a month. You can also test products before buying. Depending on the product, for example, 7-day, 30-day, and other test versions are available.

Features that you do not need

Photoshop is a very simple and intuitive tool, but at the same time so advanced that most of its users almost never use its full functionality. Looking at its price, it may be worth thinking about another graphic design or web design program. Adobe itself offers simpler equivalents of Photoshop, e.g. Photoshop Elements. The program contains the most important function of Photoshop, and at the same time, it is several times cheaper. If you're wondering how to cut PSD to HTML without using Photoshop, you can choose from different tools, such as Brackets Extract.

What is psd file and how to cut it to html?

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5 mistakes to avoid when designing your website

Autor: Ania Wilczak

Do you want to build a nice and functional website? There are several mistakes to avoid when designing your page. Check them out and create a user-friendly design for your site.

Badly designed navigation on the site

The secret to good navigation on the site is in a user-friendly design. What does it mean? That your users’ journey is smooth, intuitive and problem-free. A good navigation on the website gives the user the opportunity to find the information sought as quickly as possible. There is even a theory that it should be done in no more than 3 mouse clicks. The user-friendly design of navigation on the page is, for example:

a navigation bar that shows the user wherein the site he is currently located,
a clear main menu, which contains no more than 5-7 items,
the intuitive arrangement of elements on the page (e.g. company logo in the upper right corner of the page, and contact to the company in the footer).

Remember that the user-friendly design of navigation on your page deepens the user's visit and reduces the bounce rate. And vice versa – if you make it difficult for users to navigate the site, they will not have mercy and will leave the site.

No responsive web design version of your page

In times of mobile frenzy, responsive web design is a must. Smartphones and tablets displace computers to the extent that we already make online shopping via them. Thanks to the responsive web design, you can be sure that your website will display correctly on every device your users use. So, your audience can visit the website anytime and anywhere.

Poor quality of content and images on the site

The content on the website is not only well-chosen graphics, but also content matched to the target group. If your content is of poor quality, written boringly and with errors, users will lose confidence in your brand. And the website ceases to have a substantive value for them.

Plan the content on your website to be consistent, tailored to the target group, and free from errors. It is also important to format the texts well – internauts do not read linearly, but digitally. So make sure to use:

headings,
bolds,
lists,
frames,
tables,
or infographics in the texts.

These elements will allow users to quickly scan content.

Take the time to find the right photos – make sure they are of good quality. If you do not have the option to add unique photos to your website, buy them on the Internet. However, watch out for free photos from stock – if they are of poor quality, for example, low-resolution or unmatched to the content, the user will notice it in the blink of an eye and consider you unprofessional.

Forgetting about website optimization

Do not forget about optimizing your website. What is it about? For example:

Place keywords in your content that you want to appear in Google search results.
Compress images so that your page loads faster.
For the same purpose, you can, for example, remove the surplus of code on your website.
Format content using hierarchical headings (h1, h2, h3).
Describe the pictures with alternative texts.
Add an SSL certificate to your website.

The above activities, as well as other similar ones, are used not only for the sake of user-friendly design. It is also an optimization that Google appreciates, placing your site in higher positions.

The anonymity of the website owner

You must be reliable for your users. The audience needs to know who you are. Create a contact page through which users will be able to:

contact you,
view your location on the map,
check your contact details,
get to know other customers' opinions about you,
or browse the FAQ tab.

How to create user-friendly design

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10 nice free WordPress plugins and how to install them

Autor: Ania Wilczak

Sometimes you definitely want to add new functionalities to your website. If you use WordPress, you can choose from thousands of plugins that will allow you to expand the site.

SEO plugins, security plugins, or gallery plugins for WordPress. Choose the best ones for you.

What are plugins?

Plugins are something that made WordPress love millions of users around the world.

The chosen plugin adds a new code to the basic files that WordPress is built from, or it adds brand new files and folders. Plugins allows you to build multifunctional website without the advanced coding skills. For example, using WooCommerce plugin, you can build complex online store on your page.

There are a great variety of free plugins available in your admin panel under Menu – Plugins – Add new. You can choose, for example, from:

security plugins,
gallery plugins for WordPress,
SEO plugins,
contact form plugins,
social media plugins,
backup plugins, and many many more.

10 examples of free WordPress plugins

Check out what the selected plugins can do for your page:

NextGEN Gallery

Adds a WordPress gallery on your site.

Drop Shadow Boxes

Helps to highlight the content through the box with a shadow.

EA Share Count

Adds social media icons to your blog.

Google Authenticator (Two Factor Authentication)

Introduces two-step logging, reducing the risk of breaking the password for your website.

BackupBuddy

Allows you to create real-time backups in case of your page’s data damage or loss.

WP Force SSL

Introduces an encrypted connection between the user and the server (your page). Remember, that having SSL certificate is something that Google appreciates.

Contact Form 7

Adds a simple contact form on your page.

WP Notification Bars

Creates notifications for marketing promotions and custom alerts.

Yoast for SEO

Helps to optimize your page in line with SEO.

Imsanity

Scales the sizes of all files sent to the server, e.g. photos and graphics.

How to install WordPress plugins?

Let’s suppose you want to create a gallery on WordPress. How to install NextGEN Gallery plugin on your page?

Log in to your admin panel.
Go to Plugins – Add a new one.
In the search engine enter NextGEN Gallery and wait for the search results.
Click on the button next to the logo and the name of the plugin: Install now.
Finished.

Remember to make a backup of all page data before installing the plugin. If there is a bug after the installation, you are the one responsible for the backup. In such cases, the hosting provider has no obligation to provide you with your site data.

Check how to create gallery on Wordpress

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5 principles of an effective landing page

Autor: Ania Wilczak

A landing's goal is conversion, most often sales. Therefore, a lander is also called sales landing page. Check out 5 principles of an effective lander, and boost your sales.

The new product, the new landing page

If you are introducing a new product or service to your offer, create new landing pages for them. You can put information about the new offer in the news of your website, but only for information purposes. Your website is not for sale, and in its depth of information, users may not even find the new thing you promote. So, if you want to increase the sales of a given product, put a new landing for it. Remember that it is the lander that is a sales tool. It effectively synthesizes the users to the action, for example clicking on the button and buying.

The simpler, the better

The landing page does not work like a traditional website and does not look like it. Its purpose is for the user to click on the final CTA to, for example:

download an e-book,
make a purchase,
subscribe to the newsletter,
leave the contact.

Therefore, elements of a traditional website, such as navigation, menus, subpages, external links and the like, are unnecessary on the landing page. All this distracts the user's attention, and external links can even make him abandon your site.

To sum up, when creating an effective landing page, make sure that the page template is as simple as possible.

A title consistent with the advertising campaign

How does the user land on your landing page? For example, after clicking on the Google AdWords advertising link. The header is the first message that the user sees after entering the lander. So, the title of the page should be consistent with your advertising campaign and its promise. Try to make your title:

Clear and simple (with the clear message).
Positive (talking about the benefits and written in the language of benefits).
Limited in time (e.g. saying that the offer is only valid until midnight).

Remember that the header should also consist the key-word of your offer. For example, the one you used for your AdWords campaign.

Bullet points list full of benefits

After reading the title of your lander, a user can stay on the page or abandon it. If he stays, the next communicate he will come across is so-called bullet points list. At this point, you have the opportunity to develop the details of your offer. Remember, however, not to get too into technical matters. Bullet points should be written in marketing language and using the language of benefits. The user is not necessarily interested in how many turns the new washing machine has. He wants to know that from now on his washing after getting out of the washing machine is almost completely dry.

Slightly different calls to action

It's good to put CTAs in two places:

at the beginning of your landing page – before the user has to scroll the page,
and at the end of the site – when the user is ready to buy, and the CTA has it to eventually encourage.

Also, make sure that your CTAs are not ordinary (Subscribe to the newsletter), but more emotional (I want to subscribe to the newsletter and be up to date).

See also: how to create an effective landing page

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How to install a free WordPress theme?

Autor: Ania Wilczak

Do you run a website on WordPress and wonder how to change its design? WordPress offers thousands of themes that are not only easy to install, but also free. See how to install WordPress themes on your own.

WordPress theme or template?

A theme is an extension of WordPress that completely changes a visual layer of your page. This change is what your readers can see after visiting the website. Remember, however, that WordPress themes are not the same as templates. WordPress users often identify these two concepts with each other. Meanwhile, the theme is the location of the HTML/CSS code of a given template. And all templates are categorized under a theme.

Where to find free WordPress themes?

There are lots of paid and free WordPress themes available. If you do not have a budget for this change, choose the free version of a theme. You will find a large collection of nice WordPress themes on the official WordPress.org page: wordpress.org/themes/. They are all available also in the WordPress admin area under Appearance – Themes – Add new.

How to install a free WordPress theme?

There are two ways to install a WordPress theme – manual and automatic.

To install a theme manually:

Choose a theme on the wordpress.org/themes/ page.
Download the selected theme to your computer.
Make sure you saved the theme in the .zip folder.
Log in to your WordPress cockpit.
Go to Appearance – Themes – Add new – Send the theme to the server.
Then select the file (the .zip folder with the new theme)
Click on Install now.

Then you'll see the message: The theme has been installed. Just click on Enable and your website will change the look. Remember that before you enable a new theme, you can check how it will look on your site. Click on Live preview and personalize the new design of the page.

To install a theme automatically:

Log in to your WordPress cockpit.
Go to Appearance – Themes – Add new.
Choose a new theme using categories: Featured, Popular, Last modified. You can also make a choice with the help of the search engine, as well as using search filters.
Once you've selected the new theme, click on Install.

You can enable the new theme right away, but you can also use the Live preview option and personalize the theme before activating.

If you don’t have an access to your admin panel…

...install a free WordPress theme manually using FTP server. You have to log in to your FTP server and open the wp-content folder. Then go to the themes folder and add the .zip folder with the new theme to the themes folder. Now you should be able to find a new theme in the admin area under Appearance – Themes. Enable a new theme from there.