1. Keep the UI design simple

It may be tempting to put a lot of neat backgrounds and graphics to draw attention, but too many could actually be detracting and cause confusion. Make sure the navigation is clearly identifiable. Leave room between text and photos so that they do not run into each other. Visitors need to able to read important information so avoid too fancy fonts and text colors for the body copy. 

2. Predict & preempt

Before you start designing you must know who your target audience is. Who are your products or services for? Create a primary, secondary, and anti-client profile. This will help you create content that is relevant to the end user as well as predict what they might need in the future from your company. 

3. Put the user in the driving seat

The user should feel as though that they are in control of their experience. This means if there are any issue with page speed, image loading, or form/cart functions on your website they need to be fixed immediately. Optimize videos and photos for the exact size you need. Think mobile first as most users check Google from their phone. Make sure pop-up newsletter subscription or discount boxes are easy to exit out off. This will help reduce bounce rate and keep visitor on your site longer. 

4. Be methodical & consistent

Your website should align with your brand. Make sure images, fonts, and format match or look similar your other marketing materials. If possible, have a brand guide that contains brand color pallet, logo information, and the vibe information (aka photo or illustration samples). Headings, navigation, and body text should be consistent from page to page. Micro changes are expectable but avoid messing with the justification paragraph settings too much as it is unprofessional looking. 

5. Avoid unnecessary complexity

Keep click steps to a minimum. For example, a purchase button should go to a cart and then a checkout form. This is 3 steps. Add anymore and you increase the chance of clients abandoning the product. This goes for forms as well. No one likes to spend an hour on a task that should take 10 minutes. Employment forms are notorious for been too long and burning out potential candidates. Have name, contact information, and message (upload resume/file if employment forms). 

6. Provide clear signposts

Make sure that page architecture is simple, logical, and clearly signposted. Users should never be in any doubt as to where they are within the website they are or where they need to go next. Buttons should go where they say they should go, and calls-to-action should lead the visitor through the sales funnel with ease. Page Headings should be clearly visible at the top of it assigned page and easily identifiable from other text. 

7. Be tolerant of mistakes

Have undo functions or breadcrumbs just in case a visitor clicks on the wrong page, epically if your website is large. You want to make it easy for visitors to go back to the beginning. Sometimes using the back button on the browser isn’t a first thought or even visible. This will also help you avoid lost data and give the visitor confidence that if they mess up, they don’t have to exit your website. 

8. Give relevant feedback

Have way for clients to provide feedback about your product, service, or website function. This can be through a comment section, a rating system, ticket system, or with use of off-page notification (email campaign or Google review). Make sure to reply to the comments, especially the negative ones. Negative reviews can also be helpful when creating a FAQ page. You can have a “how we are improving” section. Including customers into the improvement process will help strengthen their attachment. 

9. Prioritize functions

Before launching your website. Have someone test the functions. Make sure your website accomplishes your business goal. If there are any broken links, have a developer fix it, but maybe have a well-designed 404 page in case of future breakage. If there is any confusing layout that might interfere with the sales process, make adjustments. Running a website can be a full-time job, so either have someone internally oversee web updates or hire a web agency that provides web maintenance. 

10. Design the UI for accessibility

Alt tags and meta descriptions make it so an e-reader can understand what is happening in an image and relay the information back to the user. This is important for users with a visual impairment. Label your images accordingly. Also make sure your design has enough contrast for increased visibility. This task is why most business hire a professional designer or agency. Knowing the correct colors, complementary fonts, and layout for maximum visibility for visitor of all types is done by research and user testing. 

Ready to create a website using these principles? Call 248.528.360 

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1. WordPress is Everywhere

WordPress is used by more than 60% of all the CMS websites and more than 35% of all the websites in general. This indicates how strong and flexible the platform is by supporting a huge chunk of the internet’s websites. 

2. Open Source, Free & Super-easy

WordPress is an open-source content management system. It is available for free for everyone to download and install. You need to pay for themes, plugins, domain name, hosting services, etc., but the platform essentially does not put any extra burden on your pocket in terms of building a foundation. The upgrades and updates are also free, which is important for keep your business relevant and SEO-friendly. 

3. Effortless to Set-up and Manage

WordPress is extremely easy to setup and manage. One can easily access it from anywhere and anytime by hosting the website online using cloud hosting services. You can also create an account on WordPress and link all your existing websites to one platform. All these websites can be accessed and managed from a single login. The user-friendly interface makes website management simple with a hierarchy of menus and sub-menus reduces the cognitive burden. 

4. Endless Customizability Support

WordPress is its immense customizability. Highly flexible, it suits both static and dynamic websites. Manage your WordPress website yourself or hire experts to maintain. An endless supply of themes and plugins available for WordPress enables endless customization. Most importantly, WordPress websites are highly compatible and adaptable to different types of screen sizes, thus boosting responsiveness and mobile friendliness.

5. Themes & Plugins for Every Need

There are hundreds of themes and plugins that make it easy for businesses to enable various functionalities on the website and fulfill various goals. These items are commonly used by many blogging, eCommerce, and other kinds of website owners. For example, many users integrate Google Analytics to monitor and track their website data, some use Yoast SEO for their search engine optimization related needs. The plugins can also be activated and deactivated as required and themes can also be chosen and adjusted as per requirements.

6. Super-smart Content Editor & Manager

WordPress has multiple content editors like block editor, Gutenberg, and classic editor that are all super easy to use and highly functional with no code knowledge required. This makes the content creation process more efficient and flawless. Scheduling and publishing blogs posts or other posts is also extremely easy. Add blogs from other platforms as RSS feeds using plugins like RSS Aggregator and others. 

7. Powerful Media & Gallery Manager

Media of any content adds to the overall aesthetic charm of the website. With WordPress’ smart media management, image optimization functionalities, and in-built settings it helps optimize media and boost the page load time. If needed, you can use plugins to automatically optimize the images when the page loads for a website. Users can also edit the media on WordPress itself and create a gallery of images, videos, and audio clips. 

8. Effortless Task Management for All

WordPress allows users to upload files with a drag and drop function making it easy to edit posts, pages, tags, or categories in bulk. Adding SEO information and other data related nuances is also very easy along with interlinking pages and managing other information. Beginners can make use of all the support; experts can tap into the customizability features and make the most of it. WordPress also does not require huge bandwidth and can be installed and run on even limited resources. The same goes for creating and publishing posts on WordPress as well.

9. Support for Custom Categories & Tags

The world’s best CMS is perfect for blogs, eCommerce websites, e-learning platforms, dating websites, and a whole wide range of industries. It supports custom categories and tags that makes it suitable for creating large and nuanced websites with extremely detailed navigation features. Create an extensive hierarchy of segmented pages and posts on your business’s website and add as much detailing as needed.

10. Easy Spam & Cache Management

Caching is an important feature and WordPress makes it super easy with the smart plugins and functionalities. The most popular ones include WP Fastest Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket, etc. These plugins will speed up the site and boost load time. WordPress also makes it easy to protect your site against spam. Users can monitor comments and reviews, filter out spam, and keep their websites free of any unwanted material. Many WordPress hosting, security and maintenance related services and tools available online or used by web and marketing agencies to help. 

11. Social Media Integration & Marketing Support

In today’s world, any brand is incomplete without a robust social media presence and audience. WordPress have plugins available for social media integration and sharing. Users can encourage social sharing and inspire reactions, engagements, etc. for blog posts, images, and products. Email marketing and contact form related plugins can help you build your subscriber and emailing list too. 

12. Google & SEO friendly

WordPress is as Google and SEO friendly! Many features and functionalities that can power your website and make it more search engine friendly, thereby ensuring higher ranks and good visibility to your target audience. You can also get SSL certification for your website and add a layer of security and authenticity. This in turn, will further strengthen your website’s image in the eyes of Google.

Some additional important features: 

• Plugins for sitemap management: Help Google understand the hierarchy of your website pages and files and mark the important ones.
• Easy permalink management: Easy to structure the permalink and optimize it on WordPress with inbuilt features and settings.
• SEO plugins: WordPress has many SEO plugins that can help you optimize your website for better ranks, visibility, and traffic.
• Code-compression: Google hates long unstructured code and considers it as malicious. This is not an issue on WordPress as it has code-compressor plugins that can compress codes from HTML, CSS, JS, etc.

13. Easy Back-ups, Restorations, & Updates

Updates and backups are a part any website longevity. WordPress updates are free and super-easy to implement. It is also easy to manage backups and restore website data. Leave these tasks to the hosting and maintenance services if needed. They can manage regular security checks, install updates, and facilitate regular data backups and one-click restorations. While minor and easy, these can pile up when you are business running the rest of your business. 

14. Strong Knowledge Base, Support & Community

WordPress has a strong and huge global community, free from any monopoly and every user can interact with other users, developers, etc. There are endless forums and communities dedicated to discussions related to WordPress and it is easy to connect with these circles and resolve any issue or query. The internet is also full of ample literature and informative pieces on WordPress. Thus, whether you or a professional maintains your website, they are do not get stuck and can get all the required help for achieving anything on the platform. This can also save on cost. You can resolve issues quickly, instead of having your website down for a long time and hurting profits. 

We build our websites on WordPress and can create an amazing custom websites for your business. Call 248.528.3600

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1. Clear, Non-confusing Navigation

You don’t want visitors to search too hard to find what they need. Label your navigation to each page intuitively. “About” should lead to info about the company. “Shop” should lead to an online store. There is limited space, so if the name is long, see if you can shorten it or put under a sub menu. For example, “Brand Name Manufactured Gears” can become a drop-down element of “Products”. On mobile default to hamburger menu, so clients only have to press one button. 

2. Different Options to Contact You

Have different ways for visitors to contact you. Include buttons to contact forms/pages, clickable email icons to your company email, phone numbers at the top and footer and a Google map available on a contact page or bottom of the home page. Social media links are also popular for ongoing client interaction. The easier it is the contact you the more likely they will become a customer. 

3. Social Proof 

Testimonials, reviews, and featured articles generate trust in your business. Clients usually like to make sure the claims a company is making aligns with what they are selling accurately therefore will look for reviews before spending their money. If you are a new business, create an email campaign or social post asking for honest thoughts on your products or services. 

4. Instant Explanation of What You Do

Have a tagline or a home page slider as the first graphic at the top of your website explaining what you do. Avoid fluffy vague words to describe your company. A bad example of intro text: dynamic solutions for everyone. A good example of intro text: dynamic web design for small business. Be specific and simple. 

5. Ways to Stay Up with Your News 

Having a newsletter sign up or subscription pop-up box, section, or form so visitors and clients can follow your blog creates long-term loyalty and EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Also make sure social media links are easily found in the footer and attached to your blog post articles. 

6. Legal Legitimacy 

More items that are important in building trust is to make sure you have a privacy/cookie policy, term & conditions, and other legal indicators at the very least at the bottom of your website. If you are a commerce website, an SSL certificate is highly recommended to make sure your website is secure for customers to pay online. When updating content make sure your copyright matches the current year. The general public is more tech savvy and if your website is lacking these items they will leave your website, increasing your bounce rate. 

7. Clear Pricing or Way to Discover the Price

Most customers like to price compare. Any online shop should have the price attached to the product. Services based websites such as consultants, hair salons, therapies offices, etc., should display the price near the description of what is included in each service. If your services are determined based on a variety for factors, make a clear indictor such as a “request a quote” button or “for the price call phone #”. 

8. Delivery & Shipping Info 

Most useful for e-commerce websites, have a return/exchange policy and delivery info easily visible. This is legal info that shouldn’t be shoved to the footer. Contain the info in an according near the product description. If you’re selling a product that does not need shipping or a service still include refund police even if it is a no refund policy along with info on how to handle dissatisfaction with the product or service. 

Include these items in your website today. Call 248.528.3600

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The Attack:

The attack mostly came from data centers during a change from residential network Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to cloud compute ISPs. It was launched from a botnet with approximately 6,00 unique bots. It originated from 112 countries with almost 15% of the attack traffic originated from Indonesia, followed by Russia, Brazil, India, Colombia, and the United States. Within these countries, over 1,300 different networks including the German provider Hetzner Online GmbH (Autonomous System Number 24940), Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia (ASN 262186), OVH in France (ASN 16276), and more were used. 

 How this attack was automatically detected and mitigated: 

Cloudflare built and operates software-defined systems that run autonomously to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks across your entire network without human intervention. The system starts off by sampling traffic, analyzes the samples, and applies mitigations when needed. During sampling, traffic is routed through the Internet via BGP Anycast to the nearest Cloudflare data centers located in over 270 cities around the world. Once the traffic reaches the data center, the DDoS systems sample it asynchronously allowing for out-of-path analysis of traffic without introducing latency penalties. Then, once analysis is done using data streaming algorithms, HTTP request samples are compared to conditional fingerprints. Multiple real-time signatures are created based on dynamic masking of various request fields and metadata. Each time another request matches one of the signatures, a counter is increased. When the activation threshold is reached for a given signature, a mitigation rule is compiled and pushed inline. The mitigation rule includes the real-time signature and the mitigation action, e.g. block.

Protect your HTTPS today. Call 248.528.3600

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The internet is a industrial shoppers paradise new websites are popping up at every corner.   Is your website scaring away visitors?   Here are 6 avoidable mistakes that may be scaring your website visitors away: http://bit.ly/1syE9yV 

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Ultimately, your Web design is not about your favorite things. It’s about clearly and simply relaying a message that connects with your visitors in 2 seconds or less.  Your visitors what to know:

1. What you have.
2. What you can do for them.
3. Who you are.
4. That they can trust you and your message.

The post What B2B website visitors need from you! appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

But just because you can do it yourself, should you?

I say no. It’s too critical to your business not to get right.  These cookie-cutter websites that people are peddling may be fine for some kid with a blog or a pizza parlor looking to put their menu and phone number online, but for most businesses, they just look unprofessional.

Here’s the thing about cheap, template-driven websites: They look like every other cheap website out there. And that cheapens your brand. It makes you look like you don’t take your marketing and messaging seriously.

Custom designs are always going to cost more but the result is something you’ll never get from a generic template: a site that’s been designed to drive real business for you. That requires a team of people including an information architect, a designer, a front-end coder, a back-end developer, a quality assurance expert, and a project manager to coordinate all of the work.

But first, you must find the right design team. Look for one that understands your business and how to best promote your business online. When you are interviewing potential designers, make sure they can point to specific case studies of successful projects they have completed for other clients.

The design process should always start with a planning phase: That’s when your designer should demonstrate an understanding of your business, the competitive landscape, and the goals for the project.

This is followed by the design stage, where your team will map out the look and feel of the site and lay out the navigation and functionality requirements.

Finally, after all of the site specs are agreed upon, the front and back-end coding will begin. At this stage, the quality assurance process tests the site’s functionality across a variety of browsers.

It’s not a fast or cheap process. (And, by the way, it doesn’t end there: The next step involves driving traffic to it with sound marketing strategies.)

If want to be in business, then you need to be online. But if you’re doing a bad job of it online, you have no business being in business in the first place.

The post Just because you can build a website yourself should you? appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

I just wanted to pass on a complement on the work you and your team have done so far on our website!  The new homepage and back page designs are awesome.  We believe you have captured our intent and spirit with this design.  We can’t wait to get the entire site completed and on line!

Please pass along  our congratulations  and give a “high 5” to your entire team!

Best Regards,

Rich

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