What Does a UX Designer Actually Do?

I still remember the first time I came across the term “User Experience Designer”. It was years ago, embedded in the email signature of a friend of mine—someone whose job I never quite understood. So I asked him.

His answer fundamentally changed how I designed websites from that day forward. Not because of what he actually said (he mumbled something about usability and research) but because of the ongoing discussion that ensued. That discussion prompted me to dig deeper into the world of UX, re-evaluate my processes, and dramatically shape my career.

While many designers hear a description of the term “UX” and reply, “Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing all along—I just didn’t know it was called that”, I was different. Before learning the term “UX Designer” even existed, my design process was arrogant; my designs looked pretty but often missed the mark. Much later, when I chose to adopt the term as my own job title, I felt confident that I had grown measurably as a designer, and evolved my processes to the point where I was worthy of the title.

the throne of UX
Such is the power of a phrase. UX may be a buzzword, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for those of us who design for the web. The principles, philosophies and techniques of which UX design is comprised are well established, and the good news is this: anyone can learn them.

So what does a User Experience Designer actually do? Well, there’s no typical day, however there is a grab bag of techniques that many UX Designers rely on at various stages of a project. I’ve expanded on a few of those techniques here, using panels from a short comic that appears in Everyday UX, an ebook containing interviews with 10 prominent UX designers:

Wireframes
wireframes

A wireframe—a rough guide for the layout of a website or app—is the deliverable most famously associated with being a UX Designer.

Once created by designers as a series of static images, these days tools like Balsamiq Mockups and Axure RP make it straightforward to evolve your wireframe into an interactive prototype without writing any code.

While many UX Designers make a point that they are more than just wireframe machines, it’s certainly true that many UX Designers start with wireframes: creating a basic site layout is something anyone can do, and the tools are easy to learn.

User Testing
Sitting users in front of your website or app and asking them to perform tasks you’ve planned for them while they think out loud is the fundamental premise of user testing.

How many test participants you involve, how closely your test participants match your actual users, and how many iterations of testing you run are all decisions shaped by budget and time constraints.

User testing is straightforward enough that anyone can—and should—experience running one. Being in the same room while someone struggles to use your product is a powerful trigger for creating empathy with users—a common trait.
user testing

Personas
personas

A persona is a fictitious identity that reflects one of the user groups for whom you are designing.

Personas need to be informed by research to be useful. It can be tempting to put on your creative writing hat and invent details to make them believable or interesting. However, the goal should be to have your personas reflect patterns that you’ve identified in your users (or prospective users).

There’s no shortcut for identifying these patterns—they come from user research: conducting interviews, surveys, user testing, contextual inquiry and other activities.

Scenarios and Storyboards
A scenario is a narrative describing “a day in the life of” one of your personas, including how your website or app fits into their lives. If you’re familiar with writing user stories in an agile environment, you’ll be comfortable writing scenarios—although the focus here is on regular usage, not edge cases.

Depending on the audience, a storyboard may be a more appropriate tool for capturing how, when, where and why someone might use your product.

Inspired by the filmmaking industry, a storyboard is a visual sequence of events used to capture a user’s interactions with a product.

It may be an extremely rough sketch—purely for crystallising your own ideas—or a more polished comic for engaging your audience more effectively.

storyboards

Conclusion
This is just a sample of the hundreds of techniques that UX designers have available to them to ensure they get the right design—and the design right.

The trick to applying them is learning when to use which technique.

But that’s a topic for another day …

 

 

5 Reasons Why UX Design is Not Cheap

Over the past ten years, the growth of technology has rapidly accelerated, allowing for advancements across the design industry, which has evolved into a more complex and sophisticated arena. During this time, user expectations, behavior, and browsing habits have also become more sophisticated, with an ever increasing demand on businesses to deliver websites across all device types.
With users becoming more digitally savvy and with the advancement of new technologies, there is increasing pressure placed upon web designers and web agencies to provide “stand-out websites” that impress on a visual and functional level.
As a result of the advancements in digital, as well as the uptake of new technologies and platforms which websites have to now function across, design has become a more complex entity. Businesses are now, therefore, more inclined to want to learn and understand more about the impact websites have on their users and stakeholders.
Let’s start to look at those 5 points of why UX doesn’t come cheap.

1. UX Goes Above and Beyond Visual Design

The traditional method of creating a website merely based on visual design, to create the right “look and feel” is an approach which is still adopted, but by organizations either looking for a simple brochure website or those organizations with budgetary constraints.
With UX now being widely discussed and held in high regard, there are many now discussing if this signals the death of traditional visual web design. While elements of this may be true; the realization is that there will always be a market supply and demand for the more simple business websites. In most cases, the evolution of design into UX design
Both designers and businesses are quickly coming to the realization that to create value, conversions and ROI from a website they have to understand the needs, wants and requirements of users. To realize how to achieve this requires a holistic approach and a strategic mindset.

2. UX Design is Methodical

Many businesses will admit to finding it challenging to keep up to speed with adaptations to technology and user behavior across all devices. This is where UX agencies come to the fore, by working with businesses to dig deeper into understanding the business and users wants, needs and objectives.
The following model was conceptualized by a globally renowned information architect Jesse Garrett. The model helps to create perspective on just some of the elements required as part of the UX design process from conception through to completion stage.
model perspective elements required UX design process conception completion stage
*The model above does not consider the development stage. Image credited to Jesse James Garrett (2000).

model perspective elements required UX design process conception completion stage

*The model above does not consider the development stage. Image credited to Jesse James Garrett (2000).

3. UX Takes Time

The timeline for typical UX projects, aside from being at the discretion of the designer or agency in question, is in line with the size of the website, the brief and project requirements. There is no set or definitive timeline, as the length of each UX design project may even vary further based on additional complexities, ideation, or iterations from the client.
If processes are applied correctly, however, the process of UX design from conception through to the completion of visual design and website launch typically runs over a couple of months rather than a few weeks. Therefore demanding a greater deal of project management than a typical visual design project.

4. Customer Experience has to be Considered

Designers have a responsibility to deliver a modern and effective UX strategy to positively impact the customer experience. Customer experience (CX) encompasses all of the experiences a customer has with your brand, with UX being a core part of CX.
Although CX is a much broader consideration (an overall experience with your brand), UX can dictate the success or failure rate of CX. If a website or app doesn’t meet customer expectations or if barriers are in place, businesses are failing their customers.

Users Influence Decisions

UX designers take data, personas, user stories and more to help make informed decisions throughout the process of creating a website. It can be argued that more traditional visual design can be more short-sighted, overlooking crucial usability factors and little underlying functionality behind the aesthetic visual design.

With the availability and accessibility of tools at the disposal of UX designers nowadays, a certain degree of subjectivity is being taken away from designers over the eventual outcome of visual designs. Despite users increasingly influencing the outcome of designs, this still leaves UX designers with a degree of autonomy and license to use their creative flair.

How to Measure the Value and Cost of UX Design?

  • Don’t look for shortcuts or quick fixes.
  • Understand the value of UX design (see the 5 points within this post).
  • Research – look for designer/agency core competencies and relative case studies.
  • How experienced are the designers or agencies you are researching?
  •  valuable to have a reasonable ballpark figure in mind at first which is commensurate with the size and scale of your business and its ambition

If your website operates internationally and requires redevelopment and design from an established UX agency with an established portfolio, then setting aside under £10,000 ($14000) for the entire design and development project may risk falling on deaf ears.

Rather than having a fixed monetary amount in mind for a website from the outset, it may prove more valuable to have a reasonable ballpark figure in mind at first which is commensurate with the size and scale of your business and its ambitions.

Final Thoughts

Garnering quotes from designers and agencies for how much the project will cost will help you narrow down and define your eventual project budget.
How serious is your business about achieving conversions and return on investment (ROI)? Having this question in mind may help when assessing how much spend to set aside for your website project.

20 Extremely Useful Coding Tools for Web Designers

Never miss another deadline while using these 20 extremely useful coding tools for web designers! These great coding resources will help you in different kinds of tasks, ease your work and also speed it up!

Enjoy an easier, more efficient and productive workflow with these useful coding tools we have gathered here, in this list. You will find tools for choosing colors, pairing the right fonts, turning Photoshop into HTML, CSS and more!

Handle various design and development tasks with more ease than ever by choosing the right coding tools for you, from this list.
HTML COLOR CODES

If you need HTML color codes, Hex color codes, RGB and HSL values with our color picker, color chart and HTML color names, this is the place to go to. It is a great website and very useful for web designers.

1-HTML-COLOR-CODES
FONTFLAME

Font Flame is great for choosing the right fonts for a website, easily and fuss-free. It makes the entire process fun and pairs your chosen fonts so you won’t make any typography design mistakes.

2-FONTFLAME
PURE CSS APPLE

This is an Apple device generator that lets you transform one Apple device into another using only  CSS3 animation and some Javascript.

3-PURE-CSS-APPLE
CODESIGN

This platform will help you get visual feedback on your work. The feedback process is clean, fast and well organised.

4-CODESIGN
PIXELMAPGENERATOR

PixelMapGenerator is a tool you can use to create interactive maps. You can save them as images or Javascript code, for easy implementation on websites.

5-PIXELMAPGENERATOR
DROP.JS

Drop.js is a fast dropdown library you can use for creating dropdowns and other floating elements.

6-DROP
APOSTROPHE

Apostrophe is a content management system build on Node.JS and MongoDB. The purpose of this tool is to help you create complex content-driven websites.

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GRADIFY

Gradify helps you find the main color in a photo and generate a scalable, responsive CSS gradient from it.

8-GRADIFY
XPOSIT

XposIt makes your HTML files editable and dynamic without writing any actual code. It is an open-source CMS.

9-XPOSIT
PARADEISER

Paradeiser helps you deal with one of the major problems in responsive web design – navigation.

10--PARADEISER
COPYNHASTE

This website offers a playing ground where coders and non-coders can train and show off their typing skills together.

11-COPYNHASTE
CODEDOODL.ES

CodeDoodle is the place you can look for curated creative coding sketches. It comes with a great design and awesome animations.

12-CodeDoodle
IOS COLORS

This website gives you a collection of colors and gradients based on iOS. Use them wisely.

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FRONTIFY

With this tool you can create awesome style guides and maintain them easily.

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COHESIVE COLORS

Cohesive Colors is a tool that helps users create cohesive color schemes in a very easy and user-friendly manner.

15-COHESIVE-COLORS
FLEXBOX

FlexBox helps you learn CSS Flexbox for free. You will get free 20 videos that will help you learn CSS Flexbox.

16-FLEXBOX
GRID LAYOUT

This is a lightweight grid system for advanced horizontal and vertical web app layouts. It also comes with support for older browsers.

17-GRID-LAYOUT
CSSPLUS

This is a CSS based tool for developers. This coding tool is fast and robust.

18-CSSPLUS
WALLOP

Wallop is a slider that comes with a minimal 4kb library for showing and hiding things.

19-WALLOP
EXPORT KIT

Export Kit is an advanced Photoshop plugin to let users convert PSD into HTML, CSS, WordPress, jQuery, and even Android.

20-EXPORT-KIT

20 Awesome Font Pairing Tools for Designers

Fonts are essential elements in the designing process that can really make your website or any graphic design project stand out. It is important to choose the right fonts combinations according to your project’s overall look.

When you need to use more than one font for a project, it may be difficult and time-consuming to find other fonts to pair it with. This is where font pairing tools come in handy! Designers always appreciate tools to make their lives easier, such as coding tools for designers or font pairing tools featured in this article. These amazing tools are project-savers and will help you find matching fonts quickly and easily.

These tools will give you various options to choose from and are very easy to use. All you need to do is to select the primary font that you are using and you will be given many similar fonts to choose from.

Browse through this selection of font pairing tools that have only one purpose, to match your chosen typeface. You can use one or all of these tools to help you achieve great results. Enjoy!


Google Type

Google offers lots of beautiful fonts available for free download. By using Google Type you can easily pair typefaces and make the designing process easier.

google-web-fonts-typographic

Type Genius

Type Genius is, as the name states, a genius tool that helps you correspondent matches for your font. It is very easy to use, all you need to do is to select your font and press ‘find matches’. Enjoy!

adelle-font-matches-


Just My Type

Just My Type is a great tool that helps you find the best matches for your font. It works really fast and you can use the pairing fonts that it finds to complete your website or any design project.

just-my-type

Blender

Blender is a neat tool for any blogger. It offers you matching fonts for heading, subheading and text copy. You can use different parameters such as the font family, size and line height.

the-web-font-blender

Font Combinator by Typotheque

Typotheque is a great tool that helps you pair various fonts from Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic types. It is perfect for graphic designers to use in their projects.

font-combinator

Type Connection

Type Connection is very easy and fun to use and  it offers great results. By using this neat tool you can find matching fonts for your font and make your job easier.
type-connection

Font Pair

Font Pair offers a great way to find pairing fonts based on a series of filters: sans serif, serif, cursive, etc. It is a very useful tool for any designer and it will definitely help with the designing process.
font-pair-helps-designers-pair

Type Wolf

Type Wolf is a neat selection of gorgeous font that blends various fonts. You will find specific information on each font along with great suggestions on how to find your matching font.

typography-inspiration
Typ.io

Typ.io helps you match you selected font with tons of other fonts to help you chose the best one. It also gives you examples of various font combinations to see other combinations and to choose your favorites.

typ-io

Font Combinator

Font Combinator makes your job easier when it comes to matching fonts. You can select some parameters such as font, size, and color.

the-web-font-combinator

Adobe Typekit

Adobe Typekit is an easy and rapid way of finding matching fonts. You need to select your font and it will suggest paired Webkit fonts that you can use in your projects.

typekit

Typespiration

Typespiration lets you search through lots of websites with gorgeous fonts and color palettes. Below each example, you will be given a list with each font that was used, color combination and more information about the site.

typespiration-com-a-showcase-of-web-typography-designs

Fonts In Use

Fonts in Use offers a nice and easy way of finding matching fonts for your design project. Take a look at its full features and start using it today!

fonts-in-use-type-at-work-in-the-real-world

Mixing Typefaces

Mixing Typefaces is actually a PDF file that gives you font matching possibilities. You need to choose a font from the vertical axis and cross-reference it with a font from the horizontal axis.


mixing-typefaces
The Art of Combining Fonts

Here is a nice tool that helps you pair various fonts in a very easy way. Take a look and use it for your design projects. Enjoy!


the-art-of-combining-fonts
The Art of Mixing Typefaces

This is a nice font pairing tool that is very useful for any designer. It offers an infographic on how to combine Google fonts in the best way.

the-art-of-mixing-typefaces

The Ten Commandments of Typography

This is a set of 10 rules that stat how it best to use and to match various fonts. This is a real time-saving tool and it will help you achieve great results.

infographic_-the-10-commandments

Typecast

Typecast helps you pair different fonts and it can really make the designing process faster and better. It is a useful tool for any designer. Take a look!

design-with-web-fonts-in-the-browser

Mixing and Matching Fonts

Mixing and Matching Fonts is a neat infographic that gives you some useful information on how to choose and to combine various fonts.

fontaholic_-mixing-and-matching-fonts

Matcherator

Matcherator is an excellent tool that helps you identify any font from an image that you have. If this great tool can’t determine the exact font, it will give you a selection of matching fonts that you can use.

fontspring-matcherator

Building the ‘Right’ Website for your Small Business

With any luck, we (and more importantly, your customers) have been able to convince you that having a website is pretty much ‘essential’ these days. However, make no mistake – not all websites are created equal. But how much should you spend? Should you build it yourself? In this video, Dave covers some critical ‘must have’s’ when building the ‘right’ website for your Small Business.

Video Transcription

Hi there, Dave Forster with Adster Creative. In our last video we established that having a website is pretty much essential for business’s these days, however in this video – we’re going to talk about ‘Building the ‘right’ website’.

Over the years the team at Adster has been involved in the creation of 100’s of different websites and in that time we’ve come to establish a pretty clear idea in what’s involved in building the right website.

Number 1 - on our list is your Website’s Content. What your website says about your business is crucial. Your website content needs to have a clear purpose and concise call to action. What do you want your site visitors to do? Do you want them to call you? Do you want them to fill out some information about themselves? Do you want them to get know a little more about what you do? Remember; content is king right from the mouth of Google

Number 2 – Visual Appeal . These days having a professionally designed and professional looking website that instills confidence and trust is absolutely essential You want your visitors to feel comfortable on your website.

Number 3 – Fundamental SEO. SEO could stem into a whole other series of videos – and it will – but for building the right website, fundamental SEO means communicating to search engines very clearly a couple of very important things, namely the name of your business, your companies phone number, your geographical location and other fundamentals like the exact nature of the types of products and services you offer. Fundamental SEO literally separates the men from the boys in the world of Google

Number 4 – Speed and Usability. This is another factor that is increasing in importance with having the right website. Having a website that loads quickly and is easy to use and understand for your visitors is absolutely crucial.

Number 5 – Control of your Content. As a business owner you want to be able to access certain areas of your website and update its content. You want to be able to add specials or promotions or you may want to update staff profiles. Having control over your website content is very-very important.

13 Advantages of Having a Website For Your Business

Do you have a business and don’t have a website? If you said yes, it’s almost as if your business doesn’t exist.  In this modern era, people and companies are on the internet for information. Why do you think people visit a website? It’s primarily to find information. And if you’re in the business world, information is critical. You need to have a website for your customers. It needs to contain information about what you can do for them.  Below are just a few of the advantages and benefits of having a website for your business.

Less Expensive
Have you ever advertised your business through various forms such as printed media, radio, television or by other means? It’s expensive! Investing in advertising is necessary, but it takes a lot of money. Having a website will make promoting your company less expensive. Many versions of offline advertising available on the internet are sometimes free.

Advertising
A website is more environmental friendly when it comes to advertising and marketing. There are lots of ways to advertise your products or services through the internet. One example is Facebook ads, an advertising feature offered through Facebook. Another one is called SEO.  This is a major advantage for your business. Having a good SEO service provider can boost the ranking of your website which quickly results in increased sales and higher profits.

Satisfaction
Having a website will be more convenient for your customers and leads. Make it easy for your customers to purchase from you! Many will be more likely to visit your website, rather than driving a car to your physical location and browsing for your products. From a customer’s point of view, it’s better for them if they don’t have to ask anything. They can just find what they’re looking for on your online site.

Increase Customers
Most businesses have local popularity, but what about potential customers outside their city?  A website can help you generate more customers. Not just outside your city, but worldwide. The internet offers a global community. With a website, your business will be visible around the world.

Increase Sales
If you are a business owner, more visitors  leads to more potential sales. That’s how your website will help you. You can drive more people to your site by consistently updating and promoting the contents of your site. The more informative your site is, the greater the possibility of increasing your sales.

Opportunity
A website gives you the opportunity to prove your credibility. You have to tell your customers why you deserve their trust through your website. This can earn positive feedback for your service and products. Also, your website serves as a place for a potential investor to explore what your business is about and what it can do in the future.

Long Term Clients
What do you think is the difference between client and a customer? Well, a customer is the one who walks in and buys something and that’s it. A client is your regular customer. He is buying your products or services daily or contractually. Having a website gives you a chance to gain more clients that can help your business grow.

Your Ideas
These are few of the advantages and benefits of creating a website for your business. Do you know of other advantages to be gained by having a website?  Feel free to let us know your thoughts by commenting on our Facebook Page.

You might also want to check out our services page. Let us help you develop an effective website solution for your business, tailored to honing in on your prospective clients.

Are you making the most of your online strategy? Find out today with our Complimentary Online Marketing Audit.

7 things to consider when planning a rebrand
 
Learn the secrets behind a successful rebrand with this list of seven tips.

The prospect of a company rebrand can fill some marketers with hope and the opportunity to start afresh, but it can also send others running to the hills with the thought of spiralling budgets and internal disagreements over colours and wording. If you’re tasked with a rebrand, we've put together the main areas you should consider before briefing your design team.

01. Check out your competitors

This is especially important if you are operating within a saturated market, as you want to stand out. Start by collecting together the logos of your competitors; often you find that certain industries follow similar brand styles. Don’t be afraid to break the mould and step away from what is the “done thing” in order to make your organisation stand out and show that you are different. Collecting these competitor logos can help to show the design team exactly what you don’t want and where your brand fits into the overall landscape.

This process will also help you when you are unveiling your new branding internally and securing buy-in from senior teams and board members, especially if you’ve chosen a particularly daring final design!

02. Understand who is creating your design

If it is an internal department, will they be fresh and innovative enough to create what you need? If it is an external brand agency, do they fully understand your brand, key messages and who your target market is? Depending on who is creating your design will affect the way that you brief them so it may be good to have an initial meeting to understand everything they need to know before giving a full brief for the project.

03. Take stock of everything that will be rebranded

Before starting to brief your team, you will need to know how many variations of the logo will be required and where they will be used. From brochures to business cards to email signatures and even on your company vehicles, you may need several variations and sizes to meet your needs. You may also need to consider where else you use your logo online -on your website and social media channels, for example. It will be more time efficient and cost-effective to provide your design team with all the information needed upfront and save to-ing and fro-ing and last minute alterations.

04. Invest in typography

Typography has a proven history of making a brand stand out

The font you use can become as iconic as the brand logo. Think of Coca Cola, Disney and even the simple style of John Lewis and it is easy to see how fonts can be as unique as fingerprints. Typography is an art form in itself but unfortunately is often overlooked in modern design. For something truly unique enlist a typography specialist.

 82 top-quality typography tutorials

05. Avoid using stock images where possible

If you’re preparing marketing collateral and websites, nothing says bland and boring like stock images and photography. If possible enlist the help of a graphic designer to create bespoke designs, so that you have something that is individual and unique to yourselves.

06. Are there things you can keep?

Often marketers read “rebrand” as creating something completely new and different, however it can be more of a brand evolution. If you have a particularly successful and established brand, it can be foolish to get rid of particular aspects of your branding which customers and stakeholders are fond of. This can especially be the case with historic and heritage brands. Building a brand is about building the strongest image of your company and it could be that holding onto an iconic brand image, a particular colour or a slogan is the best way of retaining your brand’s identity at the same time as moving it into the present day.

07 December

4 top SEO trends for 2017

Published in Web Design

Is your SEO strategy for 2017 finalized? If not, then you might want to refine it to reflect some of the predicted top SEO trends for 2017.

You should already know the top SEO trends for 2017 from the renowned industry experts. Now we’re going to share a few more predictions to help you continue refining your SEO strategy for 2017.
It’s all about related keywords.

You don’t want to repeat a single keyword phrase throughout a post or page anymore. You want to optimize the post for your main keyword phrase by including it in the title, in the first paragraph, in the last paragraph, and in the header image’s filename, ALT text, and title text.

But from that point on, you want to get some related keywords in mind that you can spice throughout the article. Let’s say you’re writing about google technology. Using Rank Tracker, you can get insights into related keyword phrases and how they stack up against your chosen phrase using insights from a variety of resources beyond Google AdWords Keyword Planner.


Or just use Google AdWords Keyword Planner, on the other hand, and possibly only get estimates based on your AdWords usage.

Even if you do only have ranges, right off the bat, you can see that your keyword phrase, google technology, is getting an average of 1K – 10K monthly searches. But below that is a related, low competition, high search volume keyword phrase. Looking at this might make you re-evaluate your main keyword phrase or look for ways to have multiple main keyword phrases such as In Google News: Best Google Technology Update for Android Yet.

You can also see that there are 328 related keywords that you can download into an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet, sort, and have a field day with. Of course, not all will be related, and not all will have a high search volume. That’s why you will just pick and choose maybe the top five related keywords to use throughout your post. Five related keywords that have the next highest search volumes to your main keyword phrase.

The point? Be sure to research your keywords. You may think you have a good one, but a better one may be lurking around the corner.

It’s about mobile.

Mobile friendly and mobile speed. I can’t stress this enough. If you don’t have responsive web design, but use any common content management (WordPress, Joomla, Squarespace, etc.) or ecommerce solution (Shopify, Magento, etc.), then guess what?

There are tons of responsive designs out there for you. You can check with the platform’s main website, search for third party developers, or go to theme marketplaces like Themeforest to find a responsive theme or design for anything, even plain HTML websites.


Of course, it’s not just your design, but your functionality too. Or your website’s speed at least. You can’t just install WordPress, a responsive theme, and 93 plugins (yes, it’s happened) and expect your website to run at its optimal pace.

That’s why it’s good to use tools like WebPageTest. It will tell you if your website is running at its best possible speed. Because let’s face it – what’s good for users is good for Google. And RankBrain could be learning what users like for Google’s algorithms.

What WebPageTest will tell you exactly what slows down your website load times so you can do things like re-analyze the need for specific plugins, optimize an image, fix a bad widget, or another task.


A fast website with a beautiful design that works on every device is going to be a hit with both search engine bots and users alike.

It’s all about Artificial Search Intelligence aimed at human satisfaction.  

Want to get slapped by Google straight out of the gate? Get every link built to your company using generic keyword rich anchor text like auto insurance company and online colleges. It’s 2017 now, and as we mentioned before, there’s this whole new (but not so new anymore) part of Google’s algorithmic ranking system. Artificial intelligence is now a part of the rankings game and guess what? No one has it mastered.

Not even Google. First, their product naming conventions are confusing. Google Analytics or Analytics Solutions? Subfolder or subdomain? How do I choose when searching web analytics?


But while it’s less volume, you know people looking for web analytics software are going to convert if you happen to offer web analytics.  

Which leads us to the most important thing you should focus on in SEO and any other marketing strategy. If you want it to be successful.
It’s about a conversion-focused approach.

While rankings are great, it’s time to stop focusing on them as an all or nothing way to determine if SEO is working. It’s not about being #1 for the keyword phrase with the highest search volume. It’s about being #1 (organically and/or paid) for the keyword phrase with the highest search volume that will get you conversions.

Think qualified traffic for leads. Sales. Not just any old garden variety of traffic, unless your income is based off of cost per impression advertisers buying space on your website.

Why is qualified traffic the best to generate? Because not only are they most likely to convert, but because they convert, they are the best to use for retargeting in Google AdWords, social media ads, and other remarketing campaigns.  

But why is a conversion-focused approach even more important? Because it’s going to up your quality across the board. It’s going to up your content, your meta titles, your descriptions, your images, your videos, your social posts, your interviews, your roundups. Everything you do in the name of marketing will be done with higher quality because your endgame isn’t to just get a link. Your endgame is to get a potential customer into your sales funnel.

You wouldn’t do that with a crappy pitch in person, so you likely wouldn’t do it with crappy content online either! Or shouldn’t, at least.
In conclusion

Keep in mind the basics. Stay in compliance with Google Webmaster Guidelines and keep an eye on your website’s health in search via Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Find the best keyword phrase and related keyword phrases for your top pages, followed by your top posts, and every piece of content you create from here on out and optimize for those keywords.

Don’t assume you’ve succeeded – use Google Analytics Goals to see what Landing Pages ultimately assisted in a website conversion, from a lead generation to a sale. And finally, follow the above strategies for a successful 2017.

We love Google not only in Uganda but world wide. Seriously. Where would we be in both our personal and professional lives without it? Because Google is such a powerhouse, you would think that we would be big supporters of a service like AdWords.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here’s a brief reminder on what exactly Google AdWords is.

In a nutshell, AdWords is Google’s paid advertising product. Have you ever seen those ads that appear at the top or side of your screen? Those are AdWords ads that a company paid for so that people will notice their business whenever they’re searching Google. And, they only have to pay whenever someone clicks on the ad. This is known as cost-per-click advertising (CPC).

As more and more new, quality websites are indexed by search engines, competition for the top of the results page is increasingly fierce. And, since Google routinely updates its search algorithm, staying updated on the changes is important. Things you were told 2 years ago may not matter at all today.

It can be a tough and technical job, which is why some companies have their own in-house SEO professional. Fortunately, that really isn’t necessary if you have a little knowledge of SEO, have a quality website, and comply with Google’s guidelines.

In this post, I’ll give you resources you can use to learn about SEO and stay on top of SEO, including some free tools that’ll be useful for fixing any issues. Enjoy…

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Resource & Updates

Contact Address

Real Systems Uganda limited

12 Kampala Road, Cham Towers, Suite 129

Kampala, Uganda

Phone: +256 704 904 603/
+256 782 285 964

Email: info@websitedesigninuganda.com

About Real Systems

We are a creative website design and development company based in Kampala - Uganda, serving small to medium-sized businesses, NGOs and personal websites for our clients all over East Africa.