This week and next week we will share with you how to optimize your e-commerce web design in order to make the shopping process as seamless and easy for your customers as possible. Today we will present 10 tips on how to create a better e-commerce website, next week we will present the remaining 10 suggestions.

The post How to optimize your e-commerce web design – Part 1 appeared first on Design Reviver - Web Design Blog.

No business owner wants their logo or marketing materials to appear like an amateur has put them together. When a potential customer goes to compare to like companies, the one that appears more knowledgeable and appealing will often win them over. Attractive marketing materials are essential since they are often the first impression a person has of a company or business.

Unfortunately, hiring a talented graphic designer involves quite a bit of money. Many budgets cannot bend their budgets to accommodate this type of service. So, how does a company ensure they are not only hiring the right designer, but that they are getting them at the best possible price?

Shop Around

Do not feel like you have to sign a contract with the first graphic designer you come across. Look around. Don’t be afraid to do cost comparisons. Bring these findings with you when you meet new designers. Not everyone will be willing to budge on their price but perhaps a designer you just love will agree to bridge the gap here or there. You have to negotiate. Perhaps they are firm on their estimate but are willing to throw something extra in. Or there is  a package deal with services you weren’t going to purchase but the bundle cost is too good to pass up. As in anything else, the best way to save money is to spend the time beforehand doing prep work.

Knowledge

Knowing what you are looking for and what you want beforehand will save you not only time, but also money. The more proofs, edits and redesigns you require to get the desired final product – the more you will pay a designer for their work. Take some time to do some research on design, recent trends in design and to really map out what you are seeking for your logo or marketing material. Coming to a designer with a plan with make proceedings go so much easier, thus saving you money.

Experience

Often those who want the best designers have the money to back up their wish. However, not every company can afford to hire the most skilled, most experienced or most wanted designer on the market. If you are working on a budget, your dreams of having a top notch designer may seem out of reach. However, you can find a great and talented designer without having to take out a second line of credit. Once you get past having to have the right ‘name’ behind your work, you can focus on upcoming designers who have loads of talent. These new designers may not have the experience or notoriety, but they can still produce stellar work that will grab the attention of your client base. It will require research to find the right designer, but it will be worth it in the end.

Protection

As a business owner, you need to protect yourself. Look for a designer or company that has been around for a while. Check their feedback rating at places like the Better Business Bureau. Ask your local Chamber of Commerce if they have heard anything about the company. Do an online search to see if there is anyone online talking about the designer, their work or their design firm. If you cannot find anything doing this research, ask the designer about insurance. A serious graphic designer will carry some type of liability insurance. Having insurance is a strong indication that the designer is serious about what they do.

Combine Services

Many companies offer in-house design services as part of their packages and deals. Instead of first seeking out a graphic design, considering choosing your printing company first and ask them to add on design services. Often this arrangement will save you money since the printing company is seeking first and foremost to acquire your printing needs and is offering design as an added bonus.

There are multiple ways to save costs when it comes to procuring a graphic designer for your needs. Doing the necessary research beforehand will go far when it comes to saving money and sparing your budget. Avoid rushing into making a decision and don’t be scared to negotiate. These techniques will ensure that you trim unnecessary fat from the cost of design and get the marketing pieces you are hoping for.

The post Budget Suggestions for Hiring Logo Design Company appeared first on Design Reviver - Web Design Blog.

Even though many people dream of going freelance they often forget that it is a very challenging career choice, unlike a regular 9-5 job you are not certain that you will add money to your account at the end of the month. The biggest problem for any freelancer is not getting paid on time, or heaven forbid not getting paid at all. In this post we have added some suggestions and guidelines for making sure you will always get paid for the work you complete.

Often freelancers are more worried about providing a great service than they are about getting paid, many of them simply assume that if the client is happy with the job you do that then that equates to getting paid. However the truth unfortunately looks very different, in a split second a project that has taken many hours can go down the drain leaving you searching through the couch and jeans pockets for pennies that will pay the rent for next month.

Discuss payment before project start

Money is one of those touchy subjects, not everyone feels comfortable asking for money. However remember that the reason you are working freelance, or working at all is so you can pay your bills at the end of the month, there is nothing working with asking about payment in the same meeting as discussing the project details.

You should never start a project before the payment details have all been discussed, if the client gives you a suggestion that is too low then tell them so, remember you are running a one man business here and as such need to make sure you are getting paid what you deserve.

Use Contracts

This can really not be said enough, you need to have some form of contract with the client, otherwise you have no proof of actually having completed the project. On a personal note I once wrote an article and sent it to the client, never got paid however two weeks late I saw the same article on his website, since we didn’t have a contract I had no way of proving that I actually wrote the article. If you don’t know how to draft a contract look through Google there are a lot of sample contracts out there.

Contracts are beneficial for both you and your client, so work with them on the contract, make sure it is a win-win situation for both of you. Trust me a good contract will go a long way down the road. Of course make sure to keep a copy of the contract incase the client suddenly change their mind then you can refer to the contract.

Payment methods

It used to be that freelancers were paid either through wire transfers, by cheques or even in cash, however we are in 2013 and there is no reason why you can’t get paid through the internet, my recommendation is using PayPal, since they are the most reliable and consistent.

The great thing about PayPal is that once the client transfers the money they are automatically added to your account, yes it does take a few days for the money to get from PayPal to your account, but it is much safer than many other payment methods.

Keep Emotions at Bay

Every freelancer will tell you that they are passionate about a current project, sometimes you will want to sit up all night to work on a project, it can be near impossible for you to remove yourself from a project. However remember that you are still on a schedule, and you are most likely working on several projects at the same time. You need to be able to look at a project for what it is a paying gig and not your new baby. Don’t tell the client that you will make changes for free unless you absolutely messed something up, don’t keep reworking parts of your project because you are emotionally attached.

Let the client know if they are late

As with discussing payment upfront many people don’t like telling clients when they are late with a payment, but you need to remember, it’s all about cash flow. If you don’t get paid then you can’t pay your bills, and so on… You need to device some sort of follow-up strategy.

Often a simple email reminder is all it takes for the client to remember that they still need you pay you, if your email doesn’t work don’t be afraid to call them and let them know that you are still waiting for your money.

Conclusion

Being a freelancer can and should be a profitable undertaking, remember that since you are working for yourself you have no one but yourself to make sure bills are paid on time. If you feel we forgot something feel free to drop us a line in the comments below.

The post Guide for getting paid on time as a freelancer. appeared first on Design Reviver - Web Design Blog.

You might have created the best website ever, however if no one can find you online then chances are your site will never really become too popular. In order to make your website more search engine friendly there are a few tricks you need to remember when designing your content.

1. Update Pages regularly

Even if the content of your website doesn’t really change that often it might be a good idea to change things around once in a while. For instance if you have a blog you might want to add your latest posts somewhere on the site. The reason for this is that the more changes you make the more often search engines will crawl through your sites.

2. Watch out with too much Flash contents

So you are using Flash for navigation on your site, while this might look really cool search engine wise it can be really bad news since search engines have difficulties crawling through sites that use too much Flash.  The good thing is that there are different ways to to make Flash objects accessible and web-crawler-friendly.

3. Don’t use generic links

One area that search engines place a great emphasis on is links. Therefore it is vital that you make sure to word your links as best as possible. For instance a web crawler won’t really understand if you have several links saying “click here” instead you should be using something more specific to describe the content, something like “click here to learn more about …”

4. Use unique page titles

Similar to the tip above it is important to use unique page titles, in other words make sure each page on your web site has a unique title attribute. The problem is that if you always use the same title for every page on your website then the search engines will acknowledge this as if every site is about the same topic, and therefore ignore it.

5. Block Pages You Don’t Want Search Engines Index

Sometimes there are pages on a site that you want to see on the front page of Google. Whatever the content of such a page is make sure not to expose it to the web crawlers. One of the best ways to avoid something being crawled and indexed is through a robots.txt file.

6. Use Content That Search Engine Spiders Can Read

One reason why many websites struggle in the Google pond is because they forget that if your site contains little content then there is little for the search engine crawler to crawl through. If for example 99% of your site consists of images then don’t expect your site to rank very high. Make sure you make the life of a search engine as easy as possible.

7. Don’t forget about images

One thing that I often see people forget about is the  alt attribute of images, often these are left blank because people don’t understand just how important they are. Remember the alt attribute should be used to explain what an image is. Don’t forget that while search engine crawlers are getting smarter and smarter they still can tell that the image on your website resembles Aunt Edna.

Furthermore remember that sometimes images don’t load for some reason and therefore it is a great idea to use the alt attributes to help tell the users whats in the picture.

8. Use Unique Meta Data

This is a very important one, often designers create a template that they use for the whole website, however they forget to change the meta data and as a result they end up with several sites that all have the same meta data. In order to help search engines you should really make sure that each page has its own set of meta data.

9. Be smart about keywords

Keywords, keywords keywords….I cannot even begin to stress the importance of keywords. If you want your website to show up on google then you will really want to think long and hard about your keywords. Let’s say your website is about the best canon L lenses  for the Canon 60D well if your keyword is “Canon” then be ready to fight with about 1,590,000,000 websites, whereas if you use something like “best canon L lens for 60d” then there are only 2,320,000 results, while this might still seem like a big number it sure beats the first number.

10. Remember the importance of your headings

Remember that Headline tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.) are great places  to use your keywords. The biggest thing to remember is that search engines know that there is a reason behind your headline tags and therefore they will automatically add a greater importance to the words found in your headings.

The post 10 SEO Tips That Web Designers Should Remember appeared first on Design Reviver - Web Design Blog.

When it comes to online marketing one of the most used forms is Email marketing. The purpose behind email marketing is often to get a message across, whether this be to promote an offer, serve targeted advertisements or initiate deals. Email marketing is a great way to improve your brand image as well as knowledge of your services.

Often many designers make simple mistakes when creating an email, provided here are 10 tips to create better email designs.

Plain Text Version

This is without a doubt one of the most important things to remember when designing an email, always create a TEXT version of the email. Not all email clients handle HTML too well, some may not render email messages crafted in HTML. Furthermore including a plain text version makes your email more readable on mobile devices.

Keep everything within 500-700px wide

The width of the email should be 500-700px and centered. This is just as important as the tip above, if not even more important. There is nothing worse than receiving an email where you need to scroll from side to side in order to read the whole message. Why? Simply we are creatures of habit, we don’t take the time to read every word in a text we scan it. Since our eyes tend to focus on whats straight ahead of us, the stuff on the sides will get blacked out and ignored by our brains.

Allow Easy Unsubscribing

There is no if/but/maybe about this, it is absolutely essential that your readers can unsubscribe from your email, don’t try to be smart about this by hiding the unsubscribe mail in some obscure place within the email. Unsubscribing should be a painless process that virtually anyone viewing the email should be able to figure out. Remember if the recipient doesn’t want your email they are not going to read it anyways. You might be sending 1,000 emails, but if only 50 are being read then your system is not very effective.

Plan for no images

While you might have just downloaded the perfect image from Shutterstock, please remember that many email clients block images in messages unless the user decides to see them, pretty much that means that often your beautiful images will never get seen. Another problem is if your message is embedded in an image, then the same rule applies most readers will never see your message because your images are blocked.

Test it on-the-go

Just like you would test a website before launching it you should really test an email before sending it out to your final audience, remember that not only should you test these on the most popular clients such as Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook and others but also test to see how it looks on a smartphone or mobile device, If you don’t own a device then grab a friend who has one ask them if you can test your mail on their device!

View in Browser

There should be no reason why you would not allow people to view your email as a Web page. Face it, there are just some people who prefer to look at things in a browser, furthermore not all email clients render HTML as you expected and therefore making it possible for your readers to view your mail in a browser makes everyone happy.

Relevant Subject line

I cannot even begin to state the importance of this, if your subject line screams “I am spam from spam company don’t bother reading” well then guess what your reader isn’t going to read it, furthermore if your subject line is “READ ME I AM FULL OF BS” all in capital letters then they will also move on, or how about the “Make $1,000 in a jiffy!!!!!!!!!!” if nothing else then all the exclamation marks will deter anyone from reading this email, and besides spam filters will most likely mean your readers will never even see these emails.

Call To Action

So you have the best/newest/fastest something and you want to add a CTA, or Call To Action in your email, then make sure it is clear exactly what this action is, if you want your reader to do something then don’t just add a ‘click here’ button instead add something like “click here to…” tell them what will happen when they click here.

Don’t use video

Yes over the past few years there seems to be a video for everything, with sites such as YouTube getting more and more popular there should be no reason why you would include an actual video in your email. If your reader is using a slow internet connection then it will take them forever to load your email. Furthermore more and more email clients are filtering out emails with large file sizes, in other words if you add a video you run the risk of ending up in the Spam folder.

Make it clear who’s sending the message

Lets face it, if you don’t know the sender of an email you are more likely to just hit the delete button. Just like in real life people are suspicious of strangers and the same goes for email. In other words make sure your sender ID states exactly who you are, furthermore make sure your logo is visible at the top of your email.

The post 10 Tips to Remember When Designing For Email appeared first on Design Reviver.

It’s that time of year again. It’s time to start thinking about what gifts to pick up for your family and friends (and maybe even yourself) for the holidays. And if you happen to be buying for a web designer this year, we happen to have 10 awesome holiday gift ideas that web designers will cherish.

1. Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5

You all knew this was coming first, right? What’s a top 10 list without Adobe Photoshop? With the release of Creative Suite 5, Adobe has boosted Photoshop’s features and delivered more flexibility and design options. And web designers know that a powerful graphic and image editor is essential to be effective at work. With holiday season discounts from Adobe, you can snag a copy of Photoshop CS5 starting around just $600.

2. Apple iPad

Apple iPad

Not only are Apple iPad’s the hottest item since sliced bread, but they’re less than half the cost of a quality laptop. They’re essential to have around if you’re designing for mobile devices, applications and varied device resolutions, and not to mention (we drool over how cool they are). If you really want to make a web designer happy this season, surprise them with an iPad (starting at just $499).

3. SanDisk Ultra® Backup 16GB USB Flash Drive

SanDisk Ultra Backup 16GB USB Flash Drive

SanDisk has introduced the SanDisk Ultra® Backup USB Flash Drive which is the first USB flash drive with a backup button. With three models available: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, web designers can store lots of files, images, drafts, proposals and more. Buy online from Staples.com starting at $89.99!

4. CSS3 For Web Designers

CSS3 For Web Designers

A Book Apart continues its web design book series ‘…for people who make websites’ with Dan Cederholm’s masterfully written “CSS3 For Web Designers”. With the emergence of new methodologies like HTML5 and CSS3, it’s always important for us designers to study up on the semantics so we can stay ahead of the game. Purchase “CSS3 For Web Designers” as paperback, ebook or a bundle of both.

5. Basecamp

Basecamp | 37Signals.com

Basecamp is a robust project management software solution for managing almost any type of web project. Millions of people already use Basecamp, and it’s the preferred project management tool of several multi-million dollar brands. Don’t have a large organization? That’s okay too. Basecamp starts with a “Small Group” plan that costs only $49/month.

6. Apple Magic Mouse

Apple Magic Mouse

The Apple Magic Mouse is a must-have for Mac-lovers. It’s a wireless, bluetooth-dependent multi-touch mouse that allows for seamless operation. Make sure you have the required hardware and software before buying the Magic Mouse. Details can be found on the Apple website or by clicking the link above.

7. Typekit Portfolio Plan

Typekit Portfolio Plan

Typekit is a really cool web service that allows web designers to use a large library of stylish fonts that were previously unavailable for use on websites. For web designers who have started using CSS3 on a regular basis know that in order to use a large variety of fonts on their projects, they must adhere to license agreements for font usage on the web. Typekit makes the “licensing agreements” a non-issue, allowing designers to stick to what they do best — using great typography. Purchase a “Portfolio” plan for a friend and spend only $49.99/year.

8. The Smashing Book

The Smashing Book

The Smashing Book is a byproduct of Smashing Magazine which is an awesome read for designers. It’s a printed book that covers best practices in modern web design. And as a treat, The Smashing Book also shares some exclusive information about the background of Smashing Magazine. This is a must-have gift for web designers!

9. Custom Laptop Skins

Laptop Skins

Surprise someone with a custom or pre-made laptop skin from Schtickers.com. Schtickers gives you total flexibility; allowing you to add custom graphics, text and backgrounds to their removable and reusable laptop skins. Create a custom laptop skin to fit the dimensions of your specific laptop! Very affordable, thoughtful gift for a web designer.

10. Quality Headphones

Headphones

Last but not least of the great gifts for web designers are a set of quality headphones. Lots of web designers enjoy listening to music while working. However, a set of half-broken headphones that barely work anymore aren’t going to get the job done. Do someone a favor and get them a quality pair of headphones that will last the test of time. The Amazon.com Headphone Department has a great selection. Get shopping!

There are plenty more great gifts for web designers that could have been included in this entry, but I decided to narrow the list down to the top 10. Any web designer would be lucky to receive any of the above. I know I would be. Happy holidays and happy shopping!

A really interesting question was asked recently on Answers, discussing the importance and relevance of CSS validation. It would be interesting to discover how much stock developers actually do put in to it, or, is it more important to focus on the actual page being able to function? We would love to hear from you.

You can leave your thoughts, tips and insights in the comment section below, or you can leave your answer on the original question on Answers here: CSS validation, How Important Is It

This question was originally asked by Ben G.

Here is the best answer, as voted by our users, so far:

So, what do you think, how important is CSS validation?

Thanks to everyone who asked a question, but most importantly thanks to everyone that took the time and effort to offer helpful and useful answers.

The most difficult task any budding web designer will experience is finding that first break-through job with a web design company or agency. But, how would you describe who you are and what you can do in a professional manner? On the flip-side to that, how would a web design agency describe what they are looking for any new designer?
This is a questions that was recently asked on Answers, and we would like to open it up to our readers for some advice and tips.

You can leave your thoughts and tips in the comment section below, or you can leave your answer on the original question on Answers here: What should a basic job description look like for a Web Designer?

This question was originally asked by Ben G.

Here is the best answer, as voted by our users, so far:

Here is the second best answer, as voted by our users, from Devone:

So, what are your thoughts or tips for a web designers basic job description?

Thanks to everyone who asked a question, but most importantly thanks to everyone that took the time and effort to offer helpful and useful answers.

A massive question was posted recently on Answers, asking what exactly DESIGN is. We know it is such a broad question with no clear and defined answer, but it would be interesting to hear from our readers and find out from them what they think design is?

Here is Wikipedias definition of DESIGN:

No generally-accepted definition of “design” exists, and the term has different connotations in different fields. Informally, “a design” refers to a plan for the construction of an object and “to design” refers to making this plan. However, one can also design by directly constructing an object.

You can leave your answer in the comment section below, or you can leave your answer on the original question on Answers here: Fill in the Blank: Design is _____?

This question was originally asked by David Baker.

Here are some of the Answers we have received so far:

So, what is DESIGN to you?

Thanks to everyone who asked a question, but most importantly thanks to everyone that took the time and effort to offer helpful and useful answers.