Category: Blog

Nothing is more off-putting than having to wade through a wall of information to find what you came for. Where there is clutter, even valuable things lose their value. And visitors leave websites that aren’t usable.

Designing for clarity and calmness is a great way to set your company apart. Minimalism lets the content really stand out and shine. How can we use the benefits of functional minimalism and inspire people to stay?

Understanding minimalism

Minimalism is super trendy right now. Its concept is based on the Japanese aesthetic. It is minimalism that makes a Japanese tatami room so serene.

In web design, minimalism is all about creating a seamless user experience. Its application can be in two different ways – aesthetic and functional. One values the art of form – and the other, the art of functionality.

Functional minimalism strips away all unnecessary elements.

Functional minimalism in web design

When users visit a website, they have one question: “What’s in it for me?” If they don’t get that in the first 5 seconds, they’ll leave.

Design is not only about aesthetics – it is communication. And communication is best when it is concise. When it comes to a minimalist web design, there are five focus areas:

1. Emphasis on essential content

You might have come across websites that were crowded with content, and it was difficult to find what you were looking for. Some websites strive to give all the information so people can make an informed decision. But in reality, this hardly works.

All elements that distract users from the main content should be removed. Every detail must serve the purpose. Also, don’t write complex sentences. Long sentences are often why you lose your audience.

2. Extensive use of negative space

Negative space, or “white space,” describes the areas between different elements on a web page. The concept of negative space is based on the Japanese Ma principle. It is the void between all things. Ma creates peace of mind.

When used correctly, negative space helps draw attention to important information and improve the overall user experience. You can make particular content more noticeable.

It is the silence between the notes that makes the music.

3. Single focal point

Make the viewer focus on the main element of the page. Users don’t have to spend a lot of time extracting essential information from tons of detail.

Arrange your site so visitors naturally gravitate to the most important element. A message should be conveyed without unnecessary noise.

4. Simple navigation for better usability

Don’t give your users too many options once they land on your page. Decide how they will find the shortcut to their goals. Help users complete their tasks as efficiently as possible.

Ask yourself: does this element serve a function, or is it just visual? Rule of thumb: if something is not useful to the majority of visitors, remove it.

However, don’t hide the navigation. It makes the interface cleaner, but using the product becomes harder for visitors. They should get what they want without any fuss, and you’ll get what you want.

And don’t reinvent the wheel. Use elements that people are familiar with.

5. The main content should be placed on the top of a page

Your first impression is everything. Because viewer’s eyes always fixate on the top of the page, this is another area where bad page design can hurt conversions.

It is essential to answer 3 questions within five seconds before users continue their hunt elsewhere:

1. Where am I?
2. What can I do here?
3. And why should I do it?

Be upfront about your intent. A good way to start is with a “wow factor.” But how do you accomplish it?

• Present yourself as the solution to a tricky problem.
• Help your audience reach a goal.
• Anticipate the needs of your customers and proactively answer questions.
• Create a sense of delight in your brand.

The quiet art of functional minimalism

So, how do you create a design that is appealing, loads quickly, and doesn’t raise your bounce rates?

Think through your website’s setup like you’re a new customer. Ensure:

• Simplicity
• Navigability
• Consistency
• Hierarchy
• Accessibility
• User-centricity

And when the site is launched, you can use analytics to see which elements are clicked infrequently. Gather user responses and consider removing some elements to get the best UX. All details should prove their worth.

Are you looking for a web design company in Dubai? Get in touch with us. Let’s have a conversation about how we can help find a way to make users say “wow” to your website or app.

Although WordPress is primarily known as a blogging platform it can be used to run a non-blog website as well. One would be intrigued by the varied uses of WordPress. If you are wondering why they Call “WordPress as a CMS, it is the WordPress administrative area that turns it into a CMS or Content Management System.

The WordPress admin area provides an approach of What You See Is What You Get editor this is similar to a small version of Microsoft Word. Without knowledge of HTML, you can make anyone add and edit content by themselves. There is a “code view” for advanced users, this provides an option where you can edit HTML code in a post, page, or article.

All you need to know about the initial settings – Permalinks and Comments

If you have the right web hosting which is capable of supporting the PHP programming language and running MySQL databases then the WordPress installation process is fairly simple. There are several settings to update once the installation is complete. in the case of a website vs a blog, I wanted to remove the comment features for betterment. It’s also essential to update the Permalink structure, as well. Permalinks are also known as pretty URLs.

Using a Static Front Page

The content page is created once the main site settings are completed. A WordPress admin area provides an option to let you specify either using the latest posts or a static page as the front page of the site. Initially, most people choose the site to use a static page for the home page.

Individual Page Templates

You can indicate separate templates to be applied to individual pages, using some extra PHP files and the page template option. By this, you can achieve to get a different page template for your home page and the rest of the pages on your website. It’s important that the home page file must be titled home.php if not it will not work.

Individual Templates For Categories and Posts, Too!

While creating pages there is a readily available page template option but the same kind of template is not available while creating the posts. If you still want to achieve creating a set template for the posts, you can use PHP scripting, by using the category ID. In this way, you can keep the sidebar and header from the portfolio page along with the individual Portfolio posts.

Putting It All Together

There are some automated features of Word Press as a CMS. It has the PHP code mentioned above to automatically list the testimonials and FAQ. For example, if one adds a new post, whenever there is a new client recommendation, it’s automatically added to the sidebar and main testimonial page. This is yet another example of exactly why developers love web design and development so much.

Control

You can code any part of WordPress to function as per your need. WordPress runs smoothly as a CMS. What makes it great is how much freedom of control you get to have. You have access to all folders and files. If you are a quick learner or know PHP, you can make a masterpiece quickly. You can also make a theme or plugin to be installed into your WordPress. Turn plugins on and off with one click, by this, you can redesign your site with a quick and simple theme. It provides a vast amount of themes and plugins that are available for download.

User Interface

The admin section of WordPress is easy to understand and modify; you can make pages, installs, posts, and updates in a super easy manner. You can rely on the WYSIWYG editor which gives you everything that is needed to post a story to your site. You can schedule it for another day or publish a post on the same day. You can establish password protection for a page or allow commenting on your site. It’s all displayed with a pleasing user interface.

Conclusion

WordPress has many features including a template system and a plugin architecture. WordPress permits you to build any kind of site because it’s too versatile. The advantage of WordPress as a CMS is a way to add audio, content, videos, images, audio, etc. to your site; Use plugins that will instantly give you a theme or social sharing, which will instantly give you a nice-looking site.

The greatest challenge for business owners is choosing a framework allows flawless web app development. Ruby on Rails helps you create good and powerful web apps. Like every other frame work Ruby on rails has its own advantages and disadvantages too.

In simple words Ruby is a programming language and Ruby on Rails is a development framework that aids web app creation. Being an end to end framework, RoR clubs with many features like ORM (objective relational mapping) system for business data and application management.

Advantages of RoR:
Reusability of code:

Rails is written in Ruby, but gives you a lot of reusable pieces to help you build a web site or application much faster and more easily, pieces you don’t have to write yourself, and can simply configure and use for your project. Furthermore, they are pieces that have been very thoroughly tested, so they are much more robust than if you wrote them yourself.
RoR succeeds this with the help of MVC which helps reuse code and also work on parallel development.
The three parts of a software: Model, view, controller, that are decoupled – helps the app developers to work on different aspects of the application at the same time. It makes app creation super-efficient.
The user makes a request to the controller and then the controller communicates with the model, where the change takes place. Further the model rebuts the information back to the controller. The controller then takes it to the user. Reusable code and parallel developments are major time savers.

Convention over Configuration:
RoR focuses on their principle of Convention over Configuration. It simply means that RoR comes with Pre-coded features that allow the developer to either choose to adopt or ignore them.

The developers needn’t configure from scratch. The main benefit of conventions over conventions are flexibility.

Don’t repeat yourself:
The major pillar of Ruby on Rails is DRY (Don’t repeat yourself). It makes sure that the concerns are clear and the application is well maintained.

Learning ease:
The program has an ease of use. Built with simple language instructions RoR helps the user understand and learn the program easily.
Technical Flexibility:
As the program had pre-built feature in convention over configuration the development of app is a easy work.

Support:
The community of Rails is very supportive and open with great interaction. Being configured apps they can integrate into the application easily. With great community support developing your application with a Ruby on Rails developer will be easy.

Advantages of learning Ruby on Rails:

• Basically, RoR is used for a speedy development of web apps
• Based on a hiring perspective, a startup can understand that, if a developer is using RoR, they are assumed to be keeners who are interested in development of skills and contribute to open source projects. This aspect of web app development is considered to be the personality type that is a good cultural fit for many startup companies.
• To build a high scalable website, the RoR developers are profoundly aware of full-stack development practices.
• On a regular basis, the caching, worker queues, thread and process management, proxy configuration, redundancy and monitoring are discussed.
• One of the major reasons why it is popular amidst the start ups is that, it is free and easily available for people to use.
• As it uses “Convention over Configuration”, using the framework is usually very faster to bootstrap web applications.
• A web application that is built with RoR is ordered in a sequential manner and also has basic divisions between the layers of models, controllers, defined routes and bound views within the framework.

According to StatCounter, a web traffic analysis website, Google has overwhelming dominance as a search engine. It has 81 percent market share on desktop devices and 94 percent on mobile. Appearing high up on search results is vital for businesses, so websites are always anxious to maintain and improve their Google search rankings.
In May, last year. Google had announced that the next upcoming change in 2021 will have to do with site performance — how quickly a page loads in the browser after a user navigates to the site.

It’s been a big factor for some time, in part because mobile usage has exploded. Hence it as a priority in terms of Google’s algorithm.

Google’s announcement about its upcoming search ranking update spotlighted Core Web Vitals. It is a collection of metrics to quantify the “user experience” factor of a website

The first metric calculates how long it takes the website to load its largest visible piece of content, such as an image, video or large block of text.
The second criteria measures how quickly a website becomes responsive once the user navigates to it.
The third metric is on how much a website’s layout shifts during the page loading process. This problem, known as “cumulative layout shift,” is what causes the frustrating experience of having the text you were reading suddenly shift out of view.

Page performance is going to be increasingly important for determining search rank in the future

Instagram is testing a new ‘Closed Captions’ sticker for IG Stories. The feature will generate automated captions for your Stories clips in a range of text formats.

An example of this was posted by Matt Navarra. Once you add the captions sticker to your story, you would then see a ‘Transcribing audio…’ prompt on your screen post which you would be able to view the text from your video, which displays in time with your speech.

The tool could provide a range of new options for brands and creators, making it easier to reach a wider audience, and ensure that their Stories are able to be understood in sound on and sound off scenarios. As you can see in the example, however, the automated captions are not perfect, so you will need to review the text. It’s not clear yet whether Instagram will provide the capacity to edit the text within the interface.

Instagram hasn’t provided a timeline for a public release, but given the advanced nature of this prototype, you can likely expect to see it launched sometime soon.

In order to know how blockchain is disrupting the world, one needs to know what is blockchain. It sounds complicated, but its core concept is really simple. A blockchain is a type of database, it is a collection of information that is stored electronically on a cloud or computer system.

Blockchain is one type of a specific database. The way it stores information is how it differs from a typical database. A blockchain collects information or data together in groups, these are also known as blocks, and they hold sets of information. Each block has certain storage capacities and, once it is filled, they are chained onto the previously filled block, thus forming a chain of data known as the “blockchain.” Any new information that has to be added is compiled into a newly formed block which then will also be added to the chain once filled.

The main reason blockchain seems to be disrupting the world is because it is breaking the current scenario of data management. Most of the data management follows a centralized system. Blockchain technology depends on decentralized concepts, entirely against the current centralized system.

Usage of blockchain in various fields

Financial transactions, Public administration, Data management, Tourism are few such areas, in which Blockchain is implemented gradually. One can aim to improve transparency in administration. It’s highly used to increase security for financial transactions and data management. It aims to the reduction of cost and improved efficiency.

Why Blockchain is considered to be disrupting the world

Blockchain creates a secure and trustable ecosystem that works automatically. It avoids the threats of fake transactions or documents. It puts an end to sectors where pyramidal and hierarchical organizations are no longer needed. Since it is decentralized, nobody owns the network, hence the network acts as the supreme authority.

Benefits of blockchain

• Reduction of costs,
• Reduction of paperwork,
• Highly trusted and
• Provides maximum security.

Certain industries disrupted by blockchain

Finance Industry

Bitcoin has a very strong brand in the digital currency space. It is one of the best-known applications of blockchain technology. This technology provides Bitcoin, with a verifiable ledger of transactions. The best part of the blockchain is to provide security to the ledger. Hence blockchain does not permit any middlemen nor banks to take full control of digital money. Every block in the blockchain is distributed to various people of the network thus the control does not exist to one sole proprietor or a firm.

Music Industry

The music industry is trying to transform with blockchain technology. It can be used for music streaming. It is used to ensure musicians are paid fairly and quickly for streams and sales of their work. The blockchain increases transparency. This would be beneficial for artists to see into the process of splitting royalties. This will avoid the publishers and record labels who were to hold the royalties before giving them to artists so far. This is possible only because of blockchain technology.

Fighting counterfeits

This revolutionary technology has been developed to build an anti-counterfeit solution. It brings transparency from the blockchain to supply chains.  It can verify diverted goods, counterfeit products, fraudulent transactions, and stolen merchandise. Some of the best solutions used to fight counterfeits will include pharmaceuticals, luxury items, diamonds, and electronics.

Ownership

Blockchain technology helps to distribute ownership. Blockchain is used for data management and record-keeping for businesses and governments.

• Money is secured by the financial records
• Property is secured by real estate records
• Credit and identities are secured by the citizen records

If all this information exists in a centralized location these records can be hacked or maliciously changed. With blockchain technology, all the information is distributed rather than having it be centralized. Hence it makes it impossible to hack a distributed network. This is one of the blockchain’s greatest benefits.

Blockchain Technology is Disrupting the Fight against COVID-19

One of the most important strategies to rein in the spread of coronavirus infection is contact tracing. That is to track and isolate the close contacts of infected individuals. Many countries, including Germany, South Korea, Norway, and Singapore, have developed contact tracing applications to control the outbreak; Its effectiveness may be riddled with the challenge of data breaching and insecurity.

Blockchain technology collects information from contacts without identifying them. This system does not expose any personal identifiers; this is achieved by the use of a digital fingerprint or key to label each patient.

The Automotive Industry

Third parties such as Car Insurance providers and other TPAs often involved during the lifetime of a vehicle. This is especially true for cars used for business purposes. The blockchain can access information related to a vehicle that is needed by these third-party services. Blockchain systems coordinate shared rides, identify vehicle owners, check the ownership of vehicles, auto insurance, vehicle recall optimization, ownership transfer, and identification of auto parts.

By controlling the core properties of blockchain technology, including the transparency of transactions, the immutability of data, and data security, public health agencies and governments can address many problems, taking the world several steps ahead and heightening the global economy back to normalcy.

There are several factors that you need for a link-building strategy to work. Starting from people, the process to tactics and measurements. Each of which is explained in detail to ensure you meet your objectives while executing a link-building strategy.

Main elements for effective link building?

The construction of links produces the best outcomes and effects. You need to note when planning an internal link-building approach not all links are identical and that there are primary factors that move success forward. More the effort you would take to get the right links, the more effective you’ll receive the output. Here are some of the main components you need to work on that make up an excellent relationship-building plan to help you understand what a superb connection profile looks like

People

The most important ingredient for success is hiring the right people. Only when you have reliable people to help with the execution, the planned strategy would be great if not it will be a failure. Link development naturally comes with a ton of rejections. When you hire people do not fail to ask about a time when they have experienced rejection, and how have they overcome that challenge? It’s probably not the best position for them if they can’t take rejection.

Steps involved in a successful link development

• An established process
• Good content team
• Diversity of tactics
• Key measuring techniques
• The right people to execute the campaign

Process

The first thing to do is to establish a process at the start. This will help in important areas such as client onboarding, content creation, and reporting.

Many of these opportunities will never be found if work is not done in an efficient manner, for which you need solid processes in place. To understand what could have been done better revisit the processes after every campaign. These are called, “retrospective meetings” it helps to find areas for improvement.

When your goal is to achieve long-term success of your link development campaign, there are three main reasons you need to consider as the link strategy:

1. Understand how the competition is earning the links
2. To build links, what are the existing linkable assets that can be leveraged
3. Understand what content has to be created to build links in the future

Without a strategic vision do not start a link development campaign because there’s so much that goes into the process that doesn’t meet the eye while a link is developed.

Content

A well-done strategy should have the best opportunity to place organic backlinks. It should spark ideas on new content to create and also identify gaps in your content library. It’s critical to consider the customer journey while crafting the content. Your content should always provide the information that solves their challenge and be useful for your audience.

Measurement

A wide array of KPIs, include quality metrics, outreach and, industry averages. This helps us understand how the campaign is performing.

Decide what the most important KPIs are to be tracked:

• Organic traffic growth?
• Backlink growth?
• (DA) Domain Authority improvement?
• Keyword footprint growth?
• Page 1 keyword growth?
• All the above?

Take a record of baseline metrics at the start of the engagement. It is an important part of continuous improvement.

How important is link building for SEO?

Link building is so important because a large portion of your SEO campaigns capital would reap the benefit if done right.

Ensure that you place a heavy emphasis on internal link building for the following reasons:

(a) You will be rated high on Google and other search engines

(b) Google can find new sites quicker that links to your blog

(c)  You’ll enjoy enhanced trustworthiness and reputation

(d) You will increase the traffic to your web page

Conclusion

It would be great if you had a website to create links before constructing links. Often, it would be led to the website’s home page. However, there are connections established to specialized such as analysis study, a blog post, graph, or, tool. These connections are usually built before building any campaign. It is complicated to build links to low-value web pages.