IN TRENDS

Web Design Trends for 2014

Posted by Maryam Taheri on Jan 14, 2014 | 4 Comments

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The start of a new year is always an exciting time for businesses to look ahead and wonder what the coming year will bring. There are a lot of changes in store in 2014, especially for people who work in technology and web design.

2013 saw a slew of new trends, some of which have begun to fade out and others that stuck around and are still going strong. While 2014 is just getting started, let’s take a look at some of the web design trends that have started to emerge or that we can expect to see in the coming year.

Flat Design

Flat Design was one of the biggest trends to emerge in 2013 and it is going strong into the new year. Companies from Taco Bell to Apple are dropping skeumorphism in favor of flat design by stripping their graphics of pretty much any design element that isn’t 100% purposeful in the function of the product. Apple, for example, launched their iOS7 with an extreme flat design, stripping the design elements until they were stark naked. This involves getting rid of 3-D graphics and gradients and basically just using flat shapes and indicators to help the user have a more accessible experience.

Experimental typography

More and more designers are having fun with fonts and injecting them with new personalities. These fonts have a little more pizazz than standard serif or san-serif fonts like Times New Roman, Helvetica, etc. We’ve already seen designers beginning to add uniqueness and personality to the fonts their using in logos and on websites. Some of these can be fun and playful while others are artistic but still professional. You can expect to see many more websites going the way of the less boring font in 2014.

Slide Out Menus

Want to view the content on a website crisply without distraction? Slide out menus allow you to do just that. A slide out menu can be toggled from the top or side of your screen to reveal the rest of the site’s content in a seamless way that doesn’t interrupt your browsing experience. It’s a nice way to get where you’re going without getting distracted. It’s minimalistic and simplicity 2.0.

Big Background Videos

Move over single page websites that feature big beautiful images, and hello background videos. This new trend is making waves, and it isn’t hard to see why! Imagine a beautiful video playing on your site that fills up the entire screen, providing your audience with an inside look and peak into your company or business. When done right big background videos can make your website stand out from others, and provide an in-depth user experience were customers and readers feel connected to you and your brand in a way never before possible.

Endless Scrolling

Scrolling through a website is faster and easier than having to click through links to access various information. They are not the content-cluttered long scrolling pages of the past, either. New design techniques allow the content to be impeccably organized and formatted in a way that’s super easy to read and digest. Long scrolling site can change layout and design as you’re scrolling, which makes it easy to forget that you’re actually scrolling through quite a bit of information.

Simple Color Schemes

2014 will see a lot more websites using only one or two colors instead of the eye-popping graphics and animation of the past. A new trend is to use one bright and clean background color, like red, orange or teal, and to include images or black or white text over it. The effect is super minimalist and user-friendly.

Focus on Mobile

Image by Yecid Sanmartin

Responsive Web Design was another big trend in 2013 and now 2014 is seeing websites designed expressly for mobile use. Designers are working more and more on keeping sites functioning on mobile devices and developers are helping the cause along too. Things like logins, social media integration, email subscriptions, endless scrolling and many other features are making sites much, much easier to use on phones, which is where most users are turning these days.

Less Text, More Video

Instead of having blurbs about what a company does, businesses are instead opting for short videos. Because videos are easy to produce and share on your site and on social media and they also appeal to the modern attention span that wants to be wowed and entertained, videos are a great way to communicate with an audience effectively.

Scroll Activated Animations

Interactivity in web design is starting to go to an entirely new level. With scroll activated animations you can create incredible content that your audience can interact with and explore. It makes your web content truly come to life in a way never before possible. Sometime the web can feel distant and different than a person connection, but with scroll activated animations your audience can start to feel more in touch with the digital world.

About the Author

Like a true San Franciscan,Maryam has a passion for dogs and the Giants. She heads up Content Marketing at creativemarket.com where she writes about all things creative.

Why You're More Likely To Buy Something When Shopping On Your iPad

THE "ENDOWMENT EFFECT," WHICH MAKES US OVERVALUE ITEMS, IS STRONGER ON A TOUCH SCREEN.

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People tend to increase the value of an item the moment they take ownership of it. Psychologists call this the "endowment effect." It shows up even in trivial things, like coffee mugs or chocolate bars, that people justreceived in a lab setting. The slightly irrational new owners of these items want much more money for them than rational buyers are willing to pay.Monkeys do it, too. Evidently it's evolutionary.

So strong is the endowment effect that we don't have to physically own something for the effect to take hold. The mere suggestion of ownership is enough to get our guns going. One recent study found that people whotouched an item felt an increased sense of ownership toward it. A follow-up study found that simply imagining touching an object produced the same possessive feeling. 

THE IMPLICATIONS ARE CLEAR: TOUCHER BEWARE.

That evidence has clear implications for consumers: toucher beware. Once you come into contact with something in a store, you might be more willing to buy it, since you already feel like you own it. Back in 2003, the Illinois attorney general went so far as to issue a warning to retailers who encouraged holiday shoppers to handle the merchandise, for just that reason.

Recently, Boston College researchers S. Adam Brasel and James Gips wondered whether the endowment effect might kick in when people buy things online, too. They were most curious about people who shop on tablets, since tablet users pinch, zoom, and tap on an item. In short, they touch it.

THE INTERFACES PEOPLE USE TO ACCESS CONTENT CAN FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE THE WAY WE SEE THAT CONTENT.

"The core thing that we're starting to work on is this idea that the interfaces that people are using to access content can really fundamentally change the way we see that content," Brasel tells Co.Design.

Brasel and Gips designed two experiments to test that idea. In the first, they brought test participants into a lab and let them roam around websites for two products: college sweatshirts and walking tours of New York City. The participants all sat at a computer but some of them used an old-school mouse to search, others a touchpad, and others touched the screen itself.

Image: Courtesy of S. Adam Brasel

After the participants chose a product, they told the researchers how much money they were willing to accept if someone else wanted to buy it from them. On average, people in the touch-screen condition wanted significantly more money (roughly $68) than people using the mouse ($47) or the touchpad ($44). Some form of the endowment effect had clearly occurred.

"The key thing we saw move in terms of our variables is this 'willing to accept' price," says Brasel. "That's actually a really good measure of this idea of implied ownership."

A touchable screen isn't the same as a tablet, though, so Brasel and Gips arranged a second experiment pitting an iPad against a touchpad laptop. Once again, test participants navigated the websites of fake products (this time a sweatshirt and a tent, to control for "touchability"). And once again, after making their choice they told the researchers how much money they would need to sell it. (Test participants used both devices and purchased both items over the course of the study, for balance.)

IMPULSE LEVELS MIGHT BE HARDER TO CONTROL WHEN WE'RE TABLET SHOPPING.

In the iPad condition, the endowment effect thrived. On average, test participants using the tablet wanted to sell their item for significantly more than those using the laptop (roughly $213 to $154). Pressing a finger against a digital image on a fake website in a laboratory--that's all it took to make people feel like they owned an item, and to value it more as a result.

"I think our impulse levels might be a little harder to control when we're tablet shopping than when we're computer shopping," says Brasel. "We're just touching it. It's right there. We already feel like we own it." The work waspublished online this month in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Tablet-shopping advisory aside, site designers can learn some lessons from the research, too. In the first study, Brasel points out, test participants felt a little more attached to the sweatshirts than to the walking tours--likely because they're a more "touchable" product. "Highlighting those tactile elements might be extremely effective for someone who's using a direct-touch interface," he says.

At least you know who's to blame when you get a sweater again this Christmas.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3022127/evidence/why-youre-more-likely-to-buy-something-when-shopping-on-your-ipad

4 Reasons to Spend More on SEO

Adam Stetzer, September 8, 201339 Comments

•SEO Evolution: Sell, Discover, Deliver & Report on Highly Converting Keywords by Krista LaRiviere, gShift Labs

Google has made dramatic changes in 2013, with the May 22 Penguin update having the biggest impact for small business websites. After some severe reductions in traffic, some webmasters are at least seeing traffic increases in August due, in part, to a Panda softening from Google.

In response, many webmasters are making big shifts in SEO tactics. While long overdue, this is the right move.

Few businesses are looking to move to lower quality SEO services as they now fear Google more than ever. But small businesses run very close to the margin and traditionally resist increasing the SEO budget, regardless of the consequences. Here are four reasons why small business owners should reconsider.

1. Google Asked You To

While many will dismiss this as PR, Google has clearly communicated that they no longer will tolerate SEO tactics that used to work in 2008. Article spinning, keyword stuffing, excessive bookmarks, reborn domains, paid links, thin content, and duplicate content are all not OK.

Even if you haven't received an unnatural link warning, the writing is on the wall. Quality must increase for continued success in SEO. While this message is clearly self-serving for Google, it's important to respect their power in the industry.

2. Recovering From Google Updates is Expensive

There are plenty of websites that have partially recovered from Penguin downgrades, but each case is different. The level of returning traffic varies.

Technical issues on-site are the easiest to fix and should be addressed quickly using Webmaster Tools as the guide. Duplicate content needs to be removed immediately.

Keyword-stuffed titles need to be edited. Thin content, a favorite among many, should be replaced with real content marketing.

Off-site issues, such as bad link building, are particularly hard to fix. It is very ironic that firms now exist to send "link removal request" emails to other firms who were previously retained to build those links.

Small business needs to stop doing bad link building and embrace content marketing. They need to get creative and experiment with newsjacking.

All of these activities cost money. Smart business owners are thinking toward the future and deciding to spend more on SEO now (via higher quality services) to avoid repeating this activity in 2014.

3. SEO Has Merged With Marketing

Many small business webmasters were using a "set-it-and-forget-it" SEO strategy, believing that they need not worry about SEO after hiring a firm. This violates one of the major tenets of business process outsourcing, which is to outsource process and execution, but maintain strict performance monitoring and accountability.

It isn't surprising that many small businesses are feeling buyer's remorse, wishing they had done greater due-diligence in the vendor selection process and better understood the risks associated with SEO.

It should be clear at this point that SEO is no longer a technical exercise and is rapidly merging with marketing and public relations. Smart CEOs recognize the strategic importance of SEO in our digital world. For this reason, they find ways to amplify SEO in allmarketing activities. Ironically, many companies have SEO opportunities they don't harness.

For example, every employee should maintain a "work" Twitter account and share industry news, blog posts and company specials to help spread content. This type of integrated SEO marketing execution is the future, and will draw more budget dollars.

4. SEO ROI Remains High

The data suggests that SEO is still a great investment. This means that small business shouldn't necessarily shop for the cheapest SEO vendor, but consider the return they can make on their money if they spend more:

• SEO remains a very high ROI activity.
• The cost-per-lead for SEO is still very attractive.
• Google has significantly tightened the requirements for high-quality SEO.
• Integrated marketing strategies have big efficiencies.

Conclusions

All technologies and industries mature, and price-points typically change dramatically along the way. SEO is following the same playbook as most other young industries.

In the last few years we have seen SEO move from infancy to adolescence, with the Google algorithm updates as mileposts. While SEO will become more difficult and expensive to execute, the return on investment remains high for small business. In the end, ROI is more important than the absolute number of a budget line item.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2293316/4-Reasons-to-Spend-More-on-SEO

If you don't believe it's time for your company to get on board with social media you should read this:

September 03, 2013

Facing Dead Whale Or Lost Cargo, Maersk Line Turns to Social Media

BY MAREX

Who would have thought a container shipping firm could rally as many Facebook "likes" as a big brewer, find lost cargoes via Instagram or use Pinterest to limit the public relations setback of accidentally killing a whale?

Maersk Line is doing just that and the Danish company says its embrace of social media - more usual in consumer-oriented sectors like cars or fashion - has given it an edge in the normally low-profile business-to-business shipping sector.

The world's biggest container shipping company - part of A.P. Moller-Maersk - sees the Internet as a cheap way to boost its profile, making it a more likely choice for freight forwarders.

"There is a lot to gain from it, such as better press coverage, higher employee engagement and better brand awareness," said Jonathan Wichmann, its head of social media.

The strategy proved its worth when the ship Maersk Norwich hit a whale and arrived in Rotterdam harbour in June last year with the 12-metre animal lying dead across its bulbous bow.

Rather than play down the incident, Maersk posted pictures on Facebook and created an album "In Memory of the Maersk Norwich Whale" on Pinterest. Both were widely shared and the company says comments were mostly positive.

Maersk Line's new ships all have have a Web page and Maersk is present on most social media, including Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Flickr and Tumblr.

Its social media crew covered the two-year construction of its $185 million, "Triple E" container ship - the world's biggest vessel - and its arrival in Europe last month.

Maersk Line's corporate Facebook page has more than one million "likes". While that is far less than the 11 million likes accumulated by Daimler's Mercedes brand, it is in the same league as consumer brands such as Danish brewer Carlsberg's 1.3 million and more than Swedish carmaker Volvo's 675,000.

Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company, the second-biggest container shipper, has just 4,500 "likes". The third-biggest, France's CMA CGM, has about 11,000.

FIRST SOCIAL MEDIA MOVER

"Maersk Line has been the first social media mover within the shipping industry. I'm convinced others will follow," said Frederik Preisler, partner at Danish advertising company Mensch.

Wichmann said that when Maersk Line publishes news on social media, it is often re-tweeted or shared, while fewer people take notice of its traditional advertising.

The company launched its social media strategy in October 2011 and spent around $100,000 in the first year - compared with millions needed for traditional media advertising. Wichmann declined to disclose the company's spending on advertising.

Now it plans to use social media to recruit help in tracking down lost containers. Its 550 ships on average lose some 18 containers a year and finding them is tough.

The project will allow people to photograph a container on a beach and upload the picture and serial number to Facebook or Instagram so that Maersk can retrieve it.

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Facing-Dead-Whale-Or-Lost-Cargo-Maersk-Line-Turns-to-Social-Media-2013-09-03/

SEO Keyword Strategy for Fashion Ecommerce Websites: It’s All About Trends

Amanda Massello, April 5, 20131 Comments

•Text Link Ads is the premiere targeted traffic and link popularity ad firm.

In the digital age, it should come as no surprise that search trends follow the rise and fall of fashion (and cultural) trends. Or should it?

Fashionista Marie picks up her favorite magazine, covering the top 10 hot trends for spring. The editors of StyleMag have been planning features for spring since attending New York Fashion Week the previous fall. Marie scopes out a few potential dresses for her friend’s engagement party. She picks up her iPad, and types in a featured dress style, “colorblock dress.”

Rewind. Place search marketer hat on. Revisit. Everything Marie has done was entirely predictable six months ago by the close of fashion week. Google’s own search trend data substantiates this as does an audit of Pinterest results for last spring.

Forecasting (Unscientifically) Via Pinterest Trends

If 2012 is any indication, Pinterest will also start to serve as a secondary (search) forecast of which trends will sell and drive traffic. Take the “color block” trend from spring 2012. While Pinterest doesn't provide result counts, let’s just say the scrolling of results for “color block” devotee boards and pins are endless.

Search Trend Volume Substantiated

Google’s search volumes for 2012 confirm the same popularity for “colorblock dress.” Notice the minor peak in September 2011 when the runway debuted Spring 2012 looks and then the rising interest through June 2012 as apparel lines became widely available for purchase.

Runway and Color Trends - Translated to Consumer Language

Ecommerce organizations are already on top of this – with knowledge passing sales predictions (influenced by the runway) from fashion buyers to merchant and marketing teams focused on feature and promotion planning, but SEO remains the ugly stepsister.

SEOs should follow the same process as buyers and designers. Let’s call this keyword brainstorming. Start with a list of potential product offerings to be offered on the site. For categories, ask what are the next season’s top silhouettes and product types? For products, ask what are the season’s hot colors, materials (eyelet, leather), even prints (floral, leopard)?

In addition to the runway recap, anyone supporting fashion should know the color bible that is Pantone, which produces a fashion color report for every season. Pantone provides a master list of top colors on its website for free. These tend to be the colors splashed all over runways and eventually products sold on eCommerce sites and in stores nationwide. In short, Pantone influences designer and buyer choices that make it to market.

2013’s Pantone Color of the Year is emerald green. As proof of cause and effect, Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool illustrates that monthly searches in the U.S. for “emerald dress” are currently well over 12,000.

For next fashion season, take Pantone’s listed colors and translate them into consumer friendly terms. Marigold equals yellow. Ox blood equals burgundy. Color “modifiers” matter.

These shades drive trends, search volume, conversion, and maybe even sell-through.

How to Find Current Trends

Above and beyond the runway, it’s also possible to find search trend data for a given apparel category, in a more recent time frame. Below is a snapshot of what trends were most searched in women’s apparel in the last 90 days, available for free from Google Trends. With spring on the horizon, top searches include sundresses, maxi dresses, and high waisted shorts.

The same trend investigation in the Outerwear category in the last 90 days tell us that consumers are looking for yellow raincoats as they get ready for April showers.

Cultural Trends Drive Search Volume

It isn't just the runway that influences search trends. The First Ladies on both sides of the Atlantic have proven to set style preferences as well. Again, unsurprisingly, we see this substantiated by search volumes.

In 2011, Kate Middleton wore a navy lace dress on her trip with Prince William to Canada, which has been covered by paparazzi worldwide. Women’s interest in navy dresses has since increased gradually into 2013. Not only in terms of search volume (see below), but also in designers offering their own interpretation of the style, as evidenced by results from Google Shopping.

Ecommerce sites can capitalize on the celebrity fashion news or cultural trends the same way as editors; blogging opened doors for this opportunity years ago.

Scan a magazine rack today and you can’t miss a cover shoot of Lena Dunham, producer of the hit HBO series "Girls". Ecommerce brand Lulus.com recent blog post featured a round up of all the Lulu’s products befitting the Girls’ characters’ styles, therein driving links to a range of products in their catalog to create SEO value. Lulus.com main demographic is also juniors, many of whom fall into the same audience as age group as the cable show.

Tying Trend Data into Your Keyword Strategy

All of these trend sources can be leveraged to develop a seasonal keyword strategy. To establish a foundation of data to work from, start with a review of:

• Editorial coverage of next season’s trends
• Trends terms in Pinterest
• Pantone’s color report

Trend data will need to be matched up with merchandising and marketing plans for the season. Key areas of focus are:

• Catalog product volume by trend
• Plans for features and categorization
• Blog and content development plans

With the right candidates in mind, trends can be translated with keyword brainstorming by product type, material, and color shade. From this master list, keyword targets should be chosen across the catalog and developed into meta data and URL recommendations.

For further trend optimization and reach, the top 10 keywords for the season should be circulated to teams in charge of social, blog, content, along with guidance around cross-linking products and categories from the blog or social properties.

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