Web Designers vs Developers: An Infographic Story 

There's always been a bit of confusion over the differences between web designers and developers among the mainstream. What does development even mean? Isn't it the same thing as design, but just a fancier word? Who drinks more coffee? Who has a scruffier beard? What do I study in college to become a designer or developer? To answer all these questions and more we have scoured the web for a handful of the best infographics. Check them out!

infographic of web designers vs developers

 

H/T to Visual.Ly , Web Design Ledger , ThemeAlchemy.com , and SixRevisions.com for the great infographics!

View User Profile for Steve Hoag Steve is a recent graduate from UW, and the Marketing Coordinator at Fast Track. He primarily has experience in the tech and start-up industries. When he's not busy promoting Fast Track, he's watching Huskies or Green Bay Packers football. You can find him on Twitter @steven_hoag .
Posted by Steve Hoag Wednesday, February 5, 2014 5:24:00 PM Categories: B2B B2C web design web development web trends

How To Decide Which CMS Is Right For You 

By Steve Hoag

which content management system is right for your business

There are a ton of CMS options out there for your business to use, but only a few are ideal. It’s important to ask yourself some key questions when deciding which CMS to implement. The answers you give will help to evaluate your options and come to a decision.

How much do I want to pay for my CMS?

This is a very important question because it immediately eliminates many options. Take a look at your budget and determine how much you want/can pay for a CMS. Also, keep in mind that even if there’s room in your budget for a paid option, there are many awesome open-source solutions like MojoPortal, Joomla!, etc. It’s important to remember that if you don’t have an in-house designer/developer, you will also need to allocate money for web design or content migration. Choosing a CMS is only part of the website puzzle.

How many customization options are there?

Another key question is what sort of customization capabilities a CMS has. More customization is always good, but it doesn’t really matter if you won’t need it. Focus on what you need, like crucial add-ons. For instance, e-commerce store integration, or blog/newsletter add-ons. Make a list of all the customization options you will need and then evaluate your options based on that.

Is the solution scalable?

An important factor to consider when choosing a CMS is how scalable it is. Scalability refers to a website’s ability to grow with a business. You will eventually need to invest in a new CMS if your current website management system doesn’t scale very well. It’s important to think long term as well as short term, and find the best trade-off for your business.

How user/novice friendly is the CMS?

User/novice friendliness is crucial if you will be managing your website in-house. It’s even more important if you know that you don’t have any experience with that CMS and need to adjust to it. On the other hand, if you are outsourcing your website management to a development firm, this may not be as big of an issue.

What sort of support options are there?

Customer support is critical in any product. A lot of CMS options out there like WordPress and Drupal have tons of community support available. If you are dealing with another lesser-known option, make sure that the company has great support plans or documentation. It will save you a lot of headaches in the long run!

View User Profile for Steve Hoag Steve is a recent graduate from UW, and the Marketing Coordinator at Fast Track. He primarily has experience in the tech and start-up industries. When he's not busy promoting Fast Track, he's watching Huskies or Green Bay Packers football. You can find him on Twitter @steven_hoag .
Posted by Steve Hoag Thursday, January 30, 2014 7:53:00 PM Categories: B2B B2C enterprise SMB web design web development

Web Designers: How to Turn LinkedIn Into A Lead Generator 

By Steve Hoag

digital marketing

Social media is here to stay. Since initial offerings like MySpace, it has captured the minds and attention of the world. Businesses are still only touching the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential this platform has to offer. There are a variety of social networks available now, but it’s important to focus on the ones that matter to your business. For many businesses that boils down to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In this blog post we are going to focus on how to leverage LinkedIn and turn it into a reliable lead generator for your web design business. Here’s a quick rundown:

Make sure your personal and company profiles are fully developed.

Nothing says credibility on social media like a fully developed personal and company profile. It’s all about the little things like a professional profile photo, detailed work history, recommendations etc. Be sure to post links to your website on both profiles, as well as examples of portfolio work. Make it easy for people to trust you! You will be surprised how far dotting all your I’s will go.

Join groups relevant to your profession AND your target segment’s business.

Getting your brand in front of the right eyes requires a two-fold strategy on LinkedIn. You need to improve your standing among your peers, and get active where your target customers are. To start, join web design and development groups. If you are a freelancer, join freelance designer groups etc. Next, figure out where your target customer segment is active. Are they small businesses or enterprise? Tech or retail? Create a customer profile to truly understand your target, and then join groups where key decision makers are active. For instance, if you realize that you need to go after a CIO in a company, check out his/her profile and groups and start contributing in those!

Stay top of mind in yours newsfeed and groups.

The most important part of turning LinkedIn into a lead generator is staying top of mind. People forget about each other fairly quickly online, so the only way to combat that is by remaining active. Be proactive in connecting with people and networking. Scan your newsfeed every day and congratulate people for new jobs, anniversaries, great articles etc. Making others feel valued goes a long way on social media! The same goes for groups that you are involved in. Post questions, share articles, and comment on discussions. People seeing you continually add value to conversations will begin to think of you as a thought leader. Becoming a thought leader is the ultimate goal of social media because it makes everything else come easier. The people you interact with online may not need a web designer at that exact moment, but they will come back to you when they do if you cement yourself as a thought leader!

View User Profile for Steve Hoag Steve is a recent graduate from UW, and the Marketing Coordinator at Fast Track. He primarily has experience in the tech and start-up industries. When he's not busy promoting Fast Track, he's watching Huskies or Green Bay Packers football. You can find him on Twitter @steven_hoag .
Posted by Steve Hoag Wednesday, January 29, 2014 8:50:00 PM Categories: B2B B2C enterprise retail marketing SMB social media marketing web design web development

What is Pageless Design? 

Read on to know everything you need to know about pageless design and what it could mean for your business.

pageless design

One of the fastest growing web trends this side of responsive design are pageless websites. This term is already being thrown around a lot in web design circles, but many end-users have yet to hear about it. We here at Fast Track want every business owner to be in the loop when it comes to new and exciting trends. Read on to know everything you need to know about pageless design and what it could mean for your business!

Pageless design is about creating a compelling story for consumers

Web design has followed the status quo of imitating print design for many years. While this is a great approach for large enterprises, pageless design is better suited for small to medium sized companies that need to create a compelling story for customers. Rather than having the site sub-divided into multiple pages, the entire website is on one page that follows a story line. For example:

 

As the user scrolls down they learn more and more about the important components of the business. Chapter 1 can be the main landing page, with a large image depicting the product, and subsequent chapters are important features, the business process, reviews, etc. It’s great for quickly introducing the main selling points of a brand and its products. Some great examples can be found here.

After looking at those example, you may be asking yourself “Those look cool, but why should I invest in pageless design?” Well, pageless design has a lot of benefits thanks to its simple and visual approach:

It’s seamless and easy to digest.

Users don’t have to dive through multiple page to find important information. It’s all there on one page, and presented in a way that’s very easy to understand.

It presents content in a stimulating way for all types of learners.

By using a combination of visceral images and concise text, pageless design gets all of the important aspects of your brand communicated to different types of learners.

It has higher conversion rates.

There would be little to no reason to switch to pageless design if it didn’t present business advantages. At the end of the day, business is about securing more leads and sales. With this approach there are decreased bounce rates because it is so intuitive that users don’t get confused. Lower bounce rates mean more time spent on the website for users to immerse themselves in your business. Ultimately, pageless design helps to improve conversion rates over traditional print design, meaning more money in your pocket.

Pageless design is mobile and social media friendly

Another great benefit of pageless design is that it looks great on any type of device. In today’s Internet that is important because of the variety of ways users are accessing website. It is also very social media friendly, because of the way that it allows users to share the site. With traditional websites, users would have to pick which particular page to share, but this approach simplifies the entire decision making process.

Pageless design can be more affordable

A custom website can be extremely expensive. Pageless websites can be made at a much more affordable price point than many other options. Many can be purchased for less than $5000 dollars. O at the end of the day the pageless design equation looks like this:

Pageless design: More conversions + More affordable website = More profit      

View User Profile for Steve Hoag Steve is a recent graduate from UW, and the Marketing Coordinator at Fast Track. He primarily has experience in the tech and start-up industries. When he's not busy promoting Fast Track, he's watching Huskies or Green Bay Packers football. You can find him on Twitter @steven_hoag .
Posted by Steve Hoag Monday, January 27, 2014 7:40:00 PM Categories: B2B B2C web design web development web trends website

The Best Free Design Tools On The Web 

By Steve Hoag

free web design tools

As a designer, you want and need the best tools available. There are a ton of options out there for both beginners and experienced designers. We combed through the Internet to bring you this mix of free tools to add to your toolkit. Enjoy!

Brackets

This open source program was developed by Adobe to help designers edit code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s great because it has a very clean look by not cluttering your workspace with a variety of buttons. Instead, it focuses on using shortcuts and live previews to help you throughout. There are a bunch of extensions as well, so it has become pretty useful for beginning and experienced designers alike.

OpenBEXI

The most unique feature of this WYSIWYG HTML editor is that it lets you drag and drop different elements. It’s really useful if you want to have a quick visual of what you are creating. This editor lets you edit CSS and add scripts as well. Not stopping there, it has an FTP client that will upload everything for you when you have finished your design.

GIMP

GIMP is a great free image editor. It has a variety of powerful tools you would find in paid solutions. For example, it provides great color editing tools, tons of special effects, photo retouching, and much more! Honestly, you will be surprised by how many features this free program has.

Firebug

This FireFox extension is one of the most useful tools I have come across for designers, developers, and anyone managing a company website. It lets you view the CSS and HTML of any page, while displaying tweaks in real time. You need to use an actual editor to change the code, but this is useful for playing around with layouts without accidentally making a mistake.

View User Profile for Steve Hoag Steve is a recent graduate from UW, and the Marketing Coordinator at Fast Track. He primarily has experience in the tech and start-up industries. When he's not busy promoting Fast Track, he's watching Huskies or Green Bay Packers football. You can find him on Twitter @steven_hoag .
Posted by Steve Hoag Thursday, January 23, 2014 10:02:00 PM Categories: web design web development web trends website
Page 6 of 12 << < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>