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Why WordPress Is Better Than Other Frameworks

22nd May 2013 0

By Catalino Calacar

I am not advocating WordPress but because of its extensive use I have found it a better framework from other platform. My write up would help you sort out the right framework for your development process.

WordPress Theme Frameworks
WordPress is awesome open source web software used to create beautiful websites and blog. It is easy to create custom theme and intuitive design using WordPress theme. You can start with an HTML template and later add WordPress code to it or start with basic WordPress code and design it further.

What are basic WordPress Theme
WordPress theme frameworks are basically starter themes that can be used as a foundation for the creation of own themes. If you are a web-developer and you are fed up of the entire repetitive task of code writing and checking, switch to wordpress immediately. The framework is easy to use, its time saving and help in efficient development platform. The best part for the developer of WordPress theme is that he is supported via expert communities built all around the WordPress theme framework.

WordPress is not just for blogging
WordPress was initially used as a blogging platform, and still it is the best solution for the blog. However, it has developed a long way and has become a very inclusive Content Management Suite. It is powering many different types of website including business sites, job boards, classified ads, etc. WordPress is extremely flexible, adaptable, and are literally uses thousands of plug-in to enhance itself.

WHY WordPress?

  • WordPress is SEO friendly: Search engines like Google, Yahoo love WordPress. It index WordPress websites better that other websites. Actually you can improve your SEO performance by changing your theme and installing WordPress SEO plugins.
  • WordPress is Social Media Friendly: WordPress has many social media plugins. You can use this plugins to automatically post your Facebook, twitter and other social media updates. Users will share your post and the website will get more publicity.
  • WordPress is Free: WordPress is an open source software so one can easily download and install this free software. With WordPress, you can say no to heavy spending of money on coding and designing.
  • Easy to Use: Word-press is simple and easy framework to use. You do not require to master any coding skill. It will save your content automatically apart there are WordPress tutorials to help you in its easy access.
  • It has Improved Security and Spam Protection: The WordPress theme is is well coded and it have higher security. There are also lots of plugins available for security and to prevent spam on the site.
  • You can Control Comments: You may receive some auto generated spam and comments. WordPress have options to approve comments manually and automatically.
  • Multi User CMS: It is one of the unique features of WordPress. If you are an administrator, you can assign role as author, editor, contributor and administrator.
  • WordPress is mobile friendly: A WordPress site is easy to make mobile compatible. There are themes that can fit your site for mobile devices.
  • There are lots of Plugins: Plugins are codes or modules to extent the site functions. WordPress has many plugins available for social media, security, SEO, gaming etc. It is easy and simple to install.

Last but not least, WordPress offer easy support. There are WordPress forums where you can put your doubts and seek solutions. With all these features we can say that WordPress is a better framework than other. Looking for WordPress expert web designers London ? Look No Further – call us 0207 993 5898 or email us info@logicsofts.co.uk

About the author
Catalino Calacar is a professional writer for web designers London a company that offer cheap and affordable web design.

Categories: Web Design

Keeping Social at the Heart of Web Design

2nd March 2013 0

By Rob James

Why is social media such a key part of web design? In part, social media’s importance can be linked to the need for websites to engage users in new ways, and particularly by allowing them to form communities and promote sites across different platforms. Not incorporating social elements into websites can limit functionality, and can make it difficult to expand sites for mobile and other platforms, leading to user dissatisfaction and problems for brands.

In this context, it’s crucial that designers find ways to build applications and tools into web sites as part of their initial construction; this means making sure that Facebook and Twitter are prominently featured on sites without being too obtrusive. Pages should have the option to like and share content, while also being optimised to include great content and videos that can be easily shared. It’s also important, though, to look at individual social networks in order to tailor content to suit different platforms – a steady stream of promotions on Twitter can complement several new blog posts a week, for example.

Social media elements have to be integrated into dynamic sites in ways that make them easy to find and use, while still being intuitive; social media plug ins can now be easily found, which makes it much easier to program them in, or make them accessible through content management systems. Templates can also work well, in this way, for adding in commenting systems and forms that can allow for user discussion on a page.

One of the main challenges for any web designer is making sure that a site is dynamically structured in such a way as to avoid users being faced by a lot of undifferentiated information; a good site should work as a gateway to multiple actions, whether that means eCommerce pages with easy click throughs, email mailing lists, or subscriptions and bonus content through Twitter and Facebook, and via other social networking sites.

Getting social media right as part of web design similarly means making websites adjustable to mobile only versions – millions of smartphone and tablet users log into social networks every day, and need to receive concise versions of sites that can allow them to quickly move between pages and networks – having scalable sites, and pages that use responsive design can help to speed up this process, while making it more intuitive.

A website that’s been successfully optimised for social media will ultimately deliver a stronger SEO response from users and search engines, with the natural impulse of linking and recommendations enabling a site to gain a much larger footprint than it may normally have been able to. Google have recently updated their search algorithms through Penguin and Panda updates to make great content, and relevant backlinks from trusted sites more important than ever to determining a website’s page rank – ensuring that links are being generated from well established social networks is consequently crucial for boosting the visibility of a site, and can help to establish a strong and loyal community of users.

About the author
Rob James is an online marketer he has recently had great success with Bath based web design Deep Blue Sky. Rob can be found blogging about a variety of technology related subjects, including mobile phones, to SEO techniques.

Categories: Web Design

Should I redesign my website?

30th January 2013 0

By Alex Teugels

Should I redesign my website? Yes!

That’s a bold statement, of course. I haven’t seen your website. I don’t know your business, your target market, your competition, or your search rankings. But “Yes” is my first and final answer.To explain my reasoning I’m going to assume you already have a number of things in place. If this isn’t the case – don’t panic – they can form the basis of your first redesign. Let’s take a look at the three essential ingredients for your website:

Goal

A clearly defined goal, for example “Enquiries about our new XYZ product”. Have only one goal. Your website will no doubt have lots of other content useful for existing customers, and potential customers interested in other products. However you must use your website to send a consistent message to visitors, and a consistent message can only be used with a consistent goal. What is most important to your business over the next 3-6 months?

CMS or web designer

The technique I’m about to describe will require many changes to your website’s content. If you have a content management system and are relatively web-savvy you will be able to make many of these changes yourself. Alternatively you can hire a web designer or agency to make the changes on your behalf. This is essential – a static website will not improve your website. Doing the same things over and expecting different results is not the way forward.

Reports

Install Google Analytics or similar reporting system on your website. Make sure you have goals set up in your Analytics profile – your goal will most likely be the submission of an enquiry form. If you don’t have these already then make them your first action points. Great! Now we have the ingredients for a successful website redesign.

Sales Funnel

Your website will act as your sales funnel. If you haven’t come across a sales funnel before, it looks something like this:

A sales funnel

Visitor landing
SEO, keyword targeting, and promotion to get visitors to your website

Grab attention
Give visitors confidence that they are in the right place. Are you a UK business? Do you provide what they’re looking for?

Build trust
Who are you as a business? Who have you worked with?

Call for action
Get a visitor interested in your goal and invite them to complete it. Make this message bold, consistent, and available everywhere on the website

Collect data
Use a form to collection information about the visitor

Get in touch
Qualify the lead and process it as you would any other sales enquiry

The metaphor of a funnel is used because its wider at the top – you are going to get more visitors landing on your homepage than qualified leads at the bottom. Most businesses will simply look at the first and last slices of the funnel though, which doesn’t build an accurate picture of the funnel/pipeline.

Now you can use Google Analytics (or similar) to monitor the success of your funnel. How many visitors does your website achieve per month? How many of those look at more than one page (grabbed attention and building trust)? How many go to your enquiry form (responded to call for action)? How many filled it out? How many did you respond to?

These are the numbers that will build an accurate picture of the success of your website. Within 4-8 weeks you will have enough data for analysis. The most important part of this process is identifying areas for improvement.

Making changes

This is the process of redesign and is continual. Your website is never a completed work. It is a living entity which requires constant effort and improvement.

Let’s revisit the funnel. This will guide you on what changes to make.

Are you getting enough visitors in the first slice? If not you should look at further online promotion techniques.

Are your visitors browsing the website, spending time looking around? Otherwise your homepage isn’t grabbing attention or building trust.

Are visitors going through to your enquiry form? If not you should revisit your calls to action and sales messages.

Are visitors submitting the enquiry form? Otherwise you may be asking too many questions, or the wrong questions.

There will always be changes to be made and improvements to implement. Your reporting software should allow you to add comments to graphs – make a note of each change you make so you can revisit it in 4-8 weeks and measure the results. If your changes aren’t working then roll them back, and try changing something else. Keep changes small and focussed so they are easier to measure. Leave changes in place long enough to gather a good amount of data (4 weeks minimum) unless your website has a large amount of traffic.

About the Author
Alex Teugels is the Technical Director for WebKick Ltd

Categories: Web Design