Monday, August 18, 2014

5 Awesome Web Design Pinterest Boards You May Have Missed


5 Awesome Web Design Pinterest Boards You May Have Missed
Pinterest is a wonderful tool for new and seasoned website creators looking for additional inspiration, tips, industry connections and perhaps even new clients. There are many talented and well-known designers who use the Pinterest platform to create boards dedicated to the subject of website design and development. These boards are essentially collections of content (mostly images) that the contributor thinks will be interesting or helpful to other users of the site. When this content is being posted by reputable web professionals, the advice and wisdom that you can gain may actually increase your abilities, and your profits too! By knowing which posters to follow and who is posting the most helpful information, it will ensure that you spend less time browsing through the hundreds of other lower quality boards, and more time learning about the industry from the people who know it well. If you would like to stay on the cutting-edge of the website design world, here are some amazing Pinterest boards that we think you should be following.



1) Rusty C. Cook (ohrusty)

In addition to posting about well-designed web and mobile websites, Chicago, IL based designer Rusty C. Cook also has boards dedicated to other subjects relevant to the industry that many would find helpful, such as typography, branding and general layout.

2) Eva Morell (evamorell)

Freelance designer Eva Morell is a very prolific Pinterest poster, curating over a hundred different collections of design related images and other inspirational content, including a comprehensive board dedicated to great website design examples.

3) Web Design Library (webdesignorg)

Stacy Summers is the chief editor of webdesign.org, and she shares her extensive knowledge about the subject of her expertise to her dedicated Pinterest fans on her board “Web Design Tips & Tricks.”

4) Design Quixotic (helloquixotic)

With almost 82,000 followers, Brooklyn, NY, Art Director and Designer Thea Kennedy has a collection dedicated specifically to digital design, with many images and screenshots of superbly designed websites to inspire.

5) Waila Skinner (waila)

As the head of W Creative in Missouri, independent designer Waila Skinner has learned a plethora of website design tips, hints and tricks over the years, and regularly posts unique tutorials and links to quality content.

We hope that you have found our list of useful and informative web design Pinterest boards helpful in your quest to become a better webmaster. By learning from the pros, you will pick up good habits and learn how to spark your creative and business side in ways that you never thought to be possible. In addition to the Pinterest users listed in this article, it’s always a good idea to see who the masters follow as well. By clicking on the board owner’s profile, you can get a list of the people that they also follow, which can often lead to even more awesome Pinterest collections. In an ever changing industry such as website design, a never-ending source of spectacular, up-to-date content is a must-have tool in any designer’s arsenal.

Image Credit: kromkrathog



Author Bio:
This post comes from Sarah at Orange Digital, a hardworking web design agency in Brisbane. Not just a web design firm, their blog contains plenty of social media tips and tricks including ways to leverage your Pinboard for more business.

Friday, August 8, 2014

How to Maximize your Blog’s Reach

How to Maximize your Blog’s Reach
With blogging becoming such a trend in today’s world, there are more and more people turning to it, seeking a second source of income. With so much competition how can you get your blog to stand out above the rest? It’s more then just writing a good article. Below are some tips on how to get your blog post noticed.

1. Maximize the SEO of Each Blog

We all know that websites need to be optimized for search engine’s keyword results. But what about each individual blog post? As each post is a page within a site it can be optimized to answer search results also. This can indirectly lead people back to your main page and help increase traffic to your blog. By understanding what people are looking for online, you can optimize your blog to answer their enquiries. Therefore you blog could actually rank for that particular question and this can increase the reach of your blog.

2. Promoting You Blog Through Social Media

Clearly the world is going more social. Social media was more commonly used by smaller business as a cheaper form of marketing. It provided a quicker and more direct form of communication to their consumers. As the convenience of social media has grown in popularity, it has prompted for larger organizations to use social media. Instead of the traditional methods of communication such as emails and phones.

This shows how important it is to promote your blog posts on social media. It’s no longer good enough to do blogging as a side project. Your readers want to know who you are and most readers would not hesitate to do a little research on social platforms first. Sharing your blog on social media is just the new age way of word of mouth advertising. The benefits of social media are that it has a wider reach as many users have public profiles. Allowing for your blog to be shared and re-shared.

The importance of a business’s online image plays such a major role, in its success, that there are many dishonest websites emerging and taking advantage of this market. Although social sharing is important you should not give in to the temptation of buying likes, shares or re-tweets. This sort of business has sprung up, all across the world, from countries like Canada, Brazil and Spain. It is also commonly sold through sites like fiverr. It is dodgy and a waste of money as it does not give you real fans, they will never interact with you on your blog.

When real people read and share or re-tweet your blog it creates organic links that also help with your search engine rankings. This new form of linking is said to be the future of SEO.

3. Social Platforms are Search Engines Too

Many more people are looking for answers on social platforms rather then a search engine. Youtube is now the second largest search engine in the world and it is a video sharing social platform. By promoting your blog on social media it allows for more people to find your blog and become a follower.
Image Credit: Stuart Miles