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How to Build a Popular Blog?

social@collegegfx.com — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:06:17 +0000

There’s one thing that I’ve noticed when I started interviewing well-known web designers and web developers: they all have blogs. I’m serious, just think about it: Jacob Cass, Sacha Greif, Chris Spooner, Fabio Sasso, Chris Coyier, just to name a few.. The thing is that having a popular blog can accelerate your career in web design or web development:

When you have a popular blog, it’s easier to become well-known and respected in the web design/web development niche.
When you are well-known and respected in web design/web development niche, you don’t have to chase clients, because potential clients approach you themselves.
When you are well-known and respected in web design/web development niche, it’s relatively easy to create streams of passive income by creating and selling your products, because potential buyers already know you and trust you.

It’s all about building a strong personal brand and leveraging it’s power. However, it’s easy to say “build a popular blog”. How on Earth are you supposed to do that? That’s exactly what we will be covering this month: “Why web designers and web developers should have blogs” – how web designers and web developers can use blogs to build strong personal brands, get more clients, and earn passive income. “How to write great blogposts (even though you are not a writer)” – how to write hiqh quality content that will help you to grow you blog, even if the last time you wrote something longer than a paragraph was in high school. “How to get people to read your blog when you are an internet nobody” - how to expand your readership beyond your grandma and your cat when no one knows or cares who you are (yet). PLUS BONUS MATERIAL FOR OUR E-MAIL SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: “A short guide to building a popular blog” – step by step blueprint that will explain the basics of building a popular blog. Make sure you subscribe before the 25th of February in order to get it! Stay tuned!

Link.

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How To Get People To Read Your Blog When You Are An Internet Nobody

social@collegegfx.com — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:03:16 +0000

It’s easy to start a blog, but it’s hard to get people to read it. Many people think that it’s enough to write great articles, but they often learn the hard way that if you don’t promote your blog, your readership doesn’t expand beyond your grandma and your cat. How can you attract people to your blog when you are still an internet nobody? Guest posting is the most effective method for promoting a new blog. Guest posting (also known as guest blogging) is an online marketing method that works like this:

You have a website that you want to promote.
You pick a big website in your niche that has a similar target audience.
You write a high quality guest post, submit it to a website, and get published.
People who like your website click on the link in your byline and visit your website.

This marketing method allows you to get your work in front of a lot of people and consequently drive targeted traffic to your own website. It is time consuming, since you have to spend a lot of time researching websites in your niche, writing guest posts, and pitching to editors, but once the post gets published, hundreds of new visitors will rush to your blog. Honestly, I don’t know any other marketing method that is more effective for getting a new blog off the ground, therefore I suggest you to make it the core of your marketing strategy.

How to prepare your blog for the upcoming flood of traffic

It’s important to understand that it’s not enough to simply drive loads of traffic to your website. All your efforts are empty if people visit your blog then forget it five minutes later and never come back. You have to aim to convert your new visitors into loyal readers. Here are two most important things that you have to take care of before your guest post goes live: Content. You have to display interesting and valuable content if you want people to remember your blog and come back for more. No amount of traffic will help if your three most recent posts are about your cat, your favorite brand of cereal, and the latest “90210″ episode. Opt-in forms. You need to capture e-mail addresses of your new visitors in order to increase the chances of them coming back in the future. Many bloggers are shy when it comes to that, because they don’t want to come across as spammers. In reality you have nothing to worry about if you put opt-in forms in the right places. Have an opt-in form below every post, on the top of the sidebar and on your “About” page. Also, make sure to have a feature box in place. Don’t skip these. Many people rush to get their post published, but driving traffic to a website that is not optimized for converting new visitors to loyal readers is, frankly, a waste of time. It’s better to put in the work and get good results than to slack off and only get 2 or 3 subscribers.

5 steps to your first guest post

I’m always surprised when I hear people whining that “guest posting is hard” and complaining that “this guest posting stuff doesn’t work”. The truth is that guest posting works very well if you do it the right way and the process itself isn’t that complicated. You have to be prepared to put in the time and energy necessary, though. 1. Pick a website and analyze it’s content. Take time to understand what kind of content an editor of a website might be looking for. Again, if you want to get published, you have to do your homework. 2. Write a high quality guest post. Your post has to provide value to the readers. Try to offer a solution to a problem they might have. Make sure that your solutions are detailed enough so that readers who try to follow the process you outlined would be able to get actual results. Also, don’t leave spelling or grammar mistakes, because that greatly reduces your chances of getting published. 3. Submit your guest post. Send a simple e-mail to the editor saying that you would like to do a guest post on a certain topic and attach the article to that e-mail. Don’t sweat it. 4. Get an answer from the editor. Make sure that you check your e-mail regularly so you wouldn’t miss the reply. In case it’s been few weeks and you haven’t heard from them, e-mail them again, politely reminding them about your guest post submission. Editors are very busy people, so sometimes they don’t notice your submission, or forget to send you a reply. 5. Rinse and repeat until you have a popular blog. Guest posting is most effective when you do it on a regular basis. Take a look at how many new visitors and e-mail subscribers you got from your first guest post. Now, imagine, what would happen if you would publish ten or twenty more guest posts like that? Keep in mind that writing the article is the most important part of the guest posting process. You won’t be able to get a low quality guest post published no matter how hard you try. Moreover, the amount of traffic that you will get from a guest post heavily depends on it’s quality. It’s better to take your time and write the best post that you possibly can.

Where should you start?

Here are three major web design and web development websites that accept guest posts:

These websites are on the constant lookout for fresh high quality content, so write an article that meets their requirements, and shoot an e-mail to the editors. Good luck!

Don’t get distracted, stay focused.

Guest posting is hard. You have to put in a lot of time and energy into it in order to make it work. However, it’s the most effective way to promote a new blog, therefore don’t get distracted with stuff that is easier and makes you feel good about yourself, but doesn’t bring any significant results (hello, social media). Stay focused on guest posting.

Source.

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10 SEO Copywriting Tips for Improved Link Building

social@collegegfx.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:19:07 +0000

Compare the two posts below, both written by the exact same SEO expert and each containing around the same number of words. Without knowing the subject, can you guess which post earned more links? Try 378 to 6. In addition to its visual appeal, the left post was more timely, useful and informative - all hallmarks of copywriting grace. The “secrets” of copywriting have existed since before the ancient Greeks. Generations of Don Drapers have perfected the craft. Today we use computer analysis and data mining to uncover the most effective SEO practices. Rand’s early peek at the Ranking Factors hints at some of these factors. My colleague Casey Henry conducted a study of link-worthy material that included elements such as title length and word frequency. Fantastic stuff and I hope he does another such study soon. So why don’t more authors take advantage? Why all the cardboard looking blog posts? Here’s the takeaway. To earn links, use copywriting to organize your content.

1. Write for Power Skimmers

Steve Krug’s words of wisdom for website usability in his book Don’t Make Me Think ring true for all elements of SEO copywriting.

"We don’t read pages. We scan them.” -Steve Krug

Krug advocates for a billboard style of design. This means using language, images, layout and color to make your material stand out and shine. Think of motorcycle riders speeding past billboards. Which one will they remember? To be fair, prettying up mediocre content won’t make it any better. But does your best work look like it belongs in an encyclopedia?

Unless you are Wikipedia, don’t look like Wikipedia.

2. Why Headline Formulas Work

Headlines organize your content by making a promise to the reader. The body of your content delivers on that promise. Check out this recent cover for Wired Magazine. Using the “who-what-why” formula isn’t the only way to format your headlines, but it works. Another technique I like is to ask a question, e.g., “Have You Been Secretly Penalized by Google?” Don't be scared of headline formulas. Instead of "gimmicky," think of them as a framework for the promise you make. When I’m stuck for headline inspiration, I surf the fantastic resources over at Copyblogger. There are literally dozens of effective headline formulas out there, so you need never worry about repeating yourself.

3. Get 20% More with Numbers

I made that number up. Why? It makes you want to click one of those links right now... Whether in a headline or a list, numbers light up the ordered, mathematical part of our brain to make content more attractive. It also provides you with a way to structure your material in a way that makes sense.

4. Free and Easy Power Words

My writing life changed when I read Robert W. Bly’s seminal work, The Copywriter’s Handbook. He introduced me to the power of choosing the right language for successful communication. Although some of his “power” words belong in the back of a Sunday newspaper advertisement, their effectiveness can’t be denied. These include words like quick, easy, guarantee and free.

“Free is the most powerful word in the copywriter’s vocabulary. Everybody wants to get something for free.” -Robert W. Bly

Words are magic. The opposite of power words includes language like try, maybe, might, possibly and perhaps. These "halfway" words kill your writing. The point is not to use a rote list of words like a checklist in your copy, but rather be conscious of the power (or lack of) your language. Don’t hedge your bets with weak prose.

5. A Picture is Worth 1000 Clicks

Rethink your visuals. Visuals are essential to any story and include:

Photographs
Artwork
Charts and Graphs
Slidedecks
Video
Infographics

The wrong way to add images is to buy stock or steal them off of the web. Instead, make every effort to include original media in your content. A simple, 100% original hand drawing attracts more interesting any day of the week than using Parked Domain Girl. Original Pineapple Artwork by Dawn Shepard Graphic Design It doesn’t matter what you use, just make it original.

6. Use Sub-Headlines or Die Trying

This is a no-brainer. Imagine the front page of a newspaper with just one headline. All other text is equal. You wouldn’t read it, or you would tire quickly if you did. Our brains don’t work that way. We want things broken up and organized. If your text is longer than 250-400 words, you must use sub-headlines. No exceptions.

7. When in Doubt, List it Out

This entire post is a list. Try these numbers on for size:

75% of the top 20 post on SEOmoz contain a bulleted list
60% feature a numbered list

Why do lists work so well? Why is David Letterman’s Top Ten the most anticipated part of his show, even if it’s not as funny as the rest of the show? Lists are the building blocks of ideas. When we go to the grocery store, we don’t write a story – that’s ineffective. To communicate your thoughts quickly and effectively, nothing gets to the root of the matter like a list can. Humans crave order. Use lists to create structure and build your content from the ground up.

8. Quotes

My all-time favorite use of effective quoting comes from Michael Crichton’s science fiction work Timeline. He juxtaposes two ideas against each other to explain a single concept about quantum theory.

“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it.” NEILS BOHR, 1927 “Nobody understands quantum theory.” RICHARD FEYNMAN, 1967

Utilize quotes to set your ideas apart.

9. The Bold and the Italic

Along the same lines, use bold to emphasize important points. If you don’t have important points, you have bigger problems. Italics do the same job but sound more European, like this guy.

10. Be Honest

Effective SEO copywriting should never alter or misrepresent your work. Indeed, its purpose is to help you communicate your core ideas more clearly and effectively.

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." — Ernest Hemingway

Writing from the heart is always the best copywriting technique.

Source

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Professional Forums for Web Designers and Web developers

social@collegegfx.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:56:13 +0000

Are you overlooking something important that you could use to advance your design career? If you’re not participating in online forums, you may be missing out.There are a significant number of benefits to being part of a high quality online design forum. In this post, I’ll share the benefits of taking part in online design forums and I’ll explain how to find a good one. I’ll also list 12 popular online design forums for you to consider.

Why Join an Online Forum?

“I’m busy,” you say. “Why should I participate in a forum?” Online forums offer a number of significant benefits to their members, often at a little or no cost. Here are some of the benefits to joining an online forum:

Networking–Get to know other designers and those in related fields.
Learning–Many forums also provide online classes. Plus, advice from the forums themselves provides an opportunity for learning.
Jobs–Some forums provide a private, members only job board or allow members to post opportunities.
Feedback–Many online forums allow members to post links to their designs and/or sites so that other members can provide feedback.

Before jumping into online forum participation, it sometimes helps to lurk (watch conversations without taking part) for a while before becoming active. Lurking will allow you to get an idea of how the forum community interacts. In most forums, it’s a good idea to help others when you can. Don’t just show up and ask others to help you without giving anything in return. Of course, to get the benefits from joining an online forum it’s important that you select a good one.

How to Find a Good Online Forum

There are a ton of online forums, but not all forums are created equal. It’s important to look for a high quality forum. Here are some characteristics of a high quality online forum:

Spam Free–The forum should be moderated and spam should be removed as soon as it appears.
Active Membership–Members should be interacting frequently. If you see that nothing new has been posted for a month, the forum is probably dying out.
Substantial Number of Members–In most cases, it takes a large number of members to keep a forum going. A forum with only a few hundred members may not survive.

Be sure to read and follow the forum rules of any forum that you join before taking part.

12 Popular Online Forums

In alphabetical order, here are 12 popular forums for web designers, developers, and other web professionals:

Adobe Forums–The forums are sponsored by the Adobe product line, but very helpful nonetheless. The sections on Design, Print Design, Web Design, and Typography should be of particular interest to designers.
designerstalk–This popular forum has a large and active membership (over 400,000 designers). There always seems to be someone online.
Dev Shed Forums–This active forum has discussion areas ranging from programming to web design to databases and more.
Digital Point–This is a well-known forum with an emphasis on search engines, marketing, and other website issues that may also be of interest to designers.
estetica design forum–A medium-sized forum designed especially for designers, with a section especially for web design and another section for print and graphic design.
graphic design forum–This medium-sized forum is geared specifically to graphic designers and other design-related professions.
Killersites.com–These web design forums are provided in conjunction with the Killersites.com tutorial website. In addition to design topics, there is also a section on programming.
Kirupa.com–There are over 100,000 members in this active forum for designers and developers.
SitePoint Forums–Another large and very prominent forum geared to webmasters and other web professionals. This extremely popular site is also the source of some authoritative books and tutorials.
WebDesignForums.net–This forum contains helpful tips and advice for web designers. It includes a section on web marketing and one on hosting and server setup.
Web Designer Forum–The medium sized design forum has a very active and loyal community.
WebmasterTalkForums–Another medium-sized site geared to webmasters that may also be of interest to designers and developers.

Your Turn

Have you joined any online forums? Which ones are your favorites? Share your answers in the comments.

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If you are a Web designer or Web developer,than you should have blogs

social@collegegfx.com — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:58:48 +0000

Over the last couple of months, I’ve interviewed quite a few people who are well-known in the web design niche, including Sacha Greif, Jacob Cass and Chris Coyier. It got me wondering why these people, and not others, are the big names in the industry? They are all incredibly talented, but great designers are dime a dozen, so there must have been some other element that was crucial to their success. Curious, I started looking for common things among people who are well-known in web design and web development niches. It didn’t take long until it dawned on me: most people who are well-known in web design and web development niches have blogs. The pattern is obvious: people who are well-known in web design and web development industry tend to have blogs through which they have built strong personal brands. Let’s take a look at the three web designers I’ve mentioned in the introduction:

Chris Coyier launched CSS-Tricks in July 2007. This blog grew quickly and now it is a very popular online destination for designers and developers. Chris started several other projects since them and now is an recognized expert in the web design and web development community.
Jacob Cass‘ blog was launched in November 2007. He managed to successfully grow his blog, which led to numerous opportunities (including landing a job in NYC via Twitter) and an impressive web design career.
Sacha Greif‘s blog was launched in September 2011. He quickly made a name for himself and built a relatively small, but loyal following. Sacha then wrote an e-book on UI design and, by leveraging his online influence, made $15,000+ with it.

You might say that it’s just a coincidence that these three people became known through their blogs, or that I only go after web designers who have blogs, but take a moment and think about other well-known guys in the web design and web development niche. Fabio Sasso started Abduzeedo. Chris Spooner has SpoonGraphics. . David Airey runs Logo Design Love. You can see that there’s a clear correlation between having a popular blog and being well known among fellow designers and developers. There are a lot of people with similar skills out there, but for some reason, those who manage to build popular blogs become recognized as experts in their fields. You might be wondering what it is about blogging that allowed these people to advanced their careers and become recognized in the community? Well, the truth is that it’s really not about blogs at all. It’s about having a personal brand… and blogging just happens to be one of the easiest ways to build one! It’s not enough to merely be good at what you do! Let’s talk about a higher education system in USA for a moment. You probably know that A+ might mean one thing in one school and another thing in another school, which makes it impossible for college admission officers to evaluate how well a potential student is prepared academically by school grades alone. This is why high school kids take standardized tests called SATs which allow universities to get a better picture of where a potential student stands in terms of academic knowledge. The maximum score for the main SAT test is 2400 and only a very small percentage of people get it. Now, an interesting thing about this is that although a perfect score is surely impressive, it will not necessarily get you into a school like Harvard. Why? Well, you might be the only one among your friends who got 2400 on SAT, but when it comes to getting into an elite school, your application will be in a pile with bunch of other applications from people who got that same score. What does this all have to do with web design and web development? When you are a great web designer or a web developer, you are often facing the same problem as kids with perfect scores who are applying to Ivy League schools, without even knowing it. You might think that your skills will be enough to sweep potential clients off their feet, but reality is quite different. The truth is that high quality clients get pitched by people with mad skills all the time. You might be the best at what you do among the people you know, but when it comes to landing serious projects, you will be just one of the many. Now, how do clients make their choice when they are bombarded with pitches from people who all have the same stellar skills? They look for someone who stands out in some other way. People who have strong personal brands and decent online followings stand out for two reasons:

Social proof: There’s a phenomenon in psychology that is called social proof. It basically means that when people are not sure what to do they tend to assume that behavior of others is a correct course of action in that particular situation. This means that when someone is not sure whether to hire you or not, and then see that you are recognized as an expert and a lot of people listen to your advice, they will decide that you are indeed an expert, which highly increases your chances of being hired.
Likeability: There’s another phenomenon in psychology which states that people tend to favor those who they like (duh) and that they like those who are similar to them in some sense. This means that when you have a personal brand, potential clients see you not simply as a name and a last name in an e-mail, but as a real human being with your own story, sense of humor, likes and dislikes, etc., which consequently makes it easier for them to like you and relate to you, since they can see that you are similar to them in some sense. Consequently, this increases your chances of being hired dramatically.

Having a personal brand and a strong online presence provides you with a solid foundation on which you can build your career. I suggest you to watch this TEDx talk by Jacob Cass where he talks about this. However, there are more benefits to having a personal brand than simply landing jobs more easily.

Benefit No. 1: Clients approach YOU

The biggest headache for freelancers all over the world is “how to get paying clients” issue. You probably know from your personal experience that chasing potential clients is really a pain in the ass, especially considering that you are not getting paid for the time you spend trying to get more work. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if high quality clients would approach you instead? Web designers and web developers who have built strong online presences don’t have to waste their time chasing potential clients, because people approach THEM with high quality work offers.

Over the years as exposure to my blog has grown, the number of people seeing my design work has also increased. This has helped me build a name for myself as a designer and as a result I’ve landed lots of cool design projects from people who have discovered me thanks to one of my tutorials or articles.

–Chris Spooner

I originally started the blog purely to share what I was learning (especially because back then, there wasn’t a huge amount of WordPress developer resources available). Not long after that, I started getting client requests through it, and since then, every one of our clients has either come through the blog or from word of mouth. I’ve never done any other advertising.

–ProBlogDesign

My blog is, and has been, the base platform for me to grow as a designer. It allows me to share my thoughts, insights and learn from others as well as provides a place to share my work, bring in clients, and make some passive income too. My blog and website is the backbone of my business.

–Jacob Cass, JUST Creative In general, the more popular your blog is, the easier it is for you to get clients. You not only get a lot of exposure this way, but also become recognized as an expert in your field. Yes, there are a lot of web designers on Elance that are as good as you and who can do the work for a lower price, but they are not really your competition if you have a strong personal brand. High quality clients don’t want to bet their time and money on someone who they aren’t so sure about, so when they have to choose, they will choose someone who’s well-known and have a stellar reputation. This could be you, you know..

Benefit No. 2: It’s much easier to make passive income

When you are self-employed web designer or web developer, you know that unexpected things happen, and that you have to take extra measures in order to make yourself as financially secure as possible. The best way to do that is to have both active income (client work) and passive income (WordPress themes, e-books, apps, etc.) coming in. This way, even if you would hit a dry streak with client work, you would still have some income to help you get through that. I think Sacha Greif put it very well: “However, in general, having a source of passive income is important. It’s a must-have for me, because if you’re freelancer, you don’t have much job security. It’s hard to plan for the future without a safety net of some sort. Also, if you’re taking a holiday, or just stopping work for a couple of months, it’s nice to have an additional source of income that keeps going, even if it’s very small, even if it’s a few hundred dollars a month. At least it can cover your food bill or your rent, you know.” Many people are intimidated by the idea of passive income and see it as a some sort of distant dream that will probably never become a reality. However, the idea of money coming in whether you are working or not is not as surreal as it seems, because a lot of web designers and developers are already earning passive income online. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could join them?

Blogging is the easiest way to build a personal brand

People often assume that those who are recognized as experts in their fields are the ones who have the sharpest skills. This is not entirely true, though. There’s no doubt that those who are considered to be experts are good at what they do, but I’d argue that their skills are not the most important factor. The real reason for their success is the fact that they share their knowledge with others and add value to the community. People are much more likely to notice your expertise if you share it. I’ve already mentioned that blogging is one of the easiest ways to create a personal brand and build an online following. The reason for this is that blogging makes it very easy to share your knowledge with people from all over the world. I’d say that blogging is your best bet at building a personal brand as a web designer or a web developer. Here’s a summary of this process:

You build a popular blog.
You build a decent e-mail list and/or social media following
You do all kinds of “extracurricular” activities such as speaking in conferences etc.

Again, I highly suggest you to watch TEDx talk “Building a personal brand” by Jacob Cass, because this guy successfully built a strong personal brand through blogging, and this talk will give you a better idea about this process. I don’t want to give you wrong impressions, though, so here’s a splash of cold and harsh reality. Blogging might be one of the easiest ways to build a personal brand, but it’s definitely not an easy thing per se. You will have to work your tail off in order to build a popular blog. Most likely you will have to work at it for at least 6 months before you will start seeing any tangible results. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me, when you pour your heart into your blog posts and nobody reads them for half a year, it is not the best feeling in the world. You have to know what you’re getting into so you wouldn’t end up disappointed and give up too early. Did I scare you off? Or are you still interested? It’s not enough to blog, you have to do it right! Many people think that it’s enough to write great blog posts and the readers will come. Okay, sorry to be a downer here, but..

You can write great posts all you want, but if you don’t promote them, nobody will read them, because people won’t know that you exist.
You can get a decent amount of traffic, but unless you use it to build an e-mail list, growing your blog will be a constant uphill struggle.
You can have a big e-mail list, but if you don’t know how to run it properly, you won’t be able to monetize it.
You can succeed at selling something to your e-mail subscribers once, but if you failed to create a good product to begin with, you will disappoint them and ruin your reputation.

..and this goes on and on. Where can you learn how to build a popular blog the right way? Time is going to pass anyway, so why not use it wisely? Have you notice d how fast the time flies? I remember when I was a child, summer seemed like an eternity. Now, it seems like one day it was still spring, and another day, it’s already autumn. I know that a lot of people in their 20s and 30s share the same experience. It’s scary sometimes. Doesn’t it make you think where you want to be in one year or two years from now? In this interview, Jacob Cass warned fellow web designers not to expect quick results from blogging, and to keep in mind that it will probably take at least six months until a new blog will start taking off. Now, imagine that you start a blog today, and it takes you a year to get it going. This means that two years from now you would have a personal brand, an online following, and would be recognized as an expert in your field. That might seem like fantasy at the moment, but really, Jacob started his blog five years ago, and look where he is now. Don’t you think you can do similar thing in a shorter amount of time? I actually think that yes, you can become a well known person in your field, and you can do it much faster than people who have popular blogs now. Why? Well, most of them had figure things out for themselves, and you can avoid a lot of mistakes they made by learning few simple online marketing principles, and apply those same principles in order to get results much faster. Yes, it will take a lot of work, and it will take some time. But you can either do nothing and find yourself in the same place two years from now, or you can take action, and see how far you’ve come in those two years. It’s your choice to make. Just remember that two years might seem like a long time now, but it’s really only a blink away, since time flies so damn fast.

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18 Time Saving Web Apps for CSS/Web Designers

social@collegegfx.com — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:55:52 +0000

The web has advanced so much that we can’t even compare to the Internet of 5 years ago. So many modern tools and apps are based in browser these days. And many of these can be useful for the average web designer. I’ve included tools for not only designers, but graphics artists, CSS and HTML developers. Let us know your favorite tools in the comments below.

CSS3 Generator

html2canvas

Phoenix Image Editor

Color Scheme Designer

Resize my Browser

Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator

CSS Layout Generator

Grid Layout Generator

Custom CSS Grid Builder Online

Typesetter

HTML Column Layout Generator

Form Style Generator

CSS Grid Builder

FAARY – CSS Forms

HTML-Ipsum

CSS3 Menus

Awesome Font Stacks

The post 18 Time Saving Web Apps for CSS/Web Designers appeared first on CollegeGFX.

30+ Retina Ready wordPress Themes

social@collegegfx.com — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:32:08 +0000

Retina ready WordPress themes have been optimized to support the high quality and crisp graphics on retina screens. Not sure, what this is all about and if you should care then read on? The WordPress community have picked up the challenge from the growing amount of mobile users and with great results. Today most new WordPress themes have responsive layouts and effectively adapt to the smaller screens of mobile devices. With the arrival of the Apple Retina screens, however, we have seen another trend – the release of WordPress Retina Ready themes that serve retina quality graphics to users with Retina Screens. The number of users with retina-enabled devices may have been small in the beginning, but with Apples success on the tablet market there is a huge group of internet users sitting with retina screens in front of them browsing the Internet. Add to this the users with iPhone and Macbook Pros with retina screens. In order to give your users the optimal experience you need to prepare your website and make it serve retina graphics. This is done by giving images double size and scaling them down when displaying them on the web pages. For more information on this, you may want to check out retina.js that is an open source script that makes it easy to serve high-resolution images to devices with retina displays. I also recomment you check this tutorial on creating retina graphics. In this article, I have collected more than 30 retina ready WordPress themes you can use to serve mobile visitors with retina screens an exceptional visual experience. Check out the demos on e.g. an iPad to see the Retina effect.

Advertisement Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links (at no extra cost to you). I recommend that you do your own independent research before purchasing any product or service. This article is not a guideline, a recommendation or endorsement of specific products.

The Retailer – Retina Responsive WooCommerce Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

The Retailer is Responsive, Retina Ready WordPress theme, shop theme build forWooCommerce 2.0+ and WordPress. The theme includes everything you need to start your online store right away.

Flexform- Responsive Multipurpose Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Flexform is the ultimate multi-purpose WordPress retina theme. It’s super responsive, retina ready, and built upon the 1170px Twitter Bootstrap framework. Featuring a clean, modern, and superbly slick design, packed with the most powerful Swift Framework which offers limitless possibilities.

Metropix – Responsive Multipurpose WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Metropix is a great multipurpose retina WordPress theme with a clean metro design. The theme’s beautiful layout and stunning galleries make it perfect for a variety of sites including blogs, portfolios, business, corporate and more.

Nimble – Multipurpose Retina Ready WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Nimble is a great multipurpose theme that is multi- language and translation ready it has a full support for WordPress 3.5.1. No Need to install any plugins because the retina images are out of the box.

Souffle – Responsive Retina Multipurpose Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Soufflé is a powerful and highly customizable theme inspired by Android Holo Interface for all kinds of business, portfolio or blog purposes.Soufflé has a tons of awesome features it is Fully Responsive Liquid Layout: mobile, tablet and desktops tested on iPhone, iPad and Android, Retina Display Support , WooCommerce 2.0.4 Support, Full WPML Support, Dark & Light Themes + 10 predefined primary color skins,LESS Powered CSS and Different primary color for each page.

Apartment – Responsive Retina Ready WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Apartment is a clean and responsive design with premium sliders and easy to use theme options. It has easy to use admin panel that have access to more than 500+ Google fonts and unlimited colors. With slider revolution plugin that lets you create your own animated slides and with advanced wordpress development.

Avada – Responsive Multipurpose Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Avada is so clean, super flexible and has a fully responsive design! This Retina Ready WordPress theme sets the new standard with endless possibilities! Avada is very intuitive to use and completely ready to operate out of the box. Built with HTML5 & CSS3, a lot of thought and care went into this theme making it a pleasure to use. Avada gives you an awesome tool to get your website noticed! The clean design can be used for any type of website; business, corporate, portfolio, blog and products.

Unicorn Multipurpose Retina Ready WP Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Unicorn is a minimalist design done the right way with a unique multipurpose theme that is fully responsive, retina-ready and optimized for mobile devices; with beautiful minimalist design, impressive set of features and power to customize every aspect of its layout and appearance.

Purity – Clean Minimal Bold WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Purity is a Clean, Minimal and Responsive WordPress Theme with a ‘BOLD’ feel that can be easily used as a personal portfolio or a business website. With an Extensive Documentation and aDemo Content it’s a matter of minutes to set your page up.

Thumb WordPress Theme – Responsive Retina Ready – MORE INFO / DEMO

Thumb is a advanced blog Theme. Easy to setup, enhanced with Massive Panel, Visual Composer and custom shortcode wizard. This combination makes creating content extremely easy.

Supreme – Retina responsive Magazine blog WP Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Supreme is a revolutionary Retina Responsive Magazine/Blog WordPress theme. Clean, modern, and crystal clear graphics. Featuring the incredible Swift Page Builder, you can now create and manage content the way you want, with ease.

Identify – Retina Ready Portfolio Resume Blog – MORE INFO / DEMO

Identify is a theme perfect for professionals who want showcase their work, such as designers and developers. The beautiful ajax powered portfolio is great to show your most important work to your visitors.

iBusiness – Retina Responsive Multipurpose Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

iBusiness is a responsive WordPress Theme (try resizing your browser), suited for business websites and users who want to showcase their work on a neat portfolio site. The Theme is built with KODDE Framework V2 with a lot of new options and Page Builder V2 with drag and drop and resizable blocks.

Kolor – Responsive Business and Portfolio Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Kolor theme is a responsive business and portfolio wordpress theme designed with the latest web standards (HTML5 and CSS3 ) and designed to work with any device, it fits perfectly on three types of devices: Smartphones (normal & landscape) , Tables and Normal Screens.

Alterna – Retina Responsive Multipurpose WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Alterna is an retina-ready, fully responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme.Alterna gives you an awesome premium theme to create your website for any type of website; business, corporate, portfolio, blog, products, magazine, shop and many more. Alterna also Integrate WooCommerce, WPML,Facebook Page etc… Alterna includes 2 Premium WP Slider : Layer Slider (3D & 2D transitions Slider new features) , Revolution Slider , premium isotope and has a lot of awesome features.

The Grid – Retina Ready One – page WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

The Grid is a one page fully responsive wordpress theme.Easy to use with a drag and drop page builder it also uses built in wordpress customizer for secure fast theme customizations perfect for any type of website you’d like to create.

One Touch – Multifunctional Metro Stylish Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

The fast, easy, light template will decorate almost any site on WordPress. The structure of this template such is what it perfectly will be suitable for all, from the entertaining blog to a serious corporate site. Styles are included in a template for WooCommerce so you will be able to create without problems the catalog with shop on your site.

Super Grid Retina Ready Portfolio Blog – MORE INFO / DEMO

Super Grid is a retina ready, fully responsive, unique, grid-based, minimal, layout-shuffling WordPress to showcase your work. It can be used as either a Portfolio or a blog or both! It is a unique theme filled with many features that will make your work stand out from the rest.The unique Pinterest style layout is perfect for showcasing your work.Whether you are a photographer, graphic designer, a blogger, or you just want to share the things you love with the world, this is the perfect theme for you!.

Snapcase – Responsive WordPress Photoblog Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Snapcase is a WordPress theme built for images and captions. Choose a photo, write a caption, and Snapcase will display in an awesome typographic display. Whether your a professional photographer or an enthusiast, Snapcase can display your photos and captions beautifully. And another perk – Snapcase is both responsive and Retina Display ready. Your iPad has never looked so cool.

!Lespaul – Retina Responsive WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

!LesPaul is multipurpose, modern, elegant, super flexible, Retina-ready responsive WordPress theme which offers great scalability to fit your needs. The theme gives you streamlined user-friendly admin interface using much less screen real estate than in any other theme working with !LesPaul is simply pleasure. Well thought, designed and coded, the theme will respond to your content immediately. Built for future and using modern, SEO optimized HTML5 & CSS3!

Pocket WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Pocket is a super simple, photo blog-style WordPress theme for sharing your images, videos, articles, quotes and more. Use it as a personal blog or a minimal portfolio to show off your latest works. Pocket is responsive, all the way down to mobile. Images, videos and text will scale down gracefully to iPad, iPhone and all devices in-between. This theme looks just as great in your pocket as it does on the desktop.

Kaleidoscope – Multipurpose Responsive Retina Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Kaleidoscope is a minimalist fully responsive WordPress theme with beautiful, strong typography along with delicate, colourful graphic elements that will make your content stand out and keep your visitors happy.The theme was designed with simplicity and flexibility in mind, both for the visitor and also for the editor. We’ve used the latest trends in responsive design using HTML5+CSS3+JavaScript, giving you a lightweight page size and pleasant browsing experience.

Forte – Multipurpose WP Theme eCommerce Ready – MORE INFO / DEMO

Forte is a strong. flexible, all purpose theme with an adaptive layout.With its huge admin panel you can set almost any color of the skin.

Velo – A Fresh Retina Ready And Responsive Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Velo is a slim , colourful wordpress theme. a truly original choice for showcasing your artworks, pictures, videos, illustrations and for telling the world what you want with style , personality and balance.

Eagle Logistics Retina Ready WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Eagle logistics is a fully responsive retina ready worpress theme. A 5 star rated theme support with an extensive documentation and is WordPress 3.5.1 ready.

Proxy – One Page Responsive WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Proxy is a single page WordPress theme for creative teams. Fully responsive from head to footer and retina display ready.It has a widgetized homepage sections that you can edit and re-order with a simple gesture.

Coco _ Clean Minimal Portfolio Blog Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Coco is a clean and minimal portfolio/ blog WordPress theme with amazing features like the following: Ready for WP 3.5.+, Google Fonts, Retina ready, Responsive Design, Custom logo option, Ajax Content Loader , Build-In Social Share and a lot more.

Simplicity – eCommerce WordPress Theme Responsive – MORE INFO / DEMO

This elegant and extremely flexible WordPress theme comes with responsive design, ready for retina and support such eCommerce plugins as: WooCommerce, JigoShop, eCommerce.

Max Mag Responsive WordPress Magazine Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

A feature-rich, professional media and magazine theme. Max Mag is fully-responsive and includes unlimited color schemes, a “sticky” menu bar, a slider on each category page, 5 different ad units, including a wallpaper ad, a drag-and-drop homepage, 14 custom widgets, secondary feature headlines, SEO friendly and so much more!

Hipster: Retro Responsive WordPress Theme MORE INFO / DEMO

Introducing Hipster WordPress, the perfect responsive WordPress theme for any personal or business website . Hipster’s fully responsive design looks great no matter what device you’re viewing it on, desktop, tablet and mobile phones. Customize your site with the extensive options panel using over 30 backgrounds patterns, full screen rotating background images, and 2 page layout styles .Check out the custom mobile menu that was created for small screens! Hipster is full of premium plugins to build your dream website, tons of page layouts, and awesome retro style design.

Journal – Responsive Readable WordPress Blog Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Journal is an ultra-readable and fully responsive WordPress blog/magazine theme. It is a bold, minimal and fully customizable WordPress theme, designed to put emphasis on your content.

Avamys – Retina Ready Business WordPress Theme – MORE INFO / DEMO

Avamys is flexible and retina ready WordPress theme. Thanks to responsive design it looks good on tablets and mobile phones. By default you can choose light or dark style and one of 9 prepared color schemes, but thanks to color pickers you can set up your own colors to the theme. With one click you can change layout style from wide to boxed version and with couple more you can set up your own background. If you want to give page or post it’s own character you can start with title background option. Thanks to this option you can set background color, font color, or choose background image for your page or post title. Theme is very easy to use, set up and customize.

The post 30+ Retina Ready wordPress Themes appeared first on CollegeGFX.

45 Most Innovative UI Designs by the Most Talented Designers

social@collegegfx.com — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:29:02 +0000

The phrases UI/UX are increasingly used in today’s environment that calls for creativity and technical know-how in order to be relevant. These are also used to describe all the ideas and specialties, which have been there even before the advent of abbreviated terminology. The most beautiful and Innovative UI Designs Concepts are right here. Today’s we are selected most Talented Designers work from dribble.com for your inspiration. Here we have 45 Innovative UI Designs Concepts. All the UI designs are created by professional graphic designers who can join dribble from all over the web. Its a big list of fresh UI/UX designs available on the web.

Most Beautiful & Innovative UI/UX Designs Concepts

Every designer who has spent many hours mocking up web pages, mobile apps or mobile app icons will tell you how important it is to have a reliable set of re-usable, editable and uniform GUI elements that they can rely upon for the initial rapid prototyping stage of any project. Here is a list of fresh and inspiring modern UI/UX Concepts and designs which are playing a very important role in interface designing. UI design involves a lot of creativity, inspiration and motivation along with the people-skills necessary to communicate effectively with clients. Please share your thoughts with us:

1. Music Player Concept

2. Music Player Concept II

3. Profile Concept

4. Windows Toolkit Concept

5. iOS Mail App

6. Flat Twitter Compose Widget

7. Beautiful Timer Concept

8. Dashboard Widgets

9. Speed Detector UX Design

10. Friend Request

11. What the heck!!!!!

12. WSHH for iOS (Menu)

13. Cloudier – Old Menu Concept

14. Calculator UI Concept

15. Weather widget

16. Login – Skype Desktop Modern/Flat UI Concept

17. Concept Scrollable-Tabs

18. Landing Page Concept

19. Running Design Concept

20. Shuffler.FM Concept

21. CB2 Cart Concept

22. Navigation Concept for a touch screen display

23. Volvo Dashboard Concept

24. Mobile Website Concept

25. Coming Soon Concept

26. Restaurant App WIP

27. CareTribe Health Stream – Visual Concept

28. Mobile Portfolio (Tablet Concept)

29. Pagination Concept

30. Custom Taskbar

31. Sign up screen

32. Responsive Site Concept

33. YouTube One player

34. Personal Website

35. Profile Concept

36. Loading Bar

37. UI widget concept

38. Glossy button v.2

39. Tictail Search

40. Tablet Login Concept

41. UX/UI menu concept with folding effect

42. Surface Concept

43. HJ Login Concept

44. Profile Interface

45. My Cart Items UI Concept

The post 45 Most Innovative UI Designs by the Most Talented Designers appeared first on CollegeGFX.

Preparing WordPress For Tablets: Tools And Strategies

social@collegegfx.com — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 07:27:14 +0000

Smartphones have been hailed as the next best thing after desktop, grabbing the attention of website designers and marketers who wasted no time to cash in on the opportunity. But recent stats are painting an altogether different picture of the scenario. While the stats don’t snub the impact smartphones have had on the masses or the designer and marketing fraternities; it rather sheds light on another device that has been rapidly increasing its footprint in the mobile usage pattern around the world. The device in question is none other than tablets. Tablet users vary from smartphones’ wherein the users expect rich content including entertainment, and a web platform that supports these aspects is the key to garnering user traffic. Out of various options, WordPress seems to fit the bill.

Tablet’s Clout

Personal impact:

A survey depicts the usage pattern of tablets among the users across various factors such as demography, time of usage, usage category, engagement criteria, etc. Demography – Tablets tend to be favorites with users who are above 35 years of age, with men more inclined towards it. This should mean that tablets are in serious and well-to-do hands. Time of usage - Tablet usage spikes during the “prime time” of the day that’s between 7pm and 9pm. That’s the time when users are normally expected to be found in front of their entertainment centers. Usage duration- Major portion of tablet usage is skewed heavily towards gaming (67%). Past time activities namely social networking (10%) and entertainment (9%) including utilities (4%) are other notable user engaging activities on tablets. Surely a wakeup call for entertainment heavyweights. App engagement- On an average, tablet users use apps for nearly double the time duration compared to smartphones. This clearly is a reason why app developers need to focus on quality more than quantity when it comes to tablets.

Commercial impact:

On the commercial front, like on the personal front, tablets is making heads turn by breaking the monopoly of desktops on e-commerce and overtaking the role of smartphones in e-commerce. Various studies reveal that e-commerce is 20% more on tablets than desktops and the average spending value is to the tune of $120 by tablet users. Of all the traffic to e-commerce sites, tablets constituted 6.52% compared to smartphones’ 5.35% of the traffic. And a whopping 3.23% of the traffic, in contrast to smartphones’ 1.39%, were converted into sales through tablets. All the while desktops were a tad above tablets – conversion of 3.51% of the traffic into sales. The bottomline of all these number crunching is that tablets have made its way to users’ entertainment centers by virtue of its mobility trait. Smartphones are used primarily when users are on the go whereas, tablets are used mainly when users are in a relaxed mood, finding time for themselves. It has slowly started replacing newspapers which are generally read in the morning and book that are read at bedtime. E-commerce aside, tablets are about media, information, entertainment, and to deliver these to the users require websites that presents it the way they are viewed/heard on desktops or other large screens. Nothing does the job better than WordPress as it’s synonymous with blogs and general infotainment.

Enabling WordPress Accommodate Tablets

Although WordPress have branched out to take the roles of a CMS or a framework, it still largely remains as the best blogging platform. Blogs are meant to be read, and rendering a blog readable on handheld devices requires a different strategy. It’s about making your site responsive to the tablet environment at the same time maintaining visual appeal. This can be achieved through plugins.

Onswipe:

Previously known as Padpressed, Onswipe detects the screen size and view direction and adjusts the site content layout automatically. It allows for sharing of content on the social networks apart from enabling the blog to be downloaded on the tablets. After downloading the compressed file, you’ll need to login as admin and go to “plugins”. Choose the “upload” option after clicking on “add new”. Upload the compressed file and activate the plugin. All these can be accomplished in under 5 minutes. Post installation, you can give your blog a magazine touch by varying the resolution followed by setting the font and color. You may also select from a list of skin colors to suit your taste. You can use Onswipe with WP Super Cache with some minor adjustments in the settings. Onswipe comes with customizable content and article layouts which gives it a native app feel enabling browse-through capability. Touch gesture aids in effortless readability of articles.

Wptouch:

Developed by Bravenewcode, Wptouch resizes and rearranges contents and images according to the device. It has gone a long way by incorporating useful feature like touch gestures. Primarily intended for Apple users, WPtouch now extends to current and emerging platforms. WPtouch’s strong points are the the custom themes and stylesheets which it employs while identifying the device type. It replaces the device’s current WordPress theme with any mobile theme which acts as a template, that can be customized to include anything. With this template feature you could literally have a mobile website out of a plugin with all the standard features of one and options for further customization. If you wish to do away with certain shortcodes in the mobile view, you can do so with ease.

WordPress Mobile Edition:

WordPress Mobile Edition plugin allows users to view the websites specific to the device platform they use. This means that the site utilizing this plugin would have a unique look and feel with each platform. This has advantages wherein platforms that support or don’t support certain features could actually have a varied experience while viewing websites integrated with this plugin. This capability is made possible with readymade themes which are pre-assigned to specific platforms for example Android or iOS that would give the site a native look. In addition theme customization is possible by effecting changes in the templates.

Strategies for website for tablets

Along with the use of above plugins, a pinch of tablet centric strategy can get your WordPress site miles ahead of your competitors.

Have your WordPress site make use of portrait and landscape views. Tablets are not square in shape but rectangular. This has huge implications on how users read your content or browse through your website. The portrait view is most used in reading or viewing content, while for browsing through pages as well as viewing videos, the landscape view is preferred. Hence tailoring your website according to these aspects can add to the usability factor.
Make content downloadable for your users so that they can read it as and when they require without the need to be connected all the time.
Navigation can be made more user-friendly by providing larger buttons specifically for moving “backward”, “forward”, “up” or “down”. Avoid links within the text which can be annoying to the user.
Use HTML5 more in your website than flash.
You should note that the “hover” effect won’t work well with the users on tablets since every function is through physical touch.

Strategies for tablets are comparatively less evolved than smartphones due to the former being relatively out of focus of marketers and designers. This is soon going to change since the tablet is experiencing a never before demand and the metrics speaks of a distinctive user approach towards tablets than smartphones. WordPress being the most popular and tablets climbing the popularity ladder, opportunities are galore for all the players.

The post Preparing WordPress For Tablets: Tools And Strategies appeared first on CollegeGFX.