So first let’s recap where I wanted to be:

1. Select an e-commerce vendor to use and embed it in my website
2. Design a page on my website to host the beat store
3. Produce at least 10 production ready beats for sale
4. Produce an intro video for the beat store
5. Clean up my Facebook and YouTube pages
6. Setup my email marketing

So where am I today?

1. E-commerce vendor: MyFlashStore – Done
2. The page is ready (but still not live) – Done
3.  I have been able to produce 6 beats ready for sale – Mostly Done
4. Have not been able to start this – Not Done
5. Done for a good start (always ongoing process) – Done
6. All setup – Done

So when do I plan to get the store launched and why am I delaying?

Well, I have finally got good mixes and arrangements for my beats but they still need to be mastered. Additionally, I really want to get my introduction video complete before launching the page.

My plan is to get this all launched within the next week or two maximum.

Appreciate the support and patience.

The post Delaying Launch of my Beat Store appeared first on Darcy Voutt.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve been working on in my home studio.

When the sample matches the mood ?. Doing something new with video. #studiolife #studiosetup #beatmaker #hiphopbeats #hiphopmusic #logicpro #logicprox #beats #realhiphopmusic #imovie #iphone6s

A video posted by Darcy Voutt (@darcyvoutt) on Feb 24, 2016 at 6:21pm PST

New home studio

As much as I love making music, mixing is equally as fun. This is my new home studio gear I have setup: pair of Yamaha HS 5 studio monitors, Numark TT-USB, Focusrite 6i6, Logic Pro X from Apple and a second hand M-Audio Oxygen 8.

30 days to launch a hip hop beats store?

Over the next month (by April 8), I plan to launch an online store where artists / media outlets can license the music that I make. Never heard of this before, read this. Over the next month I will be providing updates on my progress (especially through Instagram).

What are my goals?

To make sure this is a successful venture, my plan is to accomplish the following:

1. Select an e-commcerce vendor to use and embed it in my website
2. Design a page on my website to host the beat store
3. Produce at least 10 production ready beats for sale
4. Produce an intro video for the beat store
5. Clean up my Facebook and YouTube pages
6. Setup my email marketing

I really look forward to the launch, but the journey will be amazing as well. If you read all the way to the end, thank you for the love!

Hope you join me on the journey.

The post 30 days to launch an online hip hop beats store appeared first on Darcy Voutt.

Now that it’s easier to see what your page title and description will look like, wouldn’t it be amazing to see how it will compare with real search results?

I knew I had to build this right away. With no delay I got to building this feature the same night. Now only a couple of days later it’s live!

What does this new feature look like?

In the following GIF you can see there’s a new Keyword input that follows the title and description. As you can see, as you type it will automatically start to populate the page with search results. Where am I getting the results? Straight from Google using their Custom Search API.Why I’m so excited by this feature

Free Competitor Keyword Tool

Why should I care about this free competitor keyword tool?

Now you can compare how your page will look against your competition in seconds. Switch between several sets of results with a few key strokes to see where your page fits best. As well, you can see who you will be competing with by looking at the website.

See how your competitors are

On top of that, it also checks to make sure you have the right length of your title and description while giving you a real-world preview. And it’s free.

Here’s a few benefits I’ve already seen by using the tool myself:

Why did I make this for free?

I love to design and to solve problems. I found myself annoyed over-and-over again trying to get the right length for me titles and descriptions using character counters.  On top of that, I found myself going back and forth between tools doing keyword research. So I took a stab at solving both problems.

Make it a painless process to do quick research and get a preview of how your page will stack up.

I really hope that you enjoy using this free keyword research tool as much as I do. To get your hands on it you can check it out here. If you want to share some love, please share it around.

The post SEO Checker Update: Free Competitor Keyword Tool appeared first on Darcy Voutt.

This past weekend I decided to build website SEO Checker. The objective of this project was to make writing the title and description of any site a quick and painless process.

Why did I make this website SEO checker?

For my day job, I work as a website strategist and SEO is a core component of my job. It’s very common for me to be creating new content and needing to craft SEO friendly titles and descriptions.

When I work on our blog, I use WordPress and can take advantage of SEO Yoast. This is my go-to SEO tool that makes my life easier. In fact, I’m using it right now to create this post. Yoast features a simple to use Google result preview, that looks like this:

However, the main site I manage runs on Drupal, and to the best of my knowledge there isn’t an equivalent tool. So I decided to make my ideal tool for all situations. My hope is that it’s just as helpful for you as it is for me.

What were my goals?

Any good project should have some criteria to measure your success. So what were my goals beyond making a user-friendly website SEO checker:

1. It must let me know when the title or description are too short
2. It must let me know when they’re too long
3. It must show me exactly what my result will look like in Google

I’m glad to say, that my first published project was a complete success. Please feel free to check it out here.

What’s next?

I’ve barely even launched the checker but I’m already planning a great enhancement. My plan is to integrate Google Search into the tool (now released). This will allow people to see how their title and description match up against the competition. I believe real world testing like this will vastly increase everyone success as it takes ideas from theory to reality (like this project).

So far my prototype is going well and I expect to be finished very soon.

You should expect to see continued updates from me on Instagram and Twitter.

The post Weekend Project: Website SEO Checker appeared first on Darcy Voutt.

At one point I had the thought that my design was great and adding anything else would ruin it. That’s when I knew I was putting form over function. So I decided to tackle this problem one input at a time … literally one input!

Let’s look at we can design usable web forms by looking at a single input and how it can be a guide to better forms.

In this post I’m showcasing a prototype I built in Codepen (a great place to live code your ideas). When I built this, I was inspired by how Twitter handles their 140 character limit. I decided to challenge myself to build something similar.

My objectives were:

• Make sure the user knows the character limit
• Let them know when they have reached the limit
• When they have exceeded the limit, keep them informed

The last objective is actually the one I felt was most important. I hate exceeding a limit and needing some random character counter to fix the issue.

It’s a small thing, but it’s what that makes the experience feel effortless.

How do you design usable web forms?

To design usable web forms, the user needs dynamic, actionable information. Especially when there are errors and how they can resolve them.

The following is the normal state that the user sees before they type anything. There are a couple of subtle details that keeps them informed.

1. Placeholder tells the user what is required
2. The inline character count informs them of the limit
   1. Initially it’s faded to remain subtle (initially hidden works also)
   2. Once you click into the input it becomes more pronounced

Input | Informative Design

What happens when the limit is exceeded?

When someone types beyond the limit a few interesting things happen to inform the user of the state change. These small details is where you make a real difference when you design usable web forms.

1. Everything is red, the perfect colour to inform of an error
2. The counter now displays the number of characters over the limit
   1. This helps the user determine what to cut
   2. Saves them time form trying repeatedly or needing a tool
3. The submit button becomes disabled
   1. Just incase they missed all the red inputs
   2. Stops them from submitting bad data

Error State | Informative Design

Try it yourself

How much fun would this blog post be if you couldn’t experience it for yourself. Use it below and let me know if this helps you design usable web forms.

See the Pen Input Character Limit by Darcy Voutt (@ darcyvoutt ) on CodePen
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The post Design usable web forms and avoid user error appeared first on Darcy Voutt.