Top 10 Website Design Trends for 2014

1. Responsive Website Design
As you might have expected, mobile responsiveness is a very high priority. This isn’t a very new or exciting trend (we’ve been building responsive websites since late 2010), but it is extremely important in our mobile world. Mobile responsiveness is no longer an added bonus; it’s a must. Don’t believe me? As of February 2014, 60% of Internet access is mostly mobile! That is an amazing statistic.

2. Attractive Font Styles
Fonts with personality and flair are taking center stage. Expect to see designers experimenting with new fonts, creating custom fonts to fit the client’s needs, and straying away from standard serifs and sans-serifs like Times New Roman and Helvetica. Expect the unexpected when it comes to typography. While there have been issues with some of these fonts rendering on some browser/operating system combinations, we do expect this to improve in 2014 and beyond.

3. Videos
Videos are gaining momentum this year. Expect to see them headlining home pages, taking the place of large blocks of text. Since they don’t fit well with every company, they require a lot of data, and they ask a lot of viewers (you have to turn on your speakers and listen, and you can’t skim), videos won’t be as common as some of our other web design trends for 2014, but don’t be surprised if you see more presentation-style videos popping up across the web.

4. Flat Designs
Flat design is sticking around for 2014. Apple, always a trendsetter, went even flatter with iOS 7, so don’t expect this trend to fade away anytime soon. It made headlines in 2013, and it’s sticking around for the top web design trends for 2014.

5. Lots of Scrolling
Mobile design has made both designers and viewers comfortable with the idea of lots of scrolling, so embrace it in 2014. Many sites are incorporating scrolling as a feature, urging viewers to scroll down the page as though they’re reading a story. This storytelling technique can really suck a viewer into your website, especially when it’s combined with parallax scrolling.

6. Simple Colors
Why use colors when you could use just one or two? Simplified color schemes work well with flat design and can add a lot of drama. They immerse you in the website’s content instead of distracting you with a plethora of hues and shades.

7. Content Placement
If you want your viewer to focus on what’s important, your content must be streamlined and simplified. Instead of a dozen elements fighting for attention, in 2014 you’ll see short bursts of text and carefully chosen images and graphics.

8. High Resolution and Creative Images
It’s much easier to achieve great image quality these days. Creative and beautiful images cost less than ever before and loading speed is faster than ever before. So if you’ve got great photos, show them off! Images draw the viewer’s eye. Plus, they look fantastic on retina displays.

9. Grid Style
Again, this isn’t a new trend, but grid-style layouts are sticking around for 2014. They help designers condense information into an easy-to-read, organized format. Grid style is easy on the eyes and helpful to the viewer.

10. Large Introductions
Introduction areas at the top of websites are dominating home page real estate. This area is usually covered in a large graphic or image and little copy. As the year continues, we expect to see more of these large, interesting, and elaborate heroes.

10 Reasons To Launch A Website

Change is constant, an appropriate adage for today's scenario. There is a vast competitive market where you want to establish your enterprise. You should be more forward thinking if you wish to stand out in your business. Being in the market is just not enough, people should mark your presence then only your business will be successful.
One of the easiest ways of reaching masses is through Internet. For this your business needs a website, which can represent you on web giving you a web presence.
This isn't that expensive, if done properly can give you better ROI (Return on Investment) than any advertisement or promotion. If these reasons are not enough for you then let's discuss 10 more reasons why your business needs a website.

Professional Image
A website helps you to create a professional image. A professionally designed website can attract visitors which can convert into new customers. This gives an impression that the company is credible and trustworthy. Your well made website gives you a professional touch.

Business Information
Your website makes you easily accessible and reachable. You can provide your business information in your website like phone number, fax number, clients and special offerings. People can get a brief about you just by visiting your company website

Promotional Tool
Website is the most convenient and professional promotional tool. It ensures a less expensive and continuous promotion to your business. It is easy to update than yellow pages or brochures. It can save your printing expenditure.

Establishes E - Commerce
Millions of customers log on to the Internet everyday to expand web business or E- Commerce. Once you are in the web the transactions the business you generate becomes a part of the E-Commerce, where you deal in a virtual market. Your single website becomes your active tool in generating business by E-Commerce businesses.

Research Information
Your website provides the required research information to your visitors. Many people spend hour in Internet searching articles, information for educational purpose. You can be referred by many visitors if your website has information about any product or service.

Demographic Market
The World Wide Web or WWW is the highest virtual market having the highest percentage of demographic market available. This mostly consists of educated mass that can spend more on the web. You can target a large mass of affluent customers through Internet.

Global Market
Internet is a global medium. If you have a website it can be visited from any part of the globe. People can visit your website for information and offerings. This gives your business a global presence.

Round the Clock Availability
Your business hour can have a proper timing but your website is not bound of timings. People can visit your website anytime any day. Your webpage can serve your client round the clock without charging any overtime

Feedback - Room for improvement
Website can give you instant feedback which is not possible for print. Visitors can give you proper feedback by e mail. You can even generate an instant feedback form in your website, where visitors can express their views about your website.

Persuasive
People believe in what they see. When you will have a visible web presence you can allure visitors and show confidence on your expertise and work. By providing service and product information you can get instant orders from your visitors. This can effortlessly attract new business for you.

15 Interesting Facts About Graphic Designing

1. This thing made me happy that almost 286,000 people have employed as Graphic Designer in 2008. It is interesting fact that many people are entering into this field of work.

2. This is a way of career where experience is more important than education. Usually people start their journey from entry level and with the improvement of their work they achieve a senior position.

3. Graphic Design is an art that comes from mind. A cruel fact is that some people cannot be a moral designer even after enormous experience.

4. People that are creative since the start of their work can get higher level jobs after training.

5. According a survey, the job opportunities are expected to be increase in large amount in 2018. There is a chance that people that are relevant to designing or development fields of computer will get more opportunities for career than other fields.

6. During 2009 it was observed that the average salary that a designer earned was $43,180.

7. This is a funny thing to know that almost all the designers get addicted to designing. They can’t sit idle. They keep designing things for their own satisfaction or timepass.

8. Only those succeed in this field have passion and would be able to work in extreme timings.

9. Graphic Designer degree is a four year degree. This is an important degree that will help them to know about business also.

10. Most of the designers prefer freelance working. In this way they are able to work in relaxed manner.

11. Things keep changing in this field. So a designer cannot work continuously in a same way. He has to keep learning further. New and powerful techniques keep on coming.

12. Even After getting the degree, some designers quit their career as graphic designing. They start their field as an art gallery owner sometimes.

13. The boy silhouetted in the logo design of Hollywood studio DreamWorks SKG is William, the son of Robert Hunt (the illustrator hired for the design).

14. Some of the Graphic Designers had actually presented hand writing logos which become extremely popular. (Coca Cola)

15. Most of the Graphic designers that got popularity were also interested Typography and film making.

Website Design Facts

This is how WittyVision works

TOP 5 BENEFITS OF SEO

TOP 5 BENEFITS OF SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Increased Traffic - Top positions on the search engine result pages receive a majority of the impressions and clicks, so ranking in these top positions can result in significant traffic increases for your website. SEO also focuses on creating informative and keyword relevant title tags and meta descriptions, which show up in the result pages. Having optimized tags and descriptions helps to increase click through rate, which also promotes increases in qualified web traffic.

ROI - SEO provides trackable and quantifiable results, regardless of whether you are an ecommerce or non-ecommerce site so there are no qualms when it comes to ROI. SEO agencies are able to track nearly every aspect of their strategy, like increases in rankings, traffic and conversions. Comprehensive analytics also provide the ability to drill down at a granular level and see demographic information and other engagement metrics for individuals who have interacted with your website. For Ecommerce sites, SEO agencies can see which paths users take in order to complete a sale, all the way down to which keyword they used to search for you prior to purchasing. For non-Ecommerce sites, you can attribute values to your lead conversions, like a 'contact us' form fill-out, and calculate the value of your SEO strategy that way.

Cost effectiveness - SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online. SEO's inbound nature helps businesses save money as opposed to outbound strategies like cold-calling. While cold-calling can still be an effective strategy, the leads generated cost 61% more than leads generated by an inbound strategy like SEO. And since SEO also targets users who are actively searching for products and services like yours, the traffic resulting from SEO is more qualified than many other marketing strategies, resulting in cost-savings for companies.

Increased site usability – In an effort to make your website easier to navigate for the search engines, SEO simultaneously helps to make your website more navigable for users as well. SEO consists of rearranging the site's architecture and links to make pages within the website easier to find and navigate. This not only makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site and find pages, but also makes it easier for users to find information on your website as well.

Brand Awareness - Since top position rankings result in significant impressions, having your website in these top positions on the result pages translates to more exposure for your website. Plus, being on the first page for your targeted keywords not only helps users to associate your brand with those keywords, but it instills trust, since companies on the first page are generally perceived to be more trustworthy. The more your pages and content rank in high positions in the search engines, the more chances you have for users to see your content and associate with your brand.

12 Benefits Of Having A Website

12 Benefits Of Having A Website

Some of the goals that can be achieved by launching a website include the following:

1. Far Cheaper and Much More Flexible Than Print Advertising
The Internet is extremely different from print advertising in that space is cheap, your advertisement is accessible for a longer period of time, the content can be changed without having to ask someone to do it for you (if you use a content management system) and you can potentially reach a wider audience.
This is not to say that you should not use other forms of advertising at all   You can use it to entice people to visit your website and find out about your company and potentially open two-way communication between the potential customer and a sales person.

2. Market Expansion
The Internet has allowed businesses to break through the geographical barriers and become accessible, virtually, from any country in the world by a potential customer that has Internet access.

3. Diversify Revenue Streams
A website is not just a medium for representation of your company, it is a form of media from which everybody can acquire information. You can use this media to sell advertising space to other businesses.
A recent trend has risen where businesses feature their very own directory of complimentary services, where the visitor can search for information on a business that will enhance the use of your service. The business sells complimentary businesses a listing in their directory.
A good example is a catering company featuring a directory with businesses such as event co-coordinators, electronic equipment rental companies, etc.

4. 24x7x365
No more turning customers away when its time to close shop, putting up a note saying  closed for public holiday , or leaving an irritating message on your answering service specifying your trading hours   tell them to visit your website for information they are looking for.

5. Offer Convenience
It is far more convenient for a person to research a product on the Internet than it is to get in a car, drive somewhere and look for or ask someone for information on a product. Also, a potential customer won t have to judge a call centre agent to determine whether he/she has their best interests in mind, or just wants to make a sale.
The potential customer can visit your website whenever they like in their own privacy and comfort, without the stresses and distractions that exist in the  real world .
Your website is a self-service medium   for example, instead of having to wait in a long cue to pay your TV License, you can now do it electronically through the TV License website.

6. Add Value and Satisfaction
By offering convenience, a point of reference and that touch of individualized customer service, you ultimately add value to your offering and your customers experience a higher level of satisfaction.
Your website can add value in other ways too, by featuring tips, advice and general interest content you can  entertain  your customers. This will also help them remember you better.

7. Standardize Sales Performance
By looking at which approached / pitches have worked in the past and those which have not, you can produce the ultimate pitch and use it with your website, so that you use it on every customer. No more training of sales people and waiting for them to get a feel for your line of trade.

8. Improve credibility
A website gives you the opportunity to tell potential customers what you are about and why you deserve their trust and confidence. In fact, many people use the internet for pre-purchase research so that they can determine for themselves whether a particular supplier or brand is worthy of their patronage, and won t take them for a ride.
The Internet also allows for Viral Marketing   where your website visitors spread positive word-of-mouth about your business - your customers do your marketing!

9. Promote your  Brick  n  Mortar  Presence
Getting lost trying to find a place can be frustrating for a potential customer. You can publish what they call a  dummy map  on your website, which shows directions and landmarks graphically, and the potential customer can print it out when looking for your  Brick  n  Mortar  premises.
You might advertise a promotion on your website encouraging the visitor to visit your  Brick  n  Mortar  premises (e.g..  At a branch near you! ).
Also, if you recently moved to a new location, you will have to wait for the next 'phone directory to come out before people figure out where you currently are. Because a website is flexible   you can change the content as you like   you can change you contact details instantly and lower the risk of losing customers when moving to a new location.

10. Growth Opportunity
A website serves as a great place to refer potential investors to, to show them what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it can achieve in future.

11. Two-Way Communicative Marketing
Customers can quickly and easily give feedback on your product and/or marketing approach.

12. Cheap Market Research
You can use features on your website such as visitor polls, online surveys and your website statistics to find out what your customers like more and how they feel about certain aspects of your business to determine how you can improve your product and the way you do business.

20 Information Technology Facts that Will Amaze, Amuse and Alarm

Network World — A new report warns that the cost from lost productivity at work related to the new NFL season could add up to US$10.5 billion. And there we were, thinking the biggest waste of time at work came from fielding an endless stream of IT industry reports?

In an effort to do something productive with these sometimes insightful, sometimes scary, sometimes silly and frequently self-serving studies, we've boiled down each of about 20 that we've received over the past couple of months into one digestible story. Without further ado and in no particular order:

• The average fantasy sports player earns about $38 per hour and based on an average of nearly 1.19 hours per week dealing with their team during work hours, companies lose about $45.22 in wages per worker each week, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas http://www.challengergray.com/, the global outplacement and business coaching consultancy, which came up with its numbers by crunching those from a couple of fantasy sports groups.

Perhaps playing fantasy football at work can be included in an Internet users' Bill of Rights. Two-thirds of about 200 people attending the second Internet Governance Forum in Brazil last November agreed with this statement: "A global internet users' Bill of Rights should be adopted." Only 6 percent disagreed. Such a Bill of Rights would include things such as freedom of information, freedom of expression, and the right of people to have affordable access, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  

—Not that everyone is going to log on even if they are offered affordable access. Only 44 percent of Kentucky households subscribe to broadband even though most do have access to it, according to Connected Nation, which issued a report that all full-time adult students in Kentucky with broadband at home use the 'Net for educational purposes. So clever.

• Well, more clever than a lot of organizations anyway. Just over half of organizations require only passwords for employees to access critical data, according to a survey of 150 companies by Quest Software and the Aberdeen Group. Companies play fast and loose with their password rules, too, according to the survey, with almost half allowing standard dictionary terms and more than two-thirds not specifying password length.
• Not that that sort of thing has anything to do with the number of confirmed data breaches reported through mid-August blowing by the number reported for all of last year. According to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center, last year a total of 446 breaches were reported, and as of Aug. 22 this year 449 got reported. Of course, there are many more breaches than those reported, and the ITRC says it is thankful that at least a few states are starting to make info available through their Attorney General offices.
• You could just blame Japan for your network security troubles. Japan proved to be the Godzilla of attack traffic-generation in the second quarter as the country of origin for 30 percent of such traffic worldwide, according to content delivery network provider Akamai. The study, which was conducted by monitoring Akamai's global network of more than 30,000 servers, measured distributed denial-of-service attacks, Web site hacking attempts and DNS hijackings for 139 countries. The United States had the second-highest percentage of attack traffic for the second quarter, at 21.5 percent, while China came in third at 16.8 percent.
• Not that top executives don't have even bigger worries. The top hurdle faced by 300 top executives (such as CEOs and CIOs) surveyed by the Society for Information Management is IT-business alignment. Building business skills in IT, IT strategic planning, attracting new IT professionals and making better use of information rounded out the top 5 concerns.
• Of course, there's also the little matter of IT spending. The outlook is still pretty grim, with growth expected to be just 4 percent for the year (down from 6 percent last year), but not all signs are bad, according to the latest Goldman Sachs survey of 100 managers with strategic decision-making authority at Fortune 1,000 companies. On the bright side is that spending intentions on network gear is rebounding (for the next 12 months, 54 percent of respondents said they expect their network spending to grow, and that's up from 42 percent the last time they were asked). However, Goldman describes plans for discretionary IT projects as "anemic."
• As for the other type of "green," a third of 75 organizations asked by Cutter Consortium if they have a long-term plan/strategy targeted at reducing the environmental footprint of their IT infrastructure said no, 38 percent said yes and 29 percent said they didn't know. Broken down further, 57 percent of European organizations said they had one vs. 37 percent in the United States.
• Regardless of the tough economy, companies are having to fork over big salaries to enterprise applications experts due to a shortage of people with SAP skills, according to new research from Foote Partners. The value of some SAP skills rose between 25 percent and 30 percent over the first six months of 2008 and nearly twice that over the past 12 months. "If you're looking for SAP Web Application Server, Production Planning, Business Objects, Quality Management, Strategic Enterprise Management, Product Lifecycle Management, HCM and MDM module and skills experience, you're suddenly paying a lot more," says David Foote, CEO of the research group.
• It might not hurt to brush up on your Ethernet skills, too. Business Ethernet services boomed in the United States during the first half of the year, with the number of installed ports rising 16 percent. AT&T led the way with 21 percent of total ports, with Verizon, TW Telecom and Cox in pursuit, according to Vertical Systems Group.
• Who knows, maybe all that new Business Ethernet capacity is helping to stave off a massive Internet outage. Despite prognostications that the Internet is about to collapse from the weight of traffic growth—especially video—international Internet traffic grew 53 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008, down from 61 percent the preceding year, according to a market research firm. For the second consecutive year, total international Internet capacity grew faster than total Internet traffic, leading to lower utilization levels on many Internet backbones, according to market tracker TeleGeography.
• Nevertheless, there are at least 5 trillion reasons to stay in telecom: global telecom revenue is estimated to hit about $5 trillion by 2011, according to the latest Telecommunications Industry Association. High-volume business and consumer data applications are driving demand, according to the report.
• Yes, Cisco rules enterprise networking, but it also is no pushover in the carrier market. Infonetics' quarterly service provider routers and switches report shows Cisco gained 15 percent in IP edge and core router revenue in the second quarter and now owns more than half the worldwide market. Though it was Fujitsu that made the biggest gain during the quarter, jumping from No. 9 to No. 6 worldwide.
• Cisco also talks a good game in software these days, though its muckety-mucks might want to note this: Software-as-a-service has a way to go, according to a survey of 417 IT decision makers at companies with less than 500 employees. The survey by the Technology Practice of Chadwick Martin Bailey found that just 14 percent of those surveyed say they are more likely to subscribe to software-as-a-service than they are to purchase software-as-a-license and manage it internally.
• And now, for a few words about ERM. Are you among the 8 percent who have no clue what ERM is? A survey commissioned in part by a company that sells e-mail security and content protection software, and conducted by Gilbane Group and University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, found that the number of people who don't know what enterprise rights management is had fallen from 26 percent in 2005. The vendor promoting this survey pats itself on the back too many times in its news release to earn mention here. (Here's one company's explanation of ERM:)
• Don't go looking to your 4th and 8th graders for any explanations of ERM, by the way. Their math and science proficiency "remains unacceptably low," according to AeA, a high-tech trade industry that recently issued a report  analyzing the latest math and science scores based on Department of Education figures. Among the ugly numbers: 39 percent of 4th graders and 31 percent of 8th graders tested at or above the proficiency level in math last year, and the number of 4th graders at or above proficiency in science rose only one percentage point between 1996 and 2005.
• Here are some numbers that almost anyone can understand, though. Investors are still putting their money into new wireless network companies even though the prospects of big IPO payoffs are not at all obvious. In the latest Rutberg & Co. wireless industry report (for August), the research outfit found $313.2 million in wireless investments vs. $233.9 a year ago, though not a single IPO (not that that's unusual in IT these days). The biggest chunks of that investment went into carrier infrastructure and technologies, though enterprise applications also earned attention. While the IPO market has dried up, the mergers&acqusitions market has not, and there was plenty of action in the wireless market in August, including HP buying Colubris and Nortel snapping up Bluesocket's Pingtel assets. —Guess who's atop the U.S. smartphone market? (It doesn't begin with "A") Research in Motion captured almost 54 percent of the market in the second quarter, according to IDC. That was a big jump—almost 10 percentage points -- from the first quarter, and the gain came at the expense of Apple, maker of the iPhone, and Palm, both of which lost share.
• And finally....you'd think we could find a few interesting tidbits in a study about "findability," the art of being able to locate your content. Sure enough, trade group AIIM issued a report this summer (funded by a couple of content management companies) that dished up this fact: Only 10 percent of the 500 business users surveyed said as much as 76 percent to 100 percent of its company's information is searchable online. More than a third of those surveyed said 25 percent or less of the information is searchable online.