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Navigation today is an integral part of web design and goes beyond aesthetics. Much of navigation design today is part of the CSS used for the website, while the functionality remains in the mark up language.

Ideas abound for creating navigation. Here is a summary of some of the modern trends.

Menus

Menus have been used for long now. They are the simplest of the navigation tools. However, the ways in which they can be used are endless. Today, some of the common trends in menus include using them with subtitles in CSS. Another trend in the use of menus is with page separation. Essentially, this is done to keep large amounts of content organized. This stems from the fact that separation of menu classes or types makes it easier for the visitor to mentally categorize information. This serves navigation and also improves the efficiency of calls-to-action.

Sidetabs

Today, sidebars are a common sight on web pages. Their use and efficiency is highly debated. However, they seem to find favor with many web developers. They can be useful for making non conventional design where the content is not heavy. However, issues that are common with this type of design arise due to the use of images along with CSS. This means trouble with SEO techniques. Legibility is again another issue. Despite all of these apparently discouraging issues, a webpage can pull it off if it were a portfolio or a profile page. This is simply reiterating the fact that the type of website determines the navigation.

Post headers

Post headers are common with blogs. The primary objective is to create interest. The logo or header is the first location to which the eyes go. If important navigation elements like the menu or call to action buttons were to be placed here, the likelihood of meeting the final goal of the webpage increases. The proportion of the header is important – the navigation elements should not be hidden by the header or logo, while at the same time it should not seem jarring. The navigation elements have to be separated well by white space and should ideally have backgrounds contrasting that of the logo.

Icons

This type of navigation is ideal when visual appeal takes precedence over content. Web-pages with high resolution images played as a Flash object often has pointers. Icons also help navigation because they seem uncluttered and are easy to find. Besides that, it’s a lot easier to use icons as the viewer associates an image with the navigation element.

Pointers

Considered as extra graphical elements, a pointer can create better interaction. They are largely used for hover effects over bars. They are used these days with icons to create a strong visual appeal.

Unconventional design ideas

The trends are not restricted to the above mentioned ideas. Many websites have navigation that does not fit any category. It may be a risk but if it is possible to experiment, then it may actually turn out to be a good idea.

Social media marketing, in simple words, refers to the use of social media as a tool, to promote or market a particular product or a service. Today, business owners use sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to spread the word about their business. The primary and most important reason for a businessman, to outsource social media marketing would be to save time. Let’s take a look at some of these reasons in detail:

Outsourcing Social Media Marketing Saves Time
Social media marketing’s biggest drawback is that it can consume an incredible amount of time. It’s not something that can be done once and then you sit back and expect results to start pouring in. It is marketing that needs to be nurtured over a period of time in order to be effective. Big businesses like Microsoft, Dell and HP have been using social media marketing in a very effective fashion. Although, we have to remember that they have budgets to specifically fund a section of their staff to exclusively handle and manage these marketing campaigns. Many, especially small/new businesses don’t have this advantage. So the best bet would be to outsource!

Lack of Experience
Another very effective reason to outsource is the experience level or the lack of it. If neither you nor your employees have a sound understanding of how to influence and use social media to pass on professional messages then outsourcing is the right solution for you. There’s no point in being all out at sea over something that you don’t know much about. There are social media companies that can help you achieve exceptional results.

Branding and Strategy
When you pick a reliable social media partner, they can also help you with building your brand and identity on these sites. Therefore, you can push your entire marketing strategy forward by dealing with a single provider.

Bang for your Buck
Smart businesses will always want to calculate their ROI so they’ll know if it’s been a wise investment. A professional social media agency will use specific tools to do exactly that. In the long run, you will know to know whether it’s been worth your while to invest your resources in social media marketing.

Stay on the Pulse
A good and responsible marketing agency can work wonders for a business. By regularly communicating with you, they can tweak social media strategies as your business thrives. They’ll know when to capitalize on new opportunities and overcome challenges that appear on the horizons. They stay up to date with newest technologies and can use it to the advantage of your business.

With so much competition around, the biggest mistake you can make is to use traditional marketing tools in order to attract potential clients. Social media marketing can help you grab and retain the attention of current and prospective buyers.

There are a number of reasons why you should want to redesign your website. However, irrespective of the reasons, you can use a professional website design company to take care of your redesign requirements. Mentioned below are some of the important factors that you should consider prior to redesigning your website.

1.Making the Most of SEO
SEO was not something that people had in mind when designing their websites a few years back. However, considering the relevance of SEO in today’s designing process, it makes sense to redesign the content aspect of your website to include relevant keywords that will bring in more web traffic. Keyword research is now easy with tools such as the Word Tracker, Ad Intelligence from Microsoft and Google Adwords Tool.

2.Keeping it Fresh
Quite often people create a website when they begin a new venture. However, they don’t invest the time and effort required to update their websites. These sites do not attract potential customers as no one wants to visit something that’s old and obsolete. A redesign of your website will get people to notice that you’re doing something proactively to get their attention. Give your web visitors something new to look at. Update your website with relevant content so people keep coming back for more. Besides, search engines like websites that are constantly updated with new content.

3.New Platform Integration
Technologies emerge as fast as the changing seasons. To keep your site updated with the best, you may need to redesign certain aspects to make it compatible with latest software. Incorporating new technology will enhance the site’s usability and effectiveness in the long run, so it pays to upgrade once in a while.

4.Adding New Tools
Unlike earlier, a website is not just about graphics or text. It is much more than that. In fact, a well designed website will incorporate a wide range of tools like photo books, blogs, social media and forums. In the hands of a professional website designer, there is no limit to what you can achieve with your website.

5.Staying Ahead of Competition
Just as in any other aspect of life, if you are successful in the online business, you will find competitors breathing down your neck. This means that your website needs to be at its best to stay ahead of the competition. This is because people base their decisions on something as simple as the look of your website and how it fares in comparison with your competition. Similarly, you may be doing a wonderful job of reaching out to your consumers but are you making any impact? Opting for a website redesign may give you leverage to grab customer attention. In fact, you can redesign your website by keeping new markets in mind.

If you’re not a technical expert, website redesign is a job best left to the experts. Narrow down on good firms that can offer affordable deals and excellent results. Your investment will certainly pay off when you see web traffic heading your way.

When done correctly, email marketing can achieve a higher ROI than any other direct marketing method. Unfortunately, most companies mishandle their email marketing campaign, causing them to lose subscribers and earn low conversion rates. Most times, the mishandling of email marketing is due to one of these 7 deadly mistakes.

1. Buying your email list—While it sounds tempting to instantly buy a list containing thousands of subscribers, doing so comes with several drawbacks. Most importantly, it makes you a spammer. If you don’t have permission from the subscriber to email them, doing so is a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. And even if it isn’t spam, you’ll never receive the response rate you want because your list isn’t hand-built and highly targeted. Quality of subscribers is much more important than quantity.

2. Not offering quality, useful content—Firing off one advertisement after another is a surefire way to lose subscribers. Obviously, you want to market your products and services, but you also need to provide your readers with quality content they can benefit from. Think of it like a magazine. Magazines have advertisements, but they also give their readers great content. Balance the two properly to receive maximum results.

3. Emailing too often—A 2005 DoubleClick survey found that many people identify spam as “email from a company I have done business with but that comes too frequently.” So, even if you aren’t technically spamming your subscribers, emailing them too often will create the perception that you are. Experts recommend contacting your subscribers no more than once every 4 days.

4. Ignoring timing—When you hit the send button is one of the most important factors in your email marketing campaign. You want to make sure you’re sending your messages at a time when your target audience is around and when they’re able to take action. Segment your list according to geographic location, and determine what time of day your customers are likely to buy what you sell.

5. Linking to your homepage—Perhaps the biggest reason for a poorly performing email marketing campaign is the lack of linking to targeted landing pages. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across links in emails asking the reader to take action (e.g. save 25% off sweaters today only) with a link to the home page. If you’re running a promotion on sweaters, link to a landing page that contains only your sweaters. Your readers don’t want to dig around your website looking for the offer.

6. Using spammy subject lines—Of course, you can’t expect to be successful with email marketing if your messages never reach your subscribers. Avoid overuse of spammy words and phrases in your subject lines. Common examples include: Make $10,000 today, Change your life forever, Buy now, etc.

7. Not proofreading your messages—Unless you want your company to look like a joke, proofread your messages before you send them out. Typos and poorly-worded sentences create an unprofessional image of your company.

Have you made any of these email marketing mistakes? Which mistakes would you add to the list? Share your thoughts in the comments.

You’ve heard the saying, “If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it really happen?” Well, if a blog doesn’t have any readers, does it really exist? Without readers, a blog is lifeless and without purpose.

So, what can you do to attract more readers to your blog? Here are 7 tips to help you get started.

1. Guest post on other blogs—It might seem counterintuitive at first, but one of the best ways to bring readers to your blog is to post on other blogs in your niche. Guest posting exposes you to a whole new audience of readers who are interested in what you have to say. Include a link back to your blog in your guest post, so that readers can follow you back to your website to become loyal subscribers. Just always make sure your guest post is the highest quality of content you’re capable of producing as it’s your one chance to impress a new audience.

2. Allow others to guest post—In addition to writing on other blogs, you should also allow other popular bloggers to guest post on your blog. This will bring the guest blogger’s readers over to your blog, increasing your exposure and earning you new readers.

3. SEO your posts—The search engines love blogs because they provide fresh, up to date content, allowing the search engines to provide the most relevant results possible. To further enhance your blog’s search engine presence, optimize your posts for relevant keywords. Spend time before writing your posts performing a little keyword research so you can target phrases that will bring you the most traffic.

4. Get blogroll links—Most blogs have a blogroll on their sidebar which includes links to other quality blogs in their niche. Once you build relationships with other bloggers, kindly ask them to include a link to your blog in their blogroll. It might not drive a ton of traffic to your site, but it will bring highly targeted clickers.

5. Use your own unique voice—With hundreds of millions of blogs online covering every topic imaginable, your blog’s success relies on your ability to stand out from the crowd. Do you want to know what the best way to do this is? Be yourself. Give your true opinions on matters instead of simply mimicking what everyone else is saying. Also, write the way you talk. This will create a conversational tone that instantly creates a personality readers can connect with.

6. Submit to blog carnivals— A blog carnival is basically an online magazine that collects the best from blogs in its niche. Blog carnivals exist on every topic you can think of. Find a blog carnival
that covers your industry, and submit your best posts to them. This will put your content in front of a new set of eyes.

7. Leverage social media apps—Between Twitter, Facebook, Digg, ReddIt, Mixx, LinkedIn, and other social media sites, there are more than enough outlets available to promote your blog content on. Build strong networks with interested followers who will click your links and become subscribers to your blog.

What have you done to get more readers to your blog? Leave a comment with your best tips!