#Our Step-By-Step Guide will walk you through the process of Developing Full Featured Single Page Application using React JS

[webgangesseo]

[claritalunaluna76]

MBW’s World’s Greatest Managers series profiles the best artist managers in the global business. This time, we speak to Mark Gillespie, founder of Three Six Zero and manager to huge artists like Calvin Harris. The World’s Greatest Managers is supported by Centtrip Music, a specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange – created with the music industry and its needs in mind.

Mark Gillespie grew up in Redditch, just south of Birmingham, England – where, as a teenager in the mid-’90s, he developed his passion for electronic music as a record collector and amateur DJ.

From there, he met local promoter Eddie Boulton, who gave him a job handing out flyers for Birmingham’s soon-to-launch legendary superclub Godskitchen.

Within a couple of years, Gillespie – deemed something of an internet-age whizkid within Godskitchen – was becoming an increasingly influential figure within the club, helping pick out emerging DJ talent, while also building websites, launching digital marketing campaigns and acting as a talent liaison.

This was a heady lifestyle for an 18-year-old dance music fanatic, which, by Gillespie’s own admission, invited “all kinds of crazy shit” into his life. Including the fact that local gangs – particularly the notoriously violent Birmingham Zulus – liked to frequent the club.

“For quite a while, I wore a bulletproof vest to work,” says Gillespie, matter-of-factly. “That was just being sensible; there’d always be standoffs between various gangs over who was and wasn’t allowed in the club. And then one night, this guy pulled a gun out and waved it right in my face.”

Funny thing is, Gillespie (pictured) doesn’t actually count this incident as his worst ever day at work. That came a couple of years before, when he considered turning his back on the music game for a ‘proper job’, by starting an engineering apprenticeship (similar to an internship) at UK car maker Rover.

“They were good people, but I hated it,” he says. “One day, I just stood up and walked out; I realized I had to make my music stuff work, otherwise I’d be at Rover for the rest of my days.”

Getting a gun thrust in his mush for Gillespie was, relatively speaking, still living the dream.

By 2003, Gillespie had progressed to booking the DJ’s at Godskitchen and its related festivals, as well as processing payments for talent and managing project budgets.

If anyone ever tells you that learning on the job is somehow bested by an academic education, let’s just run through the skills that Gillespie acquired within a few years of joining a nightclub as the flyer kid, aged 16: promotion, artist liaison, accounting, digital marketing, coding, talent booking, self-preservation – not to mention one of the best contacts books in the world of electronic music.

The next step was inevitable, wasn’t it? Godskitchen began releasing compilation albums through Sony Music, giving Gillespie a taste of how the wider record business worked.

Inspired by the likes of UK indie labels Defected, FFRR, and Toolroom, he hatched a plan to launch his own part-time record company – while still working at Godskitchen – and began scanning MySpace “for hours and hours most days, just trying to find new music played by interesting people”.

Eventually, Gillespie landed on the MySpace page of Scottish producer/DJ, Calvin Harris, and hotfooted it up to Glasgow to meet him. Leaving the city deeply impressed, Gillespie made a life-changing decision. “I pivoted,” he says. “I decided I didn’t want to be Calvin’s label – I wanted to be his manager.”

This was the beginning of what would become globe-straddling artist management powerhouse, Three Six Zero. Via his role at Godskitchen, Gillespie had become friendly with influential UK DJ and broadcaster Pete Tong and, in mid-2006, Gillespie passed Tong a CD with a bunch of Harris’s music on it. Tong played his track, The Girls, on his Friday night show on BBC Radio 1, and Gillespie’s cell phone began lighting up.

“I made the decision, right then, to quit my job and become a manager full time,” says Gillespie. “Calvin said to me, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Looking back now, leaving [Godskitchen] probably was a real leap of faith, but it didn’t feel like it at that moment.”

Before we come on to the status of Three Six Zero in 2019, it’s worth reiterating the enormity of Calvin Harris’s worldwide success. He has sold 12 million records globally to date, including 44 million singles, and has had 14 UK No.1s. He has also amassed over 16 billion audio and video streams.

Originally signed by Mike Pickering at Columbia in the UK, Harris is one of Sony’s bestselling, and perennially prioritized, global artists. He’s worked with everyone from Rihanna to Dua Lipa, Florence + The Machine, Sam Smith, Khalid, Pharrell Williams, Ariana Grande and Migos.

In tandem with Harris’s rise, Gillespie, alongside his former business partner Dean Wilson, has built Three Six Zero into a truly blockbuster player in the global music industry. Based in Los Angeles, TSZ has one of the strongest rosters in dance music globally – with Harris, Tiësto and Disciples on its books, amongst others. It also reps leading lights in other genres like Louis Tomlinson, Kacy Hill and Grammy Award-winning producer Noah Goldstein.

Gillespie has an excellent story about his first foray into the United States with Three Six Zero: A major record label was interested in hiring the British exec to run a dance music-focused subsidiary. He took the meetings, and the paid flights to New York, gladly – but while in town, he was also meeting with Roc Nation’s Jay Brown, with whom Gillespie and Three Six Zero ended up going into business with for almost a decade.

Today, after a transformational year, Three Six Zero is fully independent, and fully-owned by Gillespie. TSZ recently launched a new office in London, headed up by long-term friend of the company, Phil Sales.

Gillespie, a major movie buff, has also quietly made a name for Three Six Zero in the film world, managing the likes of feature-maker Brady Corbet, Shameik Moore – the lead actor in Academy Award-winning animated movie, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – and bestselling author/ scriptwriter Bret Easton Ellis.

Three Six Zero’s ambitions in Hollywood moved up a couple of leagues earlier this year, when Music Business Worldwide broke the news that the firm had acquired Westbrook Entertainment. That firm’s on-screen talent – including Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jaden Smith, Willow Smith, Kenna and Crespo – are all now integrated into the TSZ family.

What’s more, Three Six Zero launched its own first feature film – the acclaimed Vox Lux, starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law – at the end of last year. The soundtrack to the movie was released on Three Six Zero’s in-house record label, headed up by Pete Tong, which Gillespie runs as a JV with Sony Music Entertainment.

MBW recently sat down with Gillespie over dinner in Los Angeles to map out Three Six Zero’s history, and to learn what the British entrepreneur has up his sleeve for the future…

YOU’RE NOW FLYING SOLO AS THE HEAD OF AN INDEPENDENT THREE SIX ZERO – HAVING ALWAYS HAD BUSINESS PARTNERS SINCE YOU LAUNCHED THE COMPANY IN 2007. WHAT’S THAT LIKE?

The idea of running this company solo used to terrify me. But now it’s different: I like the autonomy, and I like that you can craft decisions that are entirely yours.

There isn’t any interruption in what you’re doing. In some ways, it’s more difficult, but in other ways it’s more enjoyable.

WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS IN THE US?

I love the professionalism; people really take pride in what they do and that resonates with me. The level of execution that you see in the US business is very impressive – some of the festivals and the live touring setups in particular. You regularly come across people that are prepared to push the envelope [in order] to be able to ensure that really great and interesting things happen.

The potential scale in America is fascinating – the business here really thinks about things on a global basis. I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve managed to handle our business over here, and I’m really grateful that we’ve been enabled to do that.

We all know that some people [from international territories] come to the US with an attitude that they’re going to tell people what to do – to me, that suggests those people believe it’s somehow easy to conduct business over here, and it’s really not.

The flow of business and the way that things are done is totally different to the UK but I love it, and I’m hugely passionate about it.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TRANSITION FROM CALVIN HARRIS THE FRONTMAN TO CALVIN HARRIS THE SUPERSTAR DJ? SOME PEOPLE IN THE STATES MIGHT NOT KNOW THAT HE STARTED OUT AS A SINGER, VERY MUCH IN FRONT OF THE DECKS – BEFORE EMBRACING HIS KINGMAKING ROLE AS THE ARCHITECT BEHIND THE SCENES….

It’s one of the smartest decisions that he made in his career – and it was all him. He used the live touring circuit in the early stages of his career to help establish his business and hone his identity.

At that moment in time [indie/dance crossover acts with ‘frontmen’] was what was happening in the UK, but he saw what was coming and very intelligently saw that the world was turning in a slightly different direction. He also happened to write some of the greatest records ever released at the right time. That always helps.

HOW GOOD IS CALVIN?

His successes broadly speak for themselves. I may seem biased but I think he’s the best writer/producer of his generation.

I love him as an artist and a person. He’s ridiculously hard working, always has been, and he’s a huge a supporter of mine. His drive has definitely helped pushed me along over the years.

OTHER THAN JAY BROWN AND ROC NATION, WHO ELSE HAS BEEN MENTOR FIGURES IN THE US FOR YOU?

Rob Stringer. He’s really perceptive, and gave me some of the soundest advice in the early stages of my career. He’s also helped guide me, on more than one occasion, through what can sometimes be quite a complicated and political business.

Then there’s Michael Rapino – one of the smartest guys in the industry. He has a very direct, knowledge-based approach, which I respect him for. [That approach] is why, above anything else, I think he’s so tremendously successful.

On the subject of mentors, no-one comes close to my mum. She was an entrepreneur and raised three kids on her own. We didn’t have a lot, but she managed to get us into a place where we all had enough.

Redditch is a very ‘normal’ place; part of it’s really nice, part of it’s shitty, and the town center is ‘burger, fries and two black eyes’. It’s not South Central, but it’s not Kensington either. She’s been an incredibly good example to me that if you work really hard, you can achieve important things.

WHY HAVE YOU GOT SUCH A HUNGER TO MAKE MOTION PICTURES OR AUDIO/VISUAL CONTENT?

Partly because I think that the world that we live in now requires the ability to work across multiple disciplines. And partly because I love film, and always have.

Film, TV, short-form digital content, music and socials all used to be very separate, different disciplines. But over the past few years, with the massive growth in streaming, they’ve all moved closer together – and I think they’ll continue to move closer together.

A lot of people ask me whether I’m moving more towards film [at the expense of music] and I’m not. I work pretty much every moment that my eyes are open, and the film thing began as a hobby. I decided to do a few things that made us a bit more of a [Hollywood] entity, and which showed that we have reasonably good taste.

We’ve had a few successes now, and I think that all of the practical lessons that we learn from the [film] business will be hugely beneficial to the music side of our business. But, by no means, am I getting out of the music business. If anything, I’m more focused on music than I ever have been for my entire career; I think this is the most exciting time that the music business has ever seen.

WHY?

There are fewer barriers. There is opportunity for all different types of music to be able to break through.

Also, streaming is working, so there’s the revenue there, if distributed correctly, for the industry to develop and build big artists.

Interesting things are happening in the music business on a daily basis. Since the start of my career, I’ve been hugely into technology, and hugely into music, and I feel like at this moment in time, I get to do a bit of both every single day.

WHY DID YOU START A LABEL WITH SONY?

Three Six Zero has always run labels since the beginning of our business. [The company previously released albums from the likes of The Prodigy in the US via a JV deal with Warner Music Group and label-managed Mau5trap, Rising and Fly Eye Records.]

Running a label helps define your level of taste as a company. It also means you can have different levels of involvement in the careers of talent. The most enjoyable part of that is the ability to work with other managers, actually.

As for why Sony, part of it is because [via Calvin] I’ve spent eleven years getting to know everyone in that system; if I need to ask a question of somebody in Mexico, I know who to pick the phone up to. I know all the label heads in all the major markets, and there’s some really great people there.

Sony’s a really good company at the moment with a great perspective.

YOU’VE HAD SOME BIG CHARACTERS AS CLIENTS DOWN THE YEARS, INCLUDING TRAVIS SCOTT, MORRISSEY AND FRANK OCEAN. ONE OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS MOMENTS INVOLVED FRANK AND THE RELEASE OF BLONDE, WHERE HE COMPLETED HIS ALBUM DEAL WITH UNIVERSAL WITH A VIDEO-LP, ENDLESS, THEN INDEPENDENTLY RELEASED WHAT APPEARED TO BE HIS ‘REAL’ ALBUM WITHIN DAYS. HOW DID THAT SITUATION COME ABOUT?

Frank is a private guy, and that’s part of what makes him so great. So if that story is ever to be told, he should be the one telling it.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL SEA CHANGE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?

The business needs to find a new format, in order to protect itself.

The biggest threat to the music business right now is decentralized networks. Thanks to Daniel [Ek] and Spotify, a new economy has been created in the business from streaming, but decentralization is a potential threat to that. Decentralization [i.e. blockchain technology] is something that was super buzzy for a year or two, and has gone away a bit, but I think it will swing back around at great pace in the next five years, and could be potentially devastating for the entire entertainment content business.

What happens after streaming is something that we need to focus on. The good news is that there are people within the major record companies and major publishers that are a hell of a lot more technologically savvy than they were when Napster hit.

One other thing is that I think other streaming platforms, from outside music, will want to get into music. That’s going to make things interesting but it’s potentially a threat as well – making sure that music is valued at the correct amount when that happens.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THREE SIX ZERO?

We’re in a place where we can largely do what we want, which is interesting. Over the last eighteen months, I’ve spent a lot of time reconnecting with my British roots, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, if everything came to an end tomorrow, I’d like to be seen as the guy who took some good British stuff to America and made it successful.

I hope for us to do more of that, which means spending a bit more time back in London, re-establishing the business there. I love seeing some of the new, young managers from the UK having a go at moving out [to L.A] and getting stuck in.

And obviously I’m really excited to see what we can achieve with Will [Smith], Miguel [Melendez] and the Westbrook guys. I’ve known them for seven or eight years, we all share a similar philosophy, and they’re very smart and innovative people. There is a real opportunity to work with them to grow our intellectual property [portfolio] while expanding our entertainment management business.

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THREE SIX ZERO UK? LAST WE HEARD IT WAS BEING CLOSED BUT NOW IT’S BACK.

It would be impossible for us to be champions of British talent and not have an office in London. Phil [Sales] is our head in London; we’re partners in the UK business and we’re building it around him.

He’s very direct, he’s honest, he truly loves music, and he’s incredibly passionate about what he does. I’m seeing lots of great things happening in the UK, musically.

The British business seemed to get very locked off [outside the US] for about a year and a half, but that seems to be changing now.

WHAT SIZE DO YOU WANT THREE SIX ZERO TO BECOME AS AN INDEPENDENT COMPANY?

I’m definitely not looking for mass scale – I’m not trying to be the biggest anything ever again. That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my career so far; being the biggest is not necessarily being the best.

Continually re-assessing what success means to you – especially after you have prolonged success – is the most difficult bit of running a business, but it’s essential.

A specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange, Centtrip Music works with over 450 global artists helping them and their crew maximise their income and reduce touring costs with its award-winning multi-currency card and live foreign exchange rates. Centtrip Music also offers record labels, promoters, collection societies and publishers a more cost-effective way to send payments across the globe.

Music Business Worldwide - July 10, 2019

[roderickslaton]

GSA Search Engine Ranker Tutorial - Manuels and Guidance

GSA Search Engine Ranker Guides - SER Verified Lists

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How Zendesk tripled performance by moving a legacy system onto Amazon Aurora and Amazon Redshift

This is a guest post by James Byrne, Engineering Leader at Zendesk, focusing on data pipeline development and operations for the Zendesk Explore analytics product, and Giedrius Praspaliauskas, AWS Solutions Architect. Zendesk is a CRM company that builds support, sales, and customer engagement software designed to foster better customer relationships. From large enterprises to startups, we believe that powerful, innovative customer experiences should be within reach for every company, no matter the size, industry, or ambition. Zendesk serves more than 150,000 customers across a multitude of industries in over 30 languages. Zendesk is headquartered in San Francisco and operates 17 offices worldwide. Zendesk Explore provides analytics for businesses to measure and improve the entire customer experience. With Zendesk Explore, businesses get instant access to the customer analytics that matter and a deeper understanding of their customers and business that comes with it. This post discusses how we moved our legacy system onto Amazon Aurora and Amazon Redshift. We detail the process and architecture that allowed us to build a new data store and triple performance. Deciding to migrate In 2015, Zendesk acquired Business Intelligence startup, BIME Analytics. The BIME product served as the building blocks for our current reporting product, Zendesk Explore. Zendesk Explore processes and analyzes multiple data types from various Zendesk products, such as Zendesk Support, Talk, Chat, and Guide. It extracts data from each product and denormalizes, transforms, and loads it into a datastore. A visualization layer sits on top of this datastore, which provides Zendesk customers with a user interface to access the data for analysis. Users can create their own data visualizations and dashboards by simply pointing and clicking. When the Zendesk team set out to build the foundations for Explore, we began by looking at the tools available to implement data extract, transform, and load (ETL) and analytics in AWS. We focused on Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL to handle the amount of data we had, and Amazon Redshift for larger-scale datasets and fast analytical queries. We could connect to the products and APIs that we needed to extract data from, and denormalize data for better performance. Within a year, we could build a full ETL pipeline using Aurora PostgreSQL for our customers up to a certain size. After extensive load, stress, and performance testing, we hit our sweet spot at around 60 million customer tickets per single Aurora cluster (running at 80% of CPU). We knew that a small percentage of our biggest customers’ datasets would not be a good fit for Aurora PostgreSQL, because we run data transformations in parallel to complex queries, and a tool optimized for ETL and complex analytics would be a better fit for that pattern at the largest scale. We use Amazon Redshift as a backend data storage and querying solution for those customers. This approach allowed us to handle the load in the most cost-effective manner, even in multi-tenant implementation, in which multiple customers of various sizes share an underlying Amazon Redshift or Aurora cluster. Approach The following diagram shows, at the high level, how the Zendesk Explore team implemented data ingestion, transformation, load, and analytics. The following services perform various functions: Amazon EMR, AWS Step Functions, and AWS Lambda ingest and transform static data from Zendesk Incremental APIs Apache Flink, Amazon Kinesis, and Amazon ECS ingest near-real-time data from database binlogs Aurora and Amazon Redshift serve as data storage Amazon ECS hosts a custom query engine that users access through Elastic Load Balancing Data ingestion Zendesk Explore ingests data from two main sources: public APIs for static data (older than 1 hour) and near-real-time log stream (10 seconds–1 hour). We have a scheduled process to query Incremental Export API endpoints, which pulls data modified since the last run. The Explore ETL process, which runs on Amazon EMR, consumes the data. Log stream originates as a database binlog that is streamed to Amazon Kinesis using Maxwell and processed or aggregated on the way using Apache Flink. The data is aggregated into bins, which the Explore ETL process picks up every 10 seconds, and stored in the Aurora cluster. ETL Zendesk Explore runs ETL for thousands of customers on a per-customer basis (for each customer, some ETL logic is executed). We can transform hundreds of millions of rows into thousands of records with only a few columns. For example, if a customer has 10 million records (tickets updates), we join them during transformation with other tables, aggregate the data, and present this aggregation in just a thousand records. Our legacy ETL process used Scala and SQL queries that ran data transformation on the PostgreSQL cluster. As part of refactoring, we moved legacy implementation of the data loading and transformations to Spark on Amazon EMR to offload that processing to the tool that is more suitable for ETL. This way, we could dedicate Aurora and Amazon Redshift completely to data storage and querying. This allowed us to host multiple tenants on the clusters without degrading performance by running data transformations in parallel. This approach helped us co-locate up to 600 tenants on a single Aurora cluster, compared to the initial limit of 100–200. We use Step Functions and Lambda to translate the data transformation process into a large graph. This triggers data transformation steps that execute as Apache Spark applications that run on Amazon EMR. This process repeats every hour for every customer to process data retrieved using Incremental APIs. Data storage Explore uses Aurora PostgreSQL and Amazon Redshift for data storage. We base the decision of which storage solution to use on the customer dataset size, usage patterns, and resulting performance. Aurora PostgreSQL hosts small and medium customers (up to 3–6 million tickets). Amazon Redshift hosts large customers. We use query performance tracing and look at the performance (customer wait time) of the core queries using internal administration tools. As customers’ datasets grow, they may move from one data storage to another. Both Aurora PostgreSQL and Amazon Redshift use a multi-tenant approach with up to hundreds of customers co-located on a single cluster. This approach allows cost-effective storage of customer data without affecting query performance. Also, co-locating multiple customers on a single large Amazon Redshift cluster allows better parallel query performance needed for the dashboards, in which multiple parallel queries are running for a single web page. Analytics Zendesk Explore provides dashboards for both static and near-real-time data. You can use prebuilt dashboards, visualizations, and queries, or use the query builder to build visualizations with metrics you choose using data across multiple tables. To optimize these queries, Zendesk Explore uses an intermediate custom application layer that can rewrite queries, route queries to the different tables based on the predicates used, and also has an application cache. This query engine is written in Scala and runs on an ECS cluster. Summary This post walked you through Zendesk’s implementation of a multi-tenant analytics solution. It showed how you can use multiple databases and analytics solutions to serve datasets of varying sizes and temperature cost-efficiently and flexibly. You can evolve this approach further by using the latest developments AWS announced at re:Invent 2019—the Amazon Redshift Federated Query feature, Advanced Query Accelerator (AQUA) for Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Redshift RA3 instances with managed storage. If you have questions or suggestions, please leave your thoughts in the comments. https://probdm.com/site/MjA3MDY

[qwertsypage]

RisingStack in 2019 - Achievements, Highlights and Blogposts.

🎄 How was 2019 at RisingStack? 🥳 - you might ask, as a kind reader already did it in a comment under our wrap-up of 2018.

Well, it was an intensive year with a lot of new challenges and major events in the life of our team!

Just to quickly sum it up:

We grew our team to 16! All of our engineers are full-stack in the sense that we can confidently handle front-end, back-end, and operations tasks as well - as you'll see from this year's blogpost collection.

We launched our new website, which communicates what we do and capable of more clearly (I hope at least). 🤞 Also, a new design for the blog is coming as well!

This year ~1.250.000 developers (unique users) visited our blog! 🤩

We just surpassed 5.7 million unique readers in total, who generated almost 12 million pageviews so far in the past 5 years.

We have now more than 220 articles on the site - written by our team exclusively.

We had the honor to participate in JSconf Budapest by providing a workshop for attendees on GraphQL and Apollo. 🎓

We delivered a 10-weeks-long online DevOps training for around 100 developers in partnership with HWSW, Hungary's leading tech newspaper.

We kept on organizing local Node.js meetups here in Budapest, with more than 100 attendees for almost every event this year. 🤓

We had the opportunity to work with huge companies like DHL, Canvas (market leader e-learning platform), and Uniqa (insurance corp.).

We met with fantastic people all over the world. We've been in LA, Sarajevo, Amsterdam, Prague, and Helsinki too. 🍻

We moved to a new office in the heart of Budapest!

🤔 Okay, okay... But what about blogging?

Blogging in 2019

You might have noticed that we did not write as much blogposts this year as we did before.

The reason is simple: Fortunately, we had so many new projects and clients that we had very little time to write about what we love and what we do.

Despite our shrinking time for writing blogposts, I think we still created interesting articles that you might learn a thing or two from.

Here's a quick recap from the blog in 2019. You can use this list to navigate.

Stripe 101 for JavaScript Developers

Generating PDF from HTML with Node & Puppeteer

REST in Peace. Long Live GraphQL!

Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation

RisingStack Joins the Cloud Native Node.js Project

A Definitive React-Native Guide for React Developers

Design Systems for React Developers

Node.js v12 - New Features You Shouldn't Miss

Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap

Golang Tutorial for Node.js Developers

How to Deploy a Ceph Storage to Bare Virtual Machines

Update Now! Node.js 8 is Not Supported from 2020.

Great Content from JSConf Budapest 2019

Get Hooked on Classless React

Stripe 101 for JavaScript Developers

Sample app, detailed guidance & best practices to help you get started with Stripe Payments integration as a JavaScript developer.

At RisingStack, we’ve been working with a client from the US healthcare scene who hired us to create a large-scale webshop they can use to sell their products. During the creation of this Stripe based platform, we spent a lot of time with studying the documentation and figuring out the integration. Not because it is hard, but there's a certain amount of Stripe related knowledge that you'll need to internalize.

Read: Stripe Payments Integration 101 for JavaScript Developers

Generating PDF from HTML with Node & Puppeteer

Learn how you can generate a PDF document from a heavily styled React page using Node.js, Puppeteer, headless Chrome, and Docker.

Background: A few months ago, one of the clients of RisingStack asked us to develop a feature where the user would be able to request a React page in PDF format. That page is basically a report/result for patients with data visualization, containing a lot of SVGs. Furthermore, there were some special requests to manipulate the layout and make some rearrangements of the HTML elements. So the PDF should have different styling and additions compared to the original React page.

As the assignment was a bit more complex than what could have been solved with simple CSS rules, we first explored possible implementations. Essentially we found 3 main solutions we describe in this article.

Read: Generating PDF from HTML with Node.js and Puppeteer

REST in Peace. Long Live GraphQL!

As you might already hear about it, we're the organizers of the Node.js Budapest meetup group with around ~1500 members. During an event in February, Peter Czibik delivered a talk about GrahpQL to an audience of about 120 ppl.

It was a highly informative and fun talk, so I recommend you to check it out!

Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation

In the following blogpost, we will walk you through how we chased down a DNS resolution issue for one of our clients. Even though the problem at hand was very specific, you might find the steps we took during the investigation useful.

Also, the tools we used might also prove to be helpful in case you'd face something similar in the future. We will also discuss how the Domain Name System (works), so buckle up!

Read the blogpost here: Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation using curl, dig+trace & nslookup

RisingStack Joins the Cloud Native Node.js Project

In March 2019, we announced our collaboration with IBM on the Cloud Native JS project, which aims to provide best practices and tools to build and integrate enterprise-grade Cloud Native Node.js applications.

As a first step of contribution to the project, we released an article on CNJS’s blog - titled “How to Build and Deploy a Cloud Native Node.js App in 15 minutes”. In this article we show how you can turn a simple Hello World Node.js app into a Dockerized application running on Kubernetes with all the best-practices applied - using the tools provided by CNJS in the process.

A Definitive React-Native Guide for React Developers

In this series, we cover the basics of React-Native development, compare some ideas with React, and develop a game together. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll become confident with using the built-in components, styling, storing persisting data, animating the UI, and many more.

Part I: Getting Started with React Native - intro, key concepts & setting up our developer environment

Part II: Building our Home Screen - splitting index.js & styles.js, creating the app header, and so on..

Part III: Creating the Main Game Logic + Grid - creating multiple screens, type checking with prop-types, generating our flex grid

Part IV: Bottom Bar & Responsible Layout - also, making our game pausable and adding a way to lose!

Part V: Sound and Animation + persisting data with React-Native AsyncStorage

Design Systems for React Developers

In this post, we provide a brief introduction to design systems and describe the advantages and use-cases for having one. After that, we show Base Web, the React implementation of the Base Design System which helps you build accessible React applications super quickly.

Node.js v12 - New Features You Shouldn't Miss

Node 12 is in LTS since October, and will be maintained until 2022. Here is a list of changes we consider essential to highlight:

V8 updated to version 7.4

Async stack traces arrived

Faster async/await implementation

New JavaScript language features

Performance tweaks & improvements

Progress on Worker threads, N-API

Default HTTP parser switched to llhttp

New experimental “Diagnostic Reports” feature

Read our deep-dive into Node 12 here.

Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap

In this article, we take a look at StackOverflow’s usage statistics by creating an interactive calendar heatmap using D3.js!

We go through the process of preparing the input data, creating the chart with D3.js, and doing some deductions based on the result.

Read the full article here Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap. Also, this article has a previous installment called Building Interactive Bar Charts with JavaScript.

Golang Tutorial for Node.js Developers

In case you are a Node.js developer, (like we are at RisingStack) and you are interested in learning Golang, this blogpost is made for you! Throughout this tutorial series, we'll cover the basics of getting started with the Go language, while building an app and exposing it through a REST, GraphQL and GRPC API together.

In the first part of this golang tutorial series, we’re covering:

Golang Setup

net/http with Go

encoding/json

dependency management

build tooling

Read the Golang for Node developers tutorial here.

How to Deploy a Ceph Storage to Bare Virtual Machines

Ceph is a freely available storage platform that implements object storage on a single distributed computer cluster and provides interfaces for object-, block- and file-level storage. Ceph aims primarily for completely distributed operation without a single point of failure. It manages data replication and is generally quite fault-tolerant. As a result of its design, the system is both self-healing and self-managing.

Ceph has loads of benefits and great features, but the main drawback is that you have to host and manage it yourself. In this post, we're checking out two different approaches of deploying Ceph.

Read the article: Deploying Ceph to Bare Virtual Machines

Update Now! Node.js 8 is Not Supported from 2020.

The Node.js 8.x Maintenance LTS cycle will expire on December 31, 2019 - which means that Node 8 won’t get any more updates, bug fixes or security patches. In this article, we’ll discuss how and why you should move to newer, feature-packed, still supported versions.

We’re also going to pinpoint issues you might face during the migration, and potential steps you can take to ensure that everything goes well.

Read the article about updating Node here.

Great Content from JSConf Budapest 2019

JSConf Budapest is a JSConf family member 2-day non-profit community conference about JavaScript in the beautiful Budapest, Hungary. RisingStack participated in the conf for several years as well as we did this September.

In 2019 we delivered a workshop called "High-Performance Microservices with GraphQL and Apollo" as our contribution to the event.

We also collected content you should check out from the conf. Have fun!

Get Hooked on Classless React

Our last meetup in 2019 was centered around React Hooks. What is a hook?

A Hook is a function provided by React, which lets you hook into React features from your functional component. This is exactly what we need to use functional components instead of classes. Hooks will give you all React features without classes.

Hooks make your code more maintainable, they let you reuse stateful logic, and since you are reusing stateful logic, you can avoid the wrapper hull and the component reimplementation.

Check out the prezentation about React Hooks here.

RisingStack in 2020

We're looking forward to the new year with some interesting plans already lined up for Q1:

We'll keep on extending our team to serve new incoming business.

We have several blogposts series in the making, mainly on DevOps topics.

We'll announce an exciting new event we'll co-organize with partners from the US and Finnland soon, so stay tuned!

We're going to release new training agendas around Node, React & GraphQL, as well as a new training calendar with open trainings for 2020.

How was your 2019?

RisingStack in 2019 - Achievements, Highlights and Blogposts. published first on https://koresolpage.tumblr.com/

[ehonestreviews]

[Watch This] Technique To Make Life Give You What You Want

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Customer Experience Management with IoT: 5 Components of the Successful Result

The Internet of Things has a huge impact on every single industry and our everyday lives. There are considerable reasons for this technology to deserve so much attention. Connecting small elements that are a part of our routine, exchanging data and automating processes are the basic things IoT brings us. What are the predictions?

Gartner research concludes that in 2 years there will be more than 25 billion components in the IoT network. Even more surprisingly, the newborn Internet of Things market will amount to almost 3 billion dollars in 2020.

The number of applications for consumers, ecommerce businesses and infrastructure needs is huge. The technology’s potential can hardly be exaggerated, so in this article we will pay special attention to the IoT and customer experience management. IoT is not something undiscovered, overhyped or remote. This is something that already surrounds us and is going to be constantly improved and implemented.

Content:

What Is the Technology Featured in the Trend Known as the Internet of Things?

5 Ways to Improve Customer Experience with IoT

The Example of IoT Potential

Conclusion

What Is the Technology Featured in the Trend Known as the Internet of Things?

Those who have not had any experience with IoT have certainly heard about it. What is the technology featured in the trend known as the internet of things? Long story short, the main idea behind IoT is that the world is made of a huge network of smart assets. How does the Internet of Things work? All devices from smartphones, printers, scanners, terminals to smart cars and home elements are connected to provide optimization and a better user experience.

Devices have two key purposes: collecting and exchanging data. Additionally, the whole system analyzes data. The history of Internet of Things is not so long. Just a few years ago, all of this seemed to be a fantasy because of the huge price for the hardware and undeveloped technologies. This is not the case anymore. The assets are getting cheaper, cloud technologies are getting more popular, and wireless connectivity is well established. This creates amazing opportunities for Internet of Things development, as well as helping to demonstrate all of its benefits.

5 Ways to Improve Customer Experience with IoT

Customer experience management bothers both service providers and consumers. Unfortunately, it is common for this service to demonstrate an extremely low level of quality. Today, there is one rule: you either follow the modern approaches, implement the best technologies and treat your customers well, or your business fails. The competition is cut-throat, and the price of failure is high. So, the better your customer experience strategy is, the better your chance of success.

IoT has a special place among the ways to improve customer experience. Remember those times when online shopping was nothing but a mystery? Now more than 96% of Americans shop online. It is predicted that something similar will happen to the IoT. Now, it is not as common as it will be in a few years. So, the point is to join this technology in time and get the most out of its perks.

IoT is a way to reach maximum efficiency, decrease costs and make productivity skyrocket. As the importance of customer experience can’t be overestimated, let’s discover the ways to improve customer experience with IoT.

1. Focus on Quality

IoT devices can track customer’s impressions, analyze them and present you with conclusions based on them. This means that the IoT system is aware of the purchases customers made online, and it gathers their reviews and feedback. Detailed information about what the customers actually think about your products or services will help you pay attention to the features that matter and improve the quality of your products or services in the future.

2. Personalization

At the same time, the IoT system can implement a personal approach to every customer. This technology will help entrepreneurs focus on the customer and satisfy his or her particular needs in the best way. The system conducts the customer experience analysis. It tracks customers’ daily behavior and has the abilities to decide how to communicate with the person. Better interaction, in turn, will build a better relationship between you and the customer.

3. Trustworthy Relationships

Internet fraud is nothing new. Fortunately, these days, when GDPR is doing its best to protect customers’ personal data, Internet users may feel more comfortable and safe when buying things online. However, at the same time, people are always willing to stick to one single brand without the necessity to switch to another online store and share sensitive data about themselves with someone else. Seamless interaction with an enterprise that knows customers’ wishes will help you build a trustworthy and reliable partnership that may last for many years.

4. Relevant Ads

Consumers find online ads acceptable as long as they do not interrupt their pleasant experience. Well, we can say that most online ads are annoying and irrelevant. This has a negative impact on user experience and even makes users close the page or turn off the laptop from time to time. Internet of Things strategy will keep the retailers informed about what their potential buyers love and what they don’t. This means no bothersome or aggressive ads on the web pages, and no disrupted bargains either only relevant information provided in an appropriate place at the right moment.

5. Sales Automation

The checkout processes can be improved as well. Just imagine: you visit a bricks-and-mortar store, grab the products you need and walk straight out to have a cup of coffee with your friends. Meanwhile, the sensors automatically detect the barcodes, scan them and charge the costs from your bank account. This is an extreme level of convenience! Additionally, it is not just a great improvement of user experience, but also a rather effective way for the store owner to save money. IoT minimizes labor costs and allows you to focus on business and service development.

The Example of IoT Potential

Let’s take a look at a real example of Internet of Things advantages for a random customer:

customers look for the needed item online and enjoy personalization and convenience;

the IoT system guides them through the traditional store to the needed product;

customers get their own coupons for a discount or special offers.

No doubt, in this case, Internet of Things technologies provide convenience and profit to both parties. What we would like to emphasize is that the customer does not have to spend time endlessly wandering through the store searching for a small but desired product. Additionally, a special program can be developed to allow getting a special offer and saving money on purchases in the future.

What is required to implement this idea in a real shop? Well, nothing more than smart mobile devices, sensors and a good WiFi network. Full customers satisfaction may be easier to reach than you think, and this is the main thing your business depends on.

This is just a small and simple example of how the Internet of Things works. Keep in mind that there are far more opportunities to optimize and enhance your business with this approach. So, explore using it with no hesitations!

Conclusion

The future of the Internet of Things may be hiding in the fog of upcoming innovations. However, it is obvious that it is bound to affect industries, organizations and brands significantly in the nearest future. At the same time, it is going to improve customer experience.

Although the customer experience definition may consist of many vital aspects, its core remains the same. The point is to provide your consumers and clients with the best service online and in real life. And, IoT is the answer to how to improve customer experience. Do you still have some doubts or hesitations concerning the benefits of the Internet of Things? Share your opinions and ideas with us and get one step closer to a successful future!

A source https://spur-i-t.com

[dorothydelgadillo]

Starting a Career in User Experience Design (UX): Nearly Everything You Need to Know

If you’re a creative type, a problem solver, an empathetic listener, or a combination of all three, a career in User Experience might be a perfect entry point for your pivot into the tech industry.

Yes, working in tech CAN happen through more familiar tech roles like web development or web design, but User Experience (or UX or UX design as you’re likely to see it referred to) offers a chance to work on people-first projects while still reaping all the benefits of tech’s high starting pay and flexible schedules.

But what IS UX? And how exactly can you start working in the field?

It’s funny you should ask. We’ve put together this ultimate guide running down everything you need to know (and then some) about finding work as a UX designer (or any other role that falls under the UX professional umbrella).

Don’t feel pressured to take in all this information at once! Bookmark this page and come back as often as you need when you start charging ahead on your own UX odyssey.

And one last thing: make sure to download our free UX Industry Info Sheet from the top or bottom of this page and take some of the most salient UX facts and figures with you.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: What is User Experience?

Chapter 2: UX Skills and Tools

Chapter 3: What is a UX Designer Salary?

Chapter 4: How to Find a UX Job

Chapter 5: Freelancing in UX

Chapter 6: UX + Bonus Digital Skills

Chapter 7: Final Thoughts

Chapter 1: What is User Experience? What is UX Design? And What About UI? Definitions please!

User Experience: A Definition

Ok, first thing’s first: a quick definition of user experience.

UX, the tech acronym for “User Experience”, is a tech field that involves researching groups of people who use digital products (like websites and apps) and using the findings to literally improve users’ experiences with those products—the way a product makes the user feel while they use its features, how easy the product is to use, and how appealing users find the product overall.

Then, What is a UX Designer?

UX is often interchangeably referred to as UX design (and UX professionals are more often than not called UX designers). This can be misleading (and confusing!) because there’s more to user experience than just the “design” component. It’s also important to keep in mind that you don’t need a traditional design background to work in UX.

But if there’s more to UX than design (and if “UX design” differs from traditional print and digital design) what do UX designers and other UX professionals actually do?

What do UX Designers (and other UX professionals) do?

The UX process can be broken down into three general categories (which show up to varying degrees in any UX job based on specific job descriptions and what your particular employer is looking for).

These categories are:

UX Research. Research is the foundation of UX. Without researching customer experience through interviews, product testing, etc, there’s no data to use against product changes and improvements—which basically means no UX. UX research plays a part in every step of the UX process, but can also be its own UX career path (proving there’s more to UX than “UX design”).

Information Architecture. Information Architecture is the heart of “design” in UX design. After user research has been collected, it’s time for UX designers to craft a strategy for implementing that data—in other words, a user experience design.

Product Iteration Testing. Part of what makes UX such a great field for creatives is the fact that it isn’t a factory line process. You don’t mindlessly crank out a UX design, call it “done” and move on to the next one. Instead, iteration is a critical part of UX, allowing UX researchers, designers, and other industry professionals to apply their creative problem solving to multiple versions of a product during its development lifetime.

Product iteration testing is the stage in the UX process where a current version of a product is presented to clients, users, and other stakeholders, after which collected impressions are applied to the next product version.

And Then There’s UI

To add to the fun, when you start reading up on UX and UX design you’ll probably notice mention of “UI” as well—sometimes even in the same breath (as “UX UI”). Is UI just another way of saying UX? Well, not really.

Think of it this way: if UX deals with EVERYTHING related to a brand or product experience, (tech shorthand for “User Interface”) is one piece of this bigger picture. UI operates on the same basic principles and methodology of UX, but focuses these skills specifically on a product’s interface (a website’s or app’s menu, screen layout, sitemap, form placement, etc).

In this sense, UI design can be considered more adjacent to traditional web or graphic design than general UX, making it a particularly good transition point into the industry if you DO already have print or digital design experience.

Bonus Reads:

Tech 101: UX Versus UI—What’s The Difference We take an even deeper dive into UX basics and what UX UI designers do on the job in this Tech 101 article, plus we cover UX skills and UX salaries (discussed below, as well).

I’m a UX Designer—Here’s What I Do All Day Get a first hand account of what it’s like to work as a UX designer.

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Chapter 2: The UX Skills and Tools You’ll Need to Become a UX Designer

Some of the skills needed to land and succeeded at a job in UX don’t require a single day of UX training. As mentioned above, if you like to listen to people and understand their problems, if you enjoy critical thinking and problem solving challenges, or if you excel in creative environments, you’re already off to a good start.

But what about the UX-specific skills you’ll need to add to your toolkit if you want to work in UX UI?

Here’s a snapshot look at the crucial skills needed for each of UX’s primary areas (and don’t hesitate to consult this companion article if you need a deeper definition for any of the skills listed).

UX Research Skills

Personas (fictional user profiles used to model customer groups)

Journey Mapping (building visual representations of a user’s “journey” with a product)

Design Ideation (the UX version of “brainstorming,” sometimes done alongside clients and product stakeholders)

Information Architecture Skills

Navigation and Layout Best Practices (while traditional design has best practices for elements like color and typography, UX and UI design have their own best practices when it website and web application layout and design, as described in this UX Planet article)

Wireframing (the process of creating visual wireframe models used to map out the basic structure of a website or application.

Prototyping (the next step up from wireframing—prototypes are a more fleshed out website or app model, building on basic wireframe concepts and giving users a sample version of a product that they can interact with)

Product Iteration Testing Skills

Usability Testing (a product testing method where UX designers or researchers observe customers using a product and anay;uze how easy and enjoyable the user experience is)

A/B Testing (product testing where users are introduced to a product iteration (version A) alongside a version with slight design variations (version B) and UX designers/researchers observe which version the user base prefers)

UX Tools

In addition to skills, tools are an important part of the UX trade.

Two of the most must-learn UX tools recommended by our own curriculum team are:

Figma (an industry-standard design tool for creating website and web application wireframes)

Invision (a powerful software tool that lets UX designers create interactive website prototypes to test with real users)

Both Figma and Invision are intuitive and easy to learn (making them ideal for beginners), but they’re also industry standard programs used by UX pros worldwide. Even better, they are free to use when starting out. Both tools offer no-cost plans that allow you to complete and store up to three full projects, which is perfect when you’re learning the ropes en route to paid work.

Alongside these two programs, other recommended UX UI tools include:

Axure (another prototyping tool for web and desktop applications)

Balsamiq (a User Interface design tool for making digital sketches, wireframes, and mockups)

UXPin (a full-service UX design platform for every stage of the UX process—designing, collaborating, and presenting to clients and test users)

Where to Learn UX Skills

If you’re wondering where you can start learning these skills and tools, that part’s easy. Look no further than our Skillcrush User Experience Design Blueprint—an online course designed to be completed in only 3 months (if you spend about an hour a day). Our course will walk you step-by-step through the skills listed above, as well as get you hands on with Figma and Invision.

Bonus Reads:

How to Talk User Experience (UX): 10 Key Terms to Help You Talk the Talk A handy glossary of 10 critical UX terms

5 Crucial Steps in the UX Process That Your Client Wants to See A five-step look at the UX design process

UXPin Free Books A library of free UX-related e-books

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Chapter 3: What is a UX Designer Salary?

Ok, enough hype about the job itself, let’s get down to brass tacks: how much can you expect to make working as a UX UI designer?

When we posed the UX designer salary question previously, Alison Sullivan, Career Trends Expert at jobs and recruiting site Glassdoor, reported that Glassdoor cites an average base salary of $107,880 for UX designers and an average base salary of $86,883 for UI designers.

She added that—in addition to the money—UX design jobs ranked #27 out of 50 among Glassdoor’s recent Best Jobs in America report, a claim that’s reflected by Glassdoor’s own job listings. As of this writing, Glassdoor has over 5,000 UX designer jobs posted on its site, and nearly 5,000 UI designer openings.

You can read more about UX design salaries (and what it takes to earn them) here.

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Chapter 4: How to Find a UX Job

Now that you have an idea of what UX is about, what kind of skills and tools you need to work as a UX designer, and how much money you can expect to make, how exactly do you go about finding a UX job?

Besides staying on top of job boards like Glassdoor and Indeed (as well as as UX-specific boards like the aptly named UX Jobs Board, UX Design Jobs, and Smashing Jobs, there are some proactive things you can do on your end to up your qualifications for those job listings.

1. Get Your Mock Project On

Just because you’re not getting paid to do UX work yet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing UX work.

Huh?

Let me explain: one of the best way to gain experience and have a demonstrable body of work before getting hired for your first job is to harness your UX skills as you learn them and start working on mock projects.

Use Figma or Invision to create wireframes and prototypes of a UX rebranding for a website or application (it can be fictitious, or even a spec project overhealing the UX of one of your favorite real world sites or apps). By creating a mock body of work en route to your first paid gig, you’ll be able to show potential clients (and yourself!) what you can do.

This article on how to create a web design portfolio with mock projects can be applied to UX as well.

2. Then Get Your Portfolio in Order

Having a crisp, easily shareable digital portfolio is a must in order to win over UX clients and hiring managers. But what does that mean?

First, you need to find the right site to house your digital samples. This article on free design portfolio sites will lead you in the direction of stalwarts like Behance and Dribbble, both of which work just as well for UX portfolios as they do for web and visual design.

Second, you need to make sure you’re including the kind of UX samples that will resonate with clients and employers. This article will give you a list of seven foundational projects to start building a stellar UX portfolio, after which you can level up your portfolio game even further with this 4-step guide to making sure your work shines.

3. Have an Elevator Pitch on Standby

In between trolling job listings and compiling a knockout portfolio, life sometimes just happens. You never know when you might be in a situation where you’re suddenly face-to-face with someone who can hook you up with that dream UX job. Which means you better have something to say when and if the time comes.

No problem, we’ve got that covered, too! If you need a little help explaining who you are, what sets you apart, and why (despite maybe not having the most on-paper experience) you’re the person to solve a company’s problems, go ahead and download our guide to writing the perfect personal pitch.

4. Remember—Cover Letters and Resumes are Still as Crucial as Ever

The tech industry may have changed a lot of the ways we work and find jobs, but one institution remains the same—the venerable cover letter and resume. In order to really nail that UX job, you’re going to need both.

Because you’re new to the UX, it’s critical to write a custom cover letter when applying for jobs. Take the time to research the company or client you’re applying with, notice any trends in their projects or even problem areas (what could they be doing more of?), and make sure to include those observations in your letter. You can even mention a personal experience you’ve had with the company, too. The more original, the better.

Finally, when it comes to your resume, it needs to live up to the same high UX standards as the portfolio and projects you’re showcasing. The good news is, there are plenty of free resume templates that will hit that standard for you, giving you one less thing to spend your creative energy on. Check out our list of free creative resume templates for 2019 here.

Bonus Reads (and Watches!):

Make All the Money With UX Webinar Watch the replay of our webinar where a panel of UX pros talk about what UX careers are really like (and how to start one)

The Best Places to Find UX Design Inspiration Online Looking for some UX inspo to jumpstart your own portfolio? Check out this round up of over 25 great sources.

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Chapter 5: Freelancing in UX IS an Option

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: tech jobs are flexible. And part of what makes them so flexible are the freelancing opportunities available in every tech field. Whether it’s web development, web design, or digital marketing, tech jobs run the gamut from full time jobs for a single company, to freelance careers, to part time side hustles you can do while caring for children or building your skills.

UX is no different. If side hustling appeals to you, or if you’re looking for a way to do paid projects while building your skills AND your portfolio, don’t forget that freelance UX work is always an option.

Of course, if you’re going into business for yourself, you’re going to need some support.

Here are some articles to get you started on the ins and outs of UX freelancing:

Is UX Freelancing a Fit for You?

How to Find Work as a UX Freelancer

A Beginner’s Guide into the World of Freelance UX Design

Meanwhile, you can check out our own guide to calculating a freelance web rate here (this article is about web development and web design, but the same principles can be applied to UX), and you can download our calculator for freelance web design rates here.

Bonus Reads:

The 9-Step Guide to Making a Great First Impression on a Client

9 Free Email Templates to Get You Out of Sticky Client Situations

50 Resources and Tools for Freelancers

5 Mistakes New Freelancers Make

14 Things You Need to Know About Paying Taxes as a Freelancer

How to Get Your Clients to Pay You More

The Ultimate Guide to Freelance Contracts

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Chapter 6: Stacking Digital Skills

One of the big questions asked about working in UX is whether or not UX designers or other UX professional need to know how to code.

The short answer? Absolutely not.

If you’ve gotten this far you probably noticed there hasn’t been single mention of coding skills, and it’s entirely possible to have a lucrative UX career without knowing any coding languages.

That being said, digital skills are stackable, meaning the more you know, the more career options and flexibility you’re going to have.

Even the most basic coding skills will add to what you can accomplish as a UX professional (as far as being to able to communicate with developer teams, understanding the technical limitations of projects, being able to make quick fixes to websites, etc).

The same can be said for web design (a particularly handy skill for maintaining and curating your digital portfolio) and digital marketing (understanding digital marketing principles will give you yet another tool in your toolbox for selling users on their experience with a product).

This kind of stacking is particularly important when you’re trying to get your foot in the door with a company of if you’re in the early days of freelancing—a freelance UX designer is one thing, but a freelance UX designer who can also design and/or develop a client’s website becomes a full service digital design studio.

If you’re sold on UX, but also interested in branching out and stacking some additional digital skills, our Blueprints (which you can read more about on our Courses page) are purposefully designed to let you do just that.

And if you sign up for our Break Into Tech Blueprint, you’ll have access to ALL of our courses and materials, putting you in position to become that proverbial one-person tech powerhouse.

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Chapter 7: Final Thoughts

You’re still here! Which means you’re probably ready to get serious about this whole UX thing.

Interest and commitment is a big step, so congratulations! But now it’s time to take the next one: consider signing up for our Skillcrush User Experience Designer Blueprint today, and you’ll be well on your way to a high paying, flexible, creative career in UX.

And while you’re at it, download our free UX Industry Info Sheet from the form below and keep it as a reference for some of the most key UX industry facts and figures.

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from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2019/02/04/how-to-start-a-ux-career/

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10 Things You Should Know About SEO 2019

Good SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION articles increase a website's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION traffic because articles are found online. 55 The difference from SEO is the majority of simply depicted as the distinction between paid and unpaid concern ranking searching results. I get into much more detail in SEO Titles on pages: 15-Point Checklist for B2B and B2C Brands, which explains how one can work in relevant keywords that will accurately reflect the page content material. Are good nevertheless SEO potential may be decrease in comparison to single links. The training behind our SEO expertise had been developed from years and many years of learning from mistakes marketing and advertising with our other businesses. The in-depth guide contains the most recent SEO best practices so a person can improve how your content articles appears in search results, plus get more traffic, leads, plus sales. Keyword analysis definitely belongs to the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION basics. I'll start by stating that social press and SEO are heavily linked to each other. Black head wear SEO attempts to improve ranks in ways that are disapproved of with the search engines, or even involve deception. This particular is more tedious and tasking than inorganic SEO because this particular is how all the key phrases get a full blast associated with attention. SEO: It stands for Research Engine Optimization. Within this post, we'll break this down in the complete first timers guide to SEO: what SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is, how it works, exactly what factors affect search and exactly what sorts of changes you may make today to improve your own search optimization. The no follow hyperlink has been contradicted many periods over where SEO is included and it depends on the particular web owner about if these people allow them on the web site or not. Let's confirm our knowing of SEO basics with the one question quiz about the particular factors in search rankings: web pages, links and keyphrases. When it comes in order to Google SEO, the rel=canonical hyperlink element has become VERY IMPORTANT over the many years and NEVER MORE SO. To place the particular focus on the website customer, it has been suggested that will acronym SEO should are a symbol of research experience optimization. It's important to remember in order to share content from your web site or blog socially to provide it an SEO boost as well. Some Webmasters will pay out thousands of dollars to a few so-called professional SEO expert in order to get their Websites on best in the rankings. It is constantly preferable to ask questions upon their SEO procedures and find out whether they have knowledge associated with keyword density or if they will have information about the most recent keyword research strategies and equipment. This combined expertise makes all of us uniquely qualified to present a good ethics-based, search engine-friendly SEO guide to teach you guidelines that will reflect the latest developments looking. They include important subjects like search motor success factors and how SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION relates to social media marketing and advertising. In order in order to make web pages appear in high positions in the search outcomes, SEO tries to shape the website according to Google's criteria. The major problem of SEO is the reality that there are billions associated with pages in the internet research engine indexes and your place in the SERPS is reliant on a constantly changing formula which is not published. forty five. Use Google Analytics to determine social SEO factors like the particular number of owned and good results. The common SEO issue for e-commerce sites is that product evaluation functionality tends to rely upon AJAX, iframes, or subdomains, which usually make it very hard, or even even impossible, for search motors to complement product reviews with item pages. Local SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is an effective way in order to market your business online. Regarding more on Squarespace's SEO-friendly features plus how to use them, check out Increasing your site's visibility in order to search engines. For Ecommerce websites, SEO agencies can see which usually paths users take in purchase to complete a sale, almost all the way down to which usually keyword they used to research for you prior to buying. Continue to increase your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION to develop business and drive traffic plus rank for more terms. SEO refers in order to the process of gaining a good impressive rank in search motor listings. Organic SEO is usually also less costly long-term while you establish search credibility, as longer as you maintain it along with the consistent creation of high quality content and social media utilization. Within the 6th section of our SEO for rookies guide, we will discuss hyperlink building - one of the particular most important aspects of lookup engine optimization. Search engine optimization can furthermore be known as SEO plus it is defined as the technique or procedure for customizing the website within an efficient and efficient way in purchase to make a good existence on major search engines. Search engine marketing (SEO) is one of the particular most important marketing things to consider upon your studio website. SEO might generate a sufficient return upon investment However, search engines are usually not purchased organic search visitors, their algorithms change, and generally there are no guarantees of carried on referrals. A great starting point whenever using keywords for SEO will be to identify existing pages that will may use some optimization. These are called keywords, plus as you will see, they will are an important part associated with SEO. In fact, this particular will actually hurt your cyberspace SEO because search engines such as google will recognize it because keyword stuffing - or the particular act of including keywords particularly to rank for that key word, rather than to answer the person's question. Prior to we begin, one thing a person want to keep in thoughts when using some of the following SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION elements is not to overdo it. You might be enticed to shove a lot associated with keywords onto your pages, yet that is not the objective. In situation you create links to some other websites and reverse, it may improve your SEO ranking. In fact Cisco predicts that globally, on the web video traffic will be eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic by 2019 (a amount that is up from sixty four percent in 2014). I've bookmarked therefore many SEO websites and assets that it's overwhelming to also look at. Link authority is the major component of SEO, yet purchasing links is forbidden simply by Google, Bing, and other research engines.

Erase all duplicated articles; it will increase your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking. Long-term: as discussed over, you'll ultimately get more lookup traffic from better usability, actually though you don't squeeze every single last drop from the SEO-trick lemon. However, to accomplish all this particular, web-developers use SEO custom solutions, that have long-lasting SEO Search engines rank. That being said, companies usually have little or simply no time for you to maintain up with the latest advancements in SEO techniques. Social search motor optimization is largely built on user-generated content. Keywords are at the center of SEO, but they're really not your first step in order to an organic growth play any more. Obviously, reviews are a powerful kind of customer content that has massive implications for SEO and improving organic traffic. With right search engine optimization and with the help associated with an SEO expert however, your own website can give you a good increasing number of visitors plus exposure. Just keep in mind to pay attention to strong content creation and copywriting principles, engage your viewers deeply, plus stay abreast of technical styles such as backlinks, SEO health, site rate, and schema. SEOmonitor pricing is based on the particular number of websites and key phrases you track. So, We would say that 2018 will be a challenge for Google, mainly because much as it could be for SEOs. The SEO Publication Keyword Suggestion Tool aggregates research data and provides volumes, associated terms, and more.

This free marketing device is really a long-term technique and can be time intense but it will worth this. A good user experience is definitely the key to satisfaction and also a powerful SEO. 1 SEO might target different kinds of lookup, including image search, video research, academic search, 2 news lookup, and industry-specific vertical search motors. We all are in the fourth 1 / 4 of 2018, it is this right time start thinking with regards to the year ahead and brand-new changes SEO realm might count on. We've long known that client opinions, input, and sentiment regarding a brand deeply impact SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings, but we wanted the particular information to prove it. Off-page SEO means getting action to build trust, expert, social signals and inbound hyperlinks. How video affects SEO actually depends on your goals whenever using video in your advertising campaign and which video system you use. LSI is just not what most SEO professionals claim it to be. This is certainly not a idea that can be used simply by the average web designer or even webmaster to improve their lookup engine listings, and it will be not what many people, which includes myself, has written it in order to be. Nevertheless, first some history. This particular video walks you through the particular specific steps you should get increased rankings in 2018, including launching speed, technical SEO, content, hyperlinks, and more. Due to the fact it is, all across typically the year companies specializing in SEO were hectic improving and finding new procedures to optimize the search motor even better than what their particular competitors were doing. Based on SEO software program company Moz's bi-yearly survey upon search engine ranking factors, the particular titles on your page are usually one of the nine nearly all important considerations a search motor makes. Having an SEO technique that effectively promotes your pictures business, driving new traffic in addition to taking into consideration the requirements of the site visitors while you concentrate on perfecting the art is a really effective tool. SEO is Research Engine Optimization and it will be required for make a web site view-able. And you will see the section on exactly where to use keywords for even more information on integrating these key phrases into your SEO content technique. 22. Use social media in order to boost local SEO. SEO is the acronym for Seo. Even though certain techniques of SEO articles The History of SEO 2019 remain the same, like not really compromising on quality; there are usually definitely techniques which have progressed from the past and a person should find out whether your own SEO articles writing services are usually very well aware of that will or not. SEO service companies are specialized in increasing the particular traffic to your site simply by increasing your position in the particular search engine ranking positions. Bring in international people to your web sites with these SEO tips. The top challenges within organic SEO are link creating (easy-to-get links no more have got much value) and keyword analysis (the low-hanging fruit is lengthy gone). For instance, the phrase ‘SEO tips' is furthermore included inside the less aggressive phrase ‘SEO tips 2019', which usually is searched for too. To get a better SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, helps your website can obtain on the top among well-known search engines like Bing plus Google. On the some other side, you can ensure a good effective content marketing campaign just when you apply the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques properly. SEO : Search engine optimization: the procedure of making your blog better regarding search engines. The purpose of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION writing is to make your own company more visual, more attractive in website search engines. SEO is definitely the practice of increasing this quantity and quality of site visitors to your website through organic and natural search engine results. 31. SEO data can notify a smart social media technique. Solid keyword & marketplace research assist SEO strategy plus allow us to offer realistic projections and forecasts of opportunity inside your market. Nevertheless, when this comes to developing and performing an audio SEO strategy with regard to your business, just creating content material for the keywords your clients are looking for is each arduous and, well, wrong. In this situation, in, the article ranks correct after the official Google suggestions (and it makes sense that will Google should be number one on their own branded query) but Smashing magazine is demonstrated as a position 0” little of text on the issue Google pop up guidelines” within. Search Engine Land, a top quality SEO blog this is the pillar of the community is usually ranking after Smashing (which occurs to be associated with a style blog than an SEO one). There is definitely no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or user's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital online marketer who views SEO in the broader context will definitely come away ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and just how to structure your entire web site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses start on an SEO advertising strategy, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face in the event that a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that is usually, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and right now outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. A lot of business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from day-to-day priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The software process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship is usually done 100% electronically and needs the next list of materials.

Without the doubt, one of the greatest trends that has already started to take place and may continue well into 2018 will be the consolidation of niche MarTech gamers by larger content cloud suppliers, with the role and significance of SEO increasing significantly all through this transformation. SEO Internet marketing provides major components, which develop the particular website traffic, and top research engine rankings. SEO is brief for Seo, and there will be nothing really mystical about this particular. You might have heard the lot about SEO and just how it works, but basically exactly what is a measurable, repeatable procedure which is used to send out signals to search engines that will the pages are worth displaying in Google's index. Topic clusters have got been lauded since the future associated with SEO and content strategy, yet are widely underreported on (so now's the time to hit! ) 93% of B2B companies use content marketing. Teresa Walsh, Marketing Professional at automobile site, Cazana, forecasts that hyper organic targeting will increase its importance in 2019 with more location search plus more voice search. We get to the particular bottom of on-page SEO issues in order for search motors to clearly see what your own website is all about. SEO requires you to continuously become a student because of exactly how quickly the algorithms of lookup engine companies change. Google's punishing methods probably class pages as some thing akin to a poor UX if they meet certain detectable criteria e. g. lack associated with reputation or old-school SEO stuff such as keyword stuffing a site.

SEO is really the shortened phrase for search motor optimization. I believe SEO within 2019 will largely be such as SEO in 2018, with the particular exception of some big” Search engines update that wipes out sufficient websites to make people think the algorithms have grown significantly smarter. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION works by optimizing a home page's pages, conducting keyword research, plus earning inbound links. The organization offers excellent SEO packages that will help rank the clients' web site within top three pages associated with search engine pages. That can make SEO an ideal lead era tool, because when searchers adhere to links back to your web site, you have the chance in order to convert them to leads, plus later make sales. Whenever asked to point out ideas that are unique towards the particular web, most people will arrive up with two main types: SEO and social media. How many links do a person need for good off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION? If you are performing a professional SEO audit for any actual business, you are going in order to have to think like the Google Search Quality Rater Plus a Google search engineer to offer real long-term value to the client. 44. Give your own social media profiles an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION boost. 10% of our experts believe that will there's likely to be the lot of focus on cellular in 2019, as older SEOs realize optimizing for desktop is definitely pointless. White hat SEO is not really just about following guidelines, yet is about ensuring that the particular content the search engines indexes and consequently ranks will be the same content the user will see. A great SEO service includes a great deal of research and lots associated with smart keywords application which may period website at a increased notch and provide it the higher ranking in Google web search engine. Professional SEO content authors work on creating articles just after understanding the nature associated with your business, your industry, competition and what kind of content your business might most want for maximum benefits; in the particular short-term and the long-term. Linking to other webpages inside your site, as well since linking to other sites plus getting other sites to connect to yours, is a great method to improve your SEO. Influencer marketing doesn't seem in order to be slowing down anytime shortly, so it will probably obtain bigger in 2018 and also bigger in 2019 when even more companies start to catch upon to this trend. Keeping within mind the last point, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION agencies are fluent in navigating by way of a wide range of on the web marketing tools that helps raise the value of your marketing technique. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is definitely a powerful process that may help make you and your own research more visible to lookup engines like Google and Search engines Scholar. I have simply no clue about SEO only a few basics that is available almost all over the place and I actually feel this article must help as your other articles assisted me give some direction upon recovering my lost traffic plus generating more content as properly as repurposing old content. Over the particular last 20 years SocialSEO offers grown to be the biggest full digital marketing firm within the state of Colorado, offering Social Media, Pay Per Click on and SEO in Denver, Co Springs, Boulder and across the particular State. Lastly, Amazon will dominate ecommerce queries in 2018 via Alexa voice, touch, along with other innovative interfaces, leaving many e-commerce SEOs in order to focus in on the content-side of their marketing. If you could use twenty times more chances for internet traffic, three times better outcomes than social, and returns upon investment that will only boost over time, SEO must end up being a priority. Since artificial intelligence search motor optimization is in its preliminary stage, the impact of synthetic intelligence in marketing is heading to be felt in 2019 and 2020. So regional businesses have to put unique effort into maximizing their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION efforts for local visibility, which usually means doing things like enhancing their Google Places pages. All these types of steps are used by the particular company to provide the greatest search engine optimization services in order to its clients in Thailand, below the Thailand SEO concept. Keywords and phrases, whilst not being as important to be able to SEO ranking as they as soon as were, still play a significant function. •Social Mass media Optimization - SEO services make use of various means of social mass media optimization for clients. Lots of people are usually now asking, How will AI and Voice Search impact SEO”? Upon the subject of speed, with the beginning of 2017 presently there was still much resistance in order to AMP in the SEO neighborhood overall, but as we mind toward 2018 that feels in order to be dissipating now somewhat along with a reluctant acceptance that AMPLIFIER looks as though it's not really going away sooner. The biggest way that individuals misuse SEO is assuming that will it's a game or that will it's about outsmarting or deceiving the search engines. Both are crucial to the particular success of an SEO strategy, but they're on completely different edges of the fence when this comes to improving your search motor rankings. Greater than 50% of mobile phone customers started using voice search correct from 2015, and so we all can expect that in 2019 and after that not much less than 50% of searches may be in the form associated with voice search. Within the past, getting a great SEO was only about making use of keywords. Remember Blog9T that SEO will be about targeting real people, not really only search engines. When you do these on-page plus off-page elements of SEO in least along with your rivals, you can achieve higher lookup engine ranking positions in the particular organic section of search motor results pages and have the quality website capable of sustaining your revenue goals. In my opinion that 2018 is going to be the particular year where voice search changes how users search and SEOs need to optimize. SEO or Search engine optimisation is a term coined jointly to describe the techniques that will the website should use in order to boost its rankings on the search engine. It's maybe not an ideal SEO page title because of the multiple distinct services, however the structure might give rise to rankings for some long-tail keyword phrases. SEOs will have to collaborate carefully with designers and developers in order to prioritize technical SEO and functionality search engine ranking factors to get a competitive edge. Further SEO Smart hyperlinks allows you to set upward your personal keywords and set associated with matching URLs. In the event that search engine optimization SEO will not involve ethical practices, the particular website may have low presence on Google or maybe be eliminated from the Google index. An SEO technique will be considered white hat if this conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deceptiveness. As an SEO, which indicates that you have to considerably raise your standards around high quality content and links in purchase to achieve top search motor rankings. Most SEO focuses on customization for Google's search engine, which usually dominates the overall search marketplace with a share of more than 90%. 7. Social indicators may even become more essential to SEO with time. Solitary Grain is really a electronic marketing agency that helps businesses like Uber, Amazon and Salesforce grow their revenues online making use of SEO plus paid advertising. This can be a growth chance intended for content marketing-specific agencies and the necessary and justified budget range item for in-house SEO groups. SEO includes both technical and creative components necessary to improve rankings, drive visitors, and increase awareness in research engines.

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AMP: The Easiest Way to Build Lightning-Fast Mobile Pages is Almost Here

If you run paid ads, chances are you have a mobile campaign or two (or two hundred) live right now. Whether we like it or not, most of us live tethered to our smartphones, relying on them to entertain us, keep us connected, and guide us to the nearest bike repair shop. And as such, behavior on mobile is shaping how marketers need to operate.

Over the last four years, we were inundated with messages declaring it was finally “the year of mobile”, so much so that it felt like our industry was crying wolf. Then in 2016, it finally happened: Mobile surpassed desktop in terms of both usage as well as Google search queries. Today, more than 60% of the world is accessing the internet through mobile devices, and that number is expected to climb.

image via Tech Crunch.

The problem with this change? 2016 was two full years ago, and even though we were all warned to think mobile-first, advertisers forged ahead, bloating our responsive landing pages with massive high-res images, and animations. We were simply shrinking heavy content for small screen sizes. In turn, everyone’s mobile pages loaded turtle-slow (leaving visitors bouncing).

But we can’t ignore proper mobile experiences any more.

This year Google made pagespeed an official ranking factor for mobile search, introduced mobile speed score, and perhaps most important—they’re backing the Accelerated Mobile Pages open-source project: a means of developing web pages that load in (approximately) half a second! In short, the search giant’s putting their foot down and demanding a better, faster mobile web.

So how you can ensure your ads continue to appear in the SERP (considering load time is a factor)? And how can you give your landing pages a better shot to convert? Let’s walk through this need for speed together.

There’s still some lag

Unlike on social platforms, search advertisers have been a bit slow to jump onto the mobile bandwagon (no pun intended). Despite more searches happening on mobile, most advertisers are currently spending about an equal amount on desktop and mobile. In the 2018 State of Mobile report, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins estimates that this gap represents about a seven billion dollar opportunity. In other words, the future is bright for mobile advertising and we’ll all likely adjust our spend accordingly very soon.

The question is, how will you prepare for this?

Image courtesy of slide 96 of the 2018 State of Mobile report.

It’s not about screen size, it’s about behavior

When mobile emerged as a hot topic, it was all about building mobile responsive, and then about building websites that were “mobile first.”

I distinctly remember being in the crowd at Unbounce’s first-ever Call to Action Conference back in 2014, when my marketing prayers were answered: Unbounce announced the ability to design mobile pages. But fast forward to today and we know that having a mobile version of your landing page is simply table stakes, as is splitting your campaign targeting by device.

Mobile responsive design was certainly a step forward, but now we can’t just reuse the same content across multiple devices.

To help illustrate why, just think about when you’re searching for something on your phone. You’re probably searching for something because you want it now. In the past two years alone, Google searches for “near me” (implying the intent to buy) have seen 500% growth.

When targeting these kinds of queries, you need to craft an experience that speaks to the searcher’s immediate need to find something locally—and fast. Every second your page lags, the more impatient the visitor.

Looks like I’m not the only one looking for services “near me”. Image via Think With Google.

Personally, I have a bad habit of searching reviews and comparisons for an item while I’m in a store looking at the product in question. It’s hard to get me into a brick-and-mortar store in the first place, so you best believe I’m going to save myself a second trip, researching the best of the best, even in store aisles.

And I’m not alone: Between 2015-2017, the number of mobile searches including “best” on mobile increased by 80%, with consumers comparing products as simple as salt (likely right in the store or at point-of-purchase, like me):

Image courtesy of Think with Google.

Many of us shoppers are even completing the entire checkout process on-the-go. Last year, more than 40% of online purchases in the US were made on mobile during the months of November and October. So we’ve reached peak busy and are knocking out our Christmas shopping lists while we’re taking transit or waiting in line.

Why is this behavior so important?

Well, with so many using smartphones to search and browse on the go, slow-loading content is killing your potential conversions.

From a marketer’s perspective: for every second that a landing page takes to load, conversions drop by 12%—and 53% of smartphone users will abandon a page entirely if it takes more than three seconds to load.

These days, if your page isn’t anything but instant, visitors won’t stick around to convert, and you risk getting penalized by Google.

Maybe you’ve noticed the brand new Mobile Speed Score under the “landing page” tab in your account? This new column and ten-point score is another indication that Google is serious about mobile speed.

Have you been seeing any scores populate in your Mobile Speed Score column? Has it been helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Moreover, not all data connections are created equal

For those of us living in a metropolitan area, we spend a lot of our time jumping from our home wifi connections, to work, and back. For those times in between though, we’re in some kind of data limbo, with speeds ranging from 3G to LTE. A few times in my life, I’ve even gone to the dark place that is EDGE.

But what if I told you that 70% of the world is actually searching Google on a 3G connection or slower? Yup, you read that right. Even if you’re cruising on wifi or LTE, you might have potential customers living on the edge of data—or close to. On a 3G connection, the average mobile page takes a whopping 19 seconds to load, which means most of your visitors are abandoning your web pages before they’ve even seen them.

Curious how much traffic you’re actually losing to mobile pagespeed? Enter your landing page in this free Google tool to see the percentage.

So much for converting, hey!? You’ve paid for the ad click (sometimes quite handsomely, I might add), yet a portion of your visitors are leaving before they even see your content.

So it’s time to build faster landing pages somehow.

Not only will your visitors appreciate this, but Google will reward you. After all, they’re in the business of selling ads. As we mentioned, pagespeed is now factored into Landing Page Experience (one of the three core components of Quality Score). If you speed up your landing pages, you’ll see higher Quality Scores, an improved Ad Rank, and larger Search Impression Share (your ads will show more often).

You’ll basically give your landing pages a fighting chance to be seen and convert.

AMPing up your pagespeed

Now, while you can implement a few manual fixes for faster landing pages—like compressing your images, reducing the amount of elements on your page, and even watching how many scripts are on there—even these methods produce diminishing returns at some point.

And this is where AMP can help.

If you haven’t heard of AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages) it’s essentially a framework for coding simple, stripped down landing pages that load super fast (we’re talkin’ half-a-second-fast). It’s comprised of three elements: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache.

For us non-developers, AMP HTML is essentially a modified version of standard HTML, preventing us from creating pages that load slowly. Marketers can sometimes be guilty of designing beautiful pages with crisp, high-res images, parallax elements, and every tracking script under the sun. We love it, but that person looking for the closest place to fix their flat tire? Not so much.

AMP JS, on the other hand, ensures all of these elements load in an effective way. In my opinion, the third component, AMP Cache, is really AMP’s bread and butter. With AMP Cache, your landing page is cached by Google (or other third parties) so when a visitor requests your page from a platform like Google, it is served almost instantly. Which means the visitor isn’t stuck downloading every single image on their measly 3G connection before they can see your offer.

To implement AMP HTML and JS markup (to code a page from scratch), you’ll need to know a little bit more about web development, or know someone who does. AMP is only a few years old, and is an open-source project that is constantly being improved.

Every page on the framework also needs to pass through the AMP validator, which basically scans the page to make sure it adheres to all the requirements of AMP. If there are changes to the page that break validation, you might get stuck serving up your regular-ol’ too-slow mobile version.

Overall, it can become a burden on your development team if you’re constantly asking them to add a new AMP feature, keep pages validated, and build new ones for each campaign.

So we’re building AMP, the Unbounce way

I’ve always believed in keeping a strong relationship with the web developers at your company. They do amazing things and are typically working with a long backlog of website updates, some that you’ve probably requested yourself. And just like we don’t think you should be bugging developers for landing pages at all, we also want you to save them the headache of building AMP versions of all of your landing pages.

It’s been four years since I joined Unbounce’s mobile responsive beta at the Call to Action Conference, and later tomorrow I’ll be taking to the stage at CTAConf 2018 to share that we’ve entered closed beta for AMP in Unbounce. You’ll soon be able to create AMP landing pages in the same simple, pixel-perfect, drag and drop builder that you know and love. We hope you’re as excited as we are.

Get on the list: Unbounce’s AMP beta

If you’re ready to lower your bounce rates and stay BFF with your web devs, add your name to the early access list for the next phase of beta testing by following this link. You’ll be the very first to know as soon as we add spots or enter open beta, and you’ll be on your way to building lightning-fast mobile landing pages.

Are you as AMPed as we are? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://unbounce.com/mobile-optimization/build-fast-mobile-pages-with-amp/

[littlemarketingproject]

AMP: The Easiest Way to Build Lightning-Fast Mobile Pages is Almost Here

If you run paid ads, chances are you have a mobile campaign or two (or two hundred) live right now. Whether we like it or not, most of us live tethered to our smartphones, relying on them to entertain us, keep us connected, and guide us to the nearest bike repair shop. And as such, behavior on mobile is shaping how marketers need to operate.

Over the last four years, we were inundated with messages declaring it was finally “the year of mobile”, so much so that it felt like our industry was crying wolf. Then in 2016, it finally happened: Mobile surpassed desktop in terms of both usage as well as Google search queries. Today, more than 60% of the world is accessing the internet through mobile devices, and that number is expected to climb.

image via Tech Crunch.

The problem with this change? 2016 was two full years ago, and even though we were all warned to think mobile-first, advertisers forged ahead, bloating our responsive landing pages with massive high-res images, and animations. We were simply shrinking heavy content for small screen sizes. In turn, everyone’s mobile pages loaded turtle-slow (leaving visitors bouncing).

But we can’t ignore proper mobile experiences any more.

This year Google made pagespeed an official ranking factor for mobile search, introduced mobile speed score, and perhaps most important—they’re backing the Accelerated Mobile Pages open-source project: a means of developing web pages that load in (approximately) half a second! In short, the search giant’s putting their foot down and demanding a better, faster mobile web.

So how you can ensure your ads continue to appear in the SERP (considering load time is a factor)? And how can you give your landing pages a better shot to convert? Let’s walk through this need for speed together.

There’s still some lag

Unlike on social platforms, search advertisers have been a bit slow to jump onto the mobile bandwagon (no pun intended). Despite more searches happening on mobile, most advertisers are currently spending about an equal amount on desktop and mobile. In the 2018 State of Mobile report, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins estimates that this gap represents about a seven billion dollar opportunity. In other words, the future is bright for mobile advertising and we’ll all likely adjust our spend accordingly very soon.

The question is, how will you prepare for this?

Image courtesy of slide 96 of the 2018 State of Mobile report.

It’s not about screen size, it’s about behavior

When mobile emerged as a hot topic, it was all about building mobile responsive, and then about building websites that were “mobile first.”

I distinctly remember being in the crowd at Unbounce’s first-ever Call to Action Conference back in 2014, when my marketing prayers were answered: Unbounce announced the ability to design mobile pages. But fast forward to today and we know that having a mobile version of your landing page is simply table stakes, as is splitting your campaign targeting by device.

Mobile responsive design was certainly a step forward, but now we can’t just reuse the same content across multiple devices.

To help illustrate why, just think about when you’re searching for something on your phone. You’re probably searching for something because you want it now. In the past two years alone, Google searches for “near me” (implying the intent to buy) have seen 500% growth.

When targeting these kinds of queries, you need to craft an experience that speaks to the searcher’s immediate need to find something locally—and fast. Every second your page lags, the more impatient the visitor.

Looks like I’m not the only one looking for services “near me”. Image via Think With Google.

Personally, I have a bad habit of searching reviews and comparisons for an item while I’m in a store looking at the product in question. It’s hard to get me into a brick-and-mortar store in the first place, so you best believe I’m going to save myself a second trip, researching the best of the best, even in store aisles.

And I’m not alone: Between 2015-2017, the number of mobile searches including “best” on mobile increased by 80%, with consumers comparing products as simple as salt (likely right in the store or at point-of-purchase, like me):

Image courtesy of Think with Google.

Many of us shoppers are even completing the entire checkout process on-the-go. Last year, more than 40% of online purchases in the US were made on mobile during the months of November and October. So we’ve reached peak busy and are knocking out our Christmas shopping lists while we’re taking transit or waiting in line.

Why is this behavior so important?

Well, with so many using smartphones to search and browse on the go, slow-loading content is killing your potential conversions.

From a marketer’s perspective: for every second that a landing page takes to load, conversions drop by 12%—and 53% of smartphone users will abandon a page entirely if it takes more than three seconds to load.

These days, if your page isn’t anything but instant, visitors won’t stick around to convert, and you risk getting penalized by Google.

Maybe you’ve noticed the brand new Mobile Speed Score under the “landing page” tab in your account? This new column and ten-point score is another indication that Google is serious about mobile speed.

Have you been seeing any scores populate in your Mobile Speed Score column? Has it been helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Moreover, not all data connections are created equal

For those of us living in a metropolitan area, we spend a lot of our time jumping from our home wifi connections, to work, and back. For those times in between though, we’re in some kind of data limbo, with speeds ranging from 3G to LTE. A few times in my life, I’ve even gone to the dark place that is EDGE.

But what if I told you that 70% of the world is actually searching Google on a 3G connection or slower? Yup, you read that right. Even if you’re cruising on wifi or LTE, you might have potential customers living on the edge of data—or close to. On a 3G connection, the average mobile page takes a whopping 19 seconds to load, which means most of your visitors are abandoning your web pages before they’ve even seen them.

Curious how much traffic you’re actually losing to mobile pagespeed? Enter your landing page in this free Google tool to see the percentage.

So much for converting, hey!? You’ve paid for the ad click (sometimes quite handsomely, I might add), yet a portion of your visitors are leaving before they even see your content.

So it’s time to build faster landing pages somehow.

Not only will your visitors appreciate this, but Google will reward you. After all, they’re in the business of selling ads. As we mentioned, pagespeed is now factored into Landing Page Experience (one of the three core components of Quality Score). If you speed up your landing pages, you’ll see higher Quality Scores, an improved Ad Rank, and larger Search Impression Share (your ads will show more often).

You’ll basically give your landing pages a fighting chance to be seen and convert.

AMPing up your pagespeed

Now, while you can implement a few manual fixes for faster landing pages—like compressing your images, reducing the amount of elements on your page, and even watching how many scripts are on there—even these methods produce diminishing returns at some point.

And this is where AMP can help.

If you haven’t heard of AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages) it’s essentially a framework for coding simple, stripped down landing pages that load super fast (we’re talkin’ half-a-second-fast). It’s comprised of three elements: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache.

For us non-developers, AMP HTML is essentially a modified version of standard HTML, preventing us from creating pages that load slowly. Marketers can sometimes be guilty of designing beautiful pages with crisp, high-res images, parallax elements, and every tracking script under the sun. We love it, but that person looking for the closest place to fix their flat tire? Not so much.

AMP JS, on the other hand, ensures all of these elements load in an effective way. In my opinion, the third component, AMP Cache, is really AMP’s bread and butter. With AMP Cache, your landing page is cached by Google (or other third parties) so when a visitor requests your page from a platform like Google, it is served almost instantly. Which means the visitor isn’t stuck downloading every single image on their measly 3G connection before they can see your offer.

To implement AMP HTML and JS markup (to code a page from scratch), you’ll need to know a little bit more about web development, or know someone who does. AMP is only a few years old, and is an open-source project that is constantly being improved.

Every page on the framework also needs to pass through the AMP validator, which basically scans the page to make sure it adheres to all the requirements of AMP. If there are changes to the page that break validation, you might get stuck serving up your regular-ol’ too-slow mobile version.

Overall, it can become a burden on your development team if you’re constantly asking them to add a new AMP feature, keep pages validated, and build new ones for each campaign.

So we’re building AMP, the Unbounce way

I’ve always believed in keeping a strong relationship with the web developers at your company. They do amazing things and are typically working with a long backlog of website updates, some that you’ve probably requested yourself. And just like we don’t think you should be bugging developers for landing pages at all, we also want you to save them the headache of building AMP versions of all of your landing pages.

It’s been four years since I joined Unbounce’s mobile responsive beta at the Call to Action Conference, and later tomorrow I’ll be taking to the stage at CTAConf 2018 to share that we’ve entered closed beta for AMP in Unbounce. You’ll soon be able to create AMP landing pages in the same simple, pixel-perfect, drag and drop builder that you know and love. We hope you’re as excited as we are.

Get on the list: Unbounce’s AMP beta

If you’re ready to lower your bounce rates and stay BFF with your web devs, add your name to the early access list for the next phase of beta testing by following this link. You’ll be the very first to know as soon as we add spots or enter open beta, and you’ll be on your way to building lightning-fast mobile landing pages.

Are you as AMPed as we are? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!

AMP: The Easiest Way to Build Lightning-Fast Mobile Pages is Almost Here syndicated from https://unbounce.com

[maxslogic25]

AMP: The Easiest Way to Build Lightning-Fast Mobile Pages is Almost Here

If you run paid ads, chances are you have a mobile campaign or two (or two hundred) live right now. Whether we like it or not, most of us live tethered to our smartphones, relying on them to entertain us, keep us connected, and guide us to the nearest bike repair shop. And as such, behavior on mobile is shaping how marketers need to operate.

Over the last four years, we were inundated with messages declaring it was finally “the year of mobile”, so much so that it felt like our industry was crying wolf. Then in 2016, it finally happened: Mobile surpassed desktop in terms of both usage as well as Google search queries. Today, more than 60% of the world is accessing the internet through mobile devices, and that number is expected to climb.

image via Tech Crunch.

The problem with this change? 2016 was two full years ago, and even though we were all warned to think mobile-first, advertisers forged ahead, bloating our responsive landing pages with massive high-res images, and animations. We were simply shrinking heavy content for small screen sizes. In turn, everyone’s mobile pages loaded turtle-slow (leaving visitors bouncing).

But we can’t ignore proper mobile experiences any more.

This year Google made pagespeed an official ranking factor for mobile search, introduced mobile speed score, and perhaps most important—they’re backing the Accelerated Mobile Pages open-source project: a means of developing web pages that load in (approximately) half a second! In short, the search giant’s putting their foot down and demanding a better, faster mobile web.

So how you can ensure your ads continue to appear in the SERP (considering load time is a factor)? And how can you give your landing pages a better shot to convert? Let’s walk through this need for speed together.

There’s still some lag

Unlike on social platforms, search advertisers have been a bit slow to jump onto the mobile bandwagon (no pun intended). Despite more searches happening on mobile, most advertisers are currently spending about an equal amount on desktop and mobile. In the 2018 State of Mobile report, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins estimates that this gap represents about a seven billion dollar opportunity. In other words, the future is bright for mobile advertising and we’ll all likely adjust our spend accordingly very soon.

The question is, how will you prepare for this?

Image courtesy of slide 96 of the 2018 State of Mobile report.

It’s not about screen size, it’s about behavior

When mobile emerged as a hot topic, it was all about building mobile responsive, and then about building websites that were “mobile first.”

I distinctly remember being in the crowd at Unbounce’s first-ever Call to Action Conference back in 2014, when my marketing prayers were answered: Unbounce announced the ability to design mobile pages. But fast forward to today and we know that having a mobile version of your landing page is simply table stakes, as is splitting your campaign targeting by device.

Mobile responsive design was certainly a step forward, but now we can’t just reuse the same content across multiple devices.

To help illustrate why, just think about when you’re searching for something on your phone. You’re probably searching for something because you want it now. In the past two years alone, Google searches for “near me” (implying the intent to buy) have seen 500% growth.

When targeting these kinds of queries, you need to craft an experience that speaks to the searcher’s immediate need to find something locally—and fast. Every second your page lags, the more impatient the visitor.

Looks like I’m not the only one looking for services “near me”. Image via Think With Google.

Personally, I have a bad habit of searching reviews and comparisons for an item while I’m in a store looking at the product in question. It’s hard to get me into a brick-and-mortar store in the first place, so you best believe I’m going to save myself a second trip, researching the best of the best, even in store aisles.

And I’m not alone: Between 2015-2017, the number of mobile searches including “best” on mobile increased by 80%, with consumers comparing products as simple as salt (likely right in the store or at point-of-purchase, like me):

Image courtesy of Think with Google.

Many of us shoppers are even completing the entire checkout process on-the-go. Last year, more than 40% of online purchases in the US were made on mobile during the months of November and October. So we’ve reached peak busy and are knocking out our Christmas shopping lists while we’re taking transit or waiting in line.

Why is this behavior so important?

Well, with so many using smartphones to search and browse on the go, slow-loading content is killing your potential conversions.

From a marketer’s perspective: for every second that a landing page takes to load, conversions drop by 12%—and 53% of smartphone users will abandon a page entirely if it takes more than three seconds to load.

These days, if your page isn’t anything but instant, visitors won’t stick around to convert, and you risk getting penalized by Google.

Maybe you’ve noticed the brand new Mobile Speed Score under the “landing page” tab in your account? This new column and ten-point score is another indication that Google is serious about mobile speed.

Have you been seeing any scores populate in your Mobile Speed Score column? Has it been helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Moreover, not all data connections are created equal

For those of us living in a metropolitan area, we spend a lot of our time jumping from our home wifi connections, to work, and back. For those times in between though, we’re in some kind of data limbo, with speeds ranging from 3G to LTE. A few times in my life, I’ve even gone to the dark place that is EDGE.

But what if I told you that 70% of the world is actually searching Google on a 3G connection or slower? Yup, you read that right. Even if you’re cruising on wifi or LTE, you might have potential customers living on the edge of data—or close to. On a 3G connection, the average mobile page takes a whopping 19 seconds to load, which means most of your visitors are abandoning your web pages before they’ve even seen them.

Curious how much traffic you’re actually losing to mobile pagespeed? Enter your landing page in this free Google tool to see the percentage.

So much for converting, hey!? You’ve paid for the ad click (sometimes quite handsomely, I might add), yet a portion of your visitors are leaving before they even see your content.

So it’s time to build faster landing pages somehow.

Not only will your visitors appreciate this, but Google will reward you. After all, they’re in the business of selling ads. As we mentioned, pagespeed is now factored into Landing Page Experience (one of the three core components of Quality Score). If you speed up your landing pages, you’ll see higher Quality Scores, an improved Ad Rank, and larger Search Impression Share (your ads will show more often).

You’ll basically give your landing pages a fighting chance to be seen and convert.

AMPing up your pagespeed

Now, while you can implement a few manual fixes for faster landing pages—like compressing your images, reducing the amount of elements on your page, and even watching how many scripts are on there—even these methods produce diminishing returns at some point.

And this is where AMP can help.

If you haven’t heard of AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages) it’s essentially a framework for coding simple, stripped down landing pages that load super fast (we’re talkin’ half-a-second-fast). It’s comprised of three elements: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache.

For us non-developers, AMP HTML is essentially a modified version of standard HTML, preventing us from creating pages that load slowly. Marketers can sometimes be guilty of designing beautiful pages with crisp, high-res images, parallax elements, and every tracking script under the sun. We love it, but that person looking for the closest place to fix their flat tire? Not so much.

AMP JS, on the other hand, ensures all of these elements load in an effective way. In my opinion, the third component, AMP Cache, is really AMP’s bread and butter. With AMP Cache, your landing page is cached by Google (or other third parties) so when a visitor requests your page from a platform like Google, it is served almost instantly. Which means the visitor isn’t stuck downloading every single image on their measly 3G connection before they can see your offer.

To implement AMP HTML and JS markup (to code a page from scratch), you’ll need to know a little bit more about web development, or know someone who does. AMP is only a few years old, and is an open-source project that is constantly being improved.

Every page on the framework also needs to pass through the AMP validator, which basically scans the page to make sure it adheres to all the requirements of AMP. If there are changes to the page that break validation, you might get stuck serving up your regular-ol’ too-slow mobile version.

Overall, it can become a burden on your development team if you’re constantly asking them to add a new AMP feature, keep pages validated, and build new ones for each campaign.

So we’re building AMP, the Unbounce way

I’ve always believed in keeping a strong relationship with the web developers at your company. They do amazing things and are typically working with a long backlog of website updates, some that you’ve probably requested yourself. And just like we don’t think you should be bugging developers for landing pages at all, we also want you to save them the headache of building AMP versions of all of your landing pages.

It’s been four years since I joined Unbounce’s mobile responsive beta at the Call to Action Conference, and later tomorrow I’ll be taking to the stage at CTAConf 2018 to share that we’ve entered closed beta for AMP in Unbounce. You’ll soon be able to create AMP landing pages in the same simple, pixel-perfect, drag and drop builder that you know and love. We hope you’re as excited as we are.

Get on the list: Unbounce’s AMP beta

If you’re ready to lower your bounce rates and stay BFF with your web devs, add your name to the early access list for the next phase of beta testing by following this link. You’ll be the very first to know as soon as we add spots or enter open beta, and you’ll be on your way to building lightning-fast mobile landing pages.

Are you as AMPed as we are? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://unbounce.com/mobile-optimization/build-fast-mobile-pages-with-amp/

[zacdhaenkeau]

AMP: The Easiest Way to Build Lightning-Fast Mobile Pages is Almost Here

If you run paid ads, chances are you have a mobile campaign or two (or two hundred) live right now. Whether we like it or not, most of us live tethered to our smartphones, relying on them to entertain us, keep us connected, and guide us to the nearest bike repair shop. And as such, behavior on mobile is shaping how marketers need to operate.

Over the last four years, we were inundated with messages declaring it was finally “the year of mobile”, so much so that it felt like our industry was crying wolf. Then in 2016, it finally happened: Mobile surpassed desktop in terms of both usage as well as Google search queries. Today, more than 60% of the world is accessing the internet through mobile devices, and that number is expected to climb.

image via Tech Crunch.

The problem with this change? 2016 was two full years ago, and even though we were all warned to think mobile-first, advertisers forged ahead, bloating our responsive landing pages with massive high-res images, and animations. We were simply shrinking heavy content for small screen sizes. In turn, everyone’s mobile pages loaded turtle-slow (leaving visitors bouncing).

But we can’t ignore proper mobile experiences any more.

This year Google made pagespeed an official ranking factor for mobile search, introduced mobile speed score, and perhaps most important—they’re backing the Accelerated Mobile Pages open-source project: a means of developing web pages that load in (approximately) half a second! In short, the search giant’s putting their foot down and demanding a better, faster mobile web.

So how you can ensure your ads continue to appear in the SERP (considering load time is a factor)? And how can you give your landing pages a better shot to convert? Let’s walk through this need for speed together.

There’s still some lag

Unlike on social platforms, search advertisers have been a bit slow to jump onto the mobile bandwagon (no pun intended). Despite more searches happening on mobile, most advertisers are currently spending about an equal amount on desktop and mobile. In the 2018 State of Mobile report, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins estimates that this gap represents about a seven billion dollar opportunity. In other words, the future is bright for mobile advertising and we’ll all likely adjust our spend accordingly very soon.

The question is, how will you prepare for this?

Image courtesy of slide 96 of the 2018 State of Mobile report.

It’s not about screen size, it’s about behavior

When mobile emerged as a hot topic, it was all about building mobile responsive, and then about building websites that were “mobile first.”

I distinctly remember being in the crowd at Unbounce’s first-ever Call to Action Conference back in 2014, when my marketing prayers were answered: Unbounce announced the ability to design mobile pages. But fast forward to today and we know that having a mobile version of your landing page is simply table stakes, as is splitting your campaign targeting by device.

Mobile responsive design was certainly a step forward, but now we can’t just reuse the same content across multiple devices.

To help illustrate why, just think about when you’re searching for something on your phone. You’re probably searching for something because you want it now. In the past two years alone, Google searches for “near me” (implying the intent to buy) have seen 500% growth.

When targeting these kinds of queries, you need to craft an experience that speaks to the searcher’s immediate need to find something locally—and fast. Every second your page lags, the more impatient the visitor.

Looks like I’m not the only one looking for services “near me”. Image via Think With Google.

Personally, I have a bad habit of searching reviews and comparisons for an item while I’m in a store looking at the product in question. It’s hard to get me into a brick-and-mortar store in the first place, so you best believe I’m going to save myself a second trip, researching the best of the best, even in store aisles.

And I’m not alone: Between 2015-2017, the number of mobile searches including “best” on mobile increased by 80%, with consumers comparing products as simple as salt (likely right in the store or at point-of-purchase, like me):

Image courtesy of Think with Google.

Many of us shoppers are even completing the entire checkout process on-the-go. Last year, more than 40% of online purchases in the US were made on mobile during the months of November and October. So we’ve reached peak busy and are knocking out our Christmas shopping lists while we’re taking transit or waiting in line.

Why is this behavior so important?

Well, with so many using smartphones to search and browse on the go, slow-loading content is killing your potential conversions.

From a marketer’s perspective: for every second that a landing page takes to load, conversions drop by 12%—and 53% of smartphone users will abandon a page entirely if it takes more than three seconds to load.

These days, if your page isn’t anything but instant, visitors won’t stick around to convert, and you risk getting penalized by Google.

Maybe you’ve noticed the brand new Mobile Speed Score under the “landing page” tab in your account? This new column and ten-point score is another indication that Google is serious about mobile speed.

Have you been seeing any scores populate in your Mobile Speed Score column? Has it been helpful? Let us know in the comments!

Moreover, not all data connections are created equal

For those of us living in a metropolitan area, we spend a lot of our time jumping from our home wifi connections, to work, and back. For those times in between though, we’re in some kind of data limbo, with speeds ranging from 3G to LTE. A few times in my life, I’ve even gone to the dark place that is EDGE.

But what if I told you that 70% of the world is actually searching Google on a 3G connection or slower? Yup, you read that right. Even if you’re cruising on wifi or LTE, you might have potential customers living on the edge of data—or close to. On a 3G connection, the average mobile page takes a whopping 19 seconds to load, which means most of your visitors are abandoning your web pages before they’ve even seen them.

Curious how much traffic you’re actually losing to mobile pagespeed? Enter your landing page in this free Google tool to see the percentage.

So much for converting, hey!? You’ve paid for the ad click (sometimes quite handsomely, I might add), yet a portion of your visitors are leaving before they even see your content.

So it’s time to build faster landing pages somehow.

Not only will your visitors appreciate this, but Google will reward you. After all, they’re in the business of selling ads. As we mentioned, pagespeed is now factored into Landing Page Experience (one of the three core components of Quality Score). If you speed up your landing pages, you’ll see higher Quality Scores, an improved Ad Rank, and larger Search Impression Share (your ads will show more often).

You’ll basically give your landing pages a fighting chance to be seen and convert.

AMPing up your pagespeed

Now, while you can implement a few manual fixes for faster landing pages—like compressing your images, reducing the amount of elements on your page, and even watching how many scripts are on there—even these methods produce diminishing returns at some point.

And this is where AMP can help.

If you haven’t heard of AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages) it’s essentially a framework for coding simple, stripped down landing pages that load super fast (we’re talkin’ half-a-second-fast). It’s comprised of three elements: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache.

For us non-developers, AMP HTML is essentially a modified version of standard HTML, preventing us from creating pages that load slowly. Marketers can sometimes be guilty of designing beautiful pages with crisp, high-res images, parallax elements, and every tracking script under the sun. We love it, but that person looking for the closest place to fix their flat tire? Not so much.

AMP JS, on the other hand, ensures all of these elements load in an effective way. In my opinion, the third component, AMP Cache, is really AMP’s bread and butter. With AMP Cache, your landing page is cached by Google (or other third parties) so when a visitor requests your page from a platform like Google, it is served almost instantly. Which means the visitor isn’t stuck downloading every single image on their measly 3G connection before they can see your offer.

To implement AMP HTML and JS markup (to code a page from scratch), you’ll need to know a little bit more about web development, or know someone who does. AMP is only a few years old, and is an open-source project that is constantly being improved.

Every page on the framework also needs to pass through the AMP validator, which basically scans the page to make sure it adheres to all the requirements of AMP. If there are changes to the page that break validation, you might get stuck serving up your regular-ol’ too-slow mobile version.

Overall, it can become a burden on your development team if you’re constantly asking them to add a new AMP feature, keep pages validated, and build new ones for each campaign.

So we’re building AMP, the Unbounce way

I’ve always believed in keeping a strong relationship with the web developers at your company. They do amazing things and are typically working with a long backlog of website updates, some that you’ve probably requested yourself. And just like we don’t think you should be bugging developers for landing pages at all, we also want you to save them the headache of building AMP versions of all of your landing pages.

It’s been four years since I joined Unbounce’s mobile responsive beta at the Call to Action Conference, and later tomorrow I’ll be taking to the stage at CTAConf 2018 to share that we’ve entered closed beta for AMP in Unbounce. You’ll soon be able to create AMP landing pages in the same simple, pixel-perfect, drag and drop builder that you know and love. We hope you’re as excited as we are.

Get on the list: Unbounce’s AMP beta

If you’re ready to lower your bounce rates and stay BFF with your web devs, add your name to the early access list for the next phase of beta testing by following this link. You’ll be the very first to know as soon as we add spots or enter open beta, and you’ll be on your way to building lightning-fast mobile landing pages.

Are you as AMPed as we are? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://unbounce.com/mobile-optimization/build-fast-mobile-pages-with-amp/

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Excellent Resources for Web Professionals (Sponsored)

All web professionals, including web designers and developers, are looking every moment for ways to get the projects done faster, to respect deadlines, to deliver excellent quality and finally to have happy customers.

This showcase is about excellent resources that will help you all achieve these results. You will find one of the best logo design services in the world, so your company will benefit by having a unique image; iGenApps will get your ideas transformed into mobile apps without needing the coding skills and huge costs; Kohezion – an Online database software for your company and many other useful resources.

Enjoy reading the showcase and test these solutions as most of them have free trials or even free forever plans.

Tailor Brands  – Automated Logo Maker and Brand Builder 

If you’re looking for a ready-made solution to add a great logo to your website, Tailor Brands is an ideal fit. The company offers a full suite of branding and logo-making tools that guide you through the creative process and gives you a ton of excellent perks to go along with it.

The highlight is their logo-maker, which uses AI and machine learning to create a unique logo based on answering a few questions about design preferences. Once you answer, you’ll receive the best-fit options for your preferred styles, and can simply choose your favorite.

With your logo in hand, Tailor Brand also offers an outstanding branding suite that includes different versions and styles of your logo to easily include it in different settings, as well as more specialized tools. Their dashboard also includes several features that can make branding easier for any type of website owner.

Tailor Brands’ subscription—the basic logo plan starts at $2.99/month and the full branding service start at $10.99 which include excellent tools such as resizing tools for logos to fit any type of webpage, alongside easy-to-create landing pages that can be excellent introductions to different apps and programming projects. For those trying to get the word out on social media, the company also offers a pre-made weekly planner and a social post creator that can make ads for Facebook, Instagram and more. If you’re looking for investments or business partners, Tailor Brands also offers business cards, presentations, and business decks already designed with your company’s branding.  

Overall, Tailor Brands’ easy-to-use technology and their expansive branding tools give even the least design-savvy developer the ability to create amazing logos and brands.

iGenApps – Build Your Phone App Without Any Coding Skills

With 2 million downloads and +1.5 million registered users, iGenApps is the best app builder that will help you create mobile apps without needing coding skills or special knowledge.  Traditionally, building and publishing apps was a complicated process and very expensive. Hiring web or app developers and ending with the app on your phone took several months, sometimes even more.  iGenApps made it super-simple to everyone looking to engage their customers, fans, and followers directly on their phones.

The mobile market is hugely increasing, everybody has a smartphone and equally important is that we are utilizing our phones much more than our computers. Mobile traffic is growing 66% per year. Mobile app market predicted to grow 270% to $189 billion by 2020. App store sees 140 billion downloads, 106% year-over-year growth. Apple’s App Store will hit 5 million apps by 2020, more than doubling its current size.

iGenApps is a game changer, exactly like WordPress and website builders were on their time. WordPress is now powering 27% of the internet and website builders were used to create more than 100 million websites.

Their premium services include apps submissions to the Apple and Android stores, they are doing everything. The pricing is affordable, check their website.

Check their website for more details and start designing your own fully customized app with their wizard building process which will guide you step by step.

Kohezion Online Database Software

Kohezion is one of the most advanced, easy to use and professional online database software around. It is packed with tons of features to help your business grow. Using it you will be able to quickly create your own customized web-based database without any programming.

It can be used to create your own web-based application to fit your exact requirements (manage clients, contracts, tasks, reminders and much more), collaborate with your team and clients (share comments and files, powerful dashboard) and exchange and share your information (automated reports, reminders, email notifications or recurring items).

Kohezion offers 3 plans: Free Forever, Standard and Enterprise. The Standard plan offers more features while the Enterprise one goes much further with greater customization option and white labeling. Also note that a special plan is offered for Non-Profit Organizations. Register for the Free Forever plan and start using it.

Visme

Have you ever felt limited by traditional presentation software? And, at the same time, overwhelmed by pro design tools? Well, Visme is here to change that. A unique marriage between the key features of a graphic design tool and legacy presentation software, Visme allows non-designers from all walks of life to not only create eye-catching and professional presentations in minutes but also infographics, reports, charts, social media images, e-books and other types of visual content.

Whether you need to translate a boring document into an easy-to-read visual report or simply create an attractive graphic for your blog, Visme has you covered. Besides hundreds of professionally designed templates, it also offers dozens of pre-designed content blocks that you can mix and match to create your own custom layouts. Choose from thousands of quality images and icons and add interactivity in the form of videos, audio, maps, polls, surveys or quizzes.

Intuitive and easy-to-use for the novice, yet flexible enough to create what you envision in your mind, Visme is the perfect tool for those looking for a greater degree of creative freedom and control over the look of their final design.

You can publish and share your content online; embed it on your website; or download for offline use as an image, PDF or HTM5 file. Make any project private or password protected for internal use.

Try Visme for free for as long as you like. Paid plans start at $10 a month, allowing you to access premium features such as the ability to manage your branding, upload your own fonts, and tap into premium templates and images.

Ultra Theme

Ultra WordPress Theme is a highly appreciated template that can be used to create unlimited websites. It has a powerful drag-and-drop editor that will help you build and customize websites in minutes. Ultra now comes with design skins and pre-made demo sites. The skin not only transforms the site’s design appearance but can also help you to set up a real sample site within minutes. With just a single click, you can import the demo setup that includes the theme settings, content, menus, widgets, etc., exactly like our theme demos. This is a time saver for creating client sites.

Codester.com

Codester is a fast-growing marketplace for web designers and developers where they can buy and sell all kind of PHP scripts, website templates, plugins and much more. They even launched the flash sale concept in which you can find products with 50% discount for limited periods. Check it.

GrapeCity – JavaScript Solutions

GrapeCity is very well known for its JavaScript solutions – SpreadJS and Wijmo are pure JavaScript controls and have no dependencies. They won’t bloat your controls and are optimized for size and speed. Using them you will have all you’ll need for a full web app. Start a free trial without obligations.

ThemeFuse.com

ThemeFuse is among the most important WordPress theme developers on the market. On their website, you can find any type of theme you may be looking for. All their themes are fully responsive, mobile friendly and can be customized in minutes. If you need something that is not there, they are offering a custom website service. Check their theme collection and pick what you need. Use this code BLKFRY2017 and get 70% discount.

Blaskan WordPress Theme

Colorlib launched a new WordPress theme named Blaskan. It is a professional, responsive and easy to setup template that can cover pretty any kind of needs, being well suited for food, fashion, personal, corporate or any other awesome blogs. It is available for free, so download it and build a new website using it.

VectorStock.com

VectorStock is a huge marketplace where you can find almost 8 million of gorgeous images, every day being added 10,000 new pictures. The team behind this project is heavily investing in this platform and they succeed growing very fast. 160,000 images are offered for free and the rest can be acquired with a small cost. Check VectorStock, it will be your partner on the long run.

WordPress Website – Hosting, Plugins, Coupons

wpKube is one of the fast growing WordPress theme developers which is investing massively to have the best resources on their website. They have launched the most complete guide that covers all the needs when launching a WordPress theme, starting with the theme and hosting and ending with the plugins and sale coupons that will greatly help you have excellent deals.

Host-Tracker.com

Host-Tracker offers you around the clock monitoring and reports of uptime and response time giving you alerts of maintenance scheduling and database monitoring. They have an instant check available and can offer you many more services in the process of tracking your site to maintain the proper functioning of it. One of the best features of Host-Tracker is the AdWords campaign automatic pausing and then reopening if any troubles with the site are detected.

They are offering 50% discount for new customers, get the offer.

LogoAI.com

Whenever looking to fast obtain a professional logo without spending lots of money and waiting days or weeks, you can try LogoAI. It is made by a strong team of designers and developers that have great experience in logo making software. Using artificial intelligence, you will get a great logo design for only $49.

Sentree Managed Hosting with WordPress Maintenance

MedZone Lite: Free Medical WordPress Theme

MedZone WordPress theme is a medical template than is flexible for anything related to this domain. It makes it easy for you to accept bookings with built-in support for appointment bookings. And it also includes custom medical icons, dedicated sections for image sliders, team member listings, testimonials, and more. Check the live demo and download it for free.

SuperbWebsiteBuilders

SuperbWebsiteBuilders is a trusted niche resource, which sees its mission in providing the detailed reviews and comparisons of the most popular website builders. The owner and chief editor of the website, Howard Steele, personality tests each website builder and masterfully reveals the characteristics most users are interested in. There are many valuable articles, reviews, comparisons, and tips on using website builders available at the website.  

Landing Pages by Lander

Lander is highly appreciated for quickly creating professional landing pages that easily convert. It is among the only platforms that enable graphics and creative teams to create landing pages without needing coding skills, with a primary focus on marketing your product. They offer a great number of gorgeous templates to start with and you can customize them using their built-in editor. They have a 14 day Free Trial with no credit card required. The pricing starts from $16/month (billed annually).

WordPress Themes by wpkube

Wpkube is investing lots of money to further develop WordPress themes and to become the number 1 website for finding WP resources. Their themes are easy to install and customize, fully responsive, mobile friendly and last, but not least, are flexible enough to cover many kinds of needs. The pricing starts from $49.

MailMunch Landing Pages

Using their powerful drag-and-drop editor, MailMunch is one of the best solutions to quickly create professional landing pages that will boost your conversions. There is no need for any coding skills and all their themes can be fully customized in a couple of minutes. They are offering a free forever plan and the premium packages start from $15/month.

Pixelo.net

Pixelo is a one-stop shop for high-demanding web designers and developers. It is packed with plenty of WordPress Themes & Plugins, Website & SEO Tools & Software, Online Tutorials, Designer deals like Web Fonts, Icons, Graphics and loads of other goodies.

Userlytics.com

When you need to figure out why your funnel is behaving the way it is, Userlytics can help you. An advanced user testing platform for UX testing, website usability tests & user testing of apps, websites and prototypes. Qualitative as well as quant: PiP task based videos, and usability testing branching logic. System Usability Scale (SUS), Time on Task, & Success/Fail metrics in addition to the qualitative PiP videos. Pricing from $49/participant.

Uncode WordPress Theme

With almost 30,000 sales, Uncode is one of the most appreciated WordPress themes on the market. It was built from scratch to be the best, having tremendous attention to details and much more. They have included lots of concepts in the theme, so you can easily start customizing the theme and have your website done in minutes.

GoodieWebsite – Web Development Service

Goodie Website is a web development service that has unique ideas on the market about launching gorgeous websites for their customers. They have a flat fee of $999/website and they are different from others because they do an awesome job to deliver a wow website every time. Contact them and start your project.

InvoiceBerry.com

Having a complete invoicing platform at your disposal will save your business from many headaches. InvoiceBerry can be used to create, customize and send invoices in less than 60 seconds. It can also track expenses, view a variety of useful reports and much more. They are offering a free forever plan and the premium package of features start from $15/month.

EmailMonster.io – Email Editor

Email Monster is among the best email editors that can be used to quickly build beautiful and responsive emails. There are literally hundreds of gorgeous free templates that can be fully customized using their powerful email editor. They are offering a free Black Friday email template.

Conclusions

We did our best to include in this showcase several excellent resources from different domains like WordPress themes, website builders, invoicing solutions and others. Many of them are already used with great success by important names from the web design and development industry. Give them a try and share your thoughts with us.

The post Excellent Resources for Web Professionals (Sponsored) appeared first on David Walsh Blog.

Excellent Resources for Web Professionals (Sponsored) published first on http://ift.tt/2fXj93U

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There is no doubt that Product Hunt is one of the sexiest places for the tech geeks to be. If you have a new app, product, book or simply Elon Musk’s Boring Company Hat you would probably want to launch it on Product Hunt first. For that part of the audience to which Product Hunt still sounds like the Japanese alphabet to a Slavic person, here is a short overview. What Is Product Hunt (PH)?Product Hunt is not just ‘a place”, it is a community where developers, entrepreneurs, journalists, investors, and members of the tech world spend time discovering and discussing fresh products. What’s cool about the community is that they will welcome almost every product at any stage of its development (as long as the product is usable). The platform is comprised of innovators and early adopters; they love being the first to try out a new product exclusively. Except The Above, What’s The Real Deal?1) Each product strikes for the front page of Product Hunt because the front page gets the most exposure.2) The top products of the day are promoted in the PH email digest newsletter.3) The platform can help reach a large audience all at once.4) The most valuable one is that you get honest feedback from the users. They will say exactly what they think about your product. But I’ve realized that to reap these benefits, you have to take a Master Degree in “How To Launch On Product Hunt.” We did our “academic research”, and now we share it. Full transparency. Mayday, Mayday! We Had A ProblemWhen I first started with the preparation for the Product Hunt launch, I’ve personally read everything from page 1 to page 4 on Google (plus the references from each article). The information was confusing. I was confused. Should I link directly to our product post on PH? Should I send mass DMs to people upvoted similar products? Should I ask for feedback only? The answers were so ambiguous and muddy. Then I decided to read only the articles published this year (currently 2017). And this solved my source problem. There was only one article. Product Hunt’s guide ”How to Launch on Product Hunt.” I wish I knew it existed before wasting time reading outdated guides. We have followed only their guide. And it makes sense. It’s their platform, and they know it best. Let me walk you through our launch and eventually clear any ambiguous questions you may have. So… 1) Yo, It’s Nice To Meet You: Pre-LaunchYou will read in almost every guide on ”How to Launch on Product Hunt” that you should start a month away. But they are wrong. A month is not enough. Product Hunt is like a marriage. You don’t marry someone you know for a month. The longer you know someone, the strongest the connection you build. 1.1) Get familiar with this community: Luckily enough, I’ve been a member for years. But if you just hit the signup button and you are planning to launch soon, start exploring the platform. Follow people you find interesting, follow topics, and be helpful by leaving feedback in the comments. Respect people’s work and don’t be rude. If you can’t help, don’t harm. 1.2) Build relationships: What you can do is follow the people from the community on Twitter too. Follow people who share the same interests as you, not the one having the best profile pictures. The first group would be more likely to follow you back and engage with your content on social media. Give back and engage with their content too. 1.3) Build an audience that shares your values: Which means that initially, it is good to find beta-testers or early adopters. Once you give them a valuable product, they are likely to give back. This will be a solid group of people, your community, that will spread the word about your launch. As a colleague of mine said, “It takes a village to raise a child.” It does. 1.4) Use Ship: Ship is like a trailer page for your product. It is also referred to as upcoming pages. This is a very convenient way to share with the community and your audience that something is going to happen. Take advantage of any opportunity you have. We had the chance to test Ship and here is how our upcoming page looks: 2) Set: Hunters, Makers, and Contributor AccessFirst, let’s see how the Product Hunt home page is organized. It has two sections/lists of hunted products: Popular and Newest.Then, upon submission, your product will appear in the newest section. As you may have guessed, everybody’s goal is to get featured on the popular section.It is important to mention that in order to submit your product you should have a contributor access or you should ask a hunter to hunt your product. 2.1) Contributor Access: I strongly advise you to get a contributor access. In fact, if you have followed the first step, you should already have one. The contributor access gives you the right to hunt your own product. If you don’t have access to hunt, you should follow these steps. 2.2) Who Are The Hunters: The hunters are members of the Product Hunt community that have already hunted at least one product. This means that they have a contributor access and most probably are very active members. It used to matter who hunts your product, back in the day when Product Hunt sent an email notification to the hunter’s followers. Since this is no longer applicable, you better spend your time building an audience than hunting hunters. Be comfortable with building value, not just vague relationships. 2.3) Who Are The Makers: Makers are called the people who made the product and are listed/added as makers (you and your teammates). You can be a Hunter and a Maker. 2.4) Should You Hunt Our Own Product: Yes, please. I don’t get why people still want to be hunted by other (more influential) hunters. I hunted our product Flow-e, and we did great. What I love about my company is that we share the same values. We don’t like to be dependent when we can be fully independent. What I mean is that when you hunt your product, you save time, and have full control over launch day logistics. For example, we had a problem with our media visuals for the gallery. We had to resize them and update our page immediately. Of course, we were comfortable; the page was in our possession, so there was zero-time pressure. 3) Timing: When Is The Best Time and Date To Post:3.1) Day:There is enough speculation on this aspect, and I can speculate even more. The best day of the week for launching is when: You know that your audience will be online (a.k.a it’s not a National Holiday for example or Christmas time) Google doesn’t launch new product and Elon Musk doesn’t release The Boring Hat 2.0 This means that you should hunt the big day. For example, we scheduled to launch Flow-e on Tuesday, October 17th however, we didn’t succeed with this launch. Neither we did on the 18th. There were just too little spots left (we were fighting for a place in the top 5) to compete for. So we delayed our launch 2 times before we decided to post our product on the 19th when we hit the 3rd place. 3.2) Time:Here I have a theory, but let me outline the confirmed details first: 1) Product Hunt homepage is based on a 24-hour cycle. This means that the new products hit the homepage at 12:01 am PST. 2) Logically, the earlier you launch, the longer the exposure of your product will be (a.k.a more people will see your product and eventually show some love). About my theory: I believe that you should launch when your audience is online. Because new products are bumped on the popular section when a greater number of votes are received sooner after the launch. Again, this is a theory of mine based on the very close observation I have made months before launching. 4) Ready: Your Checklist on LaunchOn the launch day, these are the things you have to fill out in order your product to be featured on Product Hunt. 4.1) How to post your product: If you want your product to be featured, it has to be hunted. Again, feel free to hunt your own product. As I mentioned before, you need a contributor access to hunt your product. To post your product, log in to your account and click on the ‘+’ next to your profile picture. Now you can start the process. 4.2) Add Links: Add your company/product website as the primary link. Then you can add more links such as App Store, Google Play, or any other place where your product could be found. For example, we added first, followed by our special offer page for the PH community. 4.3) Add your Name: Add the name of your product/company. Neat and Clean – Flow-e.NB: You can also use an emoji in your name, but only if the emoji is a part of the name itself. Otherwise, it is not allowed. 4.4) Add Tagline: You have only 60 characters for this field. Describe your product in one sentence and be specific. Cut the fluff and don’t use common lines such as “the best,” “the most innovative app” etc. For Flow-e we used the following tagline: “Turn your Gmail & Outlook into Trello-like task lists 💌.” Feel free to add icon/emoji in your tagline (but don’t overuse them). It adds nice visual effect and drives attention. 4.5) Add Thumbnail: The thumbnail is your product profile picture. It is used to describe the product with a single visual element. You can use a static visual element or a GIF. Choose the one which will communicate the value prop best. For Flow-e we chose a gif. It was the best way to describe the idea behind. 4.6) Add Gallery: The gallery is the first thing people see when opening your post. I highly recommend making a short video. Under 50 sec. The other assets to have are images that best visualize your product. But not just screenshot. Make them attractive. Communicate with the audience through the visuals. Be sure that the visuals are rectangular (roughly 2:1 ratio), ready for twitter/facebook sharing. If you want your page to start with the video element, upload the video first. Videos are currently the most engaging pieces of information you can create (and are allowed on Product Hunt). We added the video (first) plus 4 visual elements to visualize the problem and our solution. 4.7) Add Topics: Add only the most relevant topics for your product. We’ve added 4. For Flow-e we chose productivity, web app, email, and task management. 4.8) Add Makers: Here is a tip. Make sure that months before launching the makers of your product have active accounts and contributor access. Always add the usernames of everyone that worked on the product. No company accounts, only personal accounts. It is always good to see the whole team engaging with comments. Plus, the followers of the makers receive a notification on launch day. Link both your account – Twitter and Facebook, thus more of your friends will be able to find you. We have added all of our teammates as makers. The whole team worked hard, and we all deserved to be listed as makers. NB: If you have reached this step, then you are ready to go. Once your post is live, there are 3 more sections left to fill out. 4.9) Add Description: The description appears under the gallery section. We have added only 2 sentences. Nothing fancy, only valuable information, short, and to-the-point. No one has the time to read tech novels. 4.11) Add ‘Around the web’: In this section add any news articles, product reviews, Medium articles, etc. 4.12) Add Social Media Links: This is simple as it says. Add your company’s Facebook, Twitter, Medium, and Instagram. If you have an AngelList profile, include it to your post. 4.13) Add Maker Comment: It is important, one of the makers to be the first to comment the product. This will create a prerequisite for a discussion. Keep your intro short, but sweet. I have introduced the team, the problem we are trying to solve and how we plan to solve it with Flow-e. 4.15) Prepare Offers: For the PH community we prepared a special offer. Since we ask for feedback, we want them to have the ability to try out our product under exclusive conditions, available only to the Product Hunt community. Flow-e special offer for Product Hunt. 5) Execution: The Marketing of Promoting Your ProductAsking your network, both online and offline, to help spread the word is always a plus and is NOT against Product Hunt’s rules, as many posts and guides speculate. I will pay detailed attention to what not to do after we have a word about the marketing part of your launch. I will keep it really short, speaking from the first-person opinion. I want to underline that we have reaped the rewards of success thanks to the whole team. They were all involved in the marketing activities on the launch day. I know that most of the tech people hate doing marketing. Marketing is boring when you do it the boring way. Give it a soul, and it will fly. Just pick the task you feel like doing the most. Here is my marketing list I had to execute on the launch day. It kept me awake for 22 hours. I slept 2 hours. Then I woke up 30 minutes before the closure of the 24-hour-cycle. 5.1) Social Media Sharing Tips:• Update your company’s social media covers: Create special covers for Product Hunt. Use only 1-2 sentences with a similar meaning: ‘We are on Product Hunt. Give us Feedback.’ • Prepare social media visuals for the posts: Use the right dimensions for Twitter and Facebook, use strong visual element. Don’t overlap the visual element with heavy text. Use 1 to-the-point sentence. • Tag @ProductHunt when tweeting/sharing: PH looks for makers/company launch tweets and Facebook posts which they can like, share or retweet. Tagging PH is the way they can discover your posts and tweets. • Link directly to your product page: Don’t link to producthunt.com, instead link to your product page. You won’t be penalized for doing so (more on this below). • Limit/No hashtags: I didn’t use any hashtags in my tweets (not to mention in Facebook posts). There is no point in distracting people from seeing the essentials. Instead, I’ve tagged Flow-e and Product Hunt with a link to our post. I’ve also used emoji to catch users attention. • Ask for feedback: Brief your audience about the launch and ask for feedback. You can also mention that there is a special offer, available exclusively to the PH community only. And that’s it. Never ask for upvotes. It looks desperate. • Keep your social media live: Tweet/post on every 2-3 hours. That’s roughly 3-4 times per a workday. 5.2) Post to Groups:Post to groups you are a part of. Don’t harm by spamming and posting to the irrelevant groups. Relevance is what matters. Relevance converts. The relevant audience takes actions and gives feedback. Some of the options are:Facebook groups;Slack groups;LinkedIn groups. NB: Make sure that you have joined these groups weeks before launching. It takes time to be approved by the group’s admin. 5.3) Post to Forums:The same rules apply here. You can post to:Reddit (prepare yourself, their opinion is close to the bone, and they don’t give a carrot about your touchy soul);Y combinator;Startup related forums;Tech-related forums, etc. Don’t be scared to post and ask for feedback. Yes, there is a great chance to be banned from a subreddit for example (I was banned, and I didn’t stop asking for feedback). A friend of mine with a million-dollar startup once told me “If you haven’t been banned from everywhere, means that you haven’t tried hard enough to push your product forward.” You apologize and move on. 5.4) Email your users/friends and family/influencers and supporters:If you have already built an email list, send an email only to the active users (only in case they permitted you to send them emails, otherwise emailing people unsolicited isn’t effective). Don’t ask them to upvote. Don’t ask them to register just to upvote your product. Instead, with 1-2 sentences, explain how important it is to receive feedback about your product. Ask them to take part in the discussion or to write a review on your product page. This will help much more than emailing 10 000 users with no accounts. 5.5) Install Promo Bar:I have installed a promo bar on our website. The bar had the following sentences: “We are on Product Hunt. Give us Feedback.” And a button with a direct link to the Flow-e page. 6) Myth Busters: What Not To DoMarketers, Hunters, and Makers, here is your a NO-NO list. • Ask for upvotes. Don’t ask for upvotes, ask for feedback instead. If you have a good product, it will be appreciated. The community on PH is tech-savvy, and they know when a good product needs attention and support. • Mass-tweet. Don’t mass tweet to users upvoted similar products, influencers, famous hunters, etc. This is not the right way to grab their attention. Once again, people will support you if you are authentic. • Use Thunderclap. Don’t use Thunderclap. This is spammy, ineffective, and easy to detect by Product Hunt’s algorithm. You may end up with a penalty, instead of with a victory. • Hunt a “Hunter.” I’ve already mentioned this, but people tend to ‘torture’ hunters by tweeting and emailing them, asking if they would hunt their product. I’ve hunt our own product, and it was only beneficial to us. We had to make visual edits and some text improvements. Since I’ve hunt Flow-e, the page was in our possession. One of our best decisions was not to waste time ‘hunting the hunter.’ • Link to “producthunt.com.” This is one of the oldest myths. Don’t link to the PH homepage. Link directly to your product page. Why would you want to make it harder for your audience to find your product? Makes no sense. According to PH guide, linking to your product page doesn’t have any effect on the algorithm at all. You won’t be punished for linking directly to your product page. And I can confirm this. Conclusion:And I would like to finish by saying that the marketing of any campaign is an important aspect of your product promotion. However, creating a good product is much more alluring to the community. Even if your product is unpolished diamond, build the value, and the community will show you how to polish it. p.s. Let’s make email great again! 🤘Find the original blog post here Launch and Rank: How we ranked 3rd on Product Hunt p.s open for questions and discussions:)

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10 Essential Rules for UI Design

Design never really used to matter all that much.

It’s hard to imagine now, but before Apple’s meteoric rise to global popularity, design usually took a backseat to functionality. Today, design has become a world onto itself, and the community of designers and developers have united to develop a coherent set of rules for the creative practice.

The evolution of design is constant, and there are always new things to learn and focus on to bring function and aesthetics together in one package.

To stay on top of your design game, here are 10 important rules of user interface design to remember:

1. Cater to Universal Usability

With the explosion of different device types today, one size certainly won’t fit all.

When you create your website or app, you need to make sure that you design with all screen sizes in mind. This means loading fully on both low and high bandwidth Internet connections, to formatting appropriately on both iPad and iPhones.

In the past, developers have concentrated mainly on creating a good user interface for desktop. But, just to refresh your memory, mobile usage overtook desktop usage back in 2014. So, should you now switch your focus to mobile? While it’s important to pay special attention to mobile, it’s also worth considering that desktop usage is still significantly high, with 42% share.

Therefore, the key is to create adaptive user interfaces that will give the consumer a great experience despite the display or orientation of the device they’re using.

2. Clarity

People are extremely busy, and because of this, rarely dedicate their full attention to one task. Because of this, you need to keep your design simple to understand.

Don’t make your users guess. Use language they can easily understand in terms of words, phrases and the concepts. Avoid using special system or industry terms and insist on a language familiar to the audience.

If you’re intending that the user complete certain goals, let the actions be in a sequence that has a beginning, middle and end. When they are done, use a notification to let the user know and include any next steps.

For instance, if you’re designing a page for an online banking system, you can group the actions into “Contact Details”, “Account Details” and “Profile Settings” instead of having them all in a single form.

3. Prevent Errors

Errors aren’t only anomalies and mistakes, but also big roadblocks to visitors taking desired action.

If something goes wrong or loads incorrectly, most visitors won’t wait around for a fix, they’ll just leave. Stay vigilant and stay on a lookout for errors, fixing ones you do spot as soon as possible.

Users don’t like making errors. They feel even worse if they think they are to blame for the error. If they don’t transfer this hate to you and move forward, they will abandon their accounts even before they are set up, for instance.

When designing, eliminate the possibility of an error or design a system that checks the error for them before they go on too far. For instance, let’s say you require users to create a password that’s at least 8 characters long and includes a minimum of one digit.

Will your system let the user go on creating a password that falls short, only to notify them when they’re clicking “Next” or can it notify them as they type the password? The latter is the better design.

4. Make the Interface Consistent

Consistency throughout the user interface boils down to making things continuous, predictable, and within expectations. Designing everything across the board as uniform as possible and making sure there are no surprises or unexpected results goes a long way in making things consistent.

By the Principle of Least Surprise: “If a necessary feature has a high astonishment factor, it may be necessary to redesign the feature.”

Do users have to guess what words mean and which ones mean the same thing? Do they have to worry about clicking a certain button because they are not sure what it will do? Ensure consistency of processes, functionality, appearance and terminology.

Luckily, there’s no shortage of resources on this matter. Most of the reputable website builders will help you with this as they feature a uniform and consistent grid layout design. 

5. Context

As it’s often said today, “Context is everything”. Context is how we’re able to connect new ideas together with old ideas, building relationships and meaning in our world.

The best teacher for this lesson is probably an advertiser. Advertisers know that without context-sensitivity to the time and manner in which they present their ads, then the ads become worthless—and that’s wasted money (look at how Google AdWords determines how to present ads).

Similarly, you have to apply contextual design in your user interfaces. Contextual User Interface is the location-based, time-sensitive and situation-based design of a website or app so that it delivers the most relevant data to the user. And this hasn’t been a major concern for designers until a few years ago.

With the growth of real-time connectivity and dependence on the internet, context could be the cause of your failure or success.

Context is key to human relationships, and equally important for the basic elements of design. We expect interactive objects to be intuitive, and should design to form coherent relationships between our function and design.

6. Size and Distance

Determining the size of UI objects and the amount of whitespace between each other is crucial to making sure that the design looks balanced and predictable.

Apart from gripping the user’s attention, this also helps the users understand where the objects are, without having to look all over the place for it.

Constant testing is best for determining the best way to go about this, enlarging what needs to call for more attention and shrinking what needs to be less distracting.

7. Defaults

Developers and designers usually like customizing everything.

This allows us to have control of everything from interfaces to wallpapers to ringtones. Most people, however, don’t seem to bother with customization. Most devices and other consumer electronics purchased almost never get changed. People typically don’t adjust their factory settings, since changing them takes know-how, time and effort.

By knowing this fact, it’s important to make sure that your default settings are suitable for a large batch of users to easily understand and navigate. This means telling the user, “Hey, you can customize this, but you don’t have to.”

8. Guided Actions

People typically won’t take any action unless they’re asked. That’s why tactics like the call-to-action are so powerful to help drive conversions.

More importantly, ask them “nicely”. What does this mean? For instance, consider the timing and context. Will you ask the user to start another goal without completing the one they are currently on? Consider when a pop up asking them to check out some other stuff appears. If it doesn’t appear after they scroll to the end of the post then you’re doing it wrong.

Take note that it only works when the visitor is actually interested in something you’re offering. If you can prove that you’re providing significant value to people, then don’t hesitate to ask users to do something in return like following your social media pages or blog. This works to keep your users informed, and also to naturally increase your web traffic over time.

9. Feedback

When you walk into a dark room and flick a light switch, you expect the light to turn on. If nothing happens when you flick the switch, you might assume something went wrong. This is equally true when it comes to design.

No one likes being uncertain about their actions, so there should be feedback courtesy of tooltip messages and notifications to show visitors that their actions were successful and have been acknowledged. Feedback can be as simple as running a web survey or adding a “Complete” notification once a form is submitted, but it’s crucial when starting a blog or app.

This also emphasizes the need to not leave your visitors second guessing themselves. The system should be able to offer feedback that is relevant, fitting in importance and urgency, comprehensive and sensible and contextual.

Conclusion

The art of design is ever-changing, and we’ll continue to find new ways to combine function and form into UI design. We’ve been through things like minimalism and responsive design, changing and transforming as newer technologies come to the forefront.

With these ten UI rules in mind, don’t forget that some rules are made to be broken.

Testing and experimenting is how we learn new trusted techniques, but we can rely on several of these rules as our foundation.

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