Best practices in web design never stand still. The fundamentals may stay the same – great functionality, compelling layout and engaging content – but as the internet evolves and user expectations change, so must our approach to developing websites.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2016 -- Web design thrives on two things: innovation and imitation. Unfortunately, there's often a lot more of the latter. We all like to seize upon the latest trends, use them until they're ubiquitous, and then look desperately for the next big thing. Think about sliders. They were all the rage a couple years ago. Today, they feel dated. What to do? Stop chasing micro trends, and start looking at the big picture. Here, we've isolated six web design ideas that are here to stay.

Since the uptake of mobile technology, clients are more focused on responsive and easy-to-use technology than flashy gimmicks which no longer impress. Recognizing these new requirements is fundamental to great design and a happy client. Follow these best practices for 2016 and you shouldn't go wrong.

Be responsive

Smartphones have now overtaken laptops and desktops as the number one device for browsing the web. With this trend showing no signs of slowing, it's never been more important to be responsive. In other words, your design should be optimized to display and function on a variety of screen sizes. Neglect this new era of functionality and your client will probably look elsewhere.

Design for touch

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As with the above, it's essential to design all elements of the website with the mobile user in mind. Navigating a webpage using our fingers instead of a mouse, requires more touchable components and larger buttons. The challenge is providing a platform which doesn't have menus or links overlapping each other or mistakenly opening a wrong window.

Enhance the user experience

User experience has never been more important. With current shifts in the way we use technology, consumers now expect far more from a platform or website. Fail to cater to these requirements and your client will surely lose out to the competition.

During every stage of the design process, it's important to ask yourself whether the website serves its purpose quickly and efficiently. Not only should it be easy to navigate, users should have all the information they need on brand and company ethos without having to search for it.

Design for ease

The interface may be as user-friendly as possible, but without a visually simplistic design to guide a user from one page to the next, the resulting website will have very little bounce rate.

For this reason, an intuitive layout must be at the heart of your design. From big and bold background templates to grid/card patterns, there's plenty of elements that can support navigation whilst adding character.

Simplify your forms

The current theme is ease-of-use at every stage. This includes information request windows which must be as simplistic as every other aspect of the site. Don't expect users to fill out endless details on their mobile devices.

Instead, opt for smaller forms which only require the most important information – name and email will usually suffice. Make use of simple typefaces, always include auto-fill capability and anything else to optimize the process.

These are just a few of the key best practices for 2016. Consider each and every one during the design process to stay on track and ultimately fulfill the client's requirements.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re-marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

From artificial intelligence to wearable, here are some of the biggest ideas shaping web design today.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/07/2016 -- Web design thrives on two things: innovation and imitation. Unfortunately, there's often a lot more of the latter. We all like to seize upon the latest trends, use them until they're ubiquitous, and then look desperately for the next big thing. Think about sliders. They were all the rage a couple years ago. Today, they feel dated. What to do? Stop chasing microtrends, and start looking at the big picture. Here, we've isolated six web design ideas that are here to stay.

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Context is everything. Where and when an interaction happens is now as important as how or why. Is it on a phone? A tablet? Indoors or outdoors? What is the user doing in that moment? Users interact with a product in all kinds of different situations.

Designers have to make the product's response as seamless and as helpful as possible. Of course, they can't instantaneously read a user's context in real time. But sophisticated and emergent artificial intelligence engines can. Such as:

Facebook M
Smart Reply for Gmail
The Grid

Many other forms of artificial intelligence are beginning to automate the web. The eventual outcome: a greater reliance on AI to analyze and interpret user context, and then coordinate the best offers and solutions.

Consider the development of online virtual assistants. Seamless speech interpretation and instantaneous responses to user requests are some of the biggest challenges designers are working on today. Programs like Cortana, Siri, and GoButler are racing to obliterate our ability to discern between man and machine. Virtual assistants such as these will have a tremendous impact on how users interact with web and mobile apps.

AI newbies can get started by using various WordPress plugins like The Client Relations Factory, which puts an animated, autonomous customer-service representative on your website.

2. DIVERSITY
One consistent complaint about the web design world is how often it engages in, shall we say, less than original practices.

The proclivity of WordPress templates, responsive frameworks, and the desire to achieve a certain look (corporate, personal, portfolio, etc.) has led to a large degree of uniformity in design. This can only last so long.

Websites don't have to fit into a mold. Certainly there will be clients who'll want their websites to match others in the same industry. But there are always calls for a fresh take—for something that feels different. Of course, many of these requests are only for superficial differences. However, as the web design industry matures, it's only natural that it should diversify in earnest.

This doesn't mean you need to start putting together abstract designs for novelty's sake. Rather, you should feel free to push boundaries, while holding onto the basics that make for a smooth user experience.

One space where this trend is taking off is in theatrical presentations.

The website for a documentary called Sons of Gallipoli, for instance, has unique navigation and presentation.

Video controls show progress in a semi-transparent overlay while the documentary is still playing.

SonsofGallipoli.com
The site also features unique layouts, grids on demand, CSS3 animations, and a number of other design touches. However, you'll notice that it doesn't forsake usability. The site is still easy to navigate.

3. RICH ILLUSTRATIONS

Mint Design Company
Traditionally, websites use stock photography and other photos for visuals. Moving forward, we will start to see more hand-drawn art.

Hand-drawing offers warmth and a degree of originality that simply can't be met with other visuals. As companies vie for consumers' hearts (and dollars), websites that convey an air of authenticity will be king.

Soon, websites and their brands could be associated with the art style they contain. For example, note how the FleaHex website's art style (pictured below) resembles the design company that created it (pictured above). Imagine a world in which Picasso's blue period plays out digitally for all to see and appreciate. Integrating handmade artwork in web design can become something of a branding calling card.

FleaHex

4. MOBILE/WEARABLE FIRST
Mobile-first design is already well underway, but it will become even more pronounced as the wearables market, which is estimated to be worth $31 billion by 2020, heats up. Google Glass may have fallen flat, but HUD displays aren't going to disappear completely. Not with Oculus Rift and other VR tech coming to the fore. And that's only part of the wearables story.

Wiki Commons
These platforms present a whole new set of challenges for designers making applications and websites accessible. Of course, the basic principles of good UI design still matter. But designers will have to come up with creative ways to accommodate smaller, oddly sized screens and interfaces.

5. MICROINTERACTIONS

Flickr
As information becomes platform-agnostic—available on our watches, our phones, our TVs, and everything in between—seamless user experiences will be more important than ever. Enter microinteractions, those "... momentary events that all add up to create the final experience," as detailed here.

Microinteractions have to feel as unobtrusive as possible. They should require a dearth of thought and effort on the part of the user. They can be achieved in a few clicks or perhaps a more thorough process.

In either case, a microinteraction should consist of four steps:

Trigger
Rule
Feedback
Loop/Mode

The trigger is the initiating action, such as a "read more" button or a notification. The rule is the predefined constraints that govern the interaction. This is usually intuitive, like the ubiquitous hamburger icon. A rule can also be a form that a user might need to fill out. Feedback is the response to the user's action, and the loop is how long the interaction lasts or whether it's repeated. Modes are necessary disruptions from the microinteraction. They're usually unwanted, and should be used sparingly, if at all.

6. RICHER ANIMATIONS
Finally, we get to the good stuff. The whole point of design is to look good after all. And what looks better than rich animations? The web has never looked more dynamic than it does today, and it's only going to get better.

Animations engage the user and enhance storytelling. They make a website seem more like an interactive experience than a simple portal to find information about a certain business, product, service, or individual.

Of course, it's important not to go overboard. Too much movement can scatter focus, and distract, confuse, and irritate users. Keep animations simple and thematically consistent. When I say "thematically" I mean from a storytelling perspective. Your site should unfold like a well-told narrative, revealing important details and guiding users through a path . Use animations selectively to illustrate important points or to indicate a required action.

For example, the website molamil.com uses animations to highlight transitions. On their homepage they begin by introducing their brand and then animate the transition to different entries in their portfolio.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re-marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Web designs trends are a bit like fashion in that they change every year, but unlike fashion, web design is largely dictated by developments in technology. As web platforms change and evolve, so do web design trends. Sometimes the improvements are a good thing; other times not so much.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/05/2016 -- Red Cherry is a Digital Agency based in Calgary Alberta Canada. Last year not a lot changed in the world of web design and most new websites adopted the more minimalist approach that has been in favor in recent years. But developments behind the scenes have been inexorably racing forwards and many of the most popular web frameworks have continued to evolve. So how will the latest changes affect you and what can you expect if you are planning to build or revamp a website for your business?

CSS3 Has Arrived
2016 is the year where some CSS3 layout modules can now safely be used in popular browsers. To the uninitiated, this means that layouts won't look hugely different, but the underlying code will be more reliable and a lot simpler (if you decide to start editing your code).

Animations Galore
Animations are nothing new, but expect to see a lot more animation techniques used in web design over the coming year. Larger animations such as pop-ups are big impact whereas smaller animations don't require much in the way of user input. All can be effective and highly entertaining in small doses, but don't overdo it or your site visitors will be turned off in a big way.

Hamburger Menus
It is becoming increasingly commonplace to view web content on mobile devices. Because of this trend, many web designers have started creating 'hamburger' menus, so navigation is hidden from view until expanded. This creates a cleaner, more aesthetically appealing site, but it isn't the right move for all websites. For one thing users might not discover vast swathes of your website, and for another, users are more likely to give up if navigation pathways are not obvious.

Bring Photos to Life with Cinemagraphs
You may already be familiar with cinemagraphs – they have been around for a while now – but with the advent of 'live photos' on newer iPhones, advertisers and content producers are waking up to how popular a small amount of movement within a static image can be. And with the underlying technology much improved, it is now very easy to produce your own cinemagraphs.

Big, Bold and Beautiful Fonts
Up to now, website designers have mostly stuck to safe fonts, in a boring black, but bold web fonts are now a lot more accessible. There is nothing wrong with plain and boring if you are building a corporate website, but for everyone else, expect to see an explosion of large, colourful fonts in 2016, which should change the way we view text online.

App Overload: It's truly awesome that site owners can integrate 3rd-party tools and apps to their sites, but surely there is a limit. It's tempting to add more functionalities, true, but remember that these tools were all designed separately by completely different people. They often have totally different styles, and, especially if we add multiple apps per page, an aesthetic conflict is inevitable.

Google Deep Dream: The creepy psychedelic universe that Google unleashed is inspiring people to create scary things. For now, it's only our social feeds that are filled with bizarre images of dogs, eyes and limbs, but we fear that soon enough we will start seeing these twisted visuals on websites as well.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re-marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Web design industry is an ever-changing space and there are many trends that come and go. 2015 has been another amazing year for technological advancement and we’ve seen some incredible websites.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/04/2016 -- Red Cherry provides top-notch app development, custom software development, web design and branding that can be all integrated into a digital marketing strategy.

We shouldn't expect radical changes in 2016. We'll see some current trends growing bigger, some of them slowly fading away and some smaller movements taking a part in the web design industry competition.

Let's look at what we should expect of seeing more in 2016 so we can rethink and improve our website.

Natural stock photography

According to 3M Corporation, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. No surprise imagery has been widely used visual element in web design for years.

However, people are tired of cheesy looking stock photos and stock photo disruptors like Unsplash, Stocksy, Death to the Stock Photo and Offset are providing a feasible solution – natural looking stock photos that connect with people on a whole different emotional level. In 2016, we'll be seeing more amazing photos implemented in websites.

Color highly influences the perception of an object and communicates a certain emotional energy that differs from culture to culture. It works because it's straightforward and powerful. We have seen some amazing redesigns in the startup ecosystem including Airbnb, Uber, Medium and Spotify, just to name a few. In 2016, we'll see a continuous growth of the bold color trend.

The rise of Material Design

Flat design paradigm has evolved into a robust Material Design movement in the last couple of years. Material Design is a design language developed by Google GOOGL -1.54%. It has been announced on June 25, 2014, at the 2014 Google I/O conference. Many apps have been utilising this new design language and we'll be seeing more websites utilising material design in 2016.

Micro-interactions

We'll be seeing more of micro user experience (UX) in action that create that delightful feeling of using a website. This trend will be disrupting industries where websites are not that fun to use like airlines, banks, health care, finances and more. Think of funny images, expressions, hidden functionality, smart personalized data and more.

This is more functional than an aesthetic trend. We'll be seeing more of thoughtful content suggestions, personalised notifications and action steps. In the age of digital storytelling, this means that content will be redesigned to fit every individual instead of adapting everything to massive segments. Fast learning artificial intelligence will know our preferences and goals better than ever before. As a result, we'll be seeing more of split screens that allow visitors to choose their own adventure.

Card design

Card design has been around for centuries and it has been rapidly entering the digital world. One of the most notable ambassadors being Pinterest. A card-based design is a great way to display multiple elements and show visitors the assortment of what we have to offer. We'll be seeing more of card-based design as some of the biggest tech players like Google, Twitter, Spotify and MySpace have been adopting this framework recently.

Videos

Viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them, claims MarketingSherpa. Video content helps in the process of building trust between the visitor and the brand. Videos have been hot in the last couple of years and 2016 will be no different, the video will keep growing in terms of content and web design element.

Infographics and data visualisation

Big data has been one of these buzz words that everyone was talking about. According to AnsonAlex, publishers who use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who don't.

In 2016, more websites will be utilising big data and the power of infographics. Boring graphs will be slowly replaced with engaging and interactive infographics and data visualisations that are designed to be easy digested.

Animations

With the rise of web apps, we'll be seeing more unexpected and subtle motion in UI design that takes the whole experience to another level. Get ready for thoughtful transition animations with deeper thoughts behind them instead of seeing generic animations that just look pretty.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, web design is evolving towards richer, more dynamic and personalised digital experiences. We'll be seeing smart solutions that simplify the way we work, connect, discover, learn and play online.

How do we think web design will change in 2016? Share our thoughts

The Ugly

App Overload: It's truly awesome that site owners can integrate 3rd-party tools and apps to their sites, but surely there is a limit. It's tempting to add more functionalities, true, but remember that these tools were all designed separately by completely different people. They often have totally different styles, and, especially if we add multiple apps per page, an aesthetic conflict is inevitable.

Google Deep Dream: The creepy psychedelic universe that Google unleashed is inspiring people to create scary things. For now, it's only our social feeds that are filled with bizarre images of dogs, eyes and limbs, but we fear that soon enough we will start seeing these twisted visuals on websites as well.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re-marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

In the dynamic web design industry things always stay in motion. New and exciting concepts, techniques and tools are constantly being introduced. Original minds keep the industry fresh by challenging norms and coming up with innovative styles. For anyone interested in web design, marketing and online business, this means always keeping your finger on the pulse of the industry.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/09/2015 -- As part of our mission to make professional website building easy, Red Cherry Calgary Web Design Company is always on the lookout for new trends and styles in web design. We want to make sure that our platform offers the most cutting edge designs and modes, and that our users have everything they need to create beautiful websites.

With a new year coming up, we decided to share some of our insights on where web design is headed in 2016. Now, it might seem a bit early for a new year predictions list, but think about it this way: 2016 is one business quarter away. If you want to make sure your website is ready for it, why not start now?

On that note, we are happy to share our the Red Cherry Calgary Web Design Company experts' web design predictions for 2016. By the time you finish reading this you'll be mostly excited, but also a tiny bit terrified.

Web Design Predictions for 2016: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good
Graphic Text: Get ready to see a lot of creative use of text that is comprised of images, textures and patterns. Typography has always been a significant part of web design, but with the integration of texts and other graphic elements, it will now gain even more importance in the overall site look.

Customer-Centric Web Design: The idea that web design should be guided by the customers' needs sounds self-explanatory, and yet it is only now starting to emerge as a serious consideration in the design process. Customer-centric web design promotes designers and site owners to envision the customers' journey through your website and to optimize the site in order to make the journey better.

Centered Content: A powerful style that will become ever more prevalent on homepage designs is centered content, which places the main message of the page right at the center of the screen, surrounded by a striking visual or a smooth texture that creates a dramatic effect. This layout works brilliantly on pages that want to emphasize a minimal amount of content.

Split Content: With centered layouts rocking content-light pages, pages that carry more substance will also get a face lift with split content layout. Split content divides the screen into wide sections, not Pinterest-style boxes. Significantly, the look of each different section can vary, not being dictated by a single aesthetic tone. This gives designers a huge space for creativity without threatening the clarity of content hierarchies.
new

The Bad
Too-Long Scrolling: Mobile design and the hegemony of Facebook made long scrolling a common trend in web design. This type of page layout certainly has a lot of advantages and it generated many fantastically designed websites. However, we are now discovering that there is such a thing as too long. Exhausting scrolling, unclear division of content into section, heavily-animated scrolling effects – these are just some of the risks in designing a page with no end in sight.

Hidden Navigation: Another element that emerged due to the success of mobile design is hidden navigation, which compresses the entire menu into one icon (also known as the Hamburger Menu) that expands once clicked on. This makes perfect sense on a mobile device, where every bit of space is extremely valuable, but the increasing presence of hidden navigation on full-size websites can really harm the site's usability. A golden rule in web design is to avoid unnecessary complications. Hiding the navigation menu and adding an extra click in the visitors experience is pretty much a textbook definition of a complication.

Overlapping Elements: A text on an image, which is placed on a shape, which is placed on an image, which is placed on a pattern background with a conflicting color palette – who can make sense of all of this chaos? Let's agree to keep things clear, and one way to do that is to avoid excessive and offensive layering.

Website Intro Page: Society is facing a serious problem. Websites are gaining too much weight. Instead of addressing this issue by trying to reduce the content load (and thus improve the loading time!), more and more people choose to disguise the problem by adding an introduction page to their site, where visitors are greeted while the chubby site slowly loads. The outcome? Instead of bringing your visitors closer, you push them away by adding an extra page to their viewing experience. Sometimes it's easier to just go on a content diet.

Website Intro Page

The Ugly
App Overload: It's truly awesome that site owners can integrate 3rd-party tools and apps to their sites, but surely there is a limit. It's tempting to add more functionalities, true, but remember that these tools were all designed separately by completely different people. They often have totally different styles, and, especially if you add multiple apps per page, an aesthetic conflict is inevitable.

Google Deep Dream: The creepy psychedelic universe that Google unleashed is inspiring people to create scary things. For now, it's only your social feeds that are filled with bizarre images of dogs, eyes and limbs, but we fear that soon enough we will start seeing these twisted visuals on websites as well.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re-marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Static site generators seem to have been becoming more and more popular recently, but they’re not one of those ephemeral novelty things that grow in popularity as quickly as they fall into oblivion shortly after.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/03/2015 -- The aim of this article is to help people of all skill levels understand exactly what static site generators are, acknowledge their advantages, and understand if their limitations are a deal-breaker or if, on the contrary, they can be overcome. With that, we'll hopefully be able to make an informed decision on whether or not a static site can be the solution for our next project.

How dynamic sites work
Try to imagine for a second that the only way for people to know what's happening in the world is to go to the nearby news kiosk and ask to read the latest news. Yes, I know it's silly but it will all make sense in a bit, please bear with me.

The attendant has no way to know what the latest news are, so he passes the request on to a back room full of telephone operators — picture a big telephone switchboard room in the 1950s. When an operator becomes available, they will take the request and phone a long list of news agencies, ask for the latest news and then write the results as bullet points on a piece of paper.

The operator will then pass his rough notes on to a scribbler who will write the final copy to a nice sheet of paper, arrange them in a certain layout and add a few bits and pieces such as the kiosk branding and contact information. Finally, the attendant takes the finished paper and serves it to the happy customer. The entire process will then be repeated for every person that arrives at the kiosk.

That is essentially how a dynamic website works. When a visitor gets to a website (the kiosk) expecting the latest content (the news), a server-side script (the operators) will query one or multiple databases (news agencies) to get the content, pass the results to a templating engine (the scribble) who will format and arrange everything properly and generate an HTML file (the finished newspaper) for the user to consume.

How static sites work
The proposition of a static site is to shift the heavy load from the moment visitors request the content to the moment content actually changes. Going back to our news kiosk metaphor, think of a scenario where it's the news agencies who call the kiosk whenever something newsworthy happens.

The kiosk operators and scribbles will then compile, format and style the stories and produce a finished newspaper right away, even though nobody ordered one yet. They will print out a huge number of copies (infinite, actually) and pile them up by the store front.

When customers arrive, there's no need to wait for an operator to become available, place the phone call, pass the results to the scribble and wait for the final product. The newspaper is already there, waiting in a pile, so the customer can be served instantly.

And that is how static site generators work. They take the content, typically stored in flat files rather than databases, apply it against layouts or templates and generate a structure of purely static HTML files that are ready to be delivered to the users.

Switching to a static site can potentially save us time and money, as it requires less maintenance and less server resources. They're reliable, scalable and can handle high volumes of traffic quite well.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to our site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if we don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure our business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry Calgary Web Design
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Think about this for a second: every person in the world with access to the Internet is a potential customer for your business, no matter how big or small. Sounds a little intimidating when we think about it, but it’s true. Now think about the competition that exists for those virtual customers.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/07/2015 -- It's pretty daunting, to say the least. Now take that same scenario and apply it to the thousands of businesses competing for customers – both visiting and local—here in the Napa Valley. These customers are taking identical steps to search the web for best available options before deciding to visit, browse, inquire or purchase.

What are they doing to give themselves the edge among the local competition? Do you have a website? Does it give the best possible representation of their business, products and services provided? Does it provide an opportunity to collect customer data?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, we highly recommend to get in touch with Red Cherry Web Design and Development. It's locally-owned and -operated and focuses on design, development, maintenance and support.

Websites are not often considered as part of the overall business plan. For someone without a marketing background, the process of actually building one can be a little intimidating. Invictus Local takes the stress and strain away, and makes it really easy for you to have a new responsive website that is mobile, tablet, and desktop friendly. Those potential customers will have the best possible experience on your website no matter what device they use.

It's one-stop shopping for everything related to your site. Design, development, maintenance, security updates — even website updates if you don't have designated in-house marketing capabilities. Invictus Local also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure your business can be found on more search sites, mobile services, and social networks.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The increased use of smartphones around the world has put the Internet and everything that comes with it within the palm of our hand.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2015 -- In April of 2015, Google began implementation of its "mobile-friendly" search algorithm update, and soon thereafter revealed its mobile phone search volume now exceeds desktop/tablet search volume in the U.S., Japan and eight other countries. These incredibly important data points demonstrate how mobile Internet usage is changing the rules of the game for company websites. Responsive Web design is a set of techniques used to make a website adjust for optimum display on any size screen. For small businesses, responsive design is a must. Without it, small businesses will lose ground in SEO and paid search campaigns, and perhaps even worse, alienate the growing ranks of mobile users who visit — and quickly exit — the company website.

This update:
Affects only search rankings on mobile devices
Affects search results in all languages globally
Applies to individual pages, not entire websites

While the mobile-friendly change is important, we still use a variety of signals to rank search results. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal -- so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query.

To check if the site is mobile-friendly, we can examine individual pages with the Mobile-Friendly Test or check the status of the entire site through the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools. If the site's pages aren't mobile-friendly, there may be a significant decrease in mobile traffic from Google Search. But have no fear, once the site becomes mobile-friendly, we will automatically re-process (i.e., crawl and index) the pages. We can also expedite the process by using Fetch as Google with Submit to Index, and then the pages can be treated as mobile-friendly in ranking.

Here is how a small business can shift to a responsive design efficiently and without enormous expense:

The key to shifting from a desktop-only website to a responsive website is simplification. Start by simplifying navigation. If the current top line navigation has 10 or 12 links (this is typical; the number of links tends to grow over the years), get it down to four or five. Simple and straightforward links appeal to mobile users; something like: Products, About, Testimonials, Contact. In a responsive design, this top line navigation will be sticky; i.e., it will be fixed at the top of the page, always in view no matter how much vertical scrolling the user does.

Simplify content. Most company websites say too much. Eliminate unnecessary content: remember, if we have a lead generation website, the content isn't supposed to sell the product, only get users interested enough to call or submit a form. Use frequent, descriptive subheads to facilitate scanning, and keep paragraphs exceedingly short.

Simplify design. Complex design impedes responsive design effectiveness in two crucial ways; first, it confuses and distracts users, and second, causes slow page loading time, a big negative for Google organic rankings and users. Stick with simple designs and imagery and leave ample white space for a pleasurable mobile experience. Get rid of PDFs (convert them to HTML pages), JavaScript, and rotating banners as much as possible.

Prioritize page content. In responsive design, page content is organized into discrete chunks and then "stacked" for mobile scrolling. We must decide the order in which content elements — introductory text, images, calls to action, informational text, credibility elements, etc. — appears. This can be laborious, but it's a terrific exercise, since it forces we to really think about how to present the company, products and services for maximum user impact.

Test and get user feedback. A convenient aspect of responsive design is that the new website can be built "live" online, so the staff and customers can try it out before it goes live. This is an opportunity we should embrace. Users testing the site on their mobile phones can tell we very quickly whether the site is easy to use, confusing or somewhere in between. Since responsive design is new, content and design assumptions may not be correct; testing allows us to launch a credible responsive website rather than one that is seriously flawed, despite the good intentions.

A solid responsive website will help keep the organic search engine visibility strong, and possibly give we an advantage over competitors that have yet to adapt, in terms of SEO and lead/sales conversion.

A final tip: When we look for an agency or freelancer to do the build, make sure to select one with experience and a demonstrable track record of success with responsive design. The techniques and processes used for responsive design have several fundamental differences from desktop-only design. Responsive design is an emerging field, but fortunately one with plenty of skilled participants.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Re marketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

As the web continues to evolve at a breakneck, Moore’s-law pace, the divisions between traditional design and development are increasingly shifting.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2015 -- The "learn to code" movement is also gaining momentum among designers, but we'd be hard pressed to find a similarly strong movement for other disciplines within a team. Perhaps there should be.

We should all be striving to learn, but the question remains, what exactly should we learn? Maybe it isn't as simple as "learn to develop" or "learn to design," but is about learning to communicate and collaborate, to respect the nuances of each other's craft — and the artistry and reason that they both demand in equal measure — without attempting to master it for oneself.

The editor's draft of CSS 4 arrived in early February, and while the possibilities are exciting and plentiful, it's very easy to be overwhelmed by them. We're still fully exploring the fringes of CSS3; for those just starting in the coding world, just knowing where to start can be akin to finding a needle in a haystack. This growth and progress is both a blessing and a curse, and it raises questions about the lines between design, development, creativity and logic, how the disciplines fit together and where we fit in.

These days, both design and development are fragmenting into more and more specialized, nuanced disciplines. There is almost no such thing as a web designer anymore; one is an interaction designer, a visual designer, a user experience designer or something else entirely. The word "developer" ceases to carry meaning, too. What kind of developer? Back end, front end, full stack, iOS, Android, web or something else entirely? Job titles have become more specific, and yet skill sets are expected to broaden.

Developers needs to understand design, and vice versa, but neither wants to give up what they love most about their own discipline. It's easy to fall behind, to feel pressured to keep a foot in each world. We might want to learn to code or design, but code what? Design what? Each framework or design principle has its own unique dependencies, an entirely separate set of balls to juggle while we learn. Furthermore, without a way to practically apply it — within our work or outside of it — that knowledge is easily lost. A designer or developer looking to learn the other discipline can easily become intimidated and confused about where to begin, no matter how many initiatives and resources are out there.

Cameron Moll tweeted about this feeling in early January, capturing very well the expectation of designers and the emotions that come with it. It also begs the question, why is there no similar expectation of developers, of teams, managers, project managers or any other member of the team? Why is the emphasis not being placed on teamwork and collaboration, on fostering a shared understanding based not on technical knowledge, but on interpersonal knowledge? Surely, strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration would create far more effective teams than teaching designers a coding language or teaching developers the ins and outs of Illustrator.

Then…

Four years ago, way back in 2010, Elliot Jay Stocks tweeted his surprise that web designers still exist who can't code their own designs. Treehouse cited that tweet in its article "5 Good Reasons Why Designers Should Code" and in the context of the time, it made sense. CSS3 hadn't happened yet. HTML5 was still a twinkle in the W3C's eye, reaching its first public working draft only in 2008. The term "responsive web design" would be coined only four months later.

While it was an exciting time, the idea of a designer learning to code wasn't entirely overwhelming, at least in retrospect, and it was about to become the norm. But the expectation was clear: "Learn to code" meant "learn HTML and CSS," or learn enough of it to bring designs to life. Similarly, "design" was restricted to the Adobe suite and creating flat comps of website designs. There was a solid line between disciplines, but that is no longer the case.

… And Now

Things have changed, and quickly. The landscape of learning is shifting, too. Along with the aforementioned CSS 4 specification, which offers even greater control of styles, a whole host of resources are now popping up that are encouraging designers to learn how to code — and code everything. It's not just about bringing a static web page design to life anymore. There are courses for iOS development and prototyping, and places such as Fast Company offer guides on how to get started, in case we're at a loss. There's Ruby on Rails, too, and the data visualization movement is continuing to gain traction.

It's not just about turning PSD to HTML anymore, but about developing for iOS and creating web applications in Ruby or AngularJS or whatever else our company or customer is using. Design and code blur into one another with exciting concepts such as SVG animation and the various data visualization libraries. But this is just a drop in the ocean of possibility, and we can't possibly be expected to traverse it all. Susan Robertson writes on A List Apart about being overwhelmed by code, by "the constant pressure to learn new things and keep up with all the latest ideas."

This pressure isn't surprising, but it is avoidable. To make sure that what we learn will be useful to us, we have to ask ourselves why the learn-to-code movement exists in the first place. It exists to foster inter-departmental communication, to make the process of creating a product that much smoother. So, perhaps, rather than focusing on understanding the mechanics of each other's work (coding languages and Photoshop etiquette), we should focus on softer skills, on improving collaboration and communication from a holistic perspective. Learning each other's discipline is only a part of this.

Finding A Common Foundation
As a starting point, we need to balance the expectations on both sides. Yes, designers should understand the workflows of development, but the same is true of developers (and project managers and whoever else is involved in a project). They don't need to learn the details of Photoshop or Sketch or color theory, but knowledge of general design principles and processes is useful and will ease collaboration and communication. We can only become better designers and developers by learning to communicate better with one another.

Stephen Caver at Happy Cog agrees, saying that developers need to acquire an eye for design and encourage this empathy among teams. Stephen made the transition from design to development himself and offers the perspective of someone who has been on both sides of the fence, and he understands that the fence needs to be torn down. Similarly, Sam Hernandez, also a developer at Happy Cog, acknowledges the unique communication challenges of developers in particular, but he also says that star developers do not avoid them; rather, they find ways to communicate and collaborate with the non-technical team. These developers are empathetic not just towards design, but towards the product and client as well. They see beyond the minimum viable product.

Meanwhile, the design world is now seeing movements such as Brad Frost's atomic design — design initiatives that borrow concepts from object-oriented programming. Designers can (and should) leverage tools such as Zeplin and Specctr to better communicate their designs to developers. Smashing Magazine offers a guide on creating design specifications that would be useful to the developer but not too time-consuming for the designer. The co-creation of style guides is an exercise that helps both designer and developer and that promotes understanding of each other's discipline. The act of creating the style guide together is what is most valuable to this relationship between designer and developer, not necessarily the end product.

We forget sometimes how similar design and development are, both of which boast creativity as their foundation. Great designers and developers see creativity as a key part of their craft, but the connection between the two is rarely made. The term "creative" is used exclusively (and erroneously) to mean "designer." Great code is its own form of artistry, and it is expressive and beautifully elegant when done well. In my opinion, a great solution to a development challenge shows ingenuity and imagination just as much as a design challenge shows logic and science.

Having arrived at Myplanet, I've found the sprint retrospective to be an incredibly useful guide for my own development, be it in code, interaction design or interpersonal relationships — I can ensure that I'm improving in areas that matter. Within our retros, we discuss what's gone well and how to build on it, what hasn't gone well and ways to improve. This kind of constant adaptation was new to me, but it was exactly what I was looking for. In this way, I've learned that whatever skills I develop are of practical use, and I've found myself worrying far less compulsively about specialization, generalization and the myth of the unicorn. Whatever I learn on the side, I learn because I want to, not because I feel I have to.

For example, as a result of retros, our team has co-located in order to facilitate communication. I brought up some worries I had about the technical side of a project, and as a result got the opportunity to learn more about Drupal. I also know which method of communication to use (verbal, email, Skype, NERF gun), according to whether my developer colleague has headphones on or what time of day it is. This seems obvious, but it's the kind of information that we don't get unless we ask for it, and I find it just as valuable as learning to code. Retrospectives aren't always easy, and they're just one example, but whatever technique we use, learning that empathy is important.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

With the growing popularity of content management systems (CMS) as marketing tools, web design skills are becoming a must have across the marketing industry.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/03/2015 -- Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with you to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years. We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development. With over 500+ websites launched and 150+ enterprise software builds Red Cherry Web Design and Development team is seasoned and talented.

While the ability to have anyone edit a website is an added convenience for companies, most of these website editors don't have an understanding of best practices. The good news is, you don't need a degree in design to keep the company website up to a designer worthy standard. Keeping these seven tips in mind will not only save your designer a headache, but they will contribute to your thinking on any future design related project that crosses your desk. Now that you don't need coding skills to edit the company website, employees from all different backgrounds have the ability to contribute to the company website. While this is great from a content perspective, it can leave designers cringing. Nothing is worse than delivering a perfectly designed website to a client just to see it go a little further downhill with each and every edit by a well-meaning layperson.

1. Keep it Simple

Less is more, but less is often much harder to achieve than more. The biggest mistake I see non-designers make is to add elements (bold! underline! symbols and pictures!) to emphasize a point. Simplicity is the key to effectively getting your point across and making it easy for your website visitors to understand your message.

Visual Hierarchy

This key term is something I find myself repeating all too often in our office. Make sure that all elements on a webpage are relative in size to their importance. Every element on the page cannot carry the same importance so, it shouldn't carry the same visual weight. More important elements can be easily distinguished with placement, size and color.

Contrast

Pick up where your designer left off. Your website's color scheme has been taken into very careful consideration, so utilize it. Choose colors in your scheme that are on opposite ends of the spectrum, it will help viewers distinguish elements and take the appropriate action. Do NOT choose colors that are not in the website scheme simply because you think it will catch someone's attention – too often, you WILL catch someone's attention, but not for the right reasons.

Flow

Get rid of the excess. Keep your buyer's journey as simple as possible. Your choices should keep the number of times a user needs to click to get to their destination to as few as possible.

2. Downplay Color

Yes, I will admit, color is generally the "fun" part to any design. With that said, it's easy to go overboard really quickly. This is the biggest gripe I have with non-designers who get a hold of the websites I've designed. Color should be used sparingly (don't forget tip one) and for emphasis, to really drive home a point – NOT as decoration. I know the gray your designer chose to implement for supporting elements seems boring, but I promise they had their reasons for using it. Neutral color choices for background elements put the one or two colors in your brand's logo at the forefront. Your visitors will understand when they should take action because that button on your landing page is the boldest thing in front of them.

If you do decide to go against these tips and use extra color, please do so responsibly. Request the hex codes for the main colors of your site so that any and all color you do use is accurate according to your brand guidelines.

3. Limit Font Selections

Typography is a tricky thing to master, and most designers will admit they are in a constant state of learning about this element. Always use caution with typography. The "less is more" rule applies here with absolutely no exceptions. Too many typefaces will make your site feel chaotic.

Don't put your user in a panic (and please don't remind them of a bake sale poster their seven year old created in Word!) – pick one typeface for your headers and another for your body text. Stick to these choices and don't incorporate any more unless you plan on replacing a typeface entirely. Before making typography choices on your own, make sure your brand guidelines don't have strict rules already planned out. Chances are someone has already made this decision for you.

4. Keep it Readable

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know how we feel about content. Content is King if you are using inbound marketing to attract prospects and convert them to leads. At the root of things, what makes content possible? Typography. Make sure it is formatted for the best user experience possible.

Contrast

Your copy should be significantly darker than your background, or significantly lighter than your background so that it is easy to read.

Line-height

Your website is not a dictionary, don't treat it as such. Set your line-height from 1.5 to 1.75 to ensure that lines have enough room to breathe. In most cases, this will be set up for you in your website's CMS, but it is still something you should keep in mind.

Font Size

Who is the target audience for your website? Is it an older demographic? If so, you may want to make your font larger so that folks with reading glasses aren't straining to read all that content you've created.

Hierarchy

We touched on this in tip one, but it is worth mentioning again. Users scan copy, so make it incredibly easy for them to absorb what you are trying to say. Make use of headlines, sub-headlines and list structures. In doing so, you will also benefit from an improved search engine ranking because search engines LOVE keyword-rich headings.

5. Responsive, Responsive, Responsive

I cannot say it enough, responsive websites should now be considered a requirement. If you aren't optimized for mobile, you will be penalized. Always have mobile users in mind.

If you take tip one into consideration, things should work out fairly easily for you on mobile. To create a great mobile site, you will want to eliminate any clutter (utilizing whitespace), maintain a visual hierarchy and make it super easy for visitors to take action. Forms should be large enough so that big fingers can easily complete them and call to action buttons should be large enough to be easily tapped and difficult to miss.

6. Imagery

Not only should you have amazing website copy, but you should always be thinking about stunning imagery. Take some pride in your image choices. You don't have to have a design background to know something looks good. My advice is that you take a few extra minutes on your stock photo search and don't just use a relevant photo – use one that pushes the envelope a little bit.

Images should spark emotion. If your image is large, clear and relevant it should do just that.

I cannot stress this point enough. The right image can make or break a design. Despite how beautiful a website layout may be, a generic image can divert the user's attention. This tip could arguably be more important than our advice about copy. Remember that users scan pages before really diving into the copy. Make them want to read your copy, don't just add an image because you think you should, make it your showcase.

7. Make It Obvious

It's all about the conversions. Creating an enticing call to action (CTA) takes into account every single one of the aforementioned tips.

Be as obvious as possible. If you want your user to sign up for something, say so! Tell the user exactly what you want them to do using action-oriented words like "click here" or "download it now."

Make it big. Make it colorful.

Your call to action button shouldn't look like a billboard on your homepage, but it should carry enough visual weight to immediately attract the user's attention. Employ visual hierarchy here and make sure that your CTA button takes second place only to your headline.

Be exclusive.

Incentivize call to action. Always make the CTA about the user, not about what you want from them. Even if you just want them to sign up for an email newsletter, make sure they are receiving a valuable incentive for the type of information they are providing you with.

These seven tips are fail-proof for every piece of content related to your inbound marketing. The tips discussed here can be utilized throughout print, web and ebook creation. Just remember, conversions are always the end goal and the more transparent you make a user's choices, the easier it will be for them to do what you want them to.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Established in 1999 as a Calgary web design company, Red Cherry has been serving up the best in digital marketing, software development and website design for clients in Canada and the USA.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/01/2015 -- Red Cherry provides top-notch app development, custom software development, web design and branding that can be all integrated into a digital marketing strategy. We see our project through, from conception to planning, design, development and marketing. At Red Cherry, we love what we do and it shows through our satisfied clients. We made it happen for them. Let us make it happen for us! We have over 10 years of industry experience with a proven track record. We provide clear and transparent results with quality assurance on all of our software products. Bottom line for our clients is their ROI and complete satisfaction.

Scott Venturo LLP is a multi service law firm based in Calgary, Alberta. Since its establishment in 1986, Scott Venturo LLP has become one of Calgary's leading legal service providers, focussing on delivering high quality, efficient solutions for clients. The partners, associates and staff of Scott Venturo LLP come from a wide range of backgrounds, and this experience enables us to offer responsive, effective and creative legal solutions to our clients.

We started as a litigation boutique. The firm continues to offer experienced and highly regarded counsel, with significant skill and expertise in a wide spectrum of litigation areas including all areas of civil litigation, all aspects of insurance defence work, corporate and commercial litigation, oil and gas disputes, and employment matters, as well as general litigation, personal injury, medical malpractice, and family law. Our litigators have appeared before all levels of Courts in Alberta, many other Courts in Western Canada, and the Supreme Court of Canada.

It's certain that Google will continue to update their algorithm with more sophisticated signals and ranking formulas; it's only a matter of when. But Panda 4.1 is continuing a several-year tradition of rewarding high-quality original content, and it's likely that this trend will only continue. The best thing we can do is refine our content creation strategy and make sure our blog is as original, unique, valuable, and well-written as possible. Publish new, high-quality content regularly, and we'll put ourself in a perfect position for a boost when Panda 4.2--or whatever the next update is--starts rolling out.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The web as we know it today has become incredibly powerful and usable. This is partly down to web developers across the US and around the world removing the distinction between desktop and mobile designs, and creating better online environments for people on all devices.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/08/2014 -- The future of web design is mobile, but also scalable. I recently asked Mark at Geeks Chicago, a web design company based in Chicago, for his professional expertise and opinion, and these points were the most predominant:

Mobile and desktop combined

The mobile design philosophy of responsive websites is arguably the biggest change that has occurred in the web design world in recent years. However, its proliferation initially ushered in a sharp distinction between desktop and mobile sites, with apps becoming the norm for websites. For a while it looked like browser websites might not be the future of mobile devices. With the massive improvements in mobile hardware, however, and new responsive design techniques, the gaps between mobile devices and computers have been bridged to a reasonable extent, making it possible for developers to easily add mobile capabilities to websites of old. Cutting a design for mobile and desktop now takes less manpower than before, but designers still have to carefully think through their designs.

With the help of HTML5 and the dropping of some common web design technologies, website designers can now design websites that can be rendered on a 3.5" smartphone or on a 60" TV, without losing anything.

Choose the hierarchy carefully

All developers need to accomplish this is to focus more on the main constituents in user agents and browsers. A site that is heavily reliant on JavaScript in both design and content will be a failure with browsers that do not support JavaScript. Therefore, the key to proper scaling of sites is to know which browsers our target audience is using and what they can and cannot do. The next thing to focus on is the information hierarchy and how it is perceived by users and the search engines. A basic design structure that properly takes hierarchy to heart when formatting content will always appear much more desirable than one that renders pages badly, while trying to incorporate the most elaborate design styles.

How do we avoid totally different mobile site designs?

When we take into consideration the different browsers that don't have all the features we may want as a developer, we might think we will end up creating a mobile site that is optimised to look very different from the desktop version. Fortunately, there are solutions to facilitate cross-browser rendering: Fluid layouts and Media Query function. Fluid layouts have made it possible for designers to move from a laptop screen all the way up to a TV. Scaling down beyond laptops was a big issue for designers until Media Query function came into the equation. With the Media Query functionality, the browser is asked for its width and the design is scaled accordingly. This is basically the technology behind Responsive Web Design. It allows developers to use the exact same code and structure to scale a site from a phone all the way to a High Definition TV, without dramatically changing the overall layout. So, the future of web design is scalability.

Designers no longer have to develop a mobile site and a desktop site separately. Instead, we can now see mobile websites that can fit easily on any screen or user agent.

About Red Cherry App Development Calgary
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. they work closely with us to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherry.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The web has experienced some big changes over the past few years. There was a time when the only way to create an all-singing, all-dancing site was to use a proprietary platform like Flash.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/26/2014 -- So when Flash died there was something of a void left behind. We consoled ourselves with the hope that one day native web technology would rise up to take its place...

Recently there have been a number of websites that have delivered on the promise that HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript could rival and surpass the Flash websites of old. However, whilst the execution of these websites is to be admired, how many of them deliver the 'immersive' experience they are striving for?

There are three important factors to look for in an immersive experience.

A powerful story
No one probably don't needs to spend too much time convincing us of the power of a good story. Who hasn't been stuck in the world of a book or film or TV show for days after? They might need convincing, however, that the web can deliver such a powerful narrative. A common theme with 'immersive' websites is making smart use of the scrollbar. The most basic form of navigating the length of page can be subverted - turning it into a timeline of our content. They must structure our message and guide the user through our story in any number of meaningful and unexpected ways.

User interaction
This is where many immersive websites fail. There can be some negative consequences to the 'scroll-hijacking' technique (as it is known) as described above, not least of which is frustration on the part of the user. These guys are used to controlling the websites they visit, they want to get where they are going, and they want to get there fast. Unless they've prepared themselves that there is a payoff that makes our imposition on their scrollbar worthwhile, then they're going to lose them. The same goes for extensive non-skippable video, slow animated interfaces, and anything else that impedes their progress through a site.

They'll also want to make sure that our interface is not completely impenetrable. Users are used to certain navigational patterns, and when they betray those patterns in favour of our own strange invention then they'll have to do some learning. This could be a problem. Remember a user out there in the wild is never as generous to our creative ambitions as they imagine they will be. If they annoy or confuse them, they will leave.

Be creative, not a copycat –
To end on a less pragmatic note, the real key to driving immersion is to be creative. our world, our story, our message is unique and they need to be true to it when delivering our content. Don't stray towards trends - do our own thing. If we carefully consider the balance between our own goals and our users' emotions / hair-trigger intolerance, then they can deliver an engaging, immersive experience that our users will love and probably share with their friends.

The Good and the Bad

Here are a couple of examples to demonstrate my theories on creating immersive experiences. First, let's look at "Far Cry 4: What are they made of?". It feels weird to be calling this a 'bad' example because the production values are so high, but the initial excitement that stirred me with the stunning visual and audio effects soon dissipated and left me confused and disappointed. It suffers from overly-long video content where I am merely a passenger (I'm not here for the TV experience) and some slightly abstract, obfuscated methods of interaction coupled with little understanding of the effects of my actions left me cold. A little concession towards my emotions as a user would elevate this experience to be 'immersive' and encourage me to interact.

At the other end of the spectrum, a big winner based on my criteria for analysing immersive websites is "PI's Epic Journey: Creating the Unforgettable". It's a journey behind-the-scenes of the film, demonstrating the production process and it's engaging from beginning to end. Most of the interaction is driven by the scrollbar, meaning I can take it at my own pace, and even jumping back and forth through the content. It is so well executed that it feels like this is the only way to adequately tell the 'making of' story. Those extras on our DVD, that they sit back and watch, pale in comparison. The smart empowering navigation, beautiful visuals, and narrative stack up to a truly immersive experience.

About Red Cherry App Development Calgary
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. they work closely with us to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The big question that every business owner asks is how to get ranked number 1 in Google for their keywords.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/26/2014 -- Let's assume we are talking about Search Engine Optimization a.k.a. SEO. Paid search will let them get to page one quickly, but it will cost them each time someone clicks on our link.

Back to SEO, where the first page doesn't come in a day. Most people when they ask this question are thinking of one thing: a "fat head" keyword. Something like, let's say "dentist."

They think "if They only ranked for the word dentist, they would get so much business!" This person might even have used to Google Keyword Planner to get estimated search volume, done the math and saw a pot of gold at the end of the search rainbow.

Ranking for "dentist" might get them a lot of new business, but there are a few things to consider.

Is it worth the time and effort to focus on only one keyword?

Is it realistic, if at all even possible?

If Google shows different results to different people, will it really pay off as much as I think it will?

How qualified will those leads be?

Would spending some of our money on a conversion-friendly page be better than investing it all in SEO?

Do the majority of people still search that way?

What is going to make them any more of a dentist than any other dentist out there? I.e. how are they going to be more RELEVANT for that search?

For those of us not familiar with "Fat Head" "Chunky Middle" and "Long Tail" this diagram from the leading SEO site Moz illustrates the idea quite well:

"Dentist" would be a fat head term for our purposes. Below I've classified a few in each of the categories:

Fat Head: dentist, dentist office, dental office, dental clinic

Chunky Middle: dentist toronto, dental office toronto, toronto dentist emergency, toronto dentist open sunday, toronto dentist prices, toronto dentist downtown.

Longtail: "what dental procedures are covered by OHIP?" "does it hurt to have a root canal?" "are dental x-rays damaging?"

If they focus on creating a website that satisfies a good portion of the chunky middle and even a small slice of the long-tail, they'll inevitably end up satisfying Google for the fat head keywords like dentist, dentist office, and dental clinic (for some of the searchers, remember that everyone's search results are different).

If they're still set on fat head keywords, be prepared to pay! …in a number of ways.

If they're talking PPC, we may pay $8-9 per click (current estimated bid in Toronto Canada).

If they're talking SEO, we could end up paying a very big price: having our site never show in Google search results again!

If an SEO company says they can get us to the number one position in a number of weeks they

a) have a black hat link network that they'll gladly weave them into for a hefty fee

b) are wizards.

Choosing "A" is very risky, because although our site may get some traffic, the next Google algorithm update is bound to knock us off the first page. Do they really want to go through hiring extra staff when business is good, then have to lay them off because they're no longer ranking? If they choose this path, and they're de-indexed from Google, our only hope is to build a new site and re-name our business while they're at it.

So really, how long does it take to make it to the first page of Google?

If they're doing it with sustainability in mind, then it will probably take 3-6 months depending on how much they invest, and how savvy our competition is.

They need a long-term effort that takes a holistic approach and not simply SEO and building links. They need to have content to go after those chunky middle and long-tail terms (blogs are especially great for long-tails). We'll also benefit from social media in order to get that content out there. Ideally, also we're willing to put a little bit of budget into Facebook promoted posts to expand our reach.

As they begin to work with a reputable SEO agency, our site's authority will increase. They can use a tool like Open Site Explorer to find out our Domain Authority (similar to Google pagerank, but a much more accurate and more frequently updated indicator of site quality). As our site ages it will earn Google's trust and will begin to rank for a broader range of keywords. On average, they expect to see first page organic rankings at the 3-6 month mark (this can take less, or more time depending on our industry). After 3-6 months our goal is to rank on the first page for a subset of the initial keyword list. They will track/report on a wide-range of keywords so they can chart our progress over time. An SEO agency shouldn't limit them to a tight list of keywords to focus on, remember if that were the case they'd be missing out on a lot of "chunky middle" traffic.

About Red Cherry SEO Calgary
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with us to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Google's Panda algorithm update has been shaking up the world of SEO since its first iteration back in 2011.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/26/2014 -- Over the course of 26 confirmed updates and refreshes, the algorithm wizards at Google have been refining the content-focused search engine update and rolling their new features out gradually. Now, the 27th update has arrived, and it's significant enough to be called 4.1.

I've written this guide to summarize the most important elements of the Panda 4.1 update, including the motivation behind its release and the potential consequences for online businesses.

Understanding the Landscape

Before I get too deep in the mechanics of the new Panda update, it's important to recap the stages of development that have led to this point.

The first Panda update, known as Panda 1.0, was released in February of 2011, affecting nearly 12 percent of all search queries and making it one of the most significant algorithm changes in Google's history. Intended to weed out low-quality content and reward sites with high-quality, actively updated content, the Panda update radically changed SEO strategies from a basis in keyword-stuffing gimmick to a basis in user-focused content strategy.

Following up on that update, Google released Panda 2.0 in April of 2011, affecting about 2 percent of all search queries. Several updates followed on a monthly basis, until the next major update--Panda 3.0--in October of 2011, affecting another 2 percent of all queries. Monthly updates resumed over the course of 2012, but in 2013, those updates slowed to a crawl, with the only officially announced updates hitting in January and March of 2013.

The next major update was in May of 2014, a rollout known as Panda 4.0, which affected approximately 7.5 percent of all English search queries, adding more features to reward high-quality content and detect instances of low-quality writing. Now, we're looking at the rollout of a major follow-up to that update: Panda 4.1.

Enter Panda 4.1

The rollout began on September 25, 2014, but according to an official Google+ update from Pierre Far, the rollout was a slow, gradual one, planned end in the first week of October. According to Far, the update continues in the tradition of previous Panda updates by identifying low-quality content with more precision. Google has evidently added a few new signals of low quality to its algorithm--but of course, it's not making those signals public.

Depending on the geographic location of the site in question, Panda 4.1 is estimated to impact between 3-5 percent of search queries, establishing it as more impactful than the minor monthly updates that occurred throughout 2011 and 2012, but less significant than the flagship updates of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0.

Good news and bad news

According to Pierre Far, the update should be good for small- to medium-sized businesses who prioritize the quality of their content. Ideally, the highest rankings of search queries should become more diversely populated with a wide range of different site sizes. This means site owners who have been stepping up their efforts to produce more high quality content should be rewarded with higher rankings as a result of the update.

However, as with all Google updates, there's also a chance to drop in the rankings as a result of Panda 4.1. If any of the "new signals" that determine the quality of the content on our site tell Google that we're not up to their standards, we could suffer a drop--even if we're doing everything else right.

Who's affected?

Early analyses are already illustrating a clear pattern. According to SearchMetrics, it looks like the biggest winners of the update are news sites, content-based sites, and download portals. The logic behind this indicates that because these sites are regularly updated with new, (presumably) high-quality information, they're getting an extra boost in favoritism thanks to whichever new ranking signals were added to the Panda code.

On the other hand, the sites that have been hit hardest so far appear to be lyric sites, gaming sites, and some medical content sites. Put bluntly, these sites tend to have thin, repeated, or aggregated content--which to Google, translates to unoriginal or low-quality work. Lyrics sites tend to feature the exact same content as their competitors (since song lyrics don't change from site to site), gaming sites don't have as much content as other platforms, and medical content sites often abuse already-existing stores of content to produce an aggregated store of information.

Specific examples of sites that were hit hard include medterms.com, which saw a drop in almost 40 percent of their search visibility, as well as hallmark.com, office365.com, and eHow.

How to Recover if we've Been Hit by Panda 4.1

If we've noticed an increase in rankings, then congratulations--the Panda 4.1 update has been working in our favor! If, however, we've noticed our organic visits or our search visibility dropping over the course of the last couple weeks, Panda 4.1 could be the culprit. It will take some time before we're able to recover fully, but we can start that path with these steps:

1.Review and Renew our Content Strategy

The best thing we can do is perform a content audit of our current site. Take a look at some of our competitors--preferably, some of our competitors who are currently ranking higher than we as of this update. What are their content strategies doing that ours is not? What is ours doing that theirs are not doing? Don't simply mimic their strategies. Instead, try to learn from them and incorporate some new ideas into our campaign.

How often are we updating our blog? How many ideas are original? What types of content appear to be the most useful, and are we providing those? How in-depth does our content get? These are all important questions to answer as we plan out the next few months of our campaign.

2.Delete Duplicate and Thin Content

From what we've seen so far, it looks like Panda 4.1 has hit content aggregators and duplicators the hardest. Straightforward plagiarism and content syndication have been dealt with already by earlier Panda updates, but Panda 4.1 has become more sophisticated. Are any of our content sources basic rewordings of other articles? Are many of them quote-based, or reliant on outside sources? It's best to get rid of them and focus more on creating unique, original content.

What to Look for in the Future

This most recent update comes approximately four months after the last one we saw, back in May. Throughout 2012, Panda was treated with near-monthly updates, but if this new spacing is any indication, Panda could be on a quarterly updating schedule--at least for the time being. That would put the next update in December of 2014 or January of 2015, and it could carry an additional set of ranking signals.

It's certain that Google will continue to update their algorithm with more sophisticated signals and ranking formulas; it's only a matter of when. But Panda 4.1 is continuing a several-year tradition of rewarding high-quality original content, and it's likely that this trend will only continue. The best thing we can do is refine our content creation strategy and make sure our blog is as original, unique, valuable, and well-written as possible. Publish new, high-quality content regularly, and we'll put ourself in a perfect position for a boost when Panda 4.2--or whatever the next update is--starts rolling out.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Steve Jobs famously put his weight behind HTML5 as the successor to Flash, and declared war on the latter saying "we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open" in regards to Adobe's proprietary standard.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/26/2014 -- Although support for HTML5 is available in most web browsers and operating systems, the standard itself had been considered incomplete - until today.

Now the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a recommendation of HTML5 which means it is stable enough to represent a set of features which people will be able to rely on for years to come...

"Today we think nothing of watching video and audio natively in the browser, and nothing of running a browser on a phone," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "We expect to be able to share photos, shop, read the news, and look up information anywhere, on any device. Though they remain invisible to most users, HTML5 and the Open Web Platform are driving these growing user expectations."

As Berners-Lee mentions, a big advantage of HTML5 is the lack of plugin requirement. Web-based audio and video can be interacted with without the install of extra software, and rich applications can be created with access to bitmap canvas and scalable vector graphics for rendering graphs, games, and other visual imagery on-the-fly.

The standard is platform-agnostic, and therefore promotes the values of an open internet. It's unsurprising then that Gartner identified HTML5 as one of their top 10 mobile technologies and capabilities for 2015 and 2016, saying HTML5 "will be an essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms."

But the work isn't over, not by a long-shot. In a blog post, W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe states that "now that HTML5 is done, W3C should do more to strengthen the parts of the Open Web Platform that developers most urgently need for success."

Jaffe enumerates that these "Application Foundations" must be strengthened:

Security and Privacy: identity, crypto, multi-factor authentication, privacy protection
Core Web Design and Development: HTML next generation, style, layout, graphics, animations, typography
Device Interaction: access to hardware and sensors such as bluetooth, NFC, vibration, etc.
Application Lifecycle: background tasks to manage offline, push, geofencing, sync
Media and Real-Time Communications: WebRTC, streaming media
Performance and Tuning: profiling, enhancements such hints and pre-loading, responsive design
Usability and Accessibility: ensuring the Web is accessible to all and supports the world's languages
Services: social Web, payments, annotations, Web of data
HTML5 has reached a key milestone in its development, and has the recommendation of the W3C for its use. Whilst it still has some work to go, the "write once, deploy everywhere" promise of HTML5 is coming to fruition and that's something for everyone to be excited about.

About Red Cherry HTML5
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with us to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The web design industry is ever-changing with new trends coming and going. Poor web design can cost a business thousands in lost revenue, with the number never really being known for sure.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/25/2014 -- Without proper insights it can be difficult to tell if visitors to our website are engaging with our web design. This is where Google Analytics comes in handy. Free to use, Google Analytics provides business owners the ability to see various metrics from their actual website results. It highlights things like bounce and exit rates that can show where we are losing our customers. If our homepage has a high bounce rate (anything above the 70% mark) then we should consider re-evaluating our design and/or content.

There are a number of things that can off-put visitors to our site and be losing our business potential sales. Below we highlight 5 of the most common website design mistake we've come across. Most websites are guilty of at least one of these, but they're also easy fixes and shouldn't be left unresolved.

Poor User Experience

Navigating through a website should never be an overwhelming experience. The navigation should be featured in an easily accessible location on the site, with clear headings for each new page. Visitors to our website are looking for useful information and want to access this in the most timely manner, the more time-consuming or confusing it becomes the more likely our visitors will leave our website and not return.

A common practice is to feature the menu in a visable location, towards the top of the page. Avoid ambiguous names for web pages that do not clearly define what the page features.

Related Resource from B2C
Webcast: PR Hacking: How Ideas Spread And What Marketers Need to Know
Hiding Important Information

This one varies from site to site depending on our business. If we have an ecommerce site the shopping cart should be featured permanently on each page of our website, normally in the top right hand corner of the page. If we sell any type of service or product our contact details should never be difficult to find, ensure we have this information highlighted through our website.

Broken Links
This happens more often than we'd think. Broken links makes a website look outdated and unmaintained. Whether a link has been moved or removed it leaves our visitors with no place to go. Checking for broken links is easier than we'd think, there are a handful of Free Online Broken Links Checker that'll do the hard work for us. Submit the site, find all the broken links and get onto fixing them right away.

Low-Quality Or Stock Images
Let's start with low-quality images. Websites showcasing poor quality, pixilated images aren't helping their reputation one bit. our website is for most customers the face of our business, so putting time into quality images is necessary to portray a solid representation of what we do.

On the other hand there's those all-too-common stock images. Although they have superior quality they are also easily recognisable as stock images and don't do much for our businesses branding. It may be worth investing in a quality camera or the skills of a corporate photographer to take professional photos of our business and using these instead. Trust me, these will give us much more credit than generic stock photos.

Old, Irrelevant Content
This again is one that seems to happen all too often. Whether it's an old promotion still highlighted on our homepage, or content that just hasn't been updated in years. Providing new and current content, alongside relevant updates shows that our proactive in our business. Not to mention Google loves new content – so the more the better! A great way to regularly feature new content is through a blog or business news section on our site, it's easy to set-up and can be updated as often as we like.

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below.

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below .

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

This article could probably be called the 100 most deadly mistakes in website design--there are so many goofs site builders make--but let’s narrow the focus to the most disastrous 10.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/25/2014 -- 1. Disabling the back button. Evil site authors long ago figured out how to break a browser's back button so that when a user pushes it, one of several undesired things happen: There's an immediate redirect to an unwanted location, the browser stays put because the "back" button has been deactivated, or a new window pops up and overtakes the screen. Our advice: Never do it. All that's accomplished is that viewers get annoyed and do not return to our site.

2. Opening new windows. Once upon a time, using multiple new frames to display content as a user clicked through a site was cool--a new thing in web design. Now it only annoys viewers because it ties up system resources, slows computer response and generally complicates a visitor's experience. Sure, it's easy to use this tool. But don't. With tabbed browsing common in browsers like Firefox, users who wish to open links in new tabs can do so if they wish.

3. Failing to put a phone number and address in several easy-to-find locations. If us're selling, us need to offer viewers multiple ways to contact us. The smartest route is to put up a "Contact Us" link that leads to complete info--mailing address, phone and email address. That link should be on each and every page of our website. Even if nobody ever calls, the very presence of this information adds real-world legitimacy and transparency to our site and comforts some viewers.

4. Broken links. Bad links--hyperlinks that do nothing when clicked or lead to "404" error pages--are the bane of any web surfer. Test our site--and do it weekly--to ensure that all links work as promised. Include a "Contact the Webmaster" link in our site's footer so users can quickly let us know if they find a broken link or other mistake on our site--and fix those errors immediately.

5. Slow server times. Slow load times are inexcusable with professional sites -- it's an invitation to the visitor to click away. What's slow? A recent study by Akamai Technologies, commissioned through Jupiter Research, showed that online shoppers, on average, will wait only four seconds for a site to load before clicking away. If our site is loading significantly slower than this, put it on a diet--images may be too large or special add-ons, like a Flash introduction, may be slowing things down.

6. Outdated information. Again, there's no excuse, but it's amazing how many sites include old, dated content. Make sure to keep our site fresh and updated daily for best results. us can't afford the loss of credibility that can come from having dated content. Also, make sure our content is accurate, and if us should find a single error, fix it immediately.

7. Poor navigation. The internet promises speed. If surfers can't figure out where to go next quickly and get there easily, they'll simply surf on to the next website--our competitor's! It's very frustrating to be forced to go back two or three pages to get to other areas of a site. It's also a waste of time. There should be a navigation bar on every page that guides visitors to other areas of the site. Position the bar along the top of the page or along the left side so it will always be visible regardless of screen resolution. Add an easy-to-find site map in our main navigation bar and/or footer to provide visitors with an at-a-glance view of every page on our site.

8. Too many font styles and colors. Pages ought to present a unified, consistent look, but novice site builders--entranced by having hundreds of fonts at their fingertips, plus dozens of colors--frequently turn their pages into a garish mishmash. Use two or three fonts and colors per page, maximum. The idea is to reassure viewers of our solidity and stability, not to convince them us're wildly artistic. Also remember to make sure our font and colors look good on all possible devices from desktops to tablets to iPhones, etc.

9. Orphan pages. Memorize this: Every page in our site needs a readily seen link back to the home page. Why? Sometimes users will forward a URL to friends, who may visit and may want more information. But if the page they get is a dead end, forget it. Always put a link to "Home" on every page, and make our site logo (usually found near the top left side of the screen) link back to our home page--that will quickly solve this problem.

10. Failing to link with our social network sites. Most businesses have their own Facebook pages, others use Pinterest with boards full of photos, while some broadcast their latest activities on Twitter. The point is that social media is here to stay and businesses are benefitting from having a presence in it. Forgetting to link to our social media platforms is a big no-no. People should be able to go from one to the other effortlessly. Using social media to market our business and drive customers to our website will only work if we make it easy for users to move from one to the other. If done right, we can drive a lot more traffic to our site.

If we want more information about the design industry, topics in design or ideas for future projects, be sure to take a look at the School of Design blog and follow the top designers on Twitter for more discussion on the hottest topics in web design!

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with us to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat +1 888 401 6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Google has been busy pushing out Android 5.0 Lollipop and Material Design to all of their phones and apps, but that is not where it all stops. The upcoming Navigation Transitions API for Chrome promises to bring much of the same Material Design animations and transitions to the web.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/24/2014 -- The information can be found in the following video from the Chrome Dev Summit 2014, the recording is from November 19th and packed full of great new things that Google is working on. Of course, the video is also eight hours long, so we are going to want to dive into the 54th minute to get to what we are discussing today.

With all of the power of coding tools like jquery and AJAX, much of the same animations and transitions can be had today, but at the cost of complicated coding. Google's new Activity Transitions API brings many of the same graphical abilities as existing tools, packaging them into code that any web developer should be familiar with, letting Chrome do all of the heavy lifting.

Taking it to the next level, the still experimental Navigation Transitions API is put to task on an Android device showing off seamless transitions between a native app and a web page. Aside from the beautification of it all, I suspect this will lead to a smoother transition from web browser to installed app instead of simply being presented that annoying prompt on web pages trying to get we to install their app, completely unaware as to whether we already have the app or not.

Along with the many other great things in this little video, skip back just a few minutes prior to the above to learn a little piece about how Google is handling power use of our device, thus saving we some battery life.

Google already made it clear that the looks of Material Design were to make their way across platforms, does the addition of animations and transitions change our feelings on that?

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Web design is a critical component in effective marketing and lead generation. Today’s competitive websites are designed for a mobile world, one that emphasizes video content engagement and crisp content blocks designed to captivate visitors—and convert visitors to customers.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/24/2014 -- What are the top trends powering web design for 2015?

Minimalist Design: Clean, minimalist designs eliminate the risk of cluttering up a website and present an ideal design approach for clearly and purposefully presenting design and content elements in a concise, clear fashion. Simple splashes of color can add creative elements to a clean minimalist design—one that expresses a business or brand in a conceptually stark, yet appealing, manner. Minimalist designs make great use of simplicity and outstanding, creative play with typography and even whitespace.

Video Engagement: Today's websites require powerful visual content, particularly videos. Videos are engaging. Videos are authentic. Videos are great for mobile users. There is a mobile video revolution happening right now. YouTube is No. 2 in search engines. Some 40 percent of YouTube's traffic now comes from mobile devices. our customers are viewing our website from their mobile devices—and they want to be entertained. Videos provide an opportunity to quickly engage our website visitors, allowing them a fast platform to be informed and delighted. Think delighting our website visitors isn't as important as informing them? We're wrong. Today's web surfers want to be mesmerized and entranced. Videos are an effective visual content tool for intriguing our website visitors to learn about our business—and navigate other pages of our website for increased awareness.

Crisp Card Design: Are cards the future of website design? They are certainly web design's present. Card design is visible more and more on websites for B2B and B2C targets. Think Pinterest. Card design layouts are highly functional and effective mechanisms for conveying rapid-fire content in concise bursts—allowing for website visitors to get an immediate glance at our products, services, news, philosophy of business and more. Google uses card design! With Google Now, information is shared on simple cards that appear just when the user needs them—immediate information in a clean content carrier. Cards allow our website to deliver information in small, almost snack-sized formats. When visitors are checking out our site on their smartphones, they want to see neatly organized content blocks. Card design gives them what they want, resulting in happy visitors to our site.

Go Responsive, Now! Sleek, brilliantly mobile and intuitive, responsive websites are the ultimate in user engagement for web design today. Responsive websites started gaining traction during 2012, when more businesses realized that mobile engagement was a mandate. As mobile device usage surged, the need for mobile-friendly websites fast became essential, driving web designers to create sites that looked brilliant on any device. The beauty of responsive websites is they employ coding that actually changes the layout and content displayed, depending on the device viewing the website. Text is always clear, easy to read and images are always enjoyable, even on a smartphone. Responsive web design has been an increasing trend since 2012 and, for 2015, it is nothing less than a mandate for competent and competitive web design.

Scroll On: A hot trend in web design is the scroll factor—parallax scrolling. Parallax scrolling is a visually pleasing 3D effect created when the background of a website moves at a slightly slower rate to its foreground. Parallax scrolling gives visitors a pleasant content experience, as an element of depth appears to cushion the content. Smooth animations and unique visual effects are commonplace in the world of parallax scrolling, resulting in a customer-centric design that provides a pleasing navigation and easy content experience.

Web design tools, techniques and tricks are continually evolving to deliver a creative, crisp viewing experience for today's mobile viewers. Websites that capture the very best of what today's modern designs have to offer will score high marks with their visitors in 2015.

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

As 2014 draws to a close, we decided to take a look at some predicted trends in web design for the year ahead.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/24/2014 -- Many design trends that emerged this year are set to continue and evolve into 2015. The rise of mobile usage has had a direct influence on these trends and we saw responsive web design becoming the new standard.

Responsive Design:

Having a fully responsive website is an important consideration for any modern business competing in today's digital landscape. It is now more important than ever to provide a seamless experience across all of your channels. Your website is the shopfront of your business and it is therefore extremely important that they are no barriers placed between it and the customer. A clunky unresponsive website will cause users to abandon their visit and possibly go to a competitor who has a more modern mobile friendly website. It has become clearly apparent that responsive design is not a fad or a trend but a new standard that is here to stay for 2015 and beyond.

Ghost Buttons:

The trend of using 'ghost buttons' was a popular feature in web design this year. This design feature creates an elegant and sophisticated look to a web site. These transparent ghost buttons are minimal and stylish and work really well with large background images and videos. The transparency of their design means that they do not interrupt the flow of a web page. They can merge seamlessly with a powerful background image but also manage to attract the eye of the user. With the continued popularity of using large background imagery on web pages these complimentary ghost buttons are predicted to also feature strongly in web design throughout in 2015.

'Hero' Images:

A large and visually stunning background image known as a 'hero' image was a popular trend for 2014 that is set to continue in to next year. The term 'hero' image was adopted from the print industry and refers to an image that takes over a full page of a publication in order to 'wow' the reader. 2014 saw many new web designs using an introductory image or video on the homepage with minimal text. Often these images are overlayed with one 'call to action' ghost button such as an email sign up box. This design allows content to be displayed prominently and engages people, encouraging them to stay and explore the website.

Use of Background Video

The use of HTML5 videos, which run in the background of the web pages emerged as a popular design feature for 2014. We predict that this trend will continue into to 2015. As web design simplifies and attention spans get even shorter, the increased use of videos to tell a story in the most direct way possible is becoming more and more prevalent.

Typography:

With such an emphasis on content, rich typography will continue to be a dominating design element in to 2015. Font types are also becoming more affordable and readily available thanks to Google fonts. This means designers can be more flexible and creative with their type setting. Also, the inclusion of more interesting type-centric templates included in WordPress themes is helping this trend to evolve. Creative use of fonts is a great way to add personality to a web site and make it stand out. The growth in popularity of infographics is testament to the power of clever type setting to engage people.

Scrolling:

Scrolling allows more dynamic interaction to take place between the user and the website and will continue to dominate over clicking in 2015. The popularity of mobile devices has directly influenced this design trend as scrolling down is now a more intuitive action. Scrolling also cuts down on load times. People are also more likely to scan all the content if it is on one page. Websites that use this design feature must offer the user clear indications that they will find what they are looking for on the page if the continue to scroll. A good combination of scrolling and clicking is often the best solution to modern website engagement. Whilst scrolling will keep people on certain pages, clicking creates a clear hierarchy for more content heavy websites.

Card Design:

Another design trend that has been influenced by the rise in mobile is the increased popularity of 'card design' websites. This is the web design format of displaying information in modular bite-size panels. Essentially these panels are miniature condensed web pages that contain a brief amount of text, a user name, an image and various share icons. This design layout is a good format for designers to work with as panels can be rearranged in a clean and simple fashion that gives an organised and uniform appearance.

Material Design:

Material design is a visual language developed by Google in 2014. Also known as 'flat design' this new design language uses bright colours and dynamic animated graphics to create visual engagement. The use of strong bold colours and clear graphical symbols gives a strong visual identity to the design. The users interactions trigger responsive animations and graphic elements that whizz in and out of pages. The animated graphics serve to focus attention and maintain continuity. Material design is currently used in Google Drive, Google Keep and Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. In 2015 it will be extended throughout the Google's array of web and mobile products. This will provide a consistent experience across all platforms and applications.

Micro Interactions:

These micro interactions are the playful graphics that wiggle or transform some how as the user scrolls down the page or hovers over buttons. This is often used to great effect for email sign up which can make the action more enticing to the user than a static box on the page. It is thought that this will further permeate web design through 2015 as web sites look for the best ways to capture users information as effectively as possible. These micro interactions serve to entertain the user which in turn reflects favorably on the website. We predict that web design in 2015 will be more about the extra experiences that can be added to the web site visit as opposed to design features.

Conclusion:

Many of these emerging trends have an over arcing theme of interactive story telling. The 'story' of any business is the combination of the concepts and values behind their brand. Even though web site design appears to becoming simplified in appearance, well laid out pages, appropriate font choice, strong imagery and compelling content is now more important than ever and will continue to be so for the year ahead.

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below .

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The web design industry is ever-changing with new trends coming and going. Poor web design can cost a business thousands in lost revenue, with the number never really being known for sure.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/07/2014 -- Without proper insights it can be difficult to tell if visitors to our website are engaging with our web design. This is where Google Analytics comes in handy. Free to use, Google Analytics provides business owners the ability to see various metrics from their actual website results. It highlights things like bounce and exit rates that can show where we are losing our customers. If our homepage has a high bounce rate (anything above the 70% mark) then we should consider re-evaluating our design and/or content.

There are a number of things that can off-put visitors to our site and be losing our business potential sales. Below we highlight 5 of the most common website design mistake we've come across. Most websites are guilty of at least one of these, but they're also easy fixes and shouldn't be left unresolved.

Poor User Experience

Navigating through a website should never be an overwhelming experience. The navigation should be featured in an easily accessible location on the site, with clear headings for each new page. Visitors to our website are looking for useful information and want to access this in the most timely manner, the more time-consuming or confusing it becomes the more likely our visitors will leave our website and not return.

A common practice is to feature the menu in a visable location, towards the top of the page. Avoid ambiguous names for web pages that do not clearly define what the page features.

Related Resources from B2C

" Free Webcast: How to Create Killer Email Conversion Copy

Hiding Important Information

This one varies from site to site depending on our business. If we have an eCommerce site the shopping cart should be featured permanently on each page of our website, normally in the top right hand corner of the page. If we sell any type of service or product our contact details should never be difficult to find, ensure we have this information highlighted through our website.

Broken Links

This happens more often than we'd think. Broken links makes a website look outdated and unmaintained. Whether a link has been moved or removed it leaves our visitors with no place to go. Checking for broken links is easier than we'd think, there are a handful of Free Online Broken Links Checker that'll do the hard work for us. Submit our site, find all the broken links and get onto fixing them right away.

Low-Quality Or Stock Images

Let's start with low-quality images. Websites showcasing poor quality, pixilated images aren't helping their reputation one bit. Our website is for most customers the face of your business, so putting time into quality images is necessary to portray a solid representation of what you do.

On the other hand there's those all-too-common stock images. Although they have superior quality they are also easily recognisable as stock images and don't do much for our businesses branding. It may be worth investing in a quality camera or the skills of a corporate photographer to take professional photos of your business and using these instead. Trust me, these will give us much more credit than generic stock photos.

Old, Irrelevant Content

This again is one that seems to happen all too often. Whether it's an old promotion still highlighted on our homepage, or content that just hasn't been updated in years. Providing new and current content, alongside relevant updates shows that our proactive in our business. Not to mention Google loves new content – so the more the better! A great way to regularly feature new content is through a blog or business news section on your site, it's easy to set-up and can be updated as often as we like.

Wrap Up

Web design trends come and go, but one thing will remain constant and that's a well maintained and functional website. We've only highlighted 5 of the more common mistakes we come across, sure there are many more we can add to this list but these are a good place to start. If we think of any other common mistakes we've missed please add them to the comments section below .

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

The year is drawing to a close, and it means that it is time to look at new web-design decisions that came to life in 2014 and estimate their chances of staying on top in the coming year. So let’s get down to business.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/06/2014 -- While this subject is nothing new in the design field, it has taken on a fresh approach because of the opportunities mobile computing has for the future.

"Trends and devices seem to influence this industry more than any other field of design," says Jennifer Ayotte, School of Design dean at Rasmussen College. "But when you boil away all the fat, you are left with the meat and bones of what we consider 'good': structurally sound, long-lasting, aesthetically pleasing sites that are not only professional and accessible, but also practical."

1.Responsive Design is a Must

Several years ago responsive design was an unusual new trend in site building; today it is a new industry standard, especially in the sphere of WordPress themes. No designer in his or her right mind will try to go back from it – throughout 2014 it only consolidated its position, and there is ample evidence that this tendency is going to continue in 2015. While a few years ago specialists argued whether to use responsive design or not, today they argue about the most effective way to implement it.

2.Large, Prominent Background Images

Another feature that seems to be getting more and more popular lately is enormous, colorful background images and videos. It is an excellent way to use beautiful, picturesque web-design decision to create unique, unparalleled style that will make your visitors remember your site.

3.Evolution of Flat Design

Minimalistic flat design has been on the rise for a couple of years and it is going to continue move in the same direction – but there is an opportunity of it changing its nature on the way. Last June Google presented the so-called 'material design' – approach that is aimed at imitating paper and ink while at the same time retaining all the positive features of flat design. It is too early to say what it is going to look like in practice, but it certainly is going to be the next big thing.

4.Learn to Like Ghost Buttons…

…for they are going to grow in popularity – and for a good reason. They follow the overall minimalistic trend that seems to have swept through the entire industry, look stylish, elegant and modern, and exist in close symbiosis with large background images from point 2.

5.Pay Attention to Card Design

Another trend that has been quickly expanding in 2014 and will most likely continue to do so the next year is card design. Almost all major players are moving in this direction, and the rest of the web is probably going to follow suit. Cards design allows for flexible, clean design, gives a possibility to quickly rearrange elements without everything submerging into chaos and, what is more important, subtly forces users to scroll down to see more, more, more, staying on your website. The fact that they don't provide a clear boundary between pages means that if the visitor is even mildly interested he is less likely to leave.

6.Wider Usage of Typography

This trend has more to do with economics than with changes in style preferences, but it will still pay a major role in the years to come. For a long time web type-kits giving an opportunity to use unusual fonts and typefaces in websites have been prohibitively expensive, which meant that only a tiny minority of sites with large budgets could afford to use them. Recently, however, the pricing of these kits was getting more reasonable, and right now there are several decent examples of them which are available for free (namely, GoogleFonts). This means that in the near future we are going to see the role of fonts in web-design increasing.

Of course, the fact that these trends have been prominent for the last year or so doesn't mean that they will not fade or change their nature; however, any web-designer who wants to stay on top of things will do himself a world of good by following their development closely.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with you to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to your website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with you to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Web design is a critical component in effective marketing and lead generation.

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/06/2014 -- Red Cherry a Calgary Alberta Canada based web design and software development company gives some insights into what to expect in web design trends in 2015.

Today's competitive websites are designed for a mobile world, one that emphasizes video content engagement and crisp content blocks designed to captivate visitors—and convert visitors to customers.

What are the top trends powering web design for 2015?

Minimalist Design: Clean, minimalist designs eliminate the risk of cluttering up a website and present an ideal design approach for clearly and purposefully presenting design and content elements in a concise, clear fashion. Simple splashes of color can add creative elements to a clean minimalist design—one that expresses a business or brand in a conceptually stark, yet appealing, manner. Minimalist designs make great use of simplicity and outstanding, creative play with typography and even whitespace.

Video Engagement: Today's websites require powerful visual content, particularly videos. Videos are engaging. Videos are authentic. Videos are great for mobile users. There is a mobile video revolution happening right now. YouTube is No. 2 in search engines. Some 40 percent of YouTube's traffic now comes from mobile devices. Our customers are viewing our website from their mobile devices—and they want to be entertained. Videos provide an opportunity to quickly engage our website visitors, allowing them a fast platform to be informed and delighted. Think delighting our website visitors isn't as important as informing them? We're wrong. Today's web surfers want to be mesmerized and entranced. Videos are an effective visual content tool for intriguing your website visitors to learn about our business—and navigate other pages of our website for increased awareness.

Crisp Card Design: Are cards the future of website design? They are certainly web design's present. Card design is visible more and more on websites for B2B and B2C targets. Think Pinterest. Card design layouts are highly functional and effective mechanisms for conveying rapid-fire content in concise bursts—allowing for website visitors to get an immediate glance at our products, services, news, philosophy of business and more. Google uses card design! With Google Now, information is shared on simple cards that appear just when the user needs them—immediate information in a clean content carrier. Cards allow our website to deliver information in small, almost snack-sized formats. When visitors are checking out our site on their smartphones, they want to see neatly organized content blocks. Card design gives them what they want, resulting in happy visitors to our site.

Go Responsive, Now! Sleek, brilliantly mobile and intuitive, responsive websites are the ultimate in user engagement for web design today. Responsive websites started gaining traction during 2012, when more businesses realized that mobile engagement was a mandate. As mobile device usage surged, the need for mobile-friendly websites fast became essential, driving web designers to create sites that looked brilliant on any device. The beauty of responsive websites is they employ coding that actually changes the layout and content displayed, depending on the device viewing the website. Text is always clear, easy to read and images are always enjoyable, even on a smartphone. Responsive web design has been an increasing trend since 2012 and, for 2015, it is nothing less than a mandate for competent and competitive web design.

Scroll On: A hot trend in web design is the scroll factor—parallax scrolling. Parallax scrolling is a visually pleasing 3D effect created when the background of a website moves at a slightly slower rate to its foreground. Parallax scrolling gives visitors a pleasant content experience, as an element of depth appears to cushion the content. Smooth animations and unique visual effects are commonplace in the world of parallax scrolling, resulting in a customer-centric design that provides a pleasing navigation and easy content experience.

Web design tools, techniques and tricks are continually evolving to deliver a creative, crisp viewing experience for today's mobile viewers. Websites that capture the very best of what today's modern designs have to offer will score high marks with their visitors in 2015.

The journey to implement the findings has only begun but it has started a dramatic overhaul of our approach, offering and company position. This was not inspired by some market aspiration of what we wanted to be, but instead what we always were. Sometimes, to learn, all we gotta do is ask.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with us to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to our website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with them to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Calgary, AB -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/06/2014 -- What is Responsive Web Design? Responsive web design is an approach of crafting sites for a gradually enhanced viewing experience, easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing. Easy Navigation and scroll through mobile phones, laptop, tablet and desktop computer monitors. Responsive web design is the approach of design and development that should respond according to the client's behavior and environment based on any screen size and available platforms.

The professional practice of the site designed with responsive web design consists of flexible grids and layouts, flexible images and a sensible use of CSS media queries; Such as client switches from their laptop to tablet, the website should automatically accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. The image must be flexible in size.

Media queries are displayed being on most commonly considering the width of the browser. According to device type, it allows to use the page to different CSS style rules.

Mobile Customers are on a rapid increase
Now-a-days Mobile customers are in billions and most of the people working through mobile phones. You have definitely noticed many people attached to mobile phones these days. There are many businesses who have not adapted to this trend.

More than 20 percent Google search being are on a mobile device.

According to a survey, Over half of all local searches were done on a mobile device in 2012.

Another Survey shows 25 percent internet users use the internet via a mobile phone in the United States.

Around 25 percent users open up email on mobile device and 10.16 percent user being opened email on tablets.

It's a prediction, that mobile internet usage may overtake the desktop usage in 2014.

This time approximately 4 billion mobile phones in the world, from which 1.08 percent use smart phones and 3.05 percent are SMS enabled.

Recommended By Google
Basically, we all know that Google is a very popular search engine in the world. In fact 2013, Google claimed a 67 percent share in the search market. Google encourages for mobile configuration for responsive web design. But why does Google prefer responsive design? As per the search engine giant, It's more efficient for Google to both crawl the site and then index and organize all the content that is online. The main benefit with responsive design is the site, have one URL and the same html across all devices. When same URL got both business mobile site and desktop site, for all different URL and different HTML, it is easy to reach through any online device.

User Experience
Responsive design gives the best experience for users. For example, users canaEUR(TM)t be bored with zooming and shrinking the text or images on the screen. Instead, adjusts all content automatically to the device screen. This creates it very easier and more convenient for users to read on your site. And, stats to further illustrate why so important for user experience. According to Google whenever someone arrives on your mobile website and is frustrated, there's a 61 percent chance he may leave and go to the other website. However, whenever a user does get a positive experience through mobile website, 67 percent more likely they buy a product or use your service.

Stay Ahead of Competition
In the business world, you have to stay ahead of the competition. So more to more user arrive your website through mobile device and the more the chances to purchases your product online, you have to make a mobile-friendly site because the audience always like an easy-to-navigate sites, In fact 85 percent adults believe that mobile site better than a desktop website.

If, you haven't made a responsive website then you may not survive the competition in the market. You may lose your potential customers. If you want to stay ahead in the market from your competitors, you need to make responsive website.

If you already made a better and user-friendly responsive website, It definitely will increase your visitors and grow your business.

About Red Cherry
We are a digital marketing and software agency that stands out from all other agencies. Our team of talented and creative individuals work closely with you to deliver rich and engaging solutions that drive qualified traffic to your website and convert that traffic into sales. Red Cherry has offices in both Kelowna, BC and Calgary, AB. We work closely with you to develop a comprehensive digital marketing campaign for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Remarketing (largest ad network), Pay Per Click, SEO, and more. Providing website design in Calgary for over 10 years.

We are also a full scale software development firm specializing in web development and apps development.

Let's chat 888-401-6668 or visit http://www.redcherryinc.ca/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm