By Rack Alley

Every company these days needs a website. Not having one would be like lacking an actual store 20 years ago. You’ll be invisible to a large percentage of your market if you don’t have any online real estate. That being said, most companies these days need a lot more too. They also need specific hosting solutions that will give their company the best reach possible so they can connect with as many customers as possible.

While there’s nothing new about Los Angeles web hosting, you may not know a lot about LA colocation. This is a type of hosting where you’re allowed to customize the solution as much as possible, but aren’t stuck with any kind of one size fits all version. In fact, the infrastructure is little more than a skeleton of hardware you can then add your own personal touches too.

The end result is exactly what you make of it, but what most companies in Los Angeles love is that it’s so scalable. This also means it’s extremely easy on your budget too. Spend only as much as it takes to get the finished result your company needs to succeed. You can also add or take away from it over time.

_________________________________________________________________

When your company is ready for better results on the World Wide Web, then they’re ready to invest in Los Angeles colocation. While you don’t lack for options, you’ll most likely be happiest when you rely on the expertise of Rack Alley for your needs.

By definition, user onboarding is a process that turns first-time visitors to active visitors. Simply put, it’s that first experience with a product that will make you want to use it over and over again.

This is vital given that there are practically a countless number of apps doing the same thing or more.

Of course, how you go about designing good user onboarding flow purely depends on the product type.

Here are 3 techniques for great onboarding flow for a mobile app:

1: Interactive Walkthrough or Tutorial

Walkthroughs and onboarding isn’t really the same thing even if the former is a vital part of the process of onboarding itself. While a tutorial is a nice way to welcome a user, you can always annoy him by teaching him things that he or she already knows.

So, if there’s anything difficult and confusing with the app interface, then it’s worth a walkthrough. Yet it’s important to make it easy, effortless and quick.

2: Remove or Simplify Signup

Not everyone has time to sit and fill up signup forms. Put yourself in their position and you’ll find that spending time on registration forms that are lengthy is anything but enjoyable. Ideally, it’s best to not have a signup form at all but if you must have one, keep it short. Try and save the user’s time while asking for very little upfront.

3: Customer Support or Service

It’s very important to have a group of satisfied users. A big part of achieving this is having real people behind a product or service to assist customers. Building good relationships with your customers is integral to a great onboarding process. Keep them happy and they’ll do your marketing for you. Maintaining an empathetic and well-trained customer service team should do the trick.

A key element to creating an above par website is to find photos that add to the site’s appeal.

Some of the options where you can find photos include sourcing them from a photographer, taking the photos yourself, buying them from a stock photo site or finding them at a public website.

Probably, the best way to begin is with photos in the public domain. Here are 3 sites at which you can find free images:

1: Raumrot

This site specialized in carefully selected hand-stock photos that are used for both commercial and personal projects. All images are available in high resolution formats. Of course, the creative commons license varies for each image. One should adhere to the rules when displaying these photos too. The best part about the site is the way it is organized. You can search for the images by category where the selection is excellent too.

2: Little Visuals

This site has photos that range from high-resolution landscapes to tight, detail shots of buildings. In other words, there is a variety of photos for any project that you might have in mind. You can either follow the site and download pictures individually or sign up and receive seven photos in your inbox every week. The images are excellent even the site is relatively new. Yes, they’re free to use too.

3: Jay Mantri

Jay Mantri, the owner of this site, uploads pictures that can be used in any way possible. Simply put, he wants people to ‘make magic’ with them. Of course, the style of photos on the site varies. Yet the most common of them are those that have a ‘funky feel’. A number of these photos features common objects as well sunglasses.

Color psychology is used a lot in several aspects of design. Whether it is the brand logos, website design or even colors that are used on everyday items, color has the ability to convey a message to its users.

Yet it’s unlikely that web designer pick only one color. Hence, considering the overall color scheme and the individual colors and how well they work together is necessary. Apart from this, think about how these colors will affect the user and also how the secondary color combines with the primary color.

This involves picking the appropriate color scheme. Here are three methods to do so:

1: Triadic

This is probably the most balanced and basic method to pick a color scheme. Color vibrancy and complementation is used here. For this, use the 12-step color wheel, pick any three colors that are located at 120 degrees from each other. Each of these colors can be picked for content, background and navigation.

 2: Compound

This method is a bit difficult and requires a lot of experimentation. Yet if you get it right, it can be very effective. In particular, this method uses two complementary colors apart from two contrasting ones. In all, you will have to play with four colors in all.

3: Analogous

This method focuses on complementary colors and how they are used. Yet one should be careful as to which scheme to pick because it will convey a distinct message to the user. You have to be careful as these colors are usually exaggerated and it can get too much for the user in question. This is because it highlights the vibrancy of the color scheme selected.

Content is king. Good writing is priceless. There are resources that can help you with this. The results: generate inbound traffic to your site. Most of all, help your business stand apart from the competition.

That said, here are 4 writing resources that can help you do just that:

1: TagCrowd

This tool helps you visualize word frequency. If you want to know what kind of content would please your audience, this tool can help you. For this, take a relevant appealing article link and add it into the web page URL Field. This will throw up topics which you can create content from. That said, words used more often appear larger than others.

2: Wordle

Not different from TagCrowd, Wordle also creates word clouds. When you enter a search term, it looks for keywords that you can use. Apart from that, it also searches for specific locations too. Also, you can experiment with layout and colouring. Once you get it just right, you can use it in a social media post or in a blog. This tool is completely free of cost.

3: Draft

At a fee of $39.99 for 12 months, a writer created this tool for other writers. Without a doubt, it will take your writing to the next level given the features it has on offer. Some of these include version control, copy-editing and comments. Transcription tools, cloud sync and comparing old work is also offered. Other advanced features include Github style Markdown, to-dos and Analytics. Best part: all you need is a browser.

4: Hubspot’s Blog Traffic Generator

This tool will not cost you anything. All you have to do is add three words or phrases. After this, the blog traffic generator will throw up a list of blog post titles.

In a recent Twitter report, it was found that 35 percent of users use this social media service to find discounts and company promotions they can benefit from.

What this points to is a business opportunity for small businesses who cannot afford a full-scale paid promotional campaign.

This is where Twitter comes in and where these small businesses can market themselves at literally no cost.

So, here are 3 ways by which you can promote your business for free on Twitter:

#1: A “Twixclusive” Offer

This is an offer that is exclusive only on Twitter and which will make your followers feel special. There are three ways you can use this to promote your business. One, limited-time discounts and special offers as well as videos and photos that gives them an inside-look of your business. Q&A sessions are also another way by which you can create interest in what you have to offer.

#2: Try a “Flock to unlock” Campaign

This campaign provides businesses with a way to encourage customers to perform a certain action so as to reveal a special deal. One example would be to request potential customers to visit your site and provide feedback. This will help you determine which color or style that they like best. Inform your customers of the action that they must take to unlock the deal. When you have reached your target (say, a certain number of retweets), then you can reveal the deal to your customers.

#3: Promote Cultural, Sporting and Industry or Seasonal Events

A smart way by which you can generate interest about your business is by promoting sporting, industry, cultural or seasonal events. For example, you can start conversations on Twitter by talking about industry trade show events or even seasonal events such as Mother’s day, graduation or even Thanksgiving too. Sporting events like the Oscars, the Superbowl or even the World Series can be used as well as local or state events where you live.

It’s not an easy task writing website content. This is not just about text but includes videos, images, charts and download files if and when necessary.

Given that how difficult preparing the right content is for your users as well as those you collaborate with, it should be more than obvious that a little planning and strategy will go a long way in writing excellent web content.

That said, here are 3 tips that can help you write user-friendly web content:

#1: Evaluating your current website content

Measure the usefulness of your content by asking whether it is accurate, if anything is missing and whether it is useful to its readers. Make sure you check the prices to see if the information is correct. Most of all, ensure that you have a clear objective for each piece of content.

#2: Know Your Target Audience

When you identify who your target audience is, that’s half the job done. Once you know this, you’ll know what to say (through your content) that will both appeal and inform the right audience. Once this is done, it’s easy to determine what kind of content one needs to add to all visitors that come to your website.

#3: Use Sitemaps as Blueprints

If you the analogy of building a website to a house, the sitemap of the website is like the blueprint that architects first construct. Without this plan, you might have a house that is missing certain must-have rooms in that sense.

For this, there is software that can help you organize the information such as Xmind as well as Microsoft Word’s Organization Chart.