UI or user interface is getting a much larger attention than ever before. Getting your webpages just right for your users is really important but quite a difficult task when you are designing something in the way you think looks best.Google Analytics offers a way for you to test different layouts for particular pages and then find out which pages are most likely to complete conversions than others. I want to show you in this post how you can also do this to improve your websites UI.

Step 1: Create a Google Analytics Account

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If you haven’t already the first thing you need to do is create a google analytics account. This is a totally free thing to do and it will allow you to study your website, what is working, how users navigate your site, what pages are most used and which pages aren’t so successful amongst many other things. It is well worth your time and I am sure many of you already have this great feature on your site. If you don’t then what are you waiting for? Simply follow the instructions that google provides and sign up right away! ( If you need any help or guidance please leave a comment below).

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Setting Goals

Goals are a versatile way to measure how well your site or app fulfills your objectives. You can set up individual Goals to track discrete actions, such as transactions with a minimum purchase amount or the amount of time spent on a screen.

1.Firstly on the main dashboard of analytics press conversions and a drop down list will appear like in the image above. Once about press goals > overview.

2. You will then be given a page like that below. Put in the url of the page you are wanting to set up an experiment in the blank box.

3.You can set up a goal for many things. How about making sure take the action of arriving on a particular page that will lead to a purchase? Use the url destination radio button. Or what if you just want people to stay longer on a page to make sure they read the information you are providing? Then choose Visit duration. It is pretty self explanatory. Once you have made your selection of which goal radio you will be given another form to fill in. For this example i am seeing how many people will arrive at my blog from the home page so using URL destination (See image below).

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4. Once you are happy with everything press save.

5. Your Goal is now active.

Step 3:  Access the Experiments Feature

With our goal set up, we can now start to create experiments in google analytics to determine which of our pages will perform the best in terms of visiting the blog from the homepage.
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1.Under the ‘Content’ section of the main left menu, select ‘Experiments’.

2. You will need to make several variations of your webpage that you want to improve conversions on ( i recommend at least 3 ) in order to have a more meaningful test. Whatever CMS you are using you just need to create more pages and publish them in order for google analytics to be able to find those pages you want to test the original to.

3. Watch this video from google and it will guide you through the rest of the setup.

4. Once you have completed this stage it just a matter of time waiting for visitors to come and try out your new page.
5. Google Analytics will give you a tone of results and a percentage of what the likely hood is that your new designs will outperform the other or not.

Step 8: Arriving at a Winner

As mentioned in the previous step it is just waiting for enough visitors to use the page to arrive at a winner. Whether it takes three days or three weeks to arrive at a conclusion, you can be confident beyond reasonable doubt that the winner of the experiment will indeed be the best performer in terms of the goal that is being measured.

Step 9: We Have a Winner, What Now?

Depending how confident you are that one of your new design will outperform your original design in terms of the conversion set then you can replace that page or not.

Also, you need to consider all variables that may have effected the experiment. How many people visited the original design compared to the other design samples. Do the visitors have the same tastes in design or not? As you can see it is important to analysis the data and not just take it at face value.
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If you need any help with your experiment don’t hesitate to contact me and I will see what I can do to help you, best of luck in improving your UI.

Not so long ago I wrote a blog post about how to use twitter more effectively to promote your business and create a bit more awareness amongst your industry. This is the second installation of more tricks and tips that I have discovered along the tweeting path. If I repeat myself from a previous post, please forgive as I am only human 🙂

5 tips to become a twitter super power

Reply to tweets that catch you eye.

I know I have already mentioned to retweet tweets that you find really interesting as your following will more than likely also find it of particular interest to them but try commenting on a tweet too. Talking to your fellow tweeters can start a good relationship with like minded souls and promote positivity between you and others. As BT say, its good to talk. Just be careful not to spam as 10 comments in a row may be too many on someones twitter feed…just 2 in the morning, 2 for lunch and 2 for dinner will be plenty :-).

To be or not to be
Asking questions to your followers can be an effective way of starting communication if it is thought provoking enough or your followers feel they have something to add. I know some tweeters are a bit afraid of talking to other tweeters, its almost like a code…don’t talk to me I’m tweeting! But come on people, this IS social media!! The key word being social. Causing debate is a great tool for increasing your following.

Don’t follow people who are invisible or talk an awful lot.

Following people who are too lazy to even upload a photo on their profile picture are more than likely spammers or not using twitter correctly. If you  follow someone who tweets about 10 tweets every 20 minutes you are going to miss a lot of tweets from your other followers and some of them tweets may be gold dust! So don’t follow people who are tweeting more than they retweet..no one likes a self centered tweeter.

Spread the word for your followers

Admiring the work of your fellow tweeters, promoting competitions or special offers of one of your tweeters it won’t go unnoticed by your followers and will give you a stronger bond ( if only electronically ) with that particular follower as they know you are co-operating with them not only to boost your own place in the industry but you also want to help others.

Afterwards mention it to them on Twitter and they’ll be very grateful, they most likely tweet about it too.

When creating graphics for print and web you must consider a few little basic rules. I know most graphic designers know this but incase you are trying to make the leap from web to print or print to web or you are still learning the ropes and self teaching yourself because you enjoy being creative here are some of the fundemental rules to follow.

Dpi is different

Dpi means dots per inch…if you are creating an image for web then 72dpi is sufficient, alternatively if you are designing for print you should set up your image at at least 250dpi. To do this in Photoshop you can either create a new file with the correct dimensions and then select resolution and enter either 72 if creating an image for web or 250 for print. The benefit of doing this is if you are creating for web you want your image file size to be small… im not talking about the dimensions here, I am talking about the bytes that make up that beautiful Mona Lisa you are going to create. Likewise if you are creating a file for print then you want more dots so that when it prints it looks like a very crisp and sharp image.

CMYK or RGB

CMYK or RGB. These are the two colour modes. CMYK is selected for print as these are the colours you find in a print cartridge where as RGB stands for Red Green & Blue ( how  a monitor displays colour through light). So yes you guessed it, select the appropriate colour for your file and it will be more accurately represented for the media you are designing for.

Bleeds

Any time you are creating an image for print whether it is a poster, banner or magazine advert it is more than likely your printers will ask you to add a bleed to your design which is usually a border that is around 3mm to 5mm with lines in the corners that represent the corners and are guides for the cutting of the design. Its pretty easy to do but if you require a guide please leave a comment and I will create one for you.

Saving your image correctly for its purpose

Once you have your masterpiece completed to perfection it is important to save your image in the correct way depending what it is you are trying to do.
Before you do anything, whether using GIMP or Photoshop make sure to save your file with a unique file name in way that you can easily change any layer of your design (psd file). These are the 3 most common file formats used.

.png

.jpg

.gif

GIFs are for webs that are usually animations ( you can find some usually to the right here in the adverts ). If you want to create a gif in photoshop use this tutorial of how to create a bouncing ball and it will give you the basics.

.jpg

jpgs are lossy files but can be used for both print and web. Usually used for photographs and images that don’t need to be altered due to the  fact if you enlarge it it will look granuallar due to the fact that when you enlarge the image you are actually enlarging each and every dot that makes up the image.

.png

png files can have a transparent background and are really useful for good quality clear images for web. Especially logos and such like..the last thing you want is a white background with a website that is mainly green…man! That’d just look plain uuuuuuuuuuugly!

Saving for web

If you are creating the image for a website or device then make sure to select File > Save for web… and then follow the instructions to try and reduce your file size to a small a size as possible without loosing  the quality of the image.

I realise this is pretty straightforward for most graphic/web designers that most of you may know but we are all at different stages of learning so for some this information will be very useful so that is why I decided to include it today as a blog post. If you need any more help regarding designing for print or web please feel free to contact me and I will do what I can to help you.

Related articles across the web

• How to Reduce the File Size of Your Photoshop PSD Files
• 29 Free Photoshop Designs for Mobile App User Interface
• Fantastic Adobe video spotlights 25 years of Photoshop artistry
• MotoCMS Design Digest: 31 Best Articles for February 2015
• The morning newspaper by Caras Ionut

I remember when i first set up my twitter account and put my first couple of tweets together, I was thinking…”what the hell is this?!” and “how is this going to benefit me?”. What I have realized 520 tweets and 537  followers later, the amount of useful information that people share is undeniably brilliant! Not only this but it allows your website content to reach a wider “relevant” audience that are interested in what you have to say!

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In this post I plan to give you a few little tips to make sure you are using twitter as effectively as you possibly can to generate brand awareness, develop your own standing in the profession of your choice  & start generating a buzz around your business.

What to tweet

That first step, your twitter account has no tweets. What do you tweet? What you eat for you dinner? What time you finished work? The hot girl you saw across the street? Of course not!

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Consider your audience, do you really think they want to read about that? If like me you are a designer/artist then I am more likely to find something interesting such as artworks, how to do things on Photoshop or illustrator. Alternatively if you are selling a product like cream that benefits people with eczema I would probably be interested in reading about eczema suffering groups and other relevant content such as that.

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Basically the message here is always keep your audience in mind when tweeting and make it relevant. ( Check my twitter account out for some general ideas ), just be genuinely interested in your industry.

Following people you are truly interested in

So you’ve started tweeting some really relevant industry tweets, best get following others that you are interested in. Don’t just follow people for the sake of it, i mean…when do you need a funeral director? Unless you are part of the Italian mafia with a regular need to dispose of bodies this twitter user is not necessarily going to benefit from your tweets and you certainly won’t benefit from theirs.

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Follow your industry professionals and start linking to tweeters that are going to help build a strong influential twitter following. Remember…not everyone will follow you back but a lot will, particularly if they are industry relevant.

Retweeting

Do you often see something interesting written by someone you follow? It’s more than likely the people following you will also find it interesting. After all they have the same interests as you.

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Sharing is caring, show what is interesting you and it will benefit your little fan base too…plus if you want to look it up again just check your twitter feed out for reference. Double bonus!

Conversation

Twitter is a “social” media platform and to be social is to talk. Try commenting on some of your followings feeds, you might start a conversation and create a stronger bond with them as well as generate business.

#Hashtags

A hash tag makes it easier for people to find your tweets with the “discover” tool. So for instance “hey check out my latest #art piece. here – http://www.url.com” okay so you notice that i put a hash tag next to art? so if anyone types art into the discover tool they may just discover your tweet and wallah! New followers.

Tweet every day

The last tip and one of the most important, tweet regularly or your followers may think you are inactive are unfollow you. Even try and tweet 3 to 5 times a day, throughout the day, juts make sure to keep it relevant.

Useful Twitter Apps

Lastly 2 useful Twitter apps that every Twitter user should be using : –

wefollow

Gather more followers using this great app, see how much influence you have in your particular industry keyword too!

 Justunfollow

Are you noticing your twitter account keeps loosing followers even though you are twittering often ( how rude! :O ) ? Find out who is unfollowing you and return the favor ( unless of course they are highly influential with lots of great tweets that will benefit you! ).

Business Card designs are a really important part of your brand. Its not only to say who you are but it can give your potential clients a more positive image of your company if done right. I feel that bespoke business cards are a great asset for your company salesmen to have in their arsenal and the best ones can usually tell a story about what your company sells. I have compiled excellent examples for you to feast your eyes on to help you gather some inspiration for your next design.

11 Fab examples of clever business card designs that communicate and delight the senses

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Colour cards

This card delights me as a designer because of the clever use of typography and composition of the name on the back. Colour has a strong meaning subconsciously  when designing your brand so be careful which one you decide to choose ( I will discuss colour in a blog post in the future).

graphicriver.net

Photography Card

Some may say this is to literal but deep down even the most sophisticated business man is a big kid deep down and being able to play with your business card and identify what it is you do straight away always brings a smile to your customers faces. No one wants to be bored and if they don’t smile then they aren’t the customer for you! 🙂

youthedesigner.com

DJ Card

Wika! Wika! Wa! Wa! Play that funky card record on the front of this card. Again easy to see what your profession is as well as adding an element of fun.

cardobserver.com

Ninja Card

Again another attempt at being fun…although I am sure there are some Ninjas that may do business i am not quite sure if this card was designed for that purpose but all the same, it did make me go OOoooooo and i would definitely remember receiving this from someone.

webdesigneraid.com

Edible Card

Obviously designed for a baker. I love the concept but unless you store the contact details in your phone before you eat the biscuit then…oh crumbs!

enpundit.com

Character Card

Some people have a really striking visual appearance as well as a distinctive design style. If this is the case your business card can show that in how you design it.

cardstache.com

Breast Card

Obviously to do with the care of women’s baloobies. Would definitely make us chuckle like little children if we received this.

labaq.com

Multiple uses for a card

Having a second use for a business card will more than likely help your client keep hold if the card a bit longer, plus you’re being environmentally friendly too! Bonus.

cardobserver.com

Pop up card

What is the main focus of your business? Is it you? Are you a freelancer? Then why not make yourself stand out and literally pop up out of the  customers hand. Downside of this is that it might be a bit fragile to store.

flavorwire.com

Biodegradable Plastic Card

This card represents that of a security swipe card. Made from biodegradable plastic with a qr code on the back that looks almost like the chip where the information for the security is stored. If I was to receive this card I would know that security is the main purpose of this company.

www.migsolv.com

Metal Card

Looks very expensive and high tech, i’d feel pretty bad to throw this away…great thing to show others not just your clients.

formink.com

Hanger Card

A card in the shape of a hanger…looks good but, would it fit into your wallet? Is it practical? Thats my only criticism..creativity is top level.

behance.net

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what do you think makes a great business card? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Last year Google Feedburner lost their Japanese domain name and it seems Google is not going to be supporting this great tool for much longer…December 2014 to be precise ( as this seems to be when the domain name is registered till. ) You may have built up quite a subscription of followers on  your blog and you really don’t want to loose them but know you need an alternative within the next year…here are a few alternatives to Google Feedburner to feast your eyes on : –

FeedBlitz

FeedBlitz is a service that monitors blogs, RSS feeds and Web URLs to provide greater reach for feed publishers. FeedBlitz takes all the headache out of converting feed and blog updates into email digests, delivered daily to subscribers’ inboxes. FeedBlitz manages subscriptions, circulation tracking, testing, and is compatible with all major blogging platforms and services such as Blogger, WordPress, FeedBurner, Joomla, Drupal and Typepad. Unlike other blogmail services, FeedBlitz is reliable, scalable and fully supported. No betas, wish lists or road map items here. You’re in production, and so is FeedBlitz.

Rapidfeeds

Includes lots of in-demand features, including branded RSS feeds, auto-Twitter update, RSS feed scheduling and subscriber statistics.  Also integrates nicely with podcasts. Price varies on the number of feeds you want to manage and the features you want.  Enterprise-level feed management is $13.95 per month

Nourish

Nourish is an RSS to email service and a reliable Feedburner alternativefor those sites whose visitors don’t really grasp (or don’t use) RSS much.  The free version lets you send up to 1,000 emails per month. Also includes customizable newsletter templates.

Feedcat

FEEDCAT.NET is mainly dedicated to boosting feeds and also serves as a public catalogue of feeds (RSS and ATOM).

Feedity

Feedity creates an RSS feed for any webpage and allows for social media monitoring, the aggregating of multiple feeds, and publishing of feeds on your website.

Has the fire gone out on feedburner?

I don’t think this is the end for google feedburner just yet, whether google totally abandon it and their many users or not is yet to be announced but at least you are prepared if something does happen. Fingers crossed they see how valuable a tool it is to the online community

Yes, as promised here are 5 more blog directories to submit your fantastic and informative blogs to. I do spoil you guys!

Blogs Avenue

BlogsAvenue is an blog directory on the Internet that allows you to get more exposure for your online publication. Every submitted blog is available to the public, and it displays some useful info like: a thumbnail of the homepage, some site information (owner, URL, category, etc.), the rating of the site, a set of SEO info (PageRank, Google / Bing backlinks, etc.) and the reviews (if any). Plus, you can check a statistics graph with unique daily visitors and pageviews for the present day, week and month referring to the blog site. Registration is necessary.
To add your site to BlogsAvenue, you must register first. Then select “submit blog” from the right sidebar panel. Here, add your blog URL, title and description of your site (160 chars minimum), RSS feed URL, and choose a category that represents what your blog is about. Last, add the BlogsAvenue reciprocal code to your blog to activate the submission.

Go Blogz

Go Blogz is a free directory and search engine where you can submit your URL to promote the content of your blog to a wider audience. Registration is not mandatory.
To submit your blog to Go Blogz, just add the title and URL of your site. Then, write a brief description for your blog and enter a reciprocal link. Last, add your e-mail address and you’re set.

Malatya

Malatya is a free RSS directory where you can submit your website RSS feed to obtain more traffic and exposure for your content. Registration is not mandatory to use the service. After you submit your RSS feed, the editors at Malatya will manually check your feed before displaying your content inside the directory.
To submit your RSS feed to Malatya, please choose a relevant category that describes your blog content and then enter the URL of your RSS feed.

Society of Socialpreneurs

Society of Socialpreneurs is a blog directory and social business network where you can submit your website or blog and get more exposure. The blog submission process is free as long as you place a button with a reciprocal link promoting the directory on your own website. Registration is not mandatory.
To submit your blog to Society of Socialpreneurs, after you post their button on your website, just provide your name and e-mail address, the title and URL of your blog and write a description for your blog.

Pingates

Pingates is not a blog directory nor an RSS directory where you can submit your website. What Pingates does is send a “ping“, a notification, to a handful of sites alerting them that your blog has been updated. Then, the web crawlers of these websites can come by and notify their readers of the update. No registration is needed.
To ping your blog using Pingates, simply type the title and url of your blog, select the sites you want to send a ping to (you can also check all of them with a single button) and then click on “Send pings“.

I will add one more blog post about top blog directories to add your blog to in the near future.

When creating a professional web design the designing effective homepages is one of the most important pages on your site. It is usually your shop window, the door to your potential sales and the place where your users will usually know whether they want to go any further on your site, so you can imagine, its vital that you get this page right, you don’t want to give a bad impression before your users have even entered the site but what is it that really makes for a great ux homepage?

We all need purpose

Everything in this world created by us humans needs purpose and websites are no different. You may argue that there are many pointless websites out there, but even if they are pointless…that is still a purpose, by being pointless, isn’t it? . Your first step in designing a homepage is firstly identifying your website’s/business goal & then developing your homepage’s purpose. Keep in mind that your main website goal is slightly different from your homepage goal.

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Is your main goal to sell more of your product or service, create more brand awareness or start communication? Then does your homepages purpose relate to this? Are you wanting to target a specific service that isn’t selling as well, or are you wanting to try and sell a product or a service? Is it purely an information site? Do you want people to subscribe to your blog or gather emails for newsletters and promotions? Whatever the reason is  a well designed call to action is vital to influence your website users into taking the action you want .

Call to Actions

What is a call to action? A call to action is a way of asking visitors to do something, take action! Usually, for most businesses it is to close a sale or to at least suggest finding out more information about a product or service that will eventually lead to the close of sale the business wants.Sometimes though, it might not be the goal to sell, it may be to get your visitors to sign up to a newsletter, make contact or subscribe to your blog. Never use “Click here”, “Read More” or “Learn More” these are not good call to actions, they are not informative or appealing enough to entice someone to act. ( 37 Call to Action to Get People to Read, Click and Buy ).

A well designed call to action will entice people with an exciting offer or something that will really appeal to your target audience.

Audience matters

So you have decided what business goal you are going to try and create a call to action for. You want to sell a specific product but saying “Buy this amazing product” is not really going to sell it. You need to put the customer first, customer is king  when doing web design and you really need to understand their needs in order to create a perfect homepage. One way of doing this is creating persona’s. A customer persona is creating an artificial customer, someone who might use your site, what they are looking for, even their hobbies and other websites, apps and things they might use outside of work. Here is a website with a quick guide in how to create one ( Website ). I will be creating another blog post on this and a free template to download in future.

Visuals

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, thus whoever your target audience is, the visuals must be targeted to them. Is your market 16-29 ? Then look at design trends for that age group, what are they buying? What are they listening to? What would appeal to this group? Are they 40+ the established professionals? What would appeal to this group? What about your business industry, what is working on the business leaders sites?

Keep in mind your branding colours at all times when designing your graphics, make it identifiable as your company but don’t be too concerned that you make all your pictures match the brand colours, it will make it all just brand in a little too much and be quite a dull page.

No one likes complex navigation. Minimalism is the way forward

Although seeing a pretty graphical website at first does make everyone think oooooooooooooooooooo…pretty, if it isn’t a useable interface people will become frustrated and the pretty pictures will soon become ugly. Websites are about usability. Make sure you can do these three things when accessing your site : –

• Identify the brand and product you are selling instantly by including your logo and company colours from your style guide.
• Make it easy to find the contact details of your company
• Make it easy to navigate to any page that the user wants

Why do this you are asking? Well it has been scientifically proven that after 8 seconds the user will make a decision whether or not to leave.

The content of a book is not on the front page, websites are no different

The homepage is not the place to go crazy on textual information! It is the page to guide the user to whatever it is they need from your site. It is important to include a “brief” description of what your company does with a link to the about page.  The home page is not the place to write a long blurb about your company’s history or founders how will that enhance the user experience? It won’t. If the user really wants a back story then that information should be left for the “About Us” page.

Make more than one option and test it

You’ve used the tips i have provided and drawn a few different layouts but how do you know which one would be the most succesful? Google Analytics provides you with a treasure trove of great tools to delve deeply into what pages are working, what is successful and what isn’t. It also provides an extra option called “experiments”. With this tool you can test a multitude of homepages that you have created so that when a visitor arrives on a particular page you the user will be given one of the new pages. Google Analytics will then give you some results to allow you to compare how succesful the new pages have been compared to the others in order for you to choose the best option for you to make the most conversions ( I will be writing about how to do this in the very near future ).

If you have anything else to add please do make more suggestions and best of luck with designing your homage web design.

As an employed graphic & web designer I am always looking for inspiration and avenues to increase my creative juices and for this reason have collated 6 useful websites for freelance designers. I feel very fortunate to be working with a team of people that are very down to earth and are easy to get along with but for some, especially at the moment, getting that job is a little more difficult with the current economic climate. If this is your case ( or even if you are just after a little bit more work to boost your CV or keep you afloat ) here are a few useful websites for freelance designers that might help you to increase your sales as well as build your brand awareness.

Hexi Design

Hexi Design is an online community of talented designers from around the world thriving in one creative hive – Providing small and large businesses with logo, stationery and website design! When I visited this site it seemed that there were not many jobs available, plus, I think as a designer because you have to design something to compete the emphasis is on the client rather than the hard work of the designer so use only if wanting to improve your cv or have a bit of a creative rush.

Freelancer

Freelancer connect over 7,160,499 employers and freelancers globally from over 234 countries & regions. Through their website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services. The Problem with this site is that jobs can charge very little in wages ( due to the Indian market being very competitive, but if you are Indian then no problemo! ). Saying that though, just because the currency is a little different over there doesn’t guarantee them the work, lower rates doesn’t always mean better solution to the job. The old saying you get what you pay for is still very true…

TalentHouse

Finding the right platform to express yourself as a designer and to meet the right people to work with are essential elements of every artist’s success story. Talenthouse is the bridge between emerging talent and established professionals, and helps you get your own projects off the ground. This is not just for artists and designers but all variety’s of arts.
Build a following, find new collaborators and earn amazing rewards by taking part in our life-changing opportunities!

Etsy

Etsy is the marketplace for artists and crafters to sell art works. Its a place where buyers value craftsmanship in all we make. Sometimes its difficult finding the customer basis for your products and setting up your own e-commerce site can be expensive or quite difficult to learn how to do it, Etsy is simply a type of e-commerces site for artists.

LinkedIn

A great way to network with people you have worked with, join groups and share your knowledge with people in your industry. A great way to improve your reputation. Not only this but Linkedin will tell you of jobs coming up in your area that are suitable for your skills. You may never need to go the job centre ever again!

Learnable

Good Designers always advance themselves. Its a never ending quest to learn more, improve skills & keep ahead. When it comes to web and app design new coding languages are always being created. Learnable aims to make learning web design and development easy and fun. They want students to gain practical and usable skills on topics they are passionate about. Or alternatively if you feel you are a guru in an area you can deliver training that you believe in. Helping others is surely the best thing we can do with our time?

If you know of any other useful sites please feel free to share and I will add it to the list.

So you may have noticed that I am trying to make a habit of blogging. It can be quite tricky at times to fit the time in when designing many things and generally just trying to live a normal life but if you do manage to maintain a steady stream of blog posts you are going to start generating some really useful content that others may be able to benefit from but how do people find your blog? Are you relying on Twitter, Facebook & natural search engine results? What about submitting your blog to a few directories? Continue “5 Top Blog Directories to submit your Blog to”