Web Design & Marketing News: Week of March 30-April 5, 2014

Welcome to our latest web design and marketing news recap! This week, we’ll review an excellent list of smart web design tips and explore the advantages and disadvantages of using parallax scrolling on your ecommerce site. Read on for some great information on which strategies should definitely be part of your web design plan and one that you may want to hold off on for the near future.

25 Web Design Tips to Honor 25 Years of the Web (Cheryl Connor, Forbes)

Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a good look at everything you’re doing and make sure it’s truly working for you. That’s one of the reasons we love this Forbes article by contributor Cheryl Connor on 25 Web Design Tips in honor of the World Wide Web’s 25th birthday. Whether you’re brand new to web design and just getting your feet wet for the sake of your company’s online presence or you’ve been doing business the virtual way for more than a decade, this expert-vetted checklist is a fantastic resource. Give it a thorough review and ask yourself if your own page meets all of the important criteria: does it wow the user from the get-go? Is all of the content concise, brilliant, and optimized? Does the web site provide easy links to your company’s social media pages? Have you tweaked everything on your page specifically for your target demographic? If you give your page a once-over and find that it’s coming up short, there’s no time like the present for a smart web design and marketing makeover. Your company’s future depends on it!

The Pros and Cons of Parallax Scrolling for Ecommerce (Linda Bustos, GetElastic)

So now that you’ve reviewed 25 of the “musts” of web design, what about some of the “maybes”? Here’s one method that’s a lot less tried-and-true than something as effective as an obvious call-to-action—but certainly worth discussing.

When a potential customer lands on your web site and starts browsing your merchandise, where do you want most of his or her focus to be? Naturally, the answer is on the product itself—but what’s the best way to achieve that? Linda Bustos of Get Elastic explores the web design trend known as parallax scrolling, which allows elements on the page to move separately from one another (she cites Super Mario’s ability to stay in the center of your screen while landscapes, bad guys, and gold coins whiz by as a great example.) Like Mario (or Luigi, if you prefer), your product can take center stage and stay there if you employ this web design technique—but it’s not without its drawbacks. Linda Bustos explores the pros and cons of parallax scrolling: on the one hand, many users find it more fun and engaging, but on the other, it isn’t great for your responsive design strategy, and it can hurt your SEO performance as well. She thinks there’s a better ecommerce web design method than this one waiting for discovery … what about you?

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  • By Dennis Consorte
  • Published on April 3rd, 2014