Must Design

Web Design
Cha Cha Changes are ahead for web design. Our social / mobile / connected world is blowing up our wireframes. and that's a good thing.

Best In Class From Conversion IQ
The other day I complained about "pretty picture' ecommerce sites that make conversion harder. So much of ecom is ditch digging. Ditch digging to make sure you have things such as:

* Email subscription form (prefer presence to popunders).
* Clearly ECOM - looks like a store with things to sell not content to read.
* Social (easy to find theirs and easy to contribute).
* Content Curation from social / comments / reviews (should feel like a party with people who share love / interests).

* Offers, deadlines and a sense of time (of the year today is Columbus Day for example).

These examples from Conversion IQ are closer to "ditch digging" ecommerce websites. Conversion either BUYING or into a list are easier, more clear and so these designs make more money than the pretty picture websites I shared last (http://sco.lt/4ijZIH ),

Learn what to include in your website design before you build and find out the 10 ‘must-haves’ to drive more traffic to your site.

1. Incorporate Keywords.

2. Multiple points of contact.

3. Consistent branding.

4. Call To Actions.
5. EASY to read (font size, short paragraphs, bullet points).
6. EASY to navigate.

7. Important above fold.

8. Load time (faster is better).

9. Build credibility & trust.

10. Social

This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Beautiful Unusual Navigation Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards websites with a strong presence of unusual navigation. An effective navigation design is crucial for a website

Marty Note
Social Media is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for the future of any website. Why then are social buttons done so poorly on so many websites? Because not everyone believes the TRUTH of my first sentence.

In addition to these 9 excellent Social Media Examiner tips I would add a few:

* Don't change the COLORS of the buttons. Those brands are established now and changing their colors mutes their impact.

* Remember you have 2 kinds of needs - Social SHARES of your content and social shares of your site. Those are two different ideas easily confused. Look at Mashable for some of the best social media button design on the web. Clear buttons on posts with the "SHARES" total number and then buttons on the fiar right for Mashable.com.

Some publishers may have 3 or 4 button groups such as: post, site, author and special content such as polls or Infographics.

* LARGE and IN CHARGE and if your programmers are talented create the total number like Mashable.

* Here is proper structure of an article link:
9 Tips for Integrating Social Media on Your Website http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-tips-for-integrating-social-media-on-your-website/  via @smexaminer

Short intro into the link & attribution at the end. Keep your character count down below 120 for maximum RTs.

* Here is a proper structure for a site:
Follow Mashable on Email, RSS & Social Media http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/follow-mashable/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfbWdmMGlqY3p4c3A5bWk4dyJ9  via @mashable


Here are the 9 tips from Social Media Examiner:

1. Include visible social media buttons.

2. Integrate social where it makes sense.

3. Include up-to-date buttons.

4. Include share buttons.

5. Use analytics.
6. Pay attention to terms and conditions (of social media sites).

7. Don't over do it.
8. Stay knowledgeable.

9. Use http://sproutsocial.com/ or something similar to match social to analytics.

Here is how Beyonce Explained her SURPRISE album:

Beyonce called the project a "visual album" and said "I see music."

"It's more than just what I hear," she said. "When I'm connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they're all connected to the music."

Internet marketers and web designers should read Beyoncé’s note slowly since the visual marketing tsunami is impacting everything now as Beyonce proved.

How VISUAL is your content? How AWESOME? Up to Beyonce levels? When Beyonce introduced the album on Instragram with a single word image social media all but melted down. Here are stats from Jeff Bullas blog:

The tipping point?

With the evolution of the web there are some events that are small but significant. One of those happened on December 13, 2013. It was when Beyonce launched her latest album with an update on Instagram just captioned as “Surprise”

This broke convention.

Normally millions are spent on traditional media. Lady Gaga hyped her latest album by spending millions on bus advertising, billboards, 2 pop up stores and performed countless interviews. The result. She sold 305,000 copies in 2 weeks.

Beyonce, who has 8 million Instagram followers and over 53 million fans on Facebook decided to go straight to her fans. She decided to give the bus a miss. It was launched directly to iTunes and social media. She invoked the power of  ”World of Mouth”

The results:

* It sold 828,773 copies in 3 days

* Twitter reported 1.2 million Tweets in 12 hours

* It was the largest single week ever in the Apple iTunes store

* It was iTunes fastest selling album worldwide

Product developers, Internet, content and social media marketers need to understand the core TIPPING POINTS in the middle of Beyoncé’s results:

* Marketing is about the SOCIAL/VISUAL now.
* Rework creative if necessary to be more SOCIAL and VISUAL.

* Helps if you look like Beyonce.

* If YOU don't look like Beyonce, FIND SOMETHING that does!
* Weave SOCIAL and VISUAL into product development.

* Think about VISUALS as you go.
* Find visuals that work & double down.

* As for HELP as User Generated Content is GREAT if you don't look like Beyonce (They Might & Even If They Don't They Will Support).

Web 3.0's Whaam!
Just as Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! 1963 seemed to blow abstract painting off the walls web 3.0 will change everything we call "website design". After creating The Future of Web Design #1 (http://sco.lt/7r6zkf) Haiku Deck I realized some shots were fired but not enough.

Web 3.0 powered by a ubiquitous web for people and things with semantic intelligence changes how we create websites and Internet marketing. Math will be a future web designer’s friend. 

Websites will float based on predictive analytics and real time behavior. Behavior responded to with tested creative designed for personas and segments to CONVERT is more Google-like than anything web designers create now.

David Merrill's siftables are the best demonstration of how content will become intelligently self aware AND agnostic to the kind of hubificaiton web designers practice now.

http://youtu.be/JP0w9lZoLwU Siftables

Hubificaiton is about bringing THEM to US. APP-ificaiton is about creating agnostic widgets. Widgets easily placed anywhere (as Amazon's mini-cart widget demonstrates here: http://sco.lt/4iahNZ).

Web 3.0's mobile ubiquitous web will reverse hubification's emphasis on traffic density (bring visitors into a hub). Distinctions will change too. THEM and US will fade in favor of relevant experience in a commons. 

In this context CONVERSION becomes an extension of an experience instead of the other way around. We rarely shop / search for things merely for the pleasure of the search.

We may start with one goal in mind and end up achieving a different set of goals, goals created on the fly in real time based on how the web responds to our journey, but our process feels like US.

Predictive analytics, personas, segments and an increasing amount of tested creative controlled by math means our unique feeling of US or ME may continue to exist, but THEIR sense of our next behavior make this feeling a distinction without a difference. 

If you fit a persona that persona predicts what relevant content you need and content wraps around you like a blanket. The feeling of having Big Brother on your shoulder could be overwhelming. Mutual benefit is why consumers won't revolt. Relevance is good since it saves our most valuable commodity - TIME. 

When websites convert 40% of their traffic, as Schwan's does now, their efficiency trumps density. Efficiency trumping density describes Web 3.0 perfectly.  

5 Super Secret Marketing Trends
One of the "Super Secret" Marketing Trends we see for 2016 is Nowism. As defined brilliantly in a TED Talk by Joi Ito (embedded in the post) Nowist plan less and react more. Nowist look to the web to provide the collaborative means to react to what is happening now.

Nowism brings several important design considerations including:

* Incorporation of Social Media Feeds

* More space for Content Curation 

* More flexibility and less rigid and static boxes

* More movement and change throughout a site

When something BIG happens and a web design looks and feels the same the sit steps away from the now. One of http://www.Moon-Audio.com major partners is about to launch an earth shatteing new product. 

Moon's site needs to have the ability to curate, create and spin content about this innovation fast and furious. The more your content marketing and website live in the now the stronger its relationship with your customers.

See the other 4 Super Secret Marketing Trends for 2016 here:

http://www.curagami.com/5-super-secret-marketing-trends/?v=7516fd43adaa 

Team Curagami (http://www.Curagami.com ) has, over the course of our combined careers, helped thousands of clients build websites and about 99% have cart before the proverbial horse. "What is our design going to look like," they ask.

Most think "web design" is creating the look and feel of a site. Actually the look and feel, while important, is at least #6 on the "do these things to create a great web presence" list. Here are the first 5 things on that list:

1. Elevator Pitch - Who Are You?
If we were riding in an elevator could you explain your business before we reached your floor? If NO is your answer you are not alone and you need to go back to the drawing board and practice until you have your "elevator pitch" down. All things flow from that defining snippet.

Tags can help define your elevator pitch. Curagami.com Cool Tools For Ecommerce Merchants explains what we do in 5 words. Note that I don't have the the site yet so do as we are saying not as we do (always :).

2. Pain Point - Whose Your Tribe?
We create stuff to DO SOMETHING. Your product or service must help some tribe. Curagami helps ecommerce merchants understand content marketing because finding the balance beam between content that works and content that hurts is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for ecommerce merchants. So our tribe begins with ecom merchants and we address the PAIN of understanding content marketing. We don't LIMIT ourselves. We don't say, "Go away" to B2B SaaS clients but they are cream on the top of our core tribe and mission.

3. UCA - What Are Your Customers' Aspirations
Unique Customer Aspirations is a metrics we developed as Marketing Director for Atlantic BT. UCA speaks to the transformation your content, product and service creates. Yes Curagami helps merchants make more money, but we also relieve the STRESS of not knowing what to do and why. We help merchants have confidence in their content. No one can build sustainable online community (everyone's master goal whether they know it or not) without being confident in their ability to create, share and curate content. Content is king online and the implications of that statement go far and wide. It's not enough to know your tribes shape you must know their CHARACTER too. Our tribe is STRESSED OVERWHELMED and WORRIED. Anything we do to relieve any of that makes our content sticky and sure to be shared.

4. Know Difference Between Content CREATION and CURATION
Being able to create content is important. We suggest our clients create about 10% of content from unique brand based strings. 90% of the content we want clients to share, discuss and riff off of comes from gurus, customers and THE OTHER. The other is anyone other than you and keeping tabs on your category information, knowing what matters most to your readers and why and understanding the need to tuck ego in back pocket and share competitive information is one of the hardest skills we teach. Web marketing is MOSTLY about THEM not YOU so knowing when you need to blog vs. when you need to comment is key.

5. Know Social Marketing Basics
I'm staying at The Blackwell Inn in Ohio while being treated at Ohio State's James Cancer Center. I've tweeted several positive comments @theBlackwell. Noneof those comments have been ReTweeted and they don't follow me.

ERROR.

My social following dwarfs theirs so breaking the FOLLOW BACK rule hurts 'em. By not picking up my @tweets they discourage such shares and lose the value of that communication (that they actually LISTEN and CARE). I think they do listen and care, but they don't have the skills to do so ONLINE. Before you create a website you need to know what's up in social media.

The Blackwell's lackof knowledge isn't fatal since they are located on Ohio State's campus and are the ONLY such hotel so located. They can SUCK at social media (for a bit) without pain. Doubtful your website, especially if it brand spanking new can afford such a deficit.

Since the master goal of your site is the creation of sustainable online community NOT understanding the implied contracts and un-stated ways social media works can be DEADLY.

Know those 5 things and we can begin to discuss wireframes, look and feel and visual marketing :). Marty

One More Thing - reason this stuff is so important, as my friend Frank Pollock would explain, is the web is a lie detecting amplifier. If you lie it will be shared with the world and known instantly or before, so don't lie. If you are CONFUSED, as many SMBs are, get STRAIGHT before you put crayon to paper and design a site or risk having your confusion being your main message.

*Web Design For DIY*
The Do-It-Yourself revolution is blowing up thanks to mobile apps and social media. This link includes one of our favorite examples: http://www.Casetify.com where we just created our http://www.Curagami.com logo case for iPhone 6Plus.

We are working on a series of posts about how to engage and empower your DIY customers & you can help. Send ideas, comments and your experiences with DIY marketing and we will curate into the piece with attribution and a link (martin (at) curagami.com).

Find more DIY Marketing thoughts and a secret code you can use to get $10 off your Casetify.com creations (8PGZX3). Sharing a code like that is powerful brand ambassador fuel.

Share your DIY tips and check out more notes on GPlus:
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/Nezb4QZgayx

Designing Tomorrow's Ecommerce
I'm writing a blog post for Curatti that will go live at midnight tonight that discusses the "best practices" of "Tomorrow's Ecommerce". I'm also writing a Curagami blog post (also published at midnight) about how social shopping will change Tomorrow's Ecommerce.

Tomorrow's Ecom Current Best Practices (Curatti tonight)
Tomorrow's Ecom Social & Mobile Web (on Curagami now)

The Haiku Deck that bridges both of these posts is linked above and here:
http://shar.es/1nkJef

As we publish each post we will link them here.

Like the World Wide Web itself, the world of website design is constantly in flux as technologies change and design standards evolve. What worked in 2013 may

Social login, also known as social sign-in, provides users with one single login using an account they already have – their social network account.

Future Of Web Design In 3 Parts
What does the future of web design look like? So much is up in the air this Haiku Deck is my third and the topic is far from exhausted:

Future of Web Design 1: Web design in a SoLoMo world.

http://sco.lt/61eqNF 

Future of Web Design 2: Web  design when THEY and US &  OUT THERE and IN HERE are the same. 
http://sco.lt/7r6zkf 

Future of Web Design 3: How does a semantic and mobile web change design, marketing and sales. 

What happens when TIME becomes a perpetual now, sales happens in real time and marketing is about curation? Web design as we've known it is about to change as much as something can change. 

Why? I scratched the surface of why in How Entropy Is Creating Web 3.0 Right Under Our Noses:
http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-entropy-is-creating-web-30-right.html  

Bottom line is everything is changing FAST so rewards go to the quick and flexible. If you have the courage to throw out almost everything you believe about everything once again you may just WIN BIG.