Posts Categorized: Articles

What is a CTA (Call to Action) button? And how does it help my site?

By admin In Articles Posted October 30, 2015

A call to action button is basically a button on your homepage that leads the user/customer to take a certain action.

An example will be the slider on our homepage, when the user clicks it on it they will be directed to learn more about why they need a website and a contact form below that page in case they need it now.

A call to action button helps convert users into customers

Here are some guidelines on how to implement a good CTA button your website.

1. Above the fold

Having a CTA immediately as a slider or a hero image helps increase customer conversion rate. 70-80% of the time the customer already knows what they are looking for. A clear CTA will assist in guiding the customer to the right location in your website to take action.

2. Make it stand out

The button should preferably have a border, and look like a clickable item. Make sure there is adequate white space around the button and make it large enough so that the user does not misclick.

3. Tell a story to aid your cause

A good CTA will explain to your customers why they need the service/product. Some good storytelling techniques include case studies and picture examples.

7 Common technical terms that you should know

By admin In Articles Posted October 21, 2015

Whether you are a client looking for a website to build, a new developer, or just simply curious, there are a lot of technical terms that are thrown around in a tech company such as ours.

Fortunately, we have listed down some of the more common words that are being used and explained them with a house analogy.

01. Web Browser

If you were a tourist visiting the world wide web, a “Web Browser” would be your tour guide, guiding you to your designated house.

02. Server

A “Server” is the physical location of your house. It provides all the electrical wirings and pipings so that the house can operate. Often you would pay a landlord (Hosting Company) a monthly fee to house your website.

03. IP Address / URL (Internet Protocol / Uniform Resource Locator)

An IP Address/URL stands for your house’s street number/address. It’s how people identify where your website is located. You will have to pay a lawyer (Registrar) to purchase your URL.

04. Database

bookshelf

The database is bookshelf that stores information about your house which are then retrievable quickly and in an orderly fashion.

05. CMS (Content Management System)

The CMS is the construction man of your website. He helps you update your house with new fixtures.

06. Responsive

Mobile responsive design conform itself to the different mobile browersers

How your website responds to different screen sizes (such as on a Desktop Computer or an iPhone). Being responsive means that your website will scale to fit.

07. HTML / CSS / JavaScript

bricks

The code foundation of your website. It is essentially the bricks and cement that bring the house together. One might even consider them the painting & decorating.

The death of Adobe Flash Player

By admin In Articles Posted October 16, 2015

10 years ago, Flash player could do whatever HTML or Javascript couldn’t. It ushered in a new era of flash games, animations, and interactive websites.

Today, Flash player is a shell of its past. It crashes a lot. It is vulnerable to a lot of security and privacy issues. It doesn’t work on most phones.

iPhones has also not supported Flash since its inception. Steve Jobs has expressed his thoughts here in a letter spanning hundreds of words. The summary is, Flash must die.

Most websites have stopped using Flash technology altogether. Youtube stopped embedding their videos using Flash. We upgraded our old site a year ago that was built on Flash player. Modern Open Web Standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript has come a long way to copy the capabilities of Flash player.

screencapture-file-P-Silent-20Frontier-Website-WWW-index-html-1444270979751

The old Silent Frontier site. RIP.

Why does it matter?

Because it is so widely distributed, many hackers are targeting it as a security loophole to attack your system with an exploit kit or similar. Worse of all, many people do not update their Flash versions. The hackers can still target an older version of Flash. Many online advertisements run on Flash too, causing poor performance on the webpage.

Here’s what you can do to uninstall Flash on your browser.

Chrome: Go to chrome://plugins in your search bar. Scroll down to Adobe Flash Player. Click Disable.

Safari: Go to Safari > Preferences. Click Security. Click Manage Website Settings. Click Adobe Flash Player. Go to the When visiting other websites dropdown and click Block.

Firefox: Go to the hamburger icon in the upper right-hand corner. Click Add-ons. Go to the left hand column and click Plugins. Go to the dropdown next to Shockwave Flash and select Never Activate.

Internet Explorer: Go to the gear icon in the upper righthand corner. Click Internet options. Click Programs. Click Manage add-ons. Click Shockwave Flash Client. In the lower right-hand corner, click Disable.

If you decided to uninstall Flash, good for you! Modern browsers such as Chrome or Firefox comes with Flash auto disabled. While you are at it, why not upgrade your browser as well?

https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Let your website represent your business

By admin In Articles Posted October 14, 2015

Your website is the first online impression that your potential customer gets, thus it is important how well your website presents your company.

Website’s Direction

What do you want your Users to understand? Are you showing a portfolio, selling a product or service, or attracting volunteers?

Theme, Color Palette & Fonts

Color palette for the whole website

Depending on your branding, the theme, font, and colors would be selected to portray a specific mood to the Users. For example, if you are a party organizer, the website would be in bright colors and big fonts to be friendly to the potential customers. Corporate websites might be in deep navy blue to portray trust and strength to clients.

Site Map & Content

The menu should be designed such that the Users can navigate the website smoothly and find what they need easily. It would also take into consideration what the company wants to emphasize or particularly bring out to the Users.

Images

Relevant and quality images to be selected and incorporated into the website. Images are considered if they fit the image of the company and what the company sells or do.

Call to Action & Interaction

The website should provide a clear Call to Action button so that the User can be guided to make their online decision easily. For example, a non-profit organization can provide a clear and big button on their homepage that links to a contact form that recruits new volunteers.

Online contact forms or email/live chat services also help your potential customers reach you easily.

If you do not have a website, talk to us! Every company is unique and we want to help you create your online presence. Contact us for a complimentary evaluation session now!

How we increased the speed of our website by 50-70%

By admin In Articles Posted October 9, 2015

A network of data centers connects people closer – Designed by Freepik

Have you heard of CDNs (Content Delivery Networks)? Basically, they are data centers distributed across the globe, they deliver online content to end-users in the most efficient way possible based on proximity.

A good analogy would be MacDonalds. It has branches all over the world just to serve you closer. Most people can access a MacDonald within 10 minutes walking distance!

Our website (www.silentfrontier.com) has over 100 HTTP requests on the front page alone, and all this is taking 20 seconds to load, which was too long by modern internet standards.

We had to find a way to cut down the load times. We did it using CloudFlare’s free CDN service.

1. Sign up for CloudFlare

https://www.cloudflare.com/

2. Go through their Signup Process. They should automatically scan your DNS records after you input your website address.

3. You are being asked to select a plan, select the Free plan for now.

4. You must contact your registrar to change the nameservers to point to theirs. Refer to the image below. Give this information to your registrar. *

5. That’s it! You will need to wait about 24-48 hours for the DNS propagation. You can check the progress on the dashboard.

After implementing CloudFlare we tested our new loading speeds and as it turns out, 50-70% faster than it used to be! **

* Your registrar is the website where you signed up for your domain name/url/website address. Some common registrars are GoDaddy, SGNIC, Namecheap.com.

** Disclaimer: Mileage may vary. If your website contains like 100 megabytes of data, it will still take forever to load even after implementing CloudFlare’s service.

Tricks to get your website mobile responsive!

By admin In Articles Posted October 7, 2015

Mobile responsive design conform itself to the different mobile browersers

Today, customers reach your website from a variety of devices such as tablets, desktop, mobile phones, and more. If you do not want to miss potential customers, having your website mobile-friendly is now more essential than ever.

Early 2015, Google announced that mobile-friendly is now a factor in search rankings. Before that, mobile users have also said they would not want to re-visit a website that provides a negative mobile experience.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to make your website mobile responsive!

What if you do not have budget at the moment?

You can opt to do an independent mobile version of the website. Users who access your website on a mobile device will be redirected to the mobile version. It is a fast and cheap immediate solution. However, the downside is that you have to update the mobile version and desktop version website simultaneously and the mobile version, being smaller scale, might also have less information than the desktop version which Users might not be happy about.

Yes, I have a budget. So what’s next?

Revamp your website with responsive web design practice would be a better option in the long run. You would have only one site, which scales itself to fit the screen size of any mobile device belonging to the User. The design is consistent and you have to update only once! It would meet the User’s expectations, as the content is same regardless of them surfing via desktop or mobile devices.

You need to get your website mobile responsive now!

Depending on your budget, you can choose to do a mobile version website or a website revamp. The top priority is to do it now, best before your next major update!

Not sure whether your site is mobile friendly? Contact us now to get a complimentary website analysis!

Mobile site : Case Study #1

By admin In Articles Posted July 1, 2015

Ms Lim operates a café offline and she has a non-mobile responsive static website – www.cakes-n-coffee.com.sg done since 2001. (At that period of time, mobile technology was still at its infancy stage)

But as web technologies evolve her website is now outdated and unable to keep up with new devices popping out everywhere. Her laptop screen size based website now looks awful when viewed in mobile devices. Buttons and images are everywhere and in a mess.

Users in transit get frustrated when they try to look for her café address in her website while on their mobile devices. When users discuss with their friends on the nicest café to visit, they will usually use their mobile device to show their friends.

Ms Lim’s website is seen as an extension of the storefront and part of the café’s branding and image. When users get frustrated, her brand image suffers as a result. She decides to keep the current website and design a mobile friendly site for her users. She engages us to design it.

We implement server side technology to redirect the user (when viewed from a mobile device) to a new address – m.cakes-n-coffee.com.sg and help her move the old content to the new site.

The new site will scale responsively depending on the mobile device screen size and looks beautiful. Desktop and laptop users will still be able to access the main site. Customers will be henceforth treated to a more user friendly experience when they use their mobile devices to visit her site.

Let us help you today!

CMS : Case Study #1

By admin In Articles Posted June 30, 2015

Mr Tan operates a small construction & renovation company in Singapore.

He is the sub-contractor which means that main contractors will often request a quote for his services. The main contractors will look for his website via channels such as Google’s search engine or directories.

With a CMS operated website, he is able to easily update his professional certifications for his company (such as bizSAFE, or ISO certifications). He can also obtain testimonials from his client and post it online so that his main contractors will have confidence in his services. Mr Tan can update his portfolio page with current and past renovation works done so his clients are able to see that his renovation works are of high quality.

Mr Tan does not need any technical knowledge of web languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript or PHP. He only needs to learn how to operate the CMS, which typically only takes less than 1 day to learn all the basics fundamentals! This includes how to create your own post, updating your content, adding new users, and many other features.*

*Other editable features are subject to the type of CMS that is chosen and depth of understanding on how the CMS operates.

Learn how CMS can help your business!

Happy Chinese New Year!

By admin In Articles, Graphic Design Posted February 16, 2015

Here’s wishing everyone great health and happiness this Chinese New Year!

Click on me to view the e-card!

Merry Xmas!

By admin In Articles, Graphic Design Posted December 25, 2014

We wish you peace, prosperity, health & great happiness this joyous holiday season and the year ahead!