Design

10 Reasons Custom Web Design is DYING
Marvin Russell

10 Reasons Custom Web Design is DYING

Design

Ten years ago, it was taboo to utter the word “template” to a customer when discussing their new website. I avoided this word at all costs, and if I ever did say the word "template" I quickly followed it with an explanation of why the word “template” just left my mouth. After all, haven't we all heard a client say, "this design looks too much like a template" when rejecting one of our custom website designs. Because of this fear, I along with thousands of other web designers went through a huge identity crisis.We all thought that every website should be custom, because that's what we thought our customers wanted. Looking back years later, I've realized that nothing could be further from the truth. Custom web design is dying and here are 10 reasons why.

Website Design Wars: SEO Agencies vs. Web Design Agencies - Worldwide Trends
Carla Dawson

Website Design Wars: SEO Agencies vs. Web Design Agencies - Worldwide Trends

Design

Web Design Agencies are great at making beautiful websites, but can they do SEO too? We analyzed award-winning website designs throughout the world to see how SEO friendly they were. We also compared these websites to leading SEO Agency websites to see how they were design wise. We noticed that most SEO agencies have great rankings, but poor designs and we noticed that web design agencies have beautiful websites but poor SEO.

The SEO of Responsive Web Design
Kristina Kledzik

The SEO of Responsive Web Design

Design

Will Critchlow announced back in November that Distilled's blog was updated with a new responsive design, but it occurred to me recently that we never went into the specifics of why responsive web design is so great. It's been a hot topic in online marketing for the past few months, but is it really going to become an industry standard? Short answer: yep.

Designing for SEO
Justin Taylor

Designing for SEO

Design

We've all run into the issue of compromising design for SEO, or vice-versa. Why is it that websites that look amazing typically offer little opportunity for on-page optimization? In today's post, Justin Taylor bridges the gap between design and SEO with a solution that makes both sides happy dance with joy!

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12 Creative Design Elements Inspiring the Next Generation of UX
Rand Fishkin

12 Creative Design Elements Inspiring the Next Generation of UX

Design

It's been a long time since I've written about design here at Moz, but I spent my morning in a great meeting with our designer, Derric, and was inspired by a lot of his ideas and what we reviewed to revisit some of the emerging trends and outlier creatives that are opening our eyes to what's possible. Below, you'll find some truly exceptional, unique elements of creative layout and artistry, as...

7 Ways to Improve the On-Site Experience
Paul Lalley

7 Ways to Improve the On-Site Experience

Design

The best experience site visitors can have is to find what it is they're looking for. They want easy access to quality, unbiased information, they want to compare prices and they want to know if the company, association, service provider or other site owner delivers the goods or services visitors are looking for. Unfortunately, site owners want something else – a sale, an opt-in, a...

7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO)
Rand Fishkin

7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO)

Design

As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we've been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It's terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It's also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separat...

How Paging Improves or Worsens Your Website
M

How Paging Improves or Worsens Your Website

Design

Having read Duncan's post about Information Architecture, I thought I would write a short follow-up about an important means of navigation and IA: the paging navigator. Providing a well thought out paging navigator can immensely increase the value of your website for both search engines and users. What follows is a selection of different popular paging navigators and a short evaluation.

Microsoft Forces Me to Hate Internet Explorer
Darren Slatten

Microsoft Forces Me to Hate Internet Explorer

Design

I found a quote recently that really embodies my sentiments about Microsoft's Internet Explorer: "If IE6 were a person, I'd punch that person in the face." Whose famous words are these? Mine. That's right, this is something that I--the World's Best SEO--actually said to a client last week, in response to an email he sent me. Here's the backstory...

Applying On-Site SEO to Website Templates (Or Why Separation of Code and Content is a Good Thing)
D

Applying On-Site SEO to Website Templates (Or Why Separation of Code and Content is a Good Thing)

Design

There are lots of people who would class themselves as a developer and would say they can code in any given language. Often the difference between a good developer and a great developer isn't anything to do with the program, how well it works, and how few bugs there are. The great developers make programs that work but they make them in a way that isolates the various components from each other...