Is Your Website Customer Friendly?

In a rush to make websites visually appealing and search engine friendly, most of the businesses forget a very important aspect of website designing – customer friendliness. The result is a narcissist website that dwells greatly on the business’s products, team, offerings, locations etc. but has no place to deal with customer issues.

Most customers do not have enough time to read every word on a website. They simply scan it for ‘relevant info’ and this is simply what narcissist websites miss!

In contrast, an intelligent website has the right information, at the right place and does not leave the customer stranded. Here’s what an intelligent website must do:

• Provide to-the point statements
• Proactively address common concerns and questions
• Offer active online self service support
• Encourage a dialogue with customers

While designing your website the focus should be the anticipated needs or concerns of your customers rather than self praise. Too much of “me me” stuff may simply irritate them away. Tell customers about yourself but do it in a way that is helpful for them as well.

12 Elegant and Clean Free WordPress Themes

Choosing a right theme for your blog or website is imperative to accentuate its visual appeal.  In vogue are stylish, yet clean themes that perfectly synchronize the design and text elements. Here is a collection of some popular free WordPress themes that blend elegance with simplicity.

Blumin: For its sheer simplicity and neat layout, Blumin is a highly recommend theme for those who like elegance simplified.

Simple Balance 2.0: With increased control over it’s  layout and color options, advertising space, and multiple font options, this is a theme that can be tweaked to create impressive custom styles.

Zoxengen: With the flexibility to modify font and headline style in multiple ways, Zoxengen, 3 column widgetize theme is  a perfect choice for those who like to update theme styles frequently.

Rainbow Circles: A three column fixed-width theme, with a double right hand sidebar, enabled for widgets.

WPImagination: Featuring a separate homepage for the latest posts and space for “asides” or quick notes, WPImagination is a good choice for creative blogs.

WhiteSpace: Attractive and simple, this  theme is a good choice if your are looking for  soft and simple wordpress themes.

Brilliance: With a  provision for an adsense block in the third column, Brilliance is a 3-column, widget ready theme with soothing colors and design.

Modern: The uniqueness of this theme lies in the horizontal layout of page links that creates a clear distinction between permanent and updated content.

Prima: With eye catching color combinations, Prima is another simple and  attrattractive theme.

Elements of SEO: Designed keeping SEO in mind, this classic theme has multiple tweaks and is completely widget ready.

Nishita: Simple, sleek and with real quick installation, this is a perfect choice for photo blogs.

Sports2: A mix of bright shades and clean layout, this theme is a perfect choice for sports blogs.

Most Popular Social Media Icon Sets

Heart: A Free Social Icon Set

The Leaves Fall: A Social Icon Set For Bloggers

Social Icons Hand Drawned

6 Free New Social Icons

Free Twitter Bird Icon Set

Free Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set for Bloggers

Cheers: A Free Social Icon Set

Set of Social Icons

Top 10 Free Fonts to Decorate Your Website

Fonts are an expression of a designer’s ingenuity. However, hunting around for appropriate fonts is a tedious task. Here is a selection of some of the most popular free website fonts that you can use to adorn your websites.

Resonance Bold

Nilland

Nadia Serif

Mayberry Pro SemiBold

Layer Cake

Junction

HVD Comic Serif

CartoGothic Std

Birra Stout

Whiteboard Modern

Go Social…Internet is No Longer Only for Geeks!

With the whole world flocking to the social media sites like Twitter, Digg and LinkedIn, making your business visible on them has become extremely challenging. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is your only chance to remain afloat in a swarming pool of competitors. SMO is novel marketing strategy that has rapidly gained popularity in recent times. The concept is simple, get your website refurbished so that it is easily linkable to social media sites, is found on all popular blogs and podcasts and is extensively bookmarked.

Why Social Media?

A marketing study conducted by WhitePaperSource.com reveals that marketers are increasingly drawn towards social media marketing because it yields better results with lower investment. According to the report, the primary benefits of promoting your business through social media are:

• enormous attention from prospects
• increased number of qualified leads
• fruitful business partnerships
• reduced marketing expenses

Who doesn’t want to see their business grow by leaps and bounds in minimum cost? Social media is a fabulous opportunity for doing this and you should just not miss it!

However, only knowing about it and creating accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn will not get you the desired results. Marketing through social media needs extensive planning and effective SMO to ensure that your business is visible wherever your clients may look for it.

How do I make my SMO activities effective?

The answer is simple- proper planning and a well executed SMO strategy. Optimizing your website to ensure that it qualifies all parameters of social media marketing, coupled with effective management and maintenance of the same is what will get you maximum eye balls.

Here are some tips for a perfect SMO that will get you maximum attention on the Internet:

1.    Increase your linkability – Mobilize your website. Update it regularly and imbibe blogs and whitepapers to enhance its linkability.

2.    Make tagging and bookmarking easy – Tag and bookmark your pages with all popular websites.

3.    Help your content travel – SMO goes beyond modifying structure and content of your website. If you have content that is in portable formats like PDF, audio-video files, PPTs etc, the same can be submitted to sites like YouTube, SlideShare, etc..

4.    Make web friends – Go ahead and exchange content and videos with other websites. Experiment with RSS and facilitate others in driving more traffic towards your web content.

Give your website the SMO power and see its presence grow in every corner of the World Wide Web!

19 Clean Website Designs That Inspire and Excite

Simplicity is the keyword for website design these days. The current trend sees designers moving away from complex designs towards simpler and unique layouts with an out of the box approach. These innovative layouts and designs are in-vogue for websites and blogs.

Here are some examples of innovative website designs that harbinger the concept of creative simplicity:

Last, but certainly not the least, yours truly, Tangence. (You see we are sincere followers of the clean is in suit, and therefore had to feature on the list)

Following are some innovative blog and community designs:

CVM is Now Live!

CVM Solutions has got a facelift! At least its online persona has. The leading provider of supplier management sofware, CVM has a new website that is more vibrant, fresher and still very sophisticated - a true representation of the company, where it is right now and wants to be in the future.

CVM Solutions - New Website Design and Creation

Tangence was involved in the complete design and development of the new website. The Tangence team created a clean and appealing design which allows easy navigation. Tangence was also involved in creating all the graphics and diagrams for the website that makes the content easier to follow and understand. A set of graphic icons were created for visual representation of the main solutions provided by the client.

CVM Solutions - Diagram

Breathing New Life into LucidEra

Tangence has recently redesigned the home page for our client LucidEra (www.lucidera.com). The launch of the new design was a big success and the refurbish of the complete website was received very well. The redesign has lead to a fresher looking, visually appealing and a much more easily navigable website for LucidEra.

Tangence Home Page Design - LucidEra

Flash has been used to generate more interest while conveying the most important message of the company to the audience directly.

Meanwhile, Tangence aslo created a new microsite for LucidEra Spring ‘09 - the latest solution by the client that makes it possible for sales management to get high-definition visibility into where to focus and what to focus on in their Sales Pipelines.

Tangence Microsite Design - LucidEra Spring'09

The Microsite is intrumental in the launch on this SaaS BI solution and is designed and developed to provide complete information to the visitor and continue the brand guidelines of the client - LucidEra.