Best Options for Real Time Analytics
Published November 8th, 2011 in Marketing, Tools - 21 Comments
Every business, large or small, has a need to know what is going on with its website and how users are interacting with it. There are a number of different options when it comes to website analytics, and this post will feature the leading options that provide visitor data in real time.
Real time analytics can prove to be invaluable when working with social media or viral campaigns that tend to send traffic quickly and in short bursts. In these situations you’ll need to be able to react quickly, and real-time website analytics allow you to do so. Here is a look at some of the best options.
Google Analytics
In recent weeks Google Analytics rolled out a new feature for real-time reporting. You can see how many visitors are on your site at the moment, what specific pages they are viewing, what sites referred them, where they are located geographically, and more. You’ll need to be using the new version of Analytics in order to view the real time data (read more about that in this post on the Analytics blog).
Design Inspiration: Brown Websites
Published November 7th, 2011 in Galleries - 12 Comments
When it comes to website color schemes brown may not be the first color that comes to mind when starting a design from scratch, but many websites are using brown as a primary color very effectively. In this post we’ll showcase 25 beautiful brown website for your own color inspiration. This collection can also help by showing what other colors designers are using in combination with brown.
You may also be interested in other posts from this series:
- Blue Websites
- Green Websites
- Red Websites
- Orange Websites
- Yellow Websites
- Purple Websites
- Pink Websites
10 Signs That You Are Ready for Full-Time Freelancing
Published November 3rd, 2011 in Business - 11 Comments
Knowing when to make the move to full-time freelancing can be a difficult decision. Making the move too soon can lead to added risk that most people would prefer to avoid. On the other hand, a fear of taking that risk often leads to waiting longer than necessary. With that in mind, this article discusses 10 signs that you are ready to make the move to full-time freelancing.
The information in this article assumes that you are currently working a full-time job. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, especially with the current economic conditions. If you’re without a job and you’re looking into freelancing as a possible way to earn a living you may be forced into full-time freelancing earlier than you would otherwise prefer. But for the purpose of this article we will be looking at a situation where you are able to dictate when you give up the full-time job and move to freelancing.
If you’re struggling with the decision of when to move to full-time freelancing, these ten signs may be indicating that you are ready.
Design Inspiration: Amazing Matte Paintings
Published November 2nd, 2011 in Galleries - 9 Comments
Matte paintings are often used to create surreal landscapes or environments. They can be great sources of inspiration because of the creativity that is on display, and so we would like to present this collection of 35 matte paintings for your own inspiration. You’ll find a variety of different types of scenes represented, and you can see larger versions of each by clicking on the image (you’ll be led to the source).
Credit: Aleksey Golovchenko
Comment to Win a Yearly Platinum Package from 123ContactForm.com!
Published November 1st, 2011 in Site News - 42 Comments
Online forms can be time consuming to code from scratch, but with 123ContactForm’s free form builder they can be easy to create and implement. Our friends at 123ContactForm have offered to give three lucky readers of the Vandelay Design Blog a yearly platinum package, worth $299.95 each.
Design Inspiration: Pink Websites
Published October 31st, 2011 in Galleries - 13 Comments
In recent weeks and months we’ve published several posts dedicated to helping with color inspiration for web designers. Today we’ll take a look at websites that make heavy use of pink in their color scheme. Pink is sometimes associated with femininity, but as you can see from the sites showcased here that is not always the case.
Tips for Using Design Freebies to Promote Yourself
Published October 27th, 2011 in Business - 6 Comments
An increasing number of web and graphic designers are turning to free resources in effort to promote their services and products. In an industry that can be highly competitive any means of standing out and gaining exposure can go a long way. The method of gaining exposure from freebies is being used by designers for promoting their services for clients, as well as for promoting their own products, such as WordPress themes and PSD files. A few months ago we looked at some real world examples in Designers Using Freebies to Grow Their Business, and today we’ll explore the topic further by providing some tips for those who would like to try this method for themselves.
The freebie promotional method includes a great deal of flexibility, so it can be used by designers and developers in a number of different ways. As was already mentioned, freebies can be used to gain exposure in attempt to land more client work or to sell more files and resources. In addition, freebies can be distributed from your existing website or blog, from a website or blog owned by someone else, or you can set up a site specifically for distributing freebies. We’ve all seen freebies being distributed from blogs, but an example of a site whose primary function is distributing freebies is Allur. They also sell WordPress themes, which the freebies help to promote.
We have some experience of our own using freebies on this blog as well as on many other design blogs, mostly to promote our design resource membership site, Vandelay Premier. The post is written based on our own experience, observing what other designers are doing, and from talking to other designers about their experiences with freebies.
21 Resources for Effective Facebook Fan Pages
Published October 26th, 2011 in Social Media - 22 Comments
Most businesses now recognize Facebook as an excellent platform for connecting and communicating with their customers and/or users. As businesses have become more active on Facebook the number of resources available for fan pages has increased as well.
Setting up an effective Facebook fan page isn’t always that easy, but there are plenty of resources out there that can help. In this post we’ll look at some of the best places to get fan page templates that can serve as a starting point, services and apps that allow you to easily create custom fan pages, and apps that help businesses to sell products from their Facebook pages.
Create Fan Pages:
If you’re looking for an easy way to create a fan page for your own business or for your clients, here are some resources that may help.
Pagemodo
Create fan pages with no coding required. Pricing from free to $33 per month. Pro templates are available for plans starting at $13 per month.
25 Amazing Photoshop Text Effects Tutorials
Published October 25th, 2011 in Design, Photoshop Tutorials - 9 Comments
Photoshop users often want to create unique and interesting text effects to take their work to the next level. Photoshop has plenty of potential here, and fortunately there are a lot of great tutorials out there that lead you step-by-step through the process of creating amazing text effects.
In this post you’ll find links to 25 of the best Photoshop text effect tutorials online. You may also be interested in 50 Essential Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials.
Create a Chrome 4×4 Vehicle Emblem
Examples of Testimonials in Web Design
Published October 24th, 2011 in Galleries - 10 Comments
Testimonials can be very powerful for helping to establish trust and encouraging visitors to buy, sign up, fill out a form, or take whatever action you are after. For websites and online businesses testimonials can be even more useful than traditional businesses because visitors are often skeptical or hesitant to trust someone online.
Websites can display testimonials in different ways, and we’ll take a look at more than 20 examples in this post. Hopefully these examples will give you some ideas that can be useful for your own projects. Here you’ll find some that use video, photos of customers, quotes from reviews, and more.
eWedding
eWedding’s homepgae includes a testimonial and photo, with a link to see more testimonials.
