Feedback is one of the most valuable resources for any business. Informative messages from your customers can tell you a lot about your company. They’re a way to check that your service strategies are paying off and a chance to learn which parts of your product need an upgrade.

Reviews and testimonials can also help you better understand your audience and the kind of solutions they’re looking for with your brand. 

Solid feedback is also how you improve your chances of gaining more customers in the long term. Brands with superior customer service generate about 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors. 

Of course, before you can begin tackling challenges like pulling trends from feedback or using your reviews to upgrade your business, you have one essential task to consider: How are you going to collect the valuable information your customers have to share?

There are a lot of options to choose from. You can reach out to clients individually with email messages or set up a feedback form on your website. You could even consider working with a review site to give your audience more options. 

Today, we will look at the steps you can take to collect customer feedback the right way.

Unlocking the Benefits of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is the information and input shared by your community. It provides a behind-the-scenes view of people’s interactions with your team and shows you where you need to focus on beginning driving new opportunities. 

Customer feedback becomes a guiding compass for your organization when used correctly. It shows you what you’re getting right and wrong from your customer’s perspective. Positive feedback can even become part of your marketing campaigns. User-generated content in the form of reviews and testimonials makes for excellent tools to encourage new people to purchase your products. 

Case studies and in-depth reviews from your clients can also help generate trust among potential customers, so you’re more likely to earn crucial sales. 

Only around 3% of customers say that they find marketers and salespeople “trustworthy.” This means that no matter how good your marketing messages might be, you’re only going to be able to accomplish so much with the claims you make about your brand. Ultimately, your clients will turn to other customers like them to determine who they should buy from.

On average, buyers read around seven reviews before they’ll even consider trusting a business. 

The good news is that around two-thirds of customers will share their personal information with a brand. Clients are happy to provide feedback in the right circumstances. It’s your job to ensure that the process is as easy as possible for your customers.

So, how do you get customer reviews?

1. Design an Effective Feedback Survey

The most obvious way to encourage feedback from your customers is to ask for it. Unfortunately, designing a good customer survey isn’t always as simple as it seems. 

On the one hand, you’re keen to gather as much information as possible from your customer, which could mean that you want to ask many questions. On the other hand, asking too many questions could easily scare your audience away. 

To improve your audience’s chances of actually sharing information, keep the feedback requests as simple as possible.

One or two questions at a time should be enough to give you some helpful information about customer preferences and expectations. When choosing what to include in your survey, remember:

• Only ask essential questions: If the answer to a question isn’t going to help you achieve your goals, don’t ask it. You don’t need to know someone’s age if you want to know if they had a good experience with your service reps. Keep it relevant. 
• Make the questions thoughtful: Yes or no questions are great for collecting quick information. However, if you want more valuable feedback, leave your queries open-ended, and give customers room to explain themselves. 
• Use rating scales: If your customer doesn’t have time to respond to a question in your survey with a complete answer, a rating scale can give you some helpful insights with minimal effort from the client. 

Ensure none of the questions on your survey are leading or loaded. Customers don’t want to feel like you’re answering questions for them. It might also be worth showing your audience how much you value their data with a quick response. Hilton Hotels always responds to any adverse reactions to surveys within days of receiving the information. 

Customers can even see how their reviews contribute to the overall rating of the business. 

2. Master Your Emails and Customer Contact Forms

Email is one of the easiest and most effective ways to gather customer feedback. Because this is a standard support channel for most businesses, there are plenty of opportunities to generate feedback. 

The first step in using emails for feedback is to send a message thanking your customer for their recent interaction with you. If someone purchased a product from your company, immediately follow up to let them know you appreciate their custom. A couple of days after, when your customer has had a chance to use your product or service, that’s when you follow up with your feedback request. 

Ideally, your email request should be as short and straightforward as possible, with a clear call to action that tells your customer what to do next. This example from Papier keeps things as detailed as possible.

If you want to boost your chances of engagement, you can add elements to your email that might encourage a positive response, for instance:

• Remind them of what they bought: Remind your customer of the item they purchased with a picture and a bit of information. Highlight the key features and benefits of that product, so they have some inspiration on what to write about in their review. 
• Offer them a reward: If you want to boost your chances of your customers doing something for you, you need to offer something in return. This could be a discount on their next order, a chance of winning something, or even just free shipping on their next purchase. 
• Personalize the message: Make your customer feel special by personalizing the message. Use their name and reference their previous interactions with your company. If they’ve been with your business for a while, mention that in the email.  

Remember, many of your customers are likely to check their emails on the go. That means that giving feedback should be as simple as possible, regardless of the tech your customer is using. For instance, in this Zomato example, users can choose to drop an email to the company or send feedback straight from the app. 

3. Create App Usability Tests

If you want some in-depth insights into your company, and your business processes, then a usability test could be the best way to generate valuable feedback. If you have your app, ask your customer to submit some information right there and then, after they’ve finished using the service. The great thing about this kind of input is it’s fresh.

Unlike other customer reviews that might come a day or two after your customer has used a product, usability tests allow you to get feedback at the moment. There’s a much better chance that you’re going to get some relevant and detailed responses here. 

For instance, in this Skype lab feedback request, customers can tick boxes for any video or audio issues they had and leave a starred review. 

If there’s extra information to share, the customer can tap on the comment box to elaborate. However, they don’t need to do this part unless they want to. 

With usability tests, it’s a good idea to focus on a few key things that you want to learn about. For instance, Skype’s example above demonstrates that the company wants to check at least five user experience issues for both video and audio. 

Giving your customers options that they can choose from reduces the amount of work they need to put into leaving a review. It also means that you can get actionable information on which parts of your app or site need the most improvement. 

You can get the same kind of instant feedback on your website, too, mainly if you’re using a live chat app for customer service. 

Live chat is quickly becoming an essential part of the customer experience environment because it’s fast, easy to use, and efficient. It’s also highly affordable for most companies, thanks to evolving technology. Set up your Live Chat app to immediately request a review from your customer when the interaction is over.

For instance, SiteGround asks customers to rate their service provider with a picture of the employee they spoke to. The image lets the customer see that they were talking to a real person, which improves the relationship with the company. The statement about feedback improving the customer service and support that SiteGround can offer shows the customer how valuable their reviews are. 

4. Conduct Customer Interviews

Conducting a customer interview is a lot like sending out a survey. The main difference is that you ask the client to engage in a much more in-depth conversation. Usually, these interviews will be the initial research required for a published case study on a B2B website. 

Reaching out to valuable and loyal customers can give you a fantastic source of in-depth information to learn from. You’ll need to make sure that you have a good relationship with the customer in question before you attempt this, however. Most one-time clients won’t want to get involved with a time-consuming interview. 

Look at your CRM technology and find out who your most impressive VIP customers are. Reach out to them with a request for feedback, and make sure you offer something in return. For instance, tell them that you’d like to interview for a case study that you can display on your website. If they’re happy for you to do this, you can reward them with a discount on their next purchase or some gifts. 

You could also follow up with a customer who recently contacted your team for an interview, like Ticket Arena does here. With this message, they promise the customer that their insights will make the customer experience better for future clients:

When requesting long-form qualitative feedback, remember to think through your questions carefully. In-depth stories from customers bring nuance and color to your quantitative data. They could even guide your business to making some crucial future decisions. 

When talking to your customers:

• Start with an open-ended dialogue: Remember that open-ended questions are crucial to get as much detail as possible from your customers. These queries give your customers more flexibility to cover the details of their experiences.
• Get more specific as you go: Start with simple questions, then build on them as your conversation evolves. Use the things you learn from your customers to dive into topics that are relevant to them. For instance, if a customer mentions your live chat app, go into a deeper discussion about the channels they prefer to use. 
• Practice active listening: Make sure that you’re open and receptive to the information you’re given. Actively listen to customers, even if you’re not in the same room, by acknowledging what they say and providing valuable responses. 

5. Use Social Media

Sometimes, people are reluctant to give feedback for your business on your website because they’re not in the frame of mind. When customers come to your site, there’s a good chance they’re looking for information from you or want to check out a new product. 

They’re probably not in the right mood to start sharing their opinions. 

However, if you capture your customers on social media, there’s a good chance they’ll be feeling a lot more talkative. After all, social media platforms are where most customers discuss their issues with companies, talk about purchases with friends, and make their voices heard. 

Simply paying attention to when people talk about your company on social media can give you a lot of helpful feedback. Social listening tools allow you to collect post information every time someone mentions your business name or product. 

Alternatively, you can actively use the tools on social media to gather data from customers. For instance, Instagram has its own “poll” feature on Stories that allows companies to collect opinions. 

If you’re collecting feedback on social media, remember that you shouldn’t be asking any questions that are too complicated. Although people are more willing to share their opinions on social, they’re still looking for a relatively laid-back and casual experience.

Polls, where people can vote for their preferences with a single click, are more likely to garner engagement than a post asking people to tell you about the best purchasing experience they ever had with your brand. 

If you do want to encourage more in-depth feedback, the best option is to promise a reward in return for your follower’s effort. 

Make the experience fun by transforming it into a competition. 

For instance, ask your customers to share their favorite story involving your brand for a chance to win an impressive prize. You can ask each customer to tag their response with a branded hashtag so that relevant answers are easier to find. You could even add users to tag their friends in their posts too, to increase brand reach while you collect feedback:

With gifts and rewards to incentivize them, people will be much more likely to interact with your brand and put effort into the reviews they leave. You could even gather some user-generated content to put into your subsequent ad campaigns. 

6. Create a Dedicated Website Page

Finally, if you want to make it as simple as possible for people to leave feedback on your website and for you to collect all of that information into one space, then create a review page on your website. This can double up as social proof for people who need additional evidence to buy from your brand. 

A review page could be as simple as a page on your website listing the latest comments that your customers have left. You can include a form at the bottom of the page where people can add their thoughts. Just make sure that you carefully review these posts before they’re submitted to your website if you want to prevent spam from getting through. 

You could also create a case study or portfolio page that showcases the work you’ve done with other companies like Fabrik Brands does here:

At the bottom of each case study, give your customers a unique email address they can reach out to if they want to be featured as your following case study. Or include a contact form where people can get in touch to discuss their own experiences. 

Having a dedicated review, case study, or testimonial page on your website could be enough to inspire more feedback from your customers. It’s also a fantastic way to demonstrate how credible your company is to potential buyers. 

Still, Struggling? Take the Customer Out of the Equation

If, even with all the suggestions above, you still can’t seem to convince your audience to give you some decent feedback, then take them out of the equation. You can learn things about your audience without asking them for information. Google Analytics and other tools will give you valuable insights into which of your blog pages get the most engagement and how many people click on individual buttons throughout your site. 

These fundamental insights might not be as good as valuable, contextual feedback from your audience, but they’re an excellent way to start figuring out how to invest in your future growth. 

Remember, feedback of any kind – even if it’s just statistics and numbers – gives your business the ability to grow and make informed decisions.

Gather as much feedback as you can, and make sure you use it!

 

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post 6 Tips for Collecting Customer Feedback (The Right Way) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

This article is part of our “Advanced Git” series. Be sure to follow Tower on Twitter or sign up for the Tower newsletter to hear about the next articles!

A commit in Git can be one of two things:

• It can be a jumbled assortment of changes from all sorts of topics: some lines of code for a bugfix, a stab at rewriting an old module, and a couple of new files for a brand new feature.
• Or, with a little bit of care, it can be something that helps us stay on top of things. It can be a container for related changes that belong to one and only one topic, and thereby make it easier for us to understand what happened.

In this post, we’re talking about what it takes to produce the latter type of commit or, in other words: the “perfect” commit.

Why clean and granular commits matter

Is it really necessary to compose commits in a careful, thoughtful way? Can’t we just treat Git as a boring backup system? Let’s revisit our example from above one more time.

If we follow the first path – where we just cram changes into commits whenever they happen – commits lose much of their value. The separation between one commit and the next becomes arbitrary: there seems to be no reason why changes were put into one and not the other commit. Looking at these commits later, e.g. when your colleagues try to make sense of what happened in that revision, is like going through the “everything drawer” that every household has: there’s everything in here that found no place elsewhere, from crayons to thumbtacks and cash slips. It’s terribly hard to find something in these drawers!

Following the second path – where we put only things (read: changes) that belong together into the same commit – requires a bit more planning and discipline. But in the end, you and your team are rewarded with something very valuable: a clean commit history! These commits help you understand what happened. They help explain the complex changes that were made in a digestible manner.

How do we go about creating better commits?

Composing better commits

One concept is central to composing better commits in Git: the Staging Area.

The Staging Area was made exactly for this purpose: to allow developers to select changes – in a very granular way – that should be part of the next commit. And, unlike other version control systems, Git forces you to make use of this Staging Area.

Unfortunately, however, it’s still easy to ignore the tidying effect of the Staging Area: a simple git add . will take all of our current local changes and mark them for the next commit.

It’s true that this can be a very helpful and valid approach sometimes. But many times, we would be better off stopping for a second and deciding if really all of our changes are actually about the same topic. Or if two or three separate commits might be a much better choice. 

In most cases, it makes a lot of sense to keep commits rather smaller than larger. Focused on an individual topic (instead of two, three, or four), they tend to be much more readable.

The Staging Area allows us to carefully pick each change that should go into the next commit: 

$ git add file1.ext file2.ext

This will only mark these two files for the next commit and leave the other changes for a future commit or further edits.

This simple act of pausing and deliberately choosing what should make it into the next commit goes a long way. But we can get even more precise than that. Because sometimes, even the changes in a single file belong to multiple topics.

Let’s look at a real-life example and take a look at the exact changes in our “index.html” file. We can either use the “git diff” command or a Git desktop GUI like Tower:

Now, we can add the -p option to git add:

$ git add -p index.html

We’re instructing Git to go through this file on a “patch” level: Git takes us by the hand and walks us through all of the changes in this file. And it asks us, for each chunk, if we want to add it to the Staging Area or not:

By typing [Y] (for “yes”) for the first chunk and [N] (for “no”) for the second chunk, we can include the first part of our changes in this file in the next commit, but leave the other changes for a later time or more edits.

The result? A more granular, more precise commit that’s focused on a single topic.

Testing your code

Since we’re talking about “the perfect commit” here, we cannot ignore the topic of testing. How exactly you “test” your code can certainly vary, but the notion that tests are important isn’t new. In fact, many teams refuse to consider a piece of code completed if it’s not properly tested.

If you’re still on the fence about whether you should test your code or not, let’s debunk a couple of myths about testing:

• “Tests are overrated”: The fact is that tests help you find bugs more quickly. Most importantly, they help you find them before something goes into production – which is when mistakes hurt the most. And finding bugs early is, without exaggeration, priceless!
• “Tests cost valuable time”: After some time you will find that well-written tests make you write code faster. You waste less time hunting bugs and find that, more often, a well-structured test primes your thinking for the actual implementation, too.
• “Testing is complicated”: While this might have been an argument a couple of years ago, this is now untrue. Most professional programming frameworks and languages come with extensive support for setting up, writing, and managing tests.

All in all, adding tests to your development habits is almost guaranteed to make your code base more robust. And, at the same time, they help you become a better programmer.

A valuable commit message

Version control with Git is not a fancy way of backing up your code. And, as we’ve already discussed, commits are not a dump of arbitrary changes. Commits exist to help you and your teammates understand what happened in a project. And a good commit message goes a long way to ensure this.

But what makes a good commit message?

• A brief and concise subject line that summarizes the changes
• A descriptive message body that explains the most important facts (and as concisely as possible)

Let’s start with the subject line: the goal is to get a brief summary of what happened. Brevity, of course, is a relative term; but the general rule of thumb is to (ideally) keep the subject under 50 characters. By the way, if you find yourself struggling to come up with something brief, this might be an indicator that the commit tackles too many topics! It could be worthwhile to take another look and see if you have to split it into multiple, separate ones.

If you close the subject with a line break and an additional empty line, Git understands that the following text is the message’s “body.” Here, you have more space to describe what happened. It helps to keep the following questions in mind, which your body text should aim to answer:

• What changed in your project with this commit?
• What was the reason for making this change?
• Is there anything special to watch out for? Anything someone else should know about these changes?

If you keep these questions in mind when writing your commit message body, you are very likely to produce a helpful description of what happened. And this, ultimately, benefits your colleagues (and after some time: you) when trying to understand this commit.

On top of the rules I just described about the content of commit messages, many teams also care about the format: agreeing on character limits, soft or hard line wraps, etc. all help to produce better commits within a team. 

To make it easier to stick by such rules, we recently added some features to Tower, the Git desktop GUI that we make: you can now, for example, configure character counts or automatic line wraps just as you like.

A great codebase consists of great commits

Any developer will admit that they want a great code base. But there’s only one way to achieve this lofty goal: by consistently producing great commits! I hope I was able to demonstrate that (a) it’s absolutely worth pursuing this goal and (b) it’s not that hard to achieve.

If you want to dive deeper into advanced Git tools, feel free to check out my (free!) “Advanced Git Kit”: it’s a collection of short videos about topics like branching strategies, Interactive Rebase, Reflog, Submodules and much more.

Have fun creating awesome commits!

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The post Creating the Perfect Commit in Git appeared first on CSS-Tricks. You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Now it makes no sense to think about whether it is worth developing a corporate website design to create your own representation on the Internet. 6-7 years ago it was obvious that this direction was the future.

Although there are still skeptics in small businesses who think that it is too early for them to start, or owners of large companies, where things are going well without any Internet.

Tips to Grow Your Small Business Website

Define Tasks and your Target Audience

Many articles about marketing and online promotion begin with the stage of working out the target audience, i.e. future buyer/client: what interests them, what type of information they perceive better, what nuances are more important, etc. The content of an online youth clothing store is different from a retirement insurance resource.

In addition, the approach to developing websites for small businesses depends on the tasks set. When you need to sell one special product, it’s best to create a one-page landing page. With a wide assortment, you will need a larger store with the appropriate functionality. Someone prefers the creation of thematic portals, where, among other things, they offer their services/products. Each project must perform certain tasks that need to be assigned to it.

Hosting and Domain

Even if your money is tight, don’t go for free and cheap hosting. The server that will host your site must be reliable and of high quality – security and speed are important factors. In the future, all this will pay off due to an increase in the number of customers, advertising sales, etc. Try to host the project on a server located in the country of the main target audience.

When creating a corporate website, it is better to choose a domain name that is identical or at least consonant with the name of the company. If the option with the brand is busy, then you can pick up something suitable for the topic from your field of activity, for example, “toy store”, “apartment rental”, etc. For resources for large cities, the name of the settlement is often included in the domain. Or try to use a different domain zone, although it is recommended to choose the one that is popular in your country.

Choosing a CMS, Self-Development

At this stage, several interrelated questions arise. The main ones are two:

• On which CMS engine do you want to make a business website;
• Who will handle this task?

For complex corporate portals, stores, and projects with unusual volumetric functionality, it is better to entrust the work to the appropriate specialists. You can look for a programmer with good reviews on the top freelance exchanges or contact the web studio. The first method is cheaper but more troublesome, the second is a little more reliable and more expensive. By the way, if you are not faced with a difficult task, and you are well versed in some CMS, spend a few days on your own development.

You can also be involved in supporting the project yourself in the future. The main thing is that this should not be at the expense of business development. Let’s say you understand tea culture and can talk about it beautifully, effectively – such articles will work better than dry notes of copywriters. Although for large online stores with a huge assortment, it is more efficient to outsource texts and content to hired employees.

As for the engine of a business site, the choice depends partly on the required functionality. There are special solutions for some tasks, for example, for online stores, such as OpenCart, WooCommerce. And, if you want to make a thematic blog, then it is better not to come up with WordPress. Some platforms are suitable for different situations – the same WordPress, Joomla, Drupal can be used to create corporate websites. 

Business Website Design

The appearance of the resource should correspond to the content and its focus. If you need to create a corporate website in the classical sense, then a strict minimalist design is quite enough here. For specialized firms, you can think of something more interesting: for example, when a company sells luxury mansions and real estate, it is desirable to emphasize the effect of luxury in the template; and in tourism projects, it is logical to insert graphics related to vacations, travels, etc. Try to create the look your potential client expects.

At the same time, you need to try to make web designing as clear as possible, not to complicate it with unnecessary elements. Information should be easily accessible on the page, overloading has a bad effect on conversion. Choose one color scheme and several font sizes.

If we are talking about creating a small business site, then, as in the case of hosting, we must be prepared for certain costs. Your best bet is to skip the free templates (at least for security reasons). There are a lot of affordable premium themes online now.

Adaptability

Nowadays, the design of a business website and all its functionality must necessarily work well on mobile devices. Firstly, more and more people make purchases online, and secondly, even to obtain information about goods or services, they often use smartphones. The lack of the correct adaptive version can lead to the loss of potential customers, indicate the lack of professionalism of the developers, and negatively affect the SEO parameters.

Convenience and Speed of Work

Both of these nuances affect the final impression of visiting your web project. Page loading speed is important not only for user experience but is also one of the ranking factors in search engines. Buying high-quality performance hosting and optimization of the engine will give a good result.

As for usability, try not to overload visitors with unnecessary information. You can even remove unused elements from the page, such as social media buttons and other widgets if they are not very useful. Make simple, clear navigation – create an effective top menu, a quick return to the home option, and a search box. The users should easily get to any pages of interest and see only what is really useful to them.

Feedback

When creating corporate websites of any complexity, it is imperative to add contact information on the pages. Include phone numbers, addresses, email, links to social profiles, etc. The more data, the higher the trust. Often this information is placed in the header of the site. The users should be able to contact you quickly and easily. For convenience, it is desirable to make an active link to the phone number in an HTML template.

It is also recommended to introduce a feedback form – as a rule, it is located in “Contacts” or in the footer. Sometimes there are situations when you cannot write to Email or call, and such functionality allows you to send a message in any case. You can also supplement the project with an online consultant or a callback order button.

Support / Updates

After the completion of the work, the client receives a ready-made engine (admin panel) for managing the web resource and must continue to develop it. Somewhere around 27% of corporate websites for business update their project less than once a year! Outdated information can scare your customers away. It is bad when a user comes to you and, for example, sees news for the year before last, and an even earlier date in the footer.

The same goes for functionality. If the page contains a feedback form or comments are open, you need to constantly review new entries and respond to them. Plus, try to adhere to modern technologies and current trends in web development for your project: parallax effect, hamburger menu, new CSS chips, work to improve performance and conversion. Additionally, marketers are advised to create a blog to publish useful notes and at the same time show the presence of life on the site.

Promotion and social networks

Of course, the process of creating a corporate website for your small business should imply its further promotion. Without this stage, no chic design, fashionable selling texts, and various chips will make sense. Consider this factor when setting your budget.

If you are very limited in money, then at first you can save on design and functions – to make the project a little simpler, and then scale it up as income is received. This is especially true when you decide to create a website for a business in an unfamiliar new niche or are a budding entrepreneur. Personally, it would not recommend spending, for example, 90% of your budget on beauty/functionality, and leaving 10% for promotion.

Nowadays, social media networks can be separate full-fledged sales channels. This is especially true in the areas of clothing, fashion, gifts, food, and others, where you can attract the attention of users with the help of colorful pictures of products. There are many tricks and tricks for promoting brands on Instagram, just like for any other social network. First, focus on 1-2 services that best suit your target audience.

Wrapping Up

So, this is how you can create a website for your small business. The points mentioned above need to be considered if you aspire to be on the top of the list of the business person. Taking support from a web design company is also worth it. 

Hopefully, this article has given you the desired information. If you have some queries then do let us know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I had one of those little single-serving designer helper sites bookmarked the other day: getwaves.io. Randomized SVG waves! Lots of cool options! Easy to customize! Easy to copy and paste! Well played, z creative labs.

But then I saw the little link at the top of the page, that it was part of something called Haikei. So I checked that out, and holy mackerel, it’s great! There are a dozen or more similar “generators” within one app, each just as well done as the SVG waves one.

Kind of reminds me of Omatsuri which is a similar collection of useful little on-off tools.

But heck, those are just two apps, even if they are collections of mini apps in an of themselves. Around the same time, I became aware of tiny-helpers.dev, which is a roundup site of all sorts of these little one-off helper sites. Haikei and Omatsuri are both on there, along with many hundred more. Just the SVG area alone is super:

I’m sure y’all find these things just as useful as I do. They don’t make us lazy, they make us efficient. I know how to make a pattern. I know how to draw a curve with a Pen Tool. I know how to convert SVG into JSX. But using a dedicated tool makes me faster and better at it. And sometimes I don’t know how to do those things, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage. Fake it ’til you make it, right?

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The post So many little design helper sites! appeared first on CSS-Tricks. You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

I had one of those little single-serving designer helper sites bookmarked the other day: getwaves.io. Randomized SVG waves! Lots of cool options! Easy to customize! Easy to copy and paste! Well played, z creative labs.

But then I saw the little link at the top of the page, that it was part of something called Haikei. So I checked that out, and holy mackerel, it’s great! There are a dozen or more similar “generators” within one app, each just as well done as the SVG waves one.

Kind of reminds me of Omatsuri which is a similar collection of useful little on-off tools.

But heck, those are just two apps, even if they are collections of mini apps in an of themselves. Around the same time, I became aware of tiny-helpers.dev, which is a roundup site of all sorts of these little one-off helper sites. Haikei and Omatsuri are both on there, along with many hundred more. Just the SVG area alone is super:

I’m sure y’all find these things just as useful as I do. They don’t make us lazy, they make us efficient. I know how to make a pattern. I know how to draw a curve with a Pen Tool. I know how to convert SVG into JSX. But using a dedicated tool makes me faster and better at it. And sometimes I don’t know how to do those things, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage. Fake it ’til you make it, right?

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The post So many little design helper sites! appeared first on CSS-Tricks. You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

The headless CMS trend is gaining traction growing at over 20% annually. The driving force behind the headless CMS trend is developer’s increasing need for flexibility and control. Using the headless CMS’s API, front-end developers can use JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular to quickly deploy content and designs in various web pages and apps.

Images Are A Crucial Part Of Any Web Experience

A headless CMS holds potentially thousands of images. How quickly images are rendered has a huge impact on user experience. This is why developers and designers need to focus on streamlining how they access, optimize, cache, and deliver images in a performant way.

ImageEngine is an image CDN that provides a simple solution for accelerating performance, and saves you time and delivery costs. With its multiple components and plugins for React, Vue, and Angular, ImageEngine makes it easy for developers to achieve superior image performance scores on tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Plan for Image Performance. It is Worth It

Performance is not always the first thing designers and developers consider when designing a website. But performance has a huge impact on eCommerce sales, conversion rates, and SEO. That’s why setting aside budget and time to solve image performance issues yields substantial benefits.

The most compelling reason to work on image performance is the upside from sales or website conversions. Google estimates that the average website on mobile takes around 9 seconds to load. However, 75% of users will consider abandoning a site that takes over 5 seconds to load.

Companies like Amazon and Walmart have closely scrutinized the relationship between load times and sales conversion rates. For Amazon, they estimate that for every 100 milliseconds they accelerate their site, it increases revenue by 1%. For them, that means millions of dollars. But even if you are a relatively small company, performance boosts sales and pays for the time you put into it.

Images are a big reason why websites load slowly. The average website payload is 2MB in 2021, and 50% of that is images. Frequently, images are larger than they need to be and can be optimized for size with no impact on quality…if you do it right.

However, image optimization can be challenging. Knowing the requesting device screen dimensions, pixel density, ability to handle next-gen image formats becomes very complicated. That is where ImageEngine comes in. It simplifies and offloads all the complexity to an expert image optimization solution.

Performance Drives Google SEO Rankings

Even before users come to your site, performance has a critical impact. You may have heard of Google’s latest Page Experience update to their search engine ranking algorithm. It integrates a new set of performance metrics called Core Web Vitals. These metrics are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the render time (in seconds) of the largest image or text block visible within the viewport, relative to when the page first started loading. Typically, the largest image is the hero image at the top of pages.

First Input Delay (FID): Measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page (i.e. when they click a link, tap on a button, or use a custom JavaScript-powered control) to the time when the browser is actually able to begin processing event handlers in response to that interaction.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures the layout shift that occurs any time a visible element changes its position from one rendered frame to the next.

LCP is an image-centric performance metric. The more optimized your images are (particularly your hero images at the top of a page), the faster your LCP will be.

Why do Core Web Vitals matter? Isn’t SEO ranking all about content relevance, backlinks, and domain authority? Yes, but now performance matters more than it did a year ago. In a market where websites are constantly jockeying to match their competition’s pages (for content relevance, keywords, and other SEO issues), performance is making a difference in keyword search engine rankings.

ImageEngine customers that have optimized their images have improved their Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights scores and seen search ranking improve dramatically. Frequently this means moving onto the first search results page, or even the #1 or #2 spot.

Avoid Code Bloat and Exponential Image Variants from Responsive Images

When they hear “image optimization,” many web designers think of the practice of generating multiple image sizes, multiple file formats (JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF), and massive amounts of code using tags to select appropriate variants. While this approach works, it leaves much to be desired and often yields a sub-standard optimization and a maintenance headache.

That is where the automatic settings of an image CDN like ImageEngine solve yet another problem. ImageEngine detects mobile devices and their image-related parameters, optimizes images for these parameters, and then delivers images through its global CDN. In most cases, the automatic mode of ImageEngine will provide optimization up to 80% on most images, with no perceptible impact on quality.

Combine an Image CDN with your JavaScript Front-End Framework

If you are already using a headless CMS or eCommerce platform, then how can you integrate image optimization into your front-end system?

There are a number of options for integrating ImageEngine. From the headless CMS side, the only thing required is to store high-quality, large images in your CMS. Don’t worry about their size or format in the CMS. ImageEngine will pull the images and perform optimization immediately and tailor them specifically for any requesting device.

Next, you will need to sign up for a free trial from ImageEngine. In the example below, we will address how to configure for Contentful, a popular headless CMS. To set up an ImageEngine account that pulls images from Contentful, all you need to do is to create a user account and set images.ctfassets.net as your image origin. “images.ctfassets.net” is where all images are served from when using Contentful.

At the end of the signup process, you will receive a Delivery Address. You will need to copy this and insert it after installing the ImageEngine component.

For your front end, ImageEngine offers components for many popular JavaScript frameworks.

• React: Overview; NPM Package ; Documentation
• Angular: Overview; NPM Package ; Documentation
• Vue: Overview; NPM Package ; Documentation

For the following example, we will use Contentful CMS with React framework. A full example and explanation can be seen here. Another example can be found here.

Install React NPM Package

First, install the ImageEngine NPM package

npm i @imageengine/react

Integrate ImageEngine Into Your App

We will only be working in “App.js”. Make sure to delete all the code from it.

Import ImageEngine Components

In the “App.js” file, import the necessary components from the ImageEngine NPM package like so:

import { ImageEngineProvider, Image } from "@imageengine/react"

Add the “ImageEngineProvider” component inside your app’s main div. This allows all child components to access images from ImageEngine.

Insert Delivery Address Into ImageEngine Provider

When you sign up for an ImageEngine account, you receive a Delivery Address. You can find it in your ImageEngine dashboard after logging into your account. This Delivery Address is how the component will point to ImageEngine and start optimizing and delivering images. Make sure the origin related to your delivery address is images.ctfassets.net. This is where all the images from Contentful can be reached.

In the ImageEngineProvider, modify and insert your own “deliveryAddress,” replacing “blazing-fast-pics.cdn.imgeng.in” shown below.

 return (


   <ImageEngineProvider

     deliveryAddress="https://blazing-fast-pics.cdn.imgeng.in"

     stripFromSrc="https://images.ctfassets.net">

     <Image src={page.logo.url} className="App-logo" alt="logo"></Image>

     </ImageEngineProvider>

Insert “Image” Component

Lastly, add an “Image” component inside the “ImageEngineProvider” providing the image source.

The image source may be local to your app or fetched from Contentful using the GraphQL API. The following example renders an image from Contentful.

Completed App.js example

Your final App.js should look like this:

import { ImageEngineProvider, Image } from "@imageengine/react"

function App() {

return (

<ImageEngineProvider deliveryAddress="https://blazing-fast-pics.cdn.imgeng.in" stripFromSrc="https://images.ctfassets.net">

<Image src={page.logo.url} className="App-logo" alt="logo"></Image>

</ImageEngineProvider>

)

}

export default App;

Note that the example is also using the stripFromSrc property. This will replace any occurrences of https://images.ctfassets.net in the image source url that the Contentful API returns, with the deliveryAddress which is already mapped to the Contentful origin in the ImageEngine control panel.

Automatic Image Optimization By Default

For most images, the automatic mode of ImageEngine will deliver perfectly optimized images. For example, in many cases, this will be a resized image WebP that can be up to 80% lighter payload. You can inspect the final image and see the Delivery Address, the new image format (e.g. WebP), and the ImageEngine CDN server.

Device Intelligence in Action

In auto-mode, the most notable optimizations applied to an image are format conversion, change in pixel size, and compression rate. ImageEngine in auto-mode will make sure that your customers get the highest quality image with the lowest possible byte size.

Format Conversion

Thanks to ImageEngine’s built-in device detection, the most efficient format for a given image is automatically chosen. The input needed to make this decision comes from ImageEngine’s device-aware servers and an advanced ruleset. For example, ImageEngine can accurately identify devices and browsers that support the WebP format. This means ImageEngine can confidently convert from JPEG to WebP, deliver huge savings in terms of byte size, and dramatically improve the web browsing experience.

Resizing

On the web today, where the majority of traffic comes from mobile devices, one size is not enough to offer a great user experience. Again, the built-in device detection knows the size of the screen – both in pixels and millimeters – and is able to resize the image to perfectly fit the viewport. This is further enhanced by ImageEngine’s support for Client Hints. It can also handle high-resolution displays, like Retina, out of the box and will scale the image at the actual pixel size needed to produce high-quality images.

Using Directives

If you want more granular control over how the image is presented, you may use ImageEngine’s directives. Use the “directives” prop to do so without having to modify the source image.

<Image src="/images/pic_2.jpg" directives={{

outputFormat : 'webp',

rotate: 45,

inline: true

}}/>

Conclusion

After implementation, you will have 30-days of ImageEngine and on-boarding support so you can be sure that you are seeing the improvements you need from an image CDN like ImageEngine. You can even schedule a call with our Customer Success team to help you get set up with ImageEngine today!

 

[– This is a sponsored post on behalf of ImageEngine –]

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(This is a sponsored post.)

Now in its tenth year (!!!), Web Unleashed is one of the top events for web devs. It’s coming up quick: October 20-22, 2021.

The lineup is amazing. You’ll hear from leaders in the industry, including Ethan Marcotte, Rachel Andrew, Harry Roberts, Addy Osmani, Tracy Lee Ire, Aderinokun, Suz Hinton, Shawn Wang, Jen Looper, and many more.

And don’t forget the coupon code CSS-Tricks as 50% off is a massively good deal! (Here’s where you apply it)

So many hot topics will be covered, including responsive design, optimizing images, open source projects, performance metrics, Gatsby, GraphQL, Applied ML, growing your career, and much much more.

But, seriously folks, take it from someone who has gone to this event a bunch of years… it’s really well done, you’re going to learn a lot, and the price right now is unbeatable. The entire conference clocks in at CA $179.16, which is CA $89.91 with the CSS-Tricks coupon code. That’s… just go.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

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I enjoy little frameworks like Tonic. It’s essentially syntactic sugar over to make them feel easier to use. Define a Class, template literal an HTML template, probably some other fancy helpers, and you’ve got a component that doesn’t feel terribly different to something like a React component, except you need no build process or other exotic tooling.

Here’s a Hello World + Counter example:

They have a whole bunch of examples (in a separate repo). You can snag and use them, and they are pretty nice! So that makes Tonic a bit like a design system as well as a web component framework.

To be fair, it’s not that different from Lit, which Google is behind and pushing pretty actively.

Here’s a Hello, World + Counter with Lit:

And Dave was just showing me petite-vue the other day, so I figured I might as well do that one, too:

I’d say that petite-vue example wins for just how super easy that is to pull of in just declarative HTML. But of course, there are a bunch of other considerations from specific features, syntax, philosophy, and size. Just looking at size, if I pop open the Network tab in DevTools and see the over-the-wire JavaScript for each demo…

• Tonic = 5.1 KB
• Lit = 12.6 KB
• petite-vue = 8.1 KB

They are all basically the same: tiny.

I’ve never actually built anything real in any of them, so I’m not the best to judge one from the other. But they all seem pretty neat to me, particularly because they require no build step.

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Email marketing is one of the most efficient marketing methods in all sectors. Business owners utilize it to build better relationships with subscribers, demonstrate their brand to consumers, and offer their loyal followers discounts and promotions.

91% of marketers questioned indicated that email was the most crucial way to reach their audience. 

Email marketing efforts usually experience an engagement rate of 22.86 percent might have something to do with that amount. 

Compare this to the average 0.6 percent rate for social media, and you can easily understand why many companies utilize email to reach the target demographic.

This article might help if you struggle to build a better relationship and trust with your fans. 

To develop the kind of email marketing that generates sales, meticulous strategy and design are necessary. Please remember these principles while crafting your next emails:

• To improve your open rate of emails, use a creative, value-driven subject line.
• Add high-quality visuals to your emails.
• Use a professional email template.
• Monitor sales and purchases to understand which emails perform best for your clients.
• Include a bold call to action (CTA), such as a click on the website, a report download, or a conversation with a professional.

Your message and email type are essential aspects. You have to provide your clients a cause to open their email, read their message, and visit the website.

Here are five strategies to improve your sales using email marketing.

Share the arrival of your new products.

You have an excellent opportunity for reaching customers with a new shipment of items. By letting them know about your recent arrivals, you may drive more traffic to your site. 

If you get shipments consistently on a specific day of the week, consider sending a weekly email showcasing your current products. 

• Consider developing a new product email topic, like “Hiking and Trekking Equipment” or “Get ready for Summer Holidays.”
• Use photos from other users that used your product or service in the past, also known as social proof.
• Maintain not more than seven new items. The email might become overwhelming if there are many choices.
• To increase visits to your website, including simple to discover product links.

Recall the products left on your online cart to clients

Abandoned cart emails are emails sent to reengage consumers who have abandoned products without checkout. According to a study by 500 world’s biggest companies, over one-third (29.9%) of abandoned cart emails opened to re-sale by abandoned clicks (44.1%).

Time is the essence: cart abandonment emails delivered within the first hour of abandonment are most effective in our experience. To leverage this tip, start a campaign to send an email immediately after the cart is abandoned.

No matter why customers leave their carts, you have an excellent opportunity to get them back to your website.

• Craft an interesting subject. The more relevant and personalized the subject line works, the better (“Forgot Something, Alex?”)
• Include a big image and a brief product description
• Stay short on the text
• Insert a “Return to my items” button to urge the client to finish the order in the email.

Abandoned cart emails are both an art and a science. To find the sweet balance, you need to constantly optimize and experiment utilizing your data and find the perfect text, email design, suggestion approach, and incentive. 

Cart abandonment may be an unavoidable fact in the online world, but emails may be a helpful tool to get rid of and increase sales.

Leverage discount codes or announce a sale

A promo email is a form of email used by companies to advertise their products, services, deals, and promotions.

In general, promotional emails are intended to convert subscribers into clients and clients into brand advocates instead of transactional emails informing consumers about their purchase or account information.

Promotional emails can take several forms, including a weekly newsletter, promotional emails, emails for customer retention.

To make your email conversions easier, writing high-converting promotional emails is essential. Let’s examine how with one promotional email type, you may accomplish multiple outcomes at a time.

• In the subject line, announce the discount.
• Whenever possible, use product images.
• Attach a digital sales brochure in your email.
• To advertise the discount, use a big typeface and a color.
• Include a link to your website for online sales.

Share tips and tricks with your customers

Consistent value through email is an integral part of the lead generation process. 

Determining which topics your clients would like to hear about and offering instructional content on these topics may be an excellent way to position your brand as an information source, creating intellectual leadership throughout your sector.

Each brand needs consumers to be educated. However, it is crucial to learn how to do it in the proper method. It is necessary to identify what your consumers would want to hear about and when.

• Write a subject line that tackles current pain points for customers.
• Include a link in the email if you have a blog that analyzes the advice.
• Limit product references to one or two links.
• Invite your customers to share the information with others.
• Invite your customers to contact you for further insights or assistance on the topic.
• Include a bold CTA linking relevant items to the website that solves the problem in the email.

Pro tip: occasionally ask for replies in your emails. (For example, after sharing information or a tip, ask recipients what else they’d like to learn about.)

According to Zach Grove, Growth Advisor and early employee at email marketing tool Drip, replies can help your emails get opened and seen.

“When email providers like Gmail see recipients replying to your emails at a high rate, it signals: ‘these emails are relevant and welcome.’ This helps keep you out of the spam folder and Promotions tab to ensure that your deliverability and open rates stay high. 

No matter how unique your emails are, it won’t matter if people aren’t seeing them.”

Upselling and Cross-selling through emails

Cross-selling is to recommend customers products based on their past purchased products. Cross-sell emails are an example and one of the most profitable marketing methods that e-commerce businesses underestimate.

Cross-selling allows brands to generate new revenue, which is essential to increase the order’s average value and grow a company. 

It’s a much easier way to improve the results of your email marketing campaigns, as the relationship with your customers is already there. It doesn’t take much to persuade prospects to buy from you repeatedly with well-crafted promotional emails that use powerful words.

Upselling is the strategy that includes other goods that are tailored to the needs of the consumer. 

The goal is to encourage customers to add a limited product to their cart. Retail products usually cost significantly lower but can generate added value over time when sold regularly. 

As a brand, you must study your client base and how complementary goods will value your customers before contemplating a plan for cross-selling and upselling. 

Customers buy from companies with which they trust and have a pleasant experience, making selling to existing customers easier. If this shopping cycle is correct, you may acquire the most incredible lifetime value from each client, resulting in your sales increase.

• Include a high-quality visual of the suggested product.
• Clearly state why you are sending the email, such as “We hope your new coach looks great in your living room. Here are a few items to take your space to the next level.”
• Include a link to your product on the website to make it easy for the customer to purchase.

The Takeaway

In thinking of email marketing, we frequently think of our consumers’ immediate communications. The reality is that successful email marketing takes more than a compelling title and solid content.

You need to ensure you distribute your emails to your subscribers, offer tailored content and continually send unique information to your audience to improve customer retention. 

These 5 tips are everything you need to start scaling your business and increase your revenue. Take some time to experiment with these strategies and monitor what works for your business.

Create a schedule and work with your data to ensure that your campaigns perform the best.

Until the next one, keep sending.

Welcome to this month’s collection of what’s making the web look good. This time out we’ve got some new brands and some rebrands, and we’ve got some good examples of branding continuity across media.

Branding continuity doesn’t just mean putting the logo in the corner and using the same colors and type. It’s about capturing the brand identity, the personality of the brand, so the user identifies it even if the logo isn’t immediately visible. Take a look at how some of these sites do it, and enjoy the collection.

Cantina Puiatti

This site for Cantina Puiatti vineyard is almost entirely greyscale, until you get to the wines. There, a single block of color containing information stands out, perfectly matching the label on each bottle.

Revolut 

Online banking app Revolut has a site that reflects the look and feel of the app itself, and the design works particularly well on mobile.

Armadillo

Home warranty providers Armadillo have gone for the friendly, non-corporate approach here. Pleasing illustrations and bite-sized text feels non-intimidating and creates an impression of security.

Green Angel Syndicate

Green Angel Syndicate is an angel syndicate investing in companies working to fight climate change. The palette is soft, and some colorful illustration blocks help take the corporate edge off, creating more warmth than might be expected.

Madre

Some beautiful still-life-inspired photography features on this very simple site for home linen company Madre. The shop by color option is a nice touch.

Ovini

This site for Orvini olive snacks is very simple and clean, and the animated illustration from their packaging adds just the right amount of personality.

Cover Story

Cover Story makes a range of plastic-free paints. The site is very simple, allowing the user to focus on the paint colors themselves. And there’s added entertainment value in working out the writer each color is named after.

Seed

Seed offers a synbiotic supplement on a subscription. There is a lot of well-presented scientific information here, and the links to buy are strong without being pushy.

Banza

Like many in the ‘alternative’ food sector, Banza has gone for a bright, bold style with its branding, and its website matches this approach to good effect.

Déjà Pet Food

Déjà takes unsold human food and recycles it into pet food. The animals that feature on the packaging make an appearance here too, to add a bit of softness to the oversized type and 2 color palette.

Little’s Coffee Co.

Little’s Coffee Co.’s site echoes its product labels with a scattering of similar, brightly colored graphic elements. This effectively ties the branding together without being too dominating.

One Hive

The site for OneHive, a business management platform, takes the people-friendly approach with warmer dark blues for text in place of black and grey, and simple illustrations instead of stock photography.

Waltz Creative

Waltz Creative is a rebranding of Schipper Design. Bright candy colors, a hint of vintage type, and some fun graphics combine to create a sense of playfulness without being frivolous.

Stem Design

This portfolio site for floral designer Nicole Cooper features some exceptional photography that effectively showcases her work. There’s a nice nod to Mapplethorpe too.

Vroom!

With its classic comic book style, this site for the forthcoming obstacle racing game Vroom creates a sense of fun appropriate to its subject.

The Space That Makes Us Human

The Space That Makes Us Human is an interactive documentary experience exploring the impact space exploration could have on the future of humanity. This is one of those sites that is just a pleasure to wander around.

Vibor

Following a recent rebrand, Vibor’s new site brings Italian style to the world of industrial sensors with its use of black, white and greys, and accompanying grayscale images.

ArticketBCN

ArticketBCN is a multi-pass, or art passport, for 6 major art museums in Barcelona, designed to look like a passport. The site for it echoes the style effectively while presenting
its information clearly.

Nothing

Taking on the big guys, like Apple and Samsung, takes a lot of confidence and that confidence is apparent here on this site for Nothing’s ear(1) earbuds. And it looks even better on mobile.

Nice One, Dad

And finally, just because it’s Monday and we could all do with a laugh (or a groan), here’s a site of nothing but dad jokes. The jokes may be terrible, but the presentation is nicely done.

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