This was going to happen sooner rather than later. Google algorithmic updates have all focused on helping visitors find high quality websites, and the latest update is a step in the same direction. This one is going to have a marked effect on the layout of the web page.  Google has acted on user’s complaints about difficulty in coming across content on a particular website if it is packed to the brim with advertisements and design elements.

Users aren’t too happy about scrolling down a webpage to look at the content that they are interested in seeing. For them, this is a waste of time and Google, in a bid to ensuring that website visitors are promised the best user experience design that allows them to find the actual content easily as soon as they land on the website, has come up with an update. According to this update, if a website doesn’t have sufficient amount of content "above the fold" on the website, its ranking might be affected.

What this means is that if the space "above the fold" is populated by a slew of ads, it does not make for very good user experience and this is what Google wants to make right. The phrase "above the fold" refers to the upper half of the web page, or to put it more specifically, that part of the web page that a user can easily access without scrolling.

Now, placing advertisements "above the fold" is a common occurrence on most websites, this is because a website owners’ prime concern is to make their sites more profitable, and ads placed in prominent positions encourage monetization. But, excessive placement of such ads means the real content of the website is difficult to find. This update will have no impact on those websites that place ads "above the fold" in normal amounts.  This is the kind of amount that does not push the website content "below the fold".

This update will only impact those websites that display so many ads "above the fold" that they push the content down, so much so that visitors will have to scroll the page in order to have a look at it. Google estimated that less than 1% of searches will be impacted by this change. If a website’s rankings have been affected by this change, webmasters can relook their layout and make the necessary changes on the necessary webpage to ensure that the content on the page can be found immediately. Any change made, will be automatically reflected in the results on the search page. But, it’s important to remember that any layout update or its reorder will take some time to reflect on the SERPs and is dependent on various factors including the amount of webpages updated and also the crawlability of the content.

So, a great idea would be to fashion a website that gives a lot of importance to user experience so that this update doesn’t affect your website’s rankings adversely. Good user experience results in better conversions and reduces bounce rates and this is reason enough to focus on it.

A word of advice – Google has made no bones about the fact that its focus of attention is always on ensuring a better experience for website visitors. So, instead of making changes to your website, whenever Google comes up with an update in its algorithm, it is always better to give due importance to enhancing the user experience of your website, as much as possible.

What’s so hot about Pinterest, that it has even the traditionalist internet users, who shy away from trying something new, wanting to try it out? In a web space already cluttered with numerous social networks, and dominated by the BIG TWO, will a new social network really command enough attention?  Only time will tell if Pinterest will have the wherewithal to create its own space in what is increasingly looking like saturated social space on the World Wide Web.

But there is also no doubt that Pinterest has begun luring social media fans with its concept and the features that it has on offer. Let’s take a look at what this social media platform is all about and what we can make of its features.

Here we go.

Pinterest in a Nutshell

Pinterest takes its name from a pinup board. The team behind Pinterest has made a virtual pinup board that helps organize all those inspiring and interesting images that you find on the World Wide Web. As it’s a social media platform, you can even share these images with your friends. In Pinterest parlance these images are called ‘Pins’ that can be added to a ‘Board’ customized and themed to suit your needs and requirements. You can create a ‘board’ on any and every topic that you can think off, without any limitations.

Pinterest can be called a voyage of discovery through the use of images. You can browse the pinboards created by other users who share similar interests and passion as yours, which helps you discover new things about your shared passion.

What you can do with Pinterest?

This is the key question isn’t it? Users no longer are happy just with a presence on a social media platform. What they are looking for is a way to practically use it to improve their lives in some form or the other. And Pinterest does help them do that in many different ways. If you are a photographer, you can build a whole portfolio with the help of Pinterest. If you are an architect, you can create a Board that has pictures of your best work. If you are a housewife, you can create a shopping list of things that you need to buy for your home through the week. The options are literally endless. At the end of the day, if don’t really have any clear purpose in mind, just pinning pictures of the really interesting stuff that you come across, not only on the internet but also in your daily life, is reason enough to use Pinterest.

Using Pinterest

The purpose is all well and good, but is it usable? Two words – It is. Here’s how you can pin stuff in Pinterest. It offers you something called the ‘Pin It Button’, in the form of a ‘drag and drop’ browser extension. So, in your travels through the web, if you come across an image that you like, all you need to do is click on the button and choose the pictures that you want to add to your Board. You will also be able to add some interesting text describing the picture. What’s more, the image doesn’t necessarily have to be from the internet. You can click a picture and use the Pinterest iPhone app to add the image to your Boards.

Taking a cue from the ‘Retweets’, you can even ‘Repin’ images that other users have posted on their boards.

The Social Perspective

Ok, so what’s the social angle to Pinterest? Well, it works on the belief that if you do something together, it is more fun. If you are pinning something on your Pinterest board, you are a Pinner, and you can find different Pinners to comment on their Pins or Repin an image that you like onto your board. You could even follow a board that you find interesting and get any new updates on that board. If you want to follow somebody on Pinterest, you don’t need to take permission of the Pinner, as it’s an open network. Also, as a Pinner, who is also on Twitter and Facebook, you can share your pins with the friends and followers on your respective networks on these two social medial platforms.

It’s not only about Pictures

Yes, the focus is on pictures, but you can pin videos also. You can even buy gifts on Pinterest and it’s also a great way to promote your small business. If you own a small business, it makes perfect sense for you to try out different avenues to ensure better and highly effective branding. Much like other social media platforms, a presence on Pinterest, will help you get in touch with people, who are not only looking for the kind of products and services you are selling, but also share your interests. It’s a win-win situation for your business.

A website is a sum of the various functions that it brings together on a single platform. It’s important to understand that website visitors will love a visually appealing design, but they will appreciate a highly functional design more than anything else. So, the focus should always be on the functional components that will be useful and which can ensure website success.

There are a few ‘must haves’ that can really make or break your website design. Let’s take a look at some of them. These haven’t been picked randomly and have not been given in any order of importance.

Well Thought Out Website Forms

Every website has forms and yours will have them too. Now, the question is whether you are going to use simple forms whose sole purpose will be to enable your customers to sort out any problems they might be having with your products or services; or they might be used to put in a query about your products and services – but nothing else. Otherwise, you could think about implementing intuitive website forms, which do all this and more. Such forms can help you initiate a far more personal interaction with your website visitors, which helps you improve customer service. The idea behind using such forms is helping open engaging channels of conversation between you and your customers and vice versa, to build a reliable and mutually beneficial working relationship. This is one way that you can ensure website success.

Social Media Integration

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn etc. have left their mark everywhere, in all spheres of the online world and also contribute towards ensuring website success. How? By integrating Twitter Feeds and Facebook activity streams in your website, you are making it more engaging. Like it or not, these days, your website has become a means of initiating a conversation between you and your target audience. So, offsite conversations happening on your social media networks can be integrated with the exchanges taking place on your website, improving the overall engagement quotient of your website. Another related component of your social media integration are Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons that can be placed on the web page to enable visitors to share content that they like, by clicking the buttons. The content can be immediately shared with their followers on Twitter, Facebook and Google plus.

Viewable Photo galleries

Can something as ordinary as a photo gallery determine web design success? It definitely can, more so, because most websites don’t have a decent photo gallery. They get the visuals of the website spot on, but falter when it comes to choosing photo gallery. Let’s face it; using Java based photo galleries is no longer a worthwhile option, because it might not show up well if the website is accessed through a smartphone. More importantly, the photo gallery must be such that it is aligned with user requirements. So, a user might want a full page view of the photo gallery or might want to view one photo at a time. The idea is to put in place the kind of photo gallery that can keep the user on your site for a longer period of time.

These are by no means all the functions that you absolutely must implement in your website design. More often than not, the purpose and objectives of the website also determine its functions. The choice of functions must be a product of brainstorming and comprehensively charting out the direction of the website and its quantifiable goals. This ensures that the combined usability of the functions goes a long way in ensuring website success.

Cut back to around ten years or so to a time when usability testing of websites was considered a luxury by businesses. But, back then no website owner was worried about the amount of conversions on their site. As long as their website was up and running, they were happy. But times have changed and it’s not only having a website and attracting traffic that is important, but also the amount of conversions it achieves. Optimizing the rate of conversions is now the focus of attention and online merchants are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that their website can convert as many visitors as possible into their customers.

This is why usability testing is important. The point is very simple. It is only a usable website that can guarantee conversions. Such websites reduce bounce rates and improve sales by offering users a highly satisfying user experience. Basically, usability testing involves, checking the website on various parameters.

Let’s take a look at what these parameters are:

Checking the Design for Credibility

Credibility is the key driving force of a website that ensures a high degree of conversions. If the design does not project credibility, it isn’t going to work for the customers. So, usability testing involves checking it for professionalism and whether it is able to deliver its message with clarity and without confusing the users.

The Navigability Check

Are the websites navigation buttons, easy to use and doing their job properly? Website visitors don’t like wasting their time, trying to understand the navigation of the site. They need to be able to go through website to the pages of their choice conveniently and quickly with effortless ease.  Great navigation turns into an essential time saver and helps visitors optimize their use of the website.

Checking the Response and Intuitiveness of the Website

The design features and functionalities of the website should be responsive to the needs of the user. What this means is that the website must be able to effectively respond to the user’s action. For e.g. in an ecommerce shopping cart, if visitors have chosen the products that they want to purchase and place them in their shopping cart, the payment button should be highlighted as soon as that happens. Doing a thorough testing of the website with respect to its standards of responsiveness and intuitiveness is an important component of usability testing.

Evaluating the Products or Services Page for its Ability to Make an Impression

There are three major components of an impressive products and/or services page – Images, Content and their Presentation. You need to put in place the best product images that are attention grabbing and can help visitors sit up and take notice. Also, you need to add eye catching content that enhances the marketability of the products. More importantly, the website should be able to present the images and content in a way such that they deliver a single, comprehensive and effective marketing message.

Testing Load Time

Designers very often are accused of designing a website for themselves rather than designing it for website visitors. They add a whole array of visuals and animation that makes the website impressive to look at and its creative navigation buttons also ensure the navigation is inventive, but in doing so, they compromise on the most important factor determining website usability – load time of the website. It’s of paramount importance that whatever the internet speed of your target user, the website must be able to load quickly. The visuals, animations, features and functionalities of the website must be such that they do not take a toll on the time taken for the website to load.

Apart from these crucial parameters, there are other parameters like cross browser functionality, help features, next action and call-to action-buttons and various others that are also tested for their feasibility and ability to create the necessary impact in the minds of their website visitors.

The idea behind ensuring website usability is to remove any barrier that the website might have created between itself and the user. This ensures that the website generates more interest, converts better, and improves its profitability.

 It was inevitable and something that was just waiting to happen. Adobe has announced that it is moving away from Flash software and is embracing HTML 5 for mobile devices. Industry watchers say that this was a move that was predestined; HTML 5 has emerged as the universal standard for displaying rich media on the World Wide Web, and Adobe was going to realize this fact sooner rather than later.

This is great news for those smartphone and tablet users, especially those using iPhone and iPads who couldn’t view Flash coded media on their devices.

Steve Jobs Proven Right

Back in April, 2011, Steve Jobs didn’t have nice things to say about Flash and said that it wasn’t a great choice for viewing rich content on mobile phones because it was closed, proprietary software and did not offer support for touch based mobile devices. He also said that the time of HTML5 had come and its time developers started to use this language instead of Flash as it was an open standard and allowed media content to be directly embedded, without need for middleware. Many experts dismissed this as rant, but it seems Adobe was taking notice.

HTML 5 for Mobile Devices

Adobe has abandoned developing Flash for mobile devices, and has woken up to the realization that it’s HTML 5 that is way ahead and not Flash when it comes to mobile platforms. All major mobile devices support HTML 5, which means that it has emerged as the definitive choice for the creation and deployment of content across multiple mobile platforms.

Adobe’s shift speaks a lot for HTML 5 as a universal standard for putting rich media content on mobile devices conveniently and efficiently and in a manner that ensures the highest standards or reliability. As more and more users are starting to access the internet through mobile devices, it makes perfect sense for development companies to start developing HTML 5 tools. This is why Adobe’s, move towards using HTML5 development tools such as Adobe Air etc. to build HTML 5 websites and applications for mobile devices isn’t surprising.

Flash Isn’t Dead

Adobe will continue to develop Flash for PC. Its aim is to use Flash for offering PC users advanced gaming experiences and premium video solutions, which also includes 3D graphics.  But, when it comes to mobile devices it’s shifted its attention to HTML 5. It realizes, as many other companies have realized that HTML5 is the future of mobile development and its increasingly getting difficult to justify the use of Flash for developing and deploying mobile compatible content. That’s not just working any more.

So, when it comes to mobile development, its goodbye Flash and Hello HTML 5.