Five Things You Need to Change on your Website

Creating an engaging website is imperative for any business.  As many readers must have discovered, maintaining a great website is no easy task. Here is a list of things that reveal why your website is not popular with your users. We also share some tips to optimize your website:

Loading Time

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Your website can’t take too much time to load! Millions of other websites are competing for user attention. Don’t make your users wait. Unless the users want to visit your website nobody is going to wait that long.

You lose 20% of your conversions to every extra second your mobile website takes to load. About 50% users expect your website to load in 2 seconds. The same user percentage will leave the website in the third second. (Google Statistics)

So start working on speeding up that loading time now!

Home Page Clutter

A cluttered homepage will turn off users. Our suggestion? Start again with a fresh perspective. Segregate the core elements you want on the website.

Consider why your target audience should visit your website. Restructure the content, website design, UI, and UX. Use image sliders to showcase your prime content. Attractive and creative image sliders can encourage users to further explore the website.

Zero Interaction

If there is no interactivity, why have a website? Encourage your visitors to explore the website with clear calls to action. Have more groovy elements to entice your users. Short videos, animation, online polls, exclusive comments section, contests and other interactive elements. You get the drift.

Grammar Errors & Typos

Typos and poor grammar are bound to put off your website visitors. Get your website content checked and corrected by content and language experts. Don’t rely on online grammar checking software to check your website content. Most software is not reliable. Each software uses a varied set of grammar rules to auto correct. The results are usually inconsistent.

Using Images Effectively

If your website images are too dull and unappealing, traffic is bound to suffer. Captivating images attract a larger percentage of users. Apart from blogging, images are the most important form of business content. Statistics don’t lie.

Visual elements dominate 74% of social media marketing, way ahead of videos and blogs. An audience provided with text content along with an image retains 65% of the information.

Conclusion

What do you make of the five things listed above to improve your website traffic? How can we ensure constant user engagement? How do we generate business leads through the website? Please do share your comments.

How to Choose Fonts that Fit your Brand?

Fonts play a big role in creating a brand perception among customers. Selecting fonts that go with your brand can be a tedious task. How do you narrow down your choices and select fonts that are good for your brand? The following are some creative benchmarks you can apply to make your font choices:

Know What Your Customer Wants

Approach this like a date you are going to. You wouldn’t wear your night pajamas and flowery slippers to your date, would you? So, similarly know who your potential customers are, what kind of lifestyles do they lead and therefore what kind of font will appeal to them. At the same time, retain your brand’s personality through the fonts.

Beyond Serif and Sans-Serif

Times New Roman, Georgia, Freight Text, Garamond, Caluna are popular Serif fonts. They add edge and class to the brand. Helvetica, Verdana, Dejavu Pro, Avant Garde, Arial, and Optima are popular Sans-Serif fonts. Serif fonts are said to be easier to read as individual letters are more clearly lettered in comparison to sans-serif fonts. There is also decorative and script fonts that can add uniqueness to your brand. You can also combine fonts, to get a brand new font as a combination of all required font features. Which one would you go for?

The font must match the design and business purpose. Before you buy or download a font, list out the personality traits of your brand to make your search more concentrated. This way, you already have a fair idea of what your font choice will look like. Bold, serious, cheerful, robust or rebellious? Mirror your brand qualities on the fonts and you should have made a shortlist of your font selections.

Readability & Versatility Check

Apart from your brand design, your font must be clear and legible when you have to convey something of importance or otherwise. Check which font size fits and whether the font is web optimized. Also, check the spacing between two words, the lowercase, and uppercase heights. Sometimes a font can look less readable in italics. Also, try the “I and L” test, ensure that “i” and “l” in lowercase do not look identical.

Avoid Familiar Fonts

Your customers may look through your brand if the font is all too familiar. Look out for fonts that convey what you want to, yet are stylish in their own way. Try combinations of fonts in body text and bold, you never know what can surprise you. Sometimes an ordinary looking serif font lights up in bold. The key then is to experiment but try out fonts methodically.

We hope the suggestions shared in this article will help you select the right fonts for your brand. If you have any other suggestions with regard to font selection, do share!

Want More Money? Start Effective Icon Design for Better UI

Any website or mobile app icon design has to convey a specific purpose. Icons add aesthetics to the screen, help save on screen space. But primarily icon design have to aid your users, help in branding, drive user attention and response. The idea, from the graphic design aspect, is to keep it simple. Easier said than done you will say. Here are some key pointers to effective icon design for better UI:

Balanced Icon Design Detailing

Instant communication of an action, idea or object is the attribute of good icon design. Too much detailing can render an icon with no logical or meaningful connection. As a rule, opt for minimal detailing to clearly convey the mobile app icon design’s purpose.

When Google first adapted a simplistic grid icon on its homepage as a one-point access to all its Google apps, they received multiple help requests enquiring about the apps’ location. The users just couldn’t spot where the grid icon was on the page. Somehow the lack of detailing had ended up too elusive for the users. That is why, striking the right balance, trial and error are important steps too.

  

Out of the Box Design Tweaking

Unless the client had made clear specifications, go beyond standard design conventions, without compromising on usability and visual recognition. For example, see how the Pinterest icon gets away with an outrageous text font while combining two circular clean white, vibrant bold red combo diameters to convey its image-intrinsic brand. Sample how the iOS music app djay 2 uses a vinyl for an icon yet conveys a modern appeal.

Visual Perception Aspects

Closely consider the following factors while designing website and mobile app design icons. Know your target audience, right down to their age, cultural attributes, level of education and general development. Find out, in what environment will the product be used? What will be the expanse of the product’s local or global reach? How does the audience identify with graphics, what specific elements distract and engage them? These are all vital questions.

The Scalability Factor

Try out your icon design on the device or website in multiple sizes and settings. While designing, focus on a unique shape or quality that retains its effect in any size or scale. Check that the icon looks great with various background colors. Perceive how the design complements the UI.

Eye for Aesthetics  

You are aware that a set of icons and each individual icon in an app or website have to be aesthetically alike. But how do you ensure a pleasant subtle uniformity? Concentrate on little things, like the specific size of the square or rounded corners. An acute sense of style, lining and color textures helps immensely in this process.

We hope that these icon design tips provide you with a new perspective on designing icons for website and mobile apps and contribute to a better UI. Please do share your comments below.

Why Push Notifications On Mobile Apps Are Important

What Are Push Notifications?

If you have ever used a mobile app then chances are you will at some point have received a push notification. So what exactly is a Push Notification? A push notification is a message that will appear on your phone screen. Even if you are not using the application or even your phone, app publishers have the opportunity to send you notifications that tell you to perform certain actions through the app. Ask your mobile app development agency in Pune for the best push notification system.

Push Notifications are available on all mobile platforms such as iOs and Android.

Developers looking to create push notifications will have to have a minimum SDK v1.1.16 for Android and SDK v 2.3.17 on iOS for most push notification services.

How Push Notifications Work

Push notifications are tiny snippets of texts that you can send from your notification service application to your users. You can either send automated push notifications at regular intervals or provide custom push notifications each time.

Push notifications do not include images or hyperlinks; they’re just plain text so you have to very creative and concise with your audience with what you want them to do. A clear call to action is very important for almost all push notifications (except if you’re only providing news)

Why Push Notifications Are Important For Businesses?

Push Notifications are important to the mobile app developers for several reasons.

  • It is a quick was to speak directly to your app user. If notifications are active then app users will definitely receive push notifications as they do not get stuck in filters or spam boxes.
  • It can help drive sales by providing the user with a specific action to perform
  • It can help improve the app usage statistics which can help companies increase their profits and ad revenue
  • They can be used as a cross-selling platform by providing users with links to other social properties of the business
  • It helps improve the customer experience
  • Click through rates of push notifications are higher than those of emails so it improves engagement

 

Most Android-based applications ask their users for their location details permissions. This help businesses provide significantly better push notifications to their customers. Combined with behavioral data that the app can collect during usage and location data that the app requires, businesses can run more targeted applications to their customers to drive more sales.

What Should Be Your Push Notification Strategy?

If you using the services of a mobile app development company in Pune you can always check with them if they can build an independent push notification service for you as well. This could be slightly more expensive, but you could have a great product and have total control over it. You should note however that there are several companies in India that already provide push notification services. You can always sign up with one of them for your push notification services.

Regarding the push notification strategy for your customers, you have to find the right balance between too much and too little. If you send push notification messages too frequently then the user might feel annoyed and might disable notifications from your app and this may lead to a loss of messaging channel for you. Use too few and you may not be utilizing the full capabilities of your app.

You will need to study the behavioral data of your app users to find out what the right amount is.

CodePlateau is one of the top mobile app development agencies in Pune. They have been working with several prominent clients to develop their Android and iOS mobile applications. They also help to develop a strategic push notification plan. If you are in the market for a mobile app, get in touch with the best mobile app development agency in Pune. Call us for a free quote today.

6 Andorid App Development Secrets You Should Know

Android App Development Secrets

Android is one of the most popular operating systems for mobile phones. Most people love the number of customizable options it provides. As of Dec 2018, Google Playstore is the largest app store for mobile applications by a long mile. It has more than 1.8 million apps available for download and growing every day. The only question then is how do you become a part of the platform and what you need to do to build your first successful android app. Short answer, CodePlateau, the best Android App Development Company in Pune.

Understand the market:

The first thing you need before you even begin your android app development is figuring out the android app market. iOs users generally tend to have more income than their Android counterparts, so it makes it harder to sell apps on the playstore. That does not mean that you cannot earn money from apps in the playstore there are just different ways in which you have to do it. If you are able to successfully deliver the right app to the right people you can still afford to monetize it in a big way.  Ask you android app development company how you should go about monetizing your apps.

Easy To Understand Design Guidelines:

Android has published an easy to understand app design guideline. It’s too bad that no one ever gets around to using it. The thing to understand is that most mobile app development companies design cross-platform apps. This means their primary objective is to reuse of the code used for the android app on iOs and vice versa. What this leads to is that none of the users are particularly satisfied with the app they have to use and it causes a lot of issues with the audience of the app. CodePlateau is the best mobile application development company in Pune, India. Although it’s no secret that all android app development company in Pune share code between apps for different OS’s, you should be able to do so cleverly. This is how we are able to keep our costs down can be considered a low-cost affordable app development company in Pune.

Make The Design Intuitive:

We have been providing our web design services in Pune for several years. One thing we have learned from our experiences is that you have to design for the technically illiterate. Only when you succeed in doing that will you be able to provide a user experience that as absolutely no learning curve. And your customers will thank you for it. The secret is in simplicity.

Simple Layouts, clean, uncluttered screens will give the most positive responses from your audience.

Add Your Socials and Ensure they’re used:

Make sure to hardwire your socials into the app. Social integration in your app is as important as or even more so than it is on the website. People spend a lot more time scrolling through your app then they will on your website. It should be easy for them to be able to share their finds with their friends. Your app can be seen and should be seen as a source of virality among your audience for it to become really popular. Also, ensure social sign-ins are present. No one like to fill out the forms, especially the millennial crowd, if you have an app that youth-centric social sign-ins are a must.

Don’t Launch Before You’re Sure:

Before the app is launched you have to make sure you have considered all the facets of the app. Share demos with your friends and families and ask them to handle it. See what they think of it from a layman’s perspective. Note down their thoughts on usability and experience. It may sometimes be as valuable as the inputs you receive from your expert mobile app development team.

Market It:

Correctly market your apps. This is another step, not really part of developing, but still relevant to the success of your apps. If you have a proper marketing plan your audience should know exactly what the app does, who its for and how it will help them. Get together with a top of the line Digital Marketing Agency. They will be able to properly market your mobile application.

CodePlateau is a full service web design and development agency in Pune who can also handle your Digital Marketing activities. If you would the best you need to partner with the best. Get in touch today.

 

9 iPhone App Development Secrets You Should Know

iPhone App Development Secrets

The App store is an exciting place to have your app listed on. Not only does it increase your credibility as a company, but the downloads can also turn out to be very lucrative. Mobile App developers in Pune and all over the world are jostling to be in a position to have their apps in the App Store. Over 2.2 million apps have been published thus far, and more than double that get submitted for approval to the app store every year and are rejected. If you were an iPhone app development company in Pune then you too would want your app to be published in the App store. Luckily CodePlateau has some excellent suggestions to ensure that you only develop and submit iPhone Apps that will pass the stringent tests set by Apple.

  • Documentation Completion:

Avoid Incomplete Documentation at all costs. It may seem like a trivial point, but Apple lays great store to the documentation process for the iPhone App Development process. The more accurate details you provide to the iTunes team to review your app the higher the chances of success of your app being eligible to enter into the Apple app store. Providing the right contact information is obviously a no-brainer. Give them adequate means of ways to get in touch with you and answer any questions they might have in as detailed a manner as possible.

  • Get Rid of Placeholder Content:

Absolutely under no circumstances should you send incomplete work. There are a lot of amateurs that work on developing mobile apps for the iPhone. Make your work stand out by presenting yourself as extremely professional. Keep checking for anything you have you might have missed in the app from a look and feel perspective.

  • Fix Crashes and Bugs:

While you are in the development phase of the app for the iPhone ensure to check everything carefully. Never be in a hurry to release your product without having tested it thoroughly yourself. Sometimes iPhone App Developers and other Mobile App Developers get too close to their projects. They won’t be able to find the bugs because they’ve been testing it every day. Let someone new play with the app and see if they uncover anything. Only submit your app once you have been thoroughly satisfied that there are no bugs in your iPhone app.

  • Follow the Published Guidelines:

You will find a set of guidelines that Apple has published for all App Developers. Make sure that as a reputed iPhone App Development Company in Pune you follow the Apple guidelines for apps.

  • Fix Broken Links:

Just like on websites, broken links on Apps are extremely annoying and can cost your app dearly. Make to sure to add all the necessary links that have to be on every iPhone App. There are some mandatory links you need to add as per the published guidelines.

  • Stay True to Your App:

Describe your app for what it truly is. Don’t try to mislead your users by getting to download your app based on some false descriptions and screenshots. The app team will review the app from the standpoint of the user. If the descriptions and the images you have sent, meet the expectations or are you delivering something that was not advertised?

  • Build Standard User Interface:

As a Website Design company in Pune you will know the importance of good user interface. While you are working on your iPhone app development you should consistently stick to those design aesthetics. Readable fonts, inviting color scheme and the works. Think of the end user when building an app for the iPhone.

  • Proper Advertisements:

If you plan on running advertising on your app, make sure you’ve thought of that before you send the app in for submission.

  • Resist from Repeated Submission of Similar Apps:

Don’t try to cheat the app team by making multiple similar apps and publishing them separately. It is very strictly against the Apple iTunes guidelines and Apple might decide to punish you for it.

 

Follow these pointers and we’re sure your app will be in the App Store soon.

How to Improve Your Mobile App Usage

Importance of Mobile App Development

Mobile plays an integral role in any companies marketing strategy. Latest statistics show that people now spend more time on their phones than on their desktops and tablets. Since a majority of the time your customers spend is on their cell phones, it is necessary for you to have a mobile app as part of your marketing strategy. Mobile App Development is relatively new compared to web development.

Assuming you already have a mobile application, you must consider the downloads as the number one metric to judge the success or failure of the application. However on closer inspection you will see that Usage statistics are just as important. Usage and Retention statistics should be used to see the success or failure of an app.

Mobile App Engagement and Mobile App retention are two of the strongest metrics that really decide how much your customers have enjoyed them.

How To Improve Mobile App Usage

Low app engagement and retention stats can describe the success or failure of the application. Engagement is  the number of sessions the user has with your app. Retention is, how many times the user has opened and used your mobile app after the first use.  So how do you go about getting users to use your app for longer periods and more frequently? Hopefully these tips from the best mobile app development company in Pune can help increase the user engagement with your apps.

Simplify The On Boarding Process:

Tell you Mobile App Development Company that you want to make the sign in process as easy as possible. Most companies now allow for social sign ins and for good reason. They’ve already taken the trouble to update their information on their favourite sites. Let them use those to sign in. If you need additional information then ask the user to fill it up later in his/her account information.

Push Notifications:

Push Notifications act as a timely reminder to the user that they have downloaded your app and make them use the app more frequently. Notifications can also be used to deliver offers and news to the user. To entice them to use the application. Push notifications should not be too pervasive nor should they be too rare. You need to work out the right balance between too many and too few. Studies show that people who have kept push notifications active tend to use an app more frequently. Mobile Application Development Companies have a knack to suggest the right amount of push notifications that should go out.

Application Customization:

The more the user is able to customize the app to suit his or her needs the more frequently they will use it. Gone are the days of delivering uniform experiences to all. What really appeals to the users now is how much they can make the app their own. Mobile Application has developed very rapidly in recent years making for unbelievable app experiences for the end user. Find a Mobile App Development Company that is able to bring to reality the functionality that you are looking for.

Rewards:

Risks and Rewards go hand in hand. Rewards are when you incentivize the user for using your app. Usually incentives in the form of coupons, special promotions, extra content. However, this can also work against you. Users could feel aggrieved at having to use the app so often. They might also not appreciate what’s on offer as reward. Be apprehensive when you use this strategy though.

Updating Your App:

While the application is in the development phase itself you have to make a plan for updation. Users have a very short attention span and if no changes are made to the app, the retention will drop. Updates can’t always be fixes. They have to bring in additional functionality that the users have been looking forward to.

If you use these steps while developing and marketing your app, it will surely be a success. Downloads won’t necessarily lead to revenue generation from the mobile application development. However, increased engagement and retention of the user with the app will definitely lead to higher revenue streams.

 

Why Mobile App development is a Must

Invest in a Mobile app?

Businesses are looking at different ways of getting ahead of the competition. Social Media, Google Search Results, Offline Advertising, Online Advertising are just a few ways that companies are trying to get attention. Continue reading