What predictions do you have for inbound marketing in 2016? With 2016 on the horizon, that's the question we asked the MINDSCAPE team. Read on to find out what some of the team is predicting.more
Growth Driven Design Real business value in a fraction of the time.more
Can you remember a time where you visited a site and it felt as though the company knew you very well and were able to anticipate your every move before you made it? How about a time when you visited a site and the user experience was so clunky and disjointed that you ended up with your blood boiling as you clicked the “back button” on the browser while making the decision to NEVER do business with a company that cared so little? The following steps will help you create a user experience that wins you customers instead of alienating them through frustration!more
At MINDSCAPE, we have been advising clients to build mobile-optimized sites for years, mainly because of the dramatic improvements to the user experience when using a mobilemore
During a meeting yesterday, I pulled up Ford.com to help illustrate a point I was attempting to make. While I was talking, Amy Snell pulled up the site as well, but didn't see what I was showcasing. It wasn't just different copy or a little detail, the entire design was different. This made me smile.more
With all the news regarding the disappearance of keywords from Google Analytics, there is a lot of commotion in the SEO world. At MINDSCAPE, we don’t think there is reason to be all that worried. A few years ago, when Google began to make clear their intention to decrease the importance of keywords and raise the importance of content, we were confident that our time-tested approach to web development and digital marketing was right on target. For our partners, we have always focused on keyword research (for volume and relevance), and on building a site map that assigns one primary keyword “theme” per page. For those with whom we partner, this means two things:more
One of the most common "strategies" we're asked to develop is based around increasing traffic to a client's site.more
I had the good fortune to attend Drupalcon in Portland, Oregon this year. This series of blog posts will recap what I learned while attending the Business + Strategy category of sessions.more
I’m going to let you in on a little secret about the internet. It isn't real. Yes, you can log on the internet and it will show you things. You haven’t imagined it. In that sense, it’s real. But it isn't real like a car or a building or a plane. Those objects can be touched. Those objects have to be built. And those objects are not easy to change once they are in use. Product recalls are what happens when “real” products have to change. On the internet, it’s a whole different story. One day a website has just one page, the next day there are a dozen. One day something is broken, the next day it isn't. One day you can’t build a thingamajig, the next everyone is thingamajigging.more
webTRAIN just underwent a big update. Although it’s a massive upgrade, nothing has visibly changed for you. Let me tell you what the big deal is.more
Over the past few months, I have been deep down the rabbit hole with .NET MVC web application projects. A pattern of development emerged out of these months of work, which I want to share with you today. I am not sure what to call it, but MVC Squared seems to fit. In reality, it is more of a .NET model-view-controller server side design with a view-controller, view-model client side design. One night I sat down to create a pseudo flow chart of my idea, so others working with me could critique it.more
This post has been republished here from its original source. As the years come and go, the types technology we use to access the web change and our approach to web design and development changes along with it. What made a good website five years ago does not make a good website today. When meeting with new clients, one of the first questions I ask is "What sites do you like and what do you dislike?" The answers are all over the board, but what I don't really see are examples of beautiful, modern websites that represent what it means to have a real online presence today. It becomes difficult for clients to understand what to expect from a modern website, as most of the sites they are seeing on a daily basis are not the types of sites we are striving to create at MINDSCAPE. This article aims to describe what I think constitutes a modern website in 2013, highlighting the way web design has evolved over the past several years. My hope is to illustrate to our partners the technology that's available to us today and why you should be taking advantage of it.more
First off, let me be clear. There are many situations when it makes sense to own the source code to any web asset a business may own. Integrated web services with back office operations, complex enterprise security or just a really unique web experience where the code becomes intellectual property. These are all examples where ownership, title rights and interest to every line of code, is recommended. But, in terms of most web site needs, do business owners really want to own the actual technology that their website site is on? There are many in “the industry” that would find that question profound. I think it’s a question worth asking and one that isn’t asked enough.more
This post has been republished here from its original source. I recently had to add a search filter to a Drupal site where the user can filter down criteria to find a reduced listing of products. This is called Faceted Search and is a common navigation technique on ecommerce sites. Think of the left side of Amazon’s site where you can pick Toys then filter down to a specific department and age group. Exposed Filtersmore
The mobile application landscape is rapidly changing and evolving. New tablets and phones of all shapes and sizes are being conceived, created and released at an ever accelerated pace. Google’s Glass and Apple’s iWatch are confirmed and rumored new form factors just around the corner. There are mobile websites. There are mobile applications. There are mobile application stores. There are even multiple ways of distributing mobile applications. Clearly the options and possibilities are vast and potentially confusing. At MINDSCAPE, we typically take the approach of assessing a partner’s need and then compare that to the current and future mobile landscape to find the best fit. Today’s mobile development options generally fit into one of three basic types:more
If you want to sound like a web pro, there are definitely a few buzz words you can throw around to sound like a smarty pants. However, fancy words don’t mean much if you don’t know what they mean. With that in mind, let’s shine a little light on two of the most common web terms: cache and cookie.more
It’s easy for digital novices to be intimidated when people throw around terms like “SEO” and “PPC” and “URL,” if they speak another language in their daily work lives, like accounting or manufacturing. I recently broke one of my own rules by bandying phrases like these during an initial meeting with a new partner. After I was politely interrupted by a brave engineer, “Excuse me, but what is SEO?” I realized with regret that I had started at level three when I should have started at level one.more
This post originally posted at mark-swanson.com CSS frameworks have been around for awhile. They've just changed a lot in the last several years. What started out as basic fluid or static grid systems have now evolved to include Javascript libraries, responsive layouts, more robust user interface elements and advanced typography.more
About a year ago, I came to a very enlightening epiphany as a developer: building a desktop app sucks. I was writing the application in C#, thinking I was ahead of the times using a modern and advanced language. While C# is great, my execution of it was well behind the times. I was creating a Windows Form application, all well and good when developing on my local machine. However, when it came time to deploy my application, my brain practically exploded from all the hurdles I had to overcome. It wasn't until after this process that I realized how much I hated (most) desktop applications. Here are just a few of the problems I ran into.more
