In today’s time, we frequently hear the term Digital Marketing and we all think that we kind of know what actually it is. This thinking sometimes limits the scope and opportunity that the complete Digital Marketing landscape can actually offer. This is why, when it comes to nailing digital marketing down, we either turn dumbfounded or get stuck.

To come out of such scenarios, it is very important to know the different types of Digital Marketing opportunities that are available to your business.

According to Salesforce, 75% Of Total Marketing Budget Will Go To Digital Marketing by 2021.

Now that’s going to be a massive change. Digital marketing today depends upon different types of audience interactions with various types of online marketing. It revolves around managing and harnessing of different types of Digital Marketing Channels. And sometimes they might be a bit difficult to deal with.

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That is exactly why we came up with this post to help you know how many types of Digital Marketing Channels are available to you. Once you know about various types of marketing and the optimal way to use each, you will be in a perfect position to craft a perfect Digital Marketing Strategy and execute it well.

“Inspiration is the most important part of our digital strategy.” – Paull Young

Therefore, without further ado, let us go through below given five types of Digital Marketing. We will answer your question of how many types of internet marketing tactics are there and we will also make you understand which one will serve your business objectives the best.

So, read on to know more about the types of online marketing.

Are you really interested in learning Digital Marketing in depth? 

Take a look at Asia’s #1 Digital Marketing Course now!

At Digital Vidya, we opine that the term Digital Marketing is an amalgam of using various online visibility methods to promote products, services or the brand itself.

You may want to make people find your website, have a look at your products, understand your services or get to know about your offers. For all this, you need promotions of different sorts. When this promotion is in its totality done by a sphere of online promotional activities, it is together called Digital Marketing.

So, in essence, you should know how many types of digital marketing channels & tactics come together to give rise to Digital Marketing.

By now, you should be clear in your understanding of what Digital Marketing actually is. And if it makes you feel excited to learn it in details, you can check out our digital marketing course.

Now, let us explore each of these platforms that are used for online promotions & visibility.

1. Search Engine Marketing & PPC

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most primary types of Digital Marketing activities that help businesses gain market online via Ads on search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo.

SEM assists in optimizing the brand presence and conversions for businesses through paid and unpaid advertising.

SEM = SEO + PPC

“Search marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through both paid and unpaid efforts.”- Search Engine Land

Unpaid SEM is SEO while Paid SEM is PPC.

PPC is one of the speediest types of Digital Marketing channels that drives targeted traffic to your web pages and related services.

PPC can be understood as buying traffic via paid search listings that help marketers get more web traffic through desktop and mobile web searches.

There are different synonyms and acronyms related to SEM such as Paid search ads, Paid search advertising, PPC (pay-per-click), PPC (pay-per-call), CPC (cost-per-click), and CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions).

The formula to calculate PPC is: Pay per click ($) = Advertising cost ($) ÷ Number of ad clicks

PPC is from types of Internet Marketing tactics that helps marketers channelize an Online Advertising System for driving online traffic to their websites by paying a certain price to the publisher when their paid Ad is clicked.

Entities involved in PPC Advertising are:

Entities of PPC

(i) Product Seller

(ii) PPC Marketer

(iii) Landing Page

(iv) Landing Page Provider

(v) The viewer or the Visitor

PPC or Paid SEM works best for businesses that have a good spending plan and can afford costlier ways to gain traffic and ensure better online recognition in the quickest turnaround.

Using such types of Internet Marketing strategies needs AdWords experts who can exploit the paid advertising in the most targeted and result driven campaigns.

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2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization helps marketers enhance the ranking of a site or website page in the unpaid “organic” search lists. SEO is from the types of Digital Marketing activities, businesses can make their website pages rank higher in the SERPs by increasing visibility, reach, authority and Alexa scores.

In case you did not understand what a SERP means, its the short form for Search Engine Results Page. 

SEO helps you gain higher positions in search results naturally. It means that it helps you to get more visitors, awareness, traffic, digital branding, leads, and conversions.

SEO Practices

Search Engine Optimization works around some of the well-characterized set of principles such as optimizing a page for specific keywords, and managing links from different sites that also use similar kinds of keywords, and so forth.

Manipulating the Search Engine framework is no more a prudent practice as your site can be penalized via Google’s Penguin update. So, you need to play it all clean.

39% of all global ecommerce traffic comes from search. (SEO Tribunal)

Some Of The Most Notable SEO Practices Are:

(i) High-Quality Content

(ii) Guest Blogging

(iii) Images and Videos

(iv) Public Relations

(v) Direct Mail

(vi) Social Presence

(vii) Collateral Material

(viii) Meta Data

(ix) Brand Evangelism, etc.

Different Steps Involved In Making A Site SEO Friendly Are:

1. Choosing SEO Friendly Website Domain

2. Knowing SEO Tactics & Methods

(i) White Hat SEO

(ii) Black Hat SEO (Never ever use these gray tactics)

3. Use of SEO friendly Design & Layout

4. Optimization of Keywords, Meta Tags, Title and Anchor

5. Link Building and Mobile SEO

6. Knowing activities performed by Search engines such as crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy and retrieving results

7. On Page and Off Page SEO

8. SEO Copywriting, etc

SEO is one of the most evergreen Digital Marketing types that help businesses enjoy great recognition in front of their target base and the needed authority and reputation in the eyes of Search Engines as well.

3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing is from the youngest and most popular types of Digital Marketing that help marketers advance their brand image in a most powerful and trendy manner.

SMM is nowadays preferred by different businesses for optimizing the image of a brand, business, product, or an individual. We all are mostly aware of different social networks around us such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat Pinterest, etc.

In addition to these, there are niche networks, discussions, forums, dynamic blog groups and the places wherever two-way discussion happens comes under the radar of Social Media Marketing.

Creating and distributing quality content in a well-targeted manner is the base of successful SMM campaigns.

Different Steps To Successful Social Media Marketing

SMM Steps

(i) Research and know your audience

(ii) Pick your Social Platforms

(iii) Pick your KPIs

(iv) Write a Social Media Playbook

(v) Align your company with your plan

(vi) Schedule an hour each week to Schedule post

(vii) Create a Content Bank

(viii) Post Relevant Content

(ix) Treat All Social Channels Separately

(x) Do Reporting and Reanalyzing

The latest in Social Media Marketing is Social Media Ads that businesses should know how to use to ensure better use of these platforms.

Let us understand different types of Ads that you can run on Social Channels.

Types Of Facebook Ads

(i) Photo Ads

(ii) Video Ads

(iii) Carousel

(iv) Slideshow

(v) Canvas

Types Of LinkedIn Ads

(i) Display Ads

(ii) Sponsored InMail

(iii) Sponsored content

(iv) Text Ads

(v) Dynamic Ads

Types Of Twitter Ads

(i) Promoted Tweets

(ii) Promoted Account

(iii) Promoted Trends

Types Of Instagram Ads

(i) Photo

(ii) Video

(iii) Carousel

Types Of Snapchat Ads

(i) Snap Ads

(ii) Sponsored Geofilters (for larger companies) or on-demand Geofilters (for smaller brands)

(iii) Sponsored lenses

Do you know? 

More than 40% of digital consumers use social networks to research new brands or products.

Businesses that see their target audiences on Social networks should always opt for these types of Digital Marketing techniques, as it quite easily widens the reach of businesses and ensures better branding and recognition and hence conversions.

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4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the oldest types of Digital Marketing that is still highly contemporary and fruitful. Marketers use emails for developing relationships with their potential and existing customers that help them generate leads and ensure their conversions.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing includes the best ways to establish deeper relationships with a wider audience through Relationship Marketing for the nominal cost than your total spends on traditional media.

Via Emails, you can enjoy 6 times Click Through than Tweets.

The Digital World incorporates 3 times more Email Accounts compared to Facebook & Twitter combined.

Goals of an Email Marketing Campaign are:

(i) Driving new signups for specific products and services

(ii) Creating new and powerful leads for your sales team

(iii) Targeting more attendees for your event in a result driven manner

(iv) Converting more leads for your cause

Steps that You Need to use To Run Email Marketing Campaigns are:

(i) Know the components of Email Campaigns

(ii) Know ways to get permission for Email Sign Up

(iii) Use effective Email Marketing Content & Landing Pages

(iv) Avoid being spammed and black-listed

(v) Use best Email Automation Tools

(vi) Do Segmentation and utilize Email Marketing Metrics

(vii) Use Email Marketing Follow Ups

Different Email Marketing Components that You Can Use are:

(i) Newsletter

(ii) Announcements

(iii) Event Invitation

(iv) Marketing Offer

Email Marketing is advisable for all kinds of businesses as it is highly cost-effective and considered as the best types of Digital Marketing that ensure best conversions.

5. Content Marketing

Content Marketing is one of the most important types of Digital Marketing that revolve around the management and execution of different written, engaging, downloadable and visual Digital Media Content.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing focuses on attracting and converting targeted audiences into customers by designing, publishing, promoting, distributing and sharing valuable and relevant free content on different digital marketing channels. According to Copyblogger:

Content marketing means attracting and transforming prospects into customers by creating and sharing valuable free content.

Things To Pay Heed To When Making A Content Marketing Plan

(i) Your targe
t audiences

(ii) The problem your Content is going to solve

(iii) USP of your Content Marketing Campaign

(iv) Possible Content Marketing formats you can use

(v) Possible channels to publish and share your content

(vi) Awareness about Content Management System, content creation, curation, and publication

Content Formats

Best Content Marketing Techniques

(i) Blogs

(ii) E-Books

(iii) Podcasts & Webinars

(iv) Workbooks & Templates

(v) Landing Pages

(vi) Emails

(vii) Blogs

(viii) Infographics

(ix) Videos

(x) Social Media

5 Steps To Do Content Marketing

(i) Define your goal and conduct a persona research

(ii) Determine a Content Management System & brainstorm content ideas

(iii) Know which types of content would be the best fit for your Business

(iv) Start a blog and post at least once a week

(v) Publish and manage your content

Content is the base of all types of Internet Marketing and having a proper Content Marketing Strategy ensures better creation, channelization, and conversions for a business.

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Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article has answered your question of how many types of digital marketing activities are there.

Now the million dollar question to answer is, how to create a strategy that combines all the different types of digital marketing activities and produces sure results?

We know that all Digital Marketing Channels produce results. But each of them needs to be utilized well to produce ‘optimal’ results. Generally, only trained and experienced Marketers can do that. Creating a perfect working strategy doesn’t come easy. You need the expertise to craft one.

Which channel gives more ROI and which one is easier to execute can’t be ascertained by common sense. For someone who has years of experience in the Digital Marketing industry, the job might be easy. And even then, this industry keeps on changing and evolving every single day.

Digital Marketing Strategies that worked a year ago are obsolete now. At times, you might be even penalized by Search Engines for following old techniques that are now seen as spammy.

As you have seen, there are different types of Digital Marketing Channels & each one would require a different type of Digital Marketing Strategy. All this makes creating the best working methodology a struggle, especially for a new entrant.

Importance of a Digital Marketing Course

In such a situation where creating a perfect Digital Marketing Strategy would require a lot of hit and trial on the part of a newbie. Even when you know the basic strategies of using a channel optimally, it is a lot more sense to take a Digital Marketing Course and save yourself a lot of testing budget in the application of different types of online marketing.

Businesses entering the sphere of Digital Marketing should train their teams on the latest in Digital Marketing. Similarly, to be an awesome practitioner of Digital Marketing, professionals should invest time in learning how many types of digital marketing & the types of digital marketing activities and also the 7 P’s of Marketing.

It is recommended to get trained by the best Digital Marketing institute to get the best learning.  The Digital Marketing Strategies, the Case Studies & the demonstrated experience of the trainers is always going to help you in creating the perfect Digital Marketing Strategy for your Business.

Over to You 

On a concluding note, I hope this article guided you answer your question of how many types of digital marketing are there and know different types of Digital Marketing Channels that are the best fit for your business. Here are few Digital Marketing guides that will help you in your towards learning Digital Marketing.

If you are from Bangalore and looking for top Digital Marketing Courses in Bangalore, you can choose the best one as per your requirements.

Just in case, you are in a dilemma about choosing the best Digital Marketing channel/s for your business, share specific details of your business and we shall guide you through the process.

If you want to build a career in Digital Marketing, enroll in our Certified Digital Marketing Master Course.

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Communication with customers is the most crucial aspect of any Sales or Service is driven business. Any dropped calls, delays in replies, poor communication quality, expensive hardware, etc. can definitely result in loss of leads and existing customers. The best cloud based phone system was created to be a solution for all the above issues.

It shouldn’t be surprising to know that the Virtual Business Cloud Phone System is not much of a new concept. It has indeed existed for years now. But with the improved internet speeds and more sophisticated communication technology available now, there has been an enormous increase in the number of businesses adopting cloud phone systems also known as (internet-based phone systems) and as a result, a significant increase in the companies that provide small business virtual phone system service across the globe.

Regardless of the status of a business, be it an enterprise or even a billion-dollar Corporate Giant, the cost of adding a small business cloud VoIP phone system is hardly a fraction of the benefits it provides.

Why is a Virtual Phone System Necessary for Small Business?

Here’s why small business owners or managers like you must migrate to a cloud based phone system at the earliest.

• With a cloud phone system for small businesses in place, you can say goodbye to phone bills, answering tapes, and wire tangles as your phone system will be stored virtually.
• Apart from being affordable and convenient to use, the cloud based phone system will bring about positive improvements in the way in which your business operates.
• Cloud VoIP or hosted telephony will replace your traditional phone system, landline, PBX (Private branch exchange), etc. with cloud PBX backed by third-party VoIP (Voice over IP) services.
• The usage of Internet for voice delivery and multimedia communications will provide better connectivity with your customers and end-users alike.
• Cloud phone systems for small businesses are third-party products. Given this, they need not be maintained, made available, and updated by you in-house. This in turn reduces the overhead costs involved with server maintenance and results in enhanced productivity.

Overall, a cloud phone system takes care of concerns such as redundancy and data security to offer continuous support to SMEs. With virtually no cost for installation, a well-designed virtual phone system for small businesses will help the ROI (Return on investment) of your company show notable improvements.

Connect with Clients More Effectively

Providers of a scalable business cloud phone system, such as CallHippo, will help in setting a support center at the earliest. You can invite team members, assign them with numbers – all without investing heavily on skilled technicians or expensive equipment or skilled technicians. A computer, a working internet connection, and a headset are all you need to create a difference in how your business communicates with the world.

Get Going with Cloud Phone System

Sign up with CallHippo to manage your call analytics in the best possible manner.

• Get information like the details of your callers, time duration, call status, etc. for better analytics.
• You can listen to the call recordings from the dashboard directly and get real-time reports on the call status history.
• The virtual number so obtained will offer greater mobility for your operations as your business will no longer be limited to any specific place/location.

Go ahead and enjoy call recordings, tracking of calls, IVR, call distribution, and a host of other advantages to steer your business to the next level of success!

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What’s the best way to learn digital marketing in 2020 for free and at the comfort of your own home?

Fortunately, there are a lot of free and paid online resources that can help you acquire the skills needed to become a modern digital marketing manager.

In the guide, you will learn what are the required skills for digital marketers and a list of resources to teach yourself digital marketing in the fastest possible way.

Before we dive in, it’s necessary to explain what is digital marketing.

Digital marketing is the process of marketing on the Internet using all available online and digital channels. This is also known as online marketing and offline marketing respectively.

The diagram below shows the different channels that make up digital marketing and how they are grouped into online and offline.

It should be noted that the majority of people (if not all) when they talk about digital marketing, they actually mean online marketing which automatically excludes the non-online channels.

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How to Learn Digital Marketing for Free

To become a successful digital marketer, you need to develop the skills required to work with all online marketing technologies.

In addition, you need to acquire the necessary knowledge so that you can combine them together to achieve the best possible results.

It’s hard work that requires a lot of patience and perseverance but the good news is that you don’t have to attend college or a classroom course to become an expert in Digital Marketing.

You don’t even have to spend your time searching Google for which resources to follow.

What I’ve gathered below is the best resources (almost all free), you can follow and build your skills from the comfort of your home.

Digital Marketing Definition and Channels

To build up your digital marketing skills, you need to become an expert in the following areas:

• Search engine marketing (includes SEO and PPC)
• Content Marketing
• Inbound Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Digital Marketing Analytics Tools

Search engine marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

SEM has to do with marketing on the various search engines either using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Paid Search Advertising (Google Ads or Bing Ads).

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in the search engine’s organic results.

SEO is important in online marketing because it can drive highly targeted traffic to your website. It’s a slower process compared to Paid Ads but it can generate better results in the long term.

To get started with SEO use the following guides:

If you are a beginner, it’s necessary to understand that SEO is not a static discipline but it changes all the time. Google is reportedly making more than 250 changes to their ranking algorithm per year.

Video: What is SEO

This means that if you want to pursue an SEO Career, you need to monitor the SEO industry for changes and adjust your digital marketing campaigns accordingly.

The following resources are a great place to monitor the SEO industry for changes:

PPC

Pay Per Click marketing or paid search advertising (PSA) is the other component of search engine marketing.

With Pay-Per-Click ads, you can reach your target customers faster than SEO but you pay every time someone clicks on your ads.

Currently, the biggest PPC network is Google Ads, which allows you to show your ads in Google Search Results, on Google properties (like Gmail and YouTube) and on websites that participate in Google AdSense.

Pro Tip: If you are confused about SEO, PPC, and SEM, read this: Difference between SEO and SEM

Learning PPC is not difficult, you can go through the various online courses (see below) and become a PPC Certified expert in a couple of months.

Getting a certification alone does not make you a good digital marketing specialist. You need to work with PPC campaign management and gain the necessary practical experience.

At the end of the day, your role as a digital marketing professional is to combine the results of PPC with other channels (like SEO or Social Media Marketing), and deliver the best possible outcome for your clients.

The following resourc
es are all free and can teach you everything you need to know about PPC:

Content Marketing

Every digital marketing campaign is based around content. Whether it’s SEO, social media marketing or email marketing, you need content to reach and engage with your target audience in the different channels.

Content marketing is the process to identify, create and promote the right type of content to the right audience.

To become a good content marketer, you need to have great writing skills, SEO copywriting skills and analytical skills.

The resources below will help you get started with content marketing:

Inbound Marketing

At the beginning of this post, I’ve mentioned that a good digital marketer, should be able to combine the different online marketing techniques for the best possible results.

That’s exactly what inbound marketing is all about. The role of Inbound marketing is to co-ordinate the activities of all other digital marketing campaigns to provide for remarkable user experience.

The overall goal is to have a solid process for attracting new customers, engaging with them, gaining their trust and earning their satisfaction.

Companies that can do this successfully are more likely to grow their customer base faster than companies who run isolated campaigns.

Your job as a digital marketing manager is to ensure that all digital marketing campaigns share the same goals.

To learn more about inbound marketing, visit the resources below:

I think that everybody agrees that nowadays is hard to imagine a world without Facebook or Twitter.

Social media networks have dominated our lives and our approach to digital marketing.

Since the goal of digital marketing is to connect with your potential customers in their favorite channels, a new form was marketing was born and that is social media marketing.

Social media marketing is what the name implies i.e. marketing on the various social networks for the purpose of finding and engaging with your customers.

Facebook is by far the most widely used network with more than 2.3 billion active monthly users.

A great place to start learning social media marketing is to follow the Facebook online courses. They will teach you everything you need to know about Facebook Paid Campaigns.

Once you feel comfortable with running social media campaigns on Facebook, you can enhance your skills by learning more about Pinterest, LinkedIn and twitter marketing.

Use the following resources to get started with social media marketing:

Email Marketing

Email marketing is not dead. Despite what you might think, email is still one of the most effective ways to turn visitors into customers and existing customers into repeat customers.

To run successful email marketing campaigns, you need to get to know your audience first otherwise your emails will end up in the spam folder of your users.

You can think of email marketing as the last piece in the digital marketing puzzle. While all other marketing techniques concentrate on finding new customers, email marketing is about closing the deal.

To get started with email marketing you first need to decide on the tool to use and then learn how to use it.

There are many options available, my recommendation is to start with the following resources:

Digital Marketing Analytics Tools

One of the skills each digital marketing professional should develop its analytical skills.

Remember that the role of a digital marketing manager is not to learn how to run SEO or social media campaigns (that’s the job of the SEO expert or Social media marketing manager), but to know how to orchestrate all processes so that they work towards the same goals.

To be able to do that, you need to learn how to use various data analysis tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Data reporting tools like the Google Data Studio and digital marketing tools like SEMRUSH.

Online Marketing Learning Tips

I’m sure that you’ve realized by now that learning digital marketing is not an easy job.

It requires a lot of reading and hours of practice to learn how each of the techniques works individually and how you can combine them together for maximum results.

The good news is that you can use the resources above to learn digital marketing at home and for Free. All you need is the willingness to learn and a lot of patience.

To make the process easier for you, follow the tips below:

• Start with SEO. Many of the concepts used by PPC, content marketing and social media marketing are based on SEO principles. Building your SEO skills first will make it easier to learn the rest.
• Practice, Practice, Practice. Internet marketing is not a theoretical concept but it’s mostly practical. Once you understand the theory behind a strategy, try to execute it in practice. Monitor the results, optimize it and learn from your mistakes.
• Get Certified. As you progress through your learning, try to get certified. It’s a great way to showcase your expertise. In the above resources, you will find links to online courses that offer a certificate upon completion.
• Work with experienced Digital Marketers. Aim to work under the supervision of experienced digital marketers. They can make the transition from theory to practice easier and you can learn a few tips and tricks not written in any books or courses.
• Start your own digital marketing blog. Having your own blog will help you practice what you’ve learned and prove your expertise. Also, when you start writing about digital marketing, you can assess how well you know a topic or not.
• Never stop learning. Digital marketing is an industry that changes all the time and learning never stops. It’s your job as a digital marketing professional to stay in sync with the latest developments and keep your clients informed.

What are your favorite websites for learning Digital Marketing for free? Let me know in the comments if I missed out on any useful resources.

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Software development is the term used for the process of creating software or applications in computer coded and specific programming language. It is a process of developing software by writing maintainable code. Software development means creating, planning, reusing, research and development, making things simple, broader usage, etc. Web development is the term used for the process of creating web applications or websites that needs to get hosted. Web development means developing a complex web-based application as well as the development of simple and single-page applications. Web development mainly is done as client-side scripting, Server-side scripting, and database scripting.

Software Development

• Software development gives the product with features that have been planned and required for the computer software. Software development mainly referred to as a desktop application. While developing software, developers should have specific knowledge of client requirements, programming language, and end user’s usage.
• Software development based on the software development life cycle (SDLC).SDLC consists of many phases or stages that are: 1. Requirement Analysis and Planning. 2. Requirement defining. 3. Designing Requirements. 4. The building of Application or Coding 5. Testing of Application 5. Implementation. 6. Deployment and Maintenance.
• Software Development follows different methodologies for building the software or for a development process that are Waterfall model, Iterative model, Spiral Model, Agile methodology, prototype model, rapid application development, DevOps, etc.

Web Development

• The web development includes other work also like content management, web designing, security, etc. The engineers who develop web applications referred to as a web developer, full-stack web developer, front-end developer, UI developer, back-end developer.
• Web development based on the web development life cycle which is similar to SDLC only. In this, the phases are 1. Requirement gathering (Purpose, Goal, and audience) 2. Planning (Workflow creation) 3. Designing (Site page designing) 4. Content Management or writing 5. Coding (building website) 6. Testing 7. Deployment, hosting, and maintainability.
• Web development also follows different methodologies to build or develop applications like Agile methodology. The process of breaking big tasks into small and checking the continuous progress from beginning to end to design the web application that is web development.

Head to Head Comparisons Between Software Development and Web Development (Infographics)

Below is the Top 8 Comparisons between Software Development and Web Development:

Key Differences between Software Development and Web Development

Below are the lists of points, describe the key differences between Software Development and Web Development:

1. Software developed applications mainly perform better in gaming, file-handling. Web developed applications perform better in data centralization or multi-user.
2. The key difference between the both Software Development and Web Development is a change of Interface.
3. In software development applications, customisation has limitations. Web developed applications have a wider range of customisation.
4. In software development, screens are developed with static content. In web development, static pages as well as dynamic web content can be managed.
5. Software developed applications can be used in specific machine in which it has been installed. Web developed application can be accessed from any system as it has been deployed to server and easily accessible with help of domain.
6. Software developed application does not need more security. Web developed application requires more security from virus, malware and data hackers.
7. Software developed applications are not stateless. Web developed applications are mainly stateless.
8. In software development, there are certain limitations on using technologies

Software Development and Web Development Comparison Table

Following are the list of points that shows the comparison between Software Development and Web Development.

 Conclusion

Software development and Web development both are used for developing applications. Software development means developing windows based application and Web development means developing web-based applications. Software development and Web development has used a standard set of rules for software and web designing to create applications more secure, reliable and with better performance.

Web development vs Software development is using different methodologies to check or keep the track of the progress of development of software and web application. In software development, the main focus is on logic written for the screen rather than UI, data loading to controls. In web development, front-end development is the topmost priority as to make the web application more attractive or interesting.

Web development can be considered as lightweight programming as it gives the ready result even with the small change. It is a process of creating a full fledge or featured application rather than just web designing only. Web applications can be used in mobile browsers or computer browser. Some web apps are similar to software only like executing logic on button click or on an event occurring by displaying the feasible results.

Web development is more in demand in a market with continuously increasing use of Internet and availability of resources at every place through mobile and personal laptops. With help of mobile, we can easily access the Internet and use the web applications anywhere in the world through Internet connectivity. In our daily routine, we are using social media sites, e-commerce sites for selling and buying products, traveling sites to book tickets; which are having user-friendly interfaces, security features like validating login and reliability.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Web Development vs Software Development. Here we have discussed Web Development vs Software Development their head to head comparison, key difference along with infographics and comparison table. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Azure Paas vs Iaas
2. Web Development Interview Questions
3. Which is better Web Developer vs Web Tester?
4. Java vs JavaScript 
5. Data Science or Data Visualization
6. Tableau and Spotfire

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Web design is tricky. One has to take a lot of things into account when designing a website, from visual appearance (how the website looks) to functional design (how the website works). To simplify the task, we’ve prepared this guide.

In this article, we’ll focus on the main principles, heuristics, and approaches that will help you to create a great user experience for your website. We’ll start with global things, like the user journey (how to define the “skeleton” of the website) and then work down to the individual page (what should be considered during web page design). We’ll also cover other essential aspects of design, such as mobile considerations and testing.

Designing the user journey

Information architecture

People often use the term “information architecture” (IA) to mean the menus on a website. But that’s not correct. While menus are a part of IA, they are only one aspect of it.

IA is all about the organization of information in a clear and logical way. Such organization follows a clear purpose: helping users to navigate a complex set of information. Good IA creates a hierarchy that aligns with user’s expectations. But good hierarchy and intuitive navigation don’t happen by chance. They are a result of proper user research and testing.

There are a number of ways to research user needs. Often, an information architect will take an active part in user interviews or card sorting, where the architect would hear of user expectations directly or see how prospective users would categorize a variety of information groups. Information architects also need access to the results of usability tests to see whether users are able to navigate efficiently.

Card sorting is a simple way to figure out how best to group and organize content based on user input. One of the reasons why information architects like card sorting is because of the clarity of patterns that typically emerges. Image Source: FosterMilo)

A menu structure would be created based on the results of user interviews, and card sorting would be tested for whether it satisfies the user’s mental model. UX researchers use a technique called “tree testing” to prove that it will work. This happens before designing the actual interface.

Tree testing is a reliable method of finding whether users can work with the proposed menu structure. Image Source: Nielsen Norman Group

Global navigation

Navigation is a cornerstone of usability. It doesn’t matter how good your website is if users can’t find their way around it. That’s why navigation on your website should adhere to a few principles:

• Simplicity. Navigation should be designed in a way that gets visitors where they want to go with the fewest clicks possible.
• Clarity. There shouldn’t be any guessing about what each navigation option means. Every navigation option should be self-evident to visitors.
• Consistency. The navigation system should be the same for all pages on the website.

Consider a few things when designing navigation:

• Select a navigation pattern based on the user’s needs. Navigation should accommodate the needs of the majority of your website’s users. A given target group expects a particular type of interaction with your website, so make these expectations work in your favor. For example, avoid hamburger-menu navigation if the majority of your users aren’t familiar with the meaning of the icon itself.
• Prioritize navigation options. One simple way to prioritize navigation options is to assign different priority levels (high, medium, low) to common user tasks, and then give prominence in the layout to paths and destinations with high priority levels and frequent use.
• Make it visible. As Jakob Nielsen says, recognizing something is easier than remembering it. Minimize the user’s memory load by making all important navigation options permanently visible. The most important navigation options should be available at all times, not just when we anticipate that the user will need them.
• Communicate the current location. “Where am I?” is a fundamental question to which users need an answer in order to effectively navigate. Failing to indicate the current location is a common problem on many websites. Think about location indicators.

Links and navigation options

Links and navigation options are key factors in the navigation process and have a direct effect on the user journey. Follow a few rules with these interactive elements:

• Recognize the difference between internal and external links. Users expect different behavior for internal and external links. All internal links should open in the same tab (this way, you’ll allow users to use the “Back” button). If you decide to open external links in a new window, you should provide an advance warning before automatically opening a new window or tab. This might take the form of text added to the link text stating, for example, “(opens in a new window).”
• Change the color of visited links. When visited links don’t change color, users could unintentionally revisit the same pages.

Knowing which pages they’ve visited keeps the user from unintentionally revisiting the same pages.

• Double-check all links. A user can easily get frustrated by clicking a link and getting a  404 error page in response. When a visitor is searching for content, they expect every link to take them where it says it will, not to a 404 error page or another place they weren’t expecting.

“Back” button in browser

The “Back” button is perhaps the second-most popular UI control in the browser (after the URL input field). Make sure the “back” button works according to user expectations. When a user follows a link on a page and then clicks the “back” button, they expect to return to the same spot on the original page. Avoid situations in which clicking “back” brings the user to the top of the initial page, instead of where they left off, especially on pages. Losing their spot forces the user to scroll through content they have already seen. It’s no surprise that users get frustrated quickly with no proper “back-to-position” functionality.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a set of contextual links that function as a navigation aid on websites. It’s a secondary navigation scheme that usually shows the user’s location on a website.

While this element doesn’t require a lot of explanation, a few things are worth mentioning:

• Don’t use breadcrumbs as a substitute for primary navigation. The main navigation should be the element that leads the user, whereas breadcrumbs should only support the user. Relying on breadcrumbs as a primary method of navigation, rather than an extra feature, is usually an indication of poor navigation design.
• Use arrowheads, not slashes, as separators. Separate each level clearly. A greater-than sign (>) or right-pointing arrow (→) is recommended, because these symbols signal direction. A forward slash (/) isn’t recommended as a separator for e- commerce websites. If you’re going to use it, be certain that no product category will ever use a slash:

Search

Some users come to a website looking for one particular item. They don’t want to use the navigation options. They want to type text in a search box, submit their search query, and find the page they’re looking for.

Take these few basic rules into account when designing the search box:

• Put the search box where users expect to find it. The chart below was created based on a study by A. Dawn Shaikh and Keisi Lenz. It shows the expected location of the search field, according to a survey of 142 participants. The study found that the most convenient spot is the top left or top right of every page on a website. Users can easily find it using the common “F-shaped scanning pattern.”

• Display search prominently on content-rich websites. If search is an important function on your website, display it prominently, because it can be the fastest route to discovery for users.
• Size the input box appropriately. Making the input field too short is a common mistake among designers. Of course, users can type a long query into a short field, but only a portion of the text will be visible, which is bad for usability because seeing the entire query at once won’t be possible. In fact, when a search box is too short, users are forced to use short, imprecise queries, because longer queries would be hard and inconvenient to read. Nielsen Norman Group recommends a 27-character input field, which would accommodate 90 percent of queries.

• Put the search box on every page. Show the search box on every page, because if users cannot navigate to the content they are looking for, they will try to use search regardless of where they are on the website.

Designing individual pages

Content strategy

Perhaps the most important thing about content strategy is to focus the design on page objectives. Understand the goal of the page and write content according to the goal.

Here are a few practical tips to improve content comprehension:

• Prevent information overload. Information overload is a serious problem. It prevents users from making decisions or taking action because they feel they have too much information to consume. There are some simple ways to minimize information overload. One common technique is chunking — breaking content into smaller chunks to help users understand and process it better. A checkout form is a perfect example. Display, at most, five to seven input fields at a time and break down the checkout into pages — progressively disclosing fields as necessary.

Image Source: Witteia

• Avoid jargon and industry-specific terms. Each unknown term or phrase that appears on the page will increase the cognitive load on users. A safe bet is to write for all levels of readers and pick words that are clearly and easily understandable to all groups of users.
• Minimize long content sections that have a lot of detail. In line with the point about information overload, try to avoid long blocks of text if the website isn’t geared to major information consumption. For example, if you need to provide details about a service or product, try to reveal details step- by- step. Write in small, scannable segments to facilitate discovery. According to Robert Gunning’s book “How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing,” for comfortable reading, most sentences should be 20 words or less.

Image Source: The Daily Rind

• Avoid capitalizing all letters. All-caps text — that is, text with all letters cap­i­tal­ized — is fine in tiny doses, such as for acronyms and logos. However, avoid all caps for anything longer (such as paragraphs, form labels, errors, and notifications). As mentioned by Miles Tinker in his book Legibility of Print, all caps dramatically reduces the speed of reading. Also, most readers find all capitals to be less legible.

Text in all caps is hard for users to read.

Page structure

A properly-structured page makes it clear where each user interface element is located in the layout. While there are no one-size-fits-all rules, there are a few guidelines that will help you create a solid structure:

• Make the structure predictable. Align your design to user expectations. Consider websites from a similar category to find out which elements to use on the page and where. Use patterns that your target audience is familiar with.
• Use a layout grid. A layout grid divides a page into major regions, and defines the relationships between elements in terms of size and position. With the help of a grid, combining different parts of a page together in a cohesive layout becomes much easier.

Grids and layout systems are part of the heritage of design and are still relevant in a multi-screen world. Adobe XD’s layout grids enable designers to achieve consistent, organized designs for different screen sizes and to manage the proportionsbetween elements by customizing the grids.

• Use a low-fidelity wireframe to cut out clutter. Clutter overloads an interface and reduces comprehension. Every added button, image and line of text makes the screen more complicated. Before building the page with real elements, create a wireframe, analyze it, and get rid of anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.

A low-fidelity wireframe created in Adobe XD. Image Source: Tim Hykes

Visual hierarchy

People are more likely to quickly scan a web page than to read everything there. Therefore, if a visitor wants to find content or complete a task, they are going to scan until they find where they need to go. You, as a designer, can help them with that by designing a good visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy refers to the arrangement or presentation of elements in a way that indicates importance (that is, where visitor’s eyes should focus first, second, etc.). A proper visual hierarchy makes it easy to scan the page.

• Use natural scanning patterns. As designers, we have a lot of control over where people look when they’re viewing a page. To set the right path for the visitor’s eyes to follow, we can use two natural scanning patterns: the F-shaped pattern and the Z-shaped pattern. For text-heavy pages, such as articles and search results, the F pattern is better, whereas the Z pattern is good for pages that aren’t text-oriented.

An F-shaped pattern is used by CNN. A Z-scanning pattern is used by Basecamp.

• Visually prioritize important elements. Make focal points of screen titles, login forms, navigation options, and other important content so that visitors see them right away.

The “Learn More About Brains” call to action stands out.

• Create mockups to clarify the visual hierarchy. Mockups enable designers to see what a layout will look like when it’ll have real data. Rearranging elements in a mockup is much easier than doing it when the developer is building the web page.

Scrolling behavior

A persistent myth among web designers is that people don’t scroll. To be clear: Today, everybody scrolls!

Improving scrolling behavior is possible with a few tips:

• Encourage users to scroll. Despite the fact that people usually start scrolling as soon as the page loads, content at the top of the page is still very important. What appears at the top sets the impression and expectation of quality for visitors. People do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough. Thus, put your most compelling content at the top of the page:
  • Offer a good introduction. An excellent introduction sets the context for the content and answers the user’s question, “What’s this page about?”
  • Use engaging imagery. Users pay close attention to images that contain relevant information.
• Persist navigation options. When you create lengthy pages, keep in mind that users still require a sense of orientation (of their current location) and a sense of navigation (other possible paths). Long pages can make navigation problematic for users — if the top navigation bar loses visibility when the user scrolls down, they will have to scroll all the way back up when they’re deep within the page. The obvious solution to this is a sticky menu that shows the current location and that remains on screen in a consistent area at all times.

Scroll-activated sticky navigation. Image Source: Zenman

Provide visual feedback when loading new content. This is especially important for web pages where content loads dynamically (such as news feeds). Because content-loading during scrolling is supposed to be fast (it shouldn’t take longer than 2 to 10 seconds), you can use looped animation to indicate that the system is working.

Subtle animation (such as Tumblr’s loading indicator) tells the user that more content is being loaded.

• Don’t hijack scrolling. Hijacked scrolling is one of the most annoying things because it takes control away from the user and makes the scrolling behavior completely unpredictable. When you design a website, let the user control their browsing and movement through the website.

Tumbler’s signup page uses scroll hijacking.

Content loading

Content loading is worth additional clarification. While an instant response is best, there are occasions when your website will need more time to deliver content to visitors. A bad internet connection could cause a slow reaction, or an operation could take a bit more time to complete. But no matter the cause of such behavior, your website should appear fast and responsive.

• Make sure regular loading doesn’t take long. The attention span and patience of web users is very low. According to Nielsen Norman Group research, 10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user’s attention on a task. When visitors have to wait for a website to load, they will become frustrated and likely leave if the website doesn’t load quickly enough for them. Even with the most beautifully-designed loading indicator, users will still leave if loading takes too long.
• Use skeleton screens during loading. Many websites use progress indicators to show  that data is loading. While the intention behind a progress indicator is good (providing visual feedback), the result can be negative. As Luke Wroblewski mentions, “Progress indicators, by definition, call attention to the fact that someone needs to wait. It’s like watching the clock tick down — when you do, time seems to go slower.” There is an excellent alternative to progress indicators: skeleton screens. These containers are essentially a temporarily blank version of the page, into which information is gradually loaded. Rather than showing a loading indicator, designers can use a skeleton screen to focus users’ attention on actual progress and create anticipation for what’s to come. This creates a sense that things are happening immediately, as information is incrementally displayed on the screen and people see that the website is acting while they wait.

Facebook uses skeleton screens to fill out the UI as content is loaded incrementally.

Buttons

Buttons are vital to creating a smooth conversational flow. It’s worth paying attention to these basic best practices for buttons:

• Ensure that clickable elements look like ones. With buttons and other interactive elements, think about how the design communicates affordance. How do users understand the element as a button? Form should follow the function: the way an object looks tells users how to use it. Visual elements that look like links or buttons but aren’t clickable (such as underlined words that aren’t links or elements that have a rectangular background but aren’t buttons) can easily confuse users.

Is the orange box in the top-left corner of the screen a button? No, but the shape and label make the element look like one.

• Label buttons according to what they do. The label on any actionable interface element should always tie back to what it will do for the user. Users will feel more comfortable if they understand the action a button initiates. Vague labels such as “Submit” and abstract labels (such as in the following) don’t provide enough information about the action.

Don’t make people wonder what an interface element does. Source Image: UX Matters

• Design buttons consistently.  Whether consciously or not, users remember details. When browsing a website, they’ll ass
  ociate a particular element’s shape with button functionality. Therefore, consistency will not only contribute to a great-looking design, but will also make the experience more familiar to users. The image below illustrates this point perfectly. Using three different shapes in one part of a website (such as the system toolbar) is not only confusing, but sloppy.

Strive for consistency.

Imagery

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Human beings are highly visual creatures, able to process visual information almost instantly; 90 percent of all information that we perceive and that gets transmitted to our brains is visual. Images are a powerful way to capture the user’s attention and to differentiate a product. A single image can convey more to the viewer than an elaborately-designed block of text. Furthermore, images cross language barriers in a way that text simply can’t.

The following principles will help you integrate imagery in your web design:

• Make sure images are relevant. One of the biggest dangers in design is imagery that conveys the wrong message. Select images that strongly support your product goals and ensure that the images are relevant to the context.

Images that aren’t related to the topic will cause confusion.

• Avoid generic photos of people. Using human faces in design is an effective way to engage users. Seeing faces of other humans makes viewers feel like they are connecting with them, and not just being sold a product. However, many corporate websites are notorious for using generic stock photos to build a sense of trust. Usability tests show that such photos rarely add value to the design and more often impair rather than improve the user experience.

Inauthentic images leave the user with a sense of shallow, false pretense.

• Use high-quality assets with no distortion. The quality of assets of your website will have a tremendous impact on the user’s impression and expectations of your service. Make sure images are appropriately sized for displays across all platforms. Images shouldn’t appear pixelated, so test resolution sizes for various ratios and devices. Display photos and graphics in their original aspect ratio.

A degraded image versus a properly sized image. Image Source: Adobe

Video

With increasing internet speeds, videos are becoming more popular, especially considering that they extend time spent on site. Today, video is everywhere. We’re watching it on our desktops, tablets, and phones. When used effectively, video is one of the most powerful tools available for engaging an audience  —  it conveys more emotion and really gives people a feel for a product or service.

• Set audio off by default, with the option to turn it on.    When users arrive on a page, they don’t expect that it will play any sound. Most users don’t use headphones and will be stressed because they’ll need to figure out how to turn the sound off. In most cases, users will leave the website as soon as it plays.

Facebook videos play automatically as soon as the user reaches them, but no sound plays unless the user enables it.

• Keep promo video as short as possible. According to the research by D-Mak Productions, short videos are more appealing to the majority of users. Keep business videos in the range of two to three minutes.

Image Source: Dmakproductions

• Provide an alternative way to access content. If a video is the only way to consume content, access to the information becomes limited for anyone who cannot see or hear the content. For accessibility, include captions and a full transcript of the video.

Subtitles and transcript will make video content more accessible. Image Source: TED

Call-to-Action Buttons

Calls to action (CTA) are buttons that guide users towards your conversion goal. The whole point of a CTA is to direct visitors to a desired course of action. Some common examples of CTAs are:

• “Start a trial”
• “Download the book”
• “Sign up for updates”
• “Get a consultation”

Take a few things into account when designing CTA buttons:

• Size. The CTA should be large enough to see from a distance, but not so large as to detract attention from other content on the page. To confirm that your CTA is the most prominent element on the page, try the five-second test: View a web page for five seconds and then write down what you remember. If the CTA is on your list, then congrats! It’s sized appropriately.
• Visual prominence. The color you choose for CTAs has a tremendous impact on whether it will be noticeable. With color, you can make certain buttons stand out more than others by giving them more visual prominence. Contrasting colors work best for CTAs and make for striking buttons.

The green of the CTA on Firefox’s page jumps off the page and immediately gets the user’s attention.

• Negative space. The amount of space around a CTA is important, too. White (or negative) space creates essential breathing room and separates a button from other elements in the interface.

The previous version of Dropbox’s home page has a good example of using negative space to make the primary CTA pop. The blue “Sign up for free” CTA stands out against the light blue of the background.

• Action-oriented text. Write text for the button that will compel visitors to take action. Begin with a verb like “Start,” “Get” or “Join.”

Evernote has one of the most common yet still effective action-oriented texts for its CTA.

Tip: You can quickly test a CTA using a blur effect. A blur test is a quick technique to determine whether the user’s eye will go where you want it to go. Take a screenshot of your page and apply a blur effect in Adobe XD (see the example on charity: water below). Looking at the blurred version of your page, which elements stand out? If you don’t like what’s being projected, revise.

A blur test is a technique to reveal a design’s focal point and visual hierarchy.

Web Forms

Filling a form remains one of the most important types of interaction for users on the web. In fact, a form is often considered the final step in the completion of a goal. Users should be able to complete forms quickly and without confusion.

• Ask only what’s required. Ask for only what you really need. Every extra field you add to a form will affect its conversion rate. Always think about why you’re requesting certain information from users and how you will be using it.
• Order the form logically. Questions should be asked logically from the user’s perspective, not from the application or database’s perspective. For example, asking for someone’s address before their name would be incorrect.
• Group related fields together. Group related information into logical blocks or sets. The flow from one set of questions to the next will better resemble a conversation. Grouping related fields together also helps the user make sense of the information.

Group related fields together. Image Source: Nielsen Norman Group

Animation

More and more designers are incorporating animation as a functional element to enhance the user experience. Animation is no longer just for delight — it is one of the most important tools for effective interaction. However, animation in design can enhance the user experience only if it’s incorporated at the right time and place. Good UI animation has a purpose — it is meaningful and functional.

Here are a few cases in which animation can enhance the experience:

• Visual feedback on user action. Good interaction design provides feedback. Visual feedback is helpful when you need to inform users about the result of an operation. In case an operation isn’t performed successfully, functional animation can provide information about the problem in a fast and easy way. For example, a shake animation can be used when a wrong password is entered. It’s easy to understand why the shake is a fairly universal gesture to communicate “no,” because a simple head shake is so prevalent in interpersonal communication.

Users will see this animation and immediately understand the problem. Image Source: The Kinetic UI

• Visibility of system status. One of Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristics for usability, visibility of system status remains among the most important principles in user interface design. Users want to know their current context in a system at any given time, and an app shouldn’t keep them guessing — it should tell the user what’s happening via appropriate visual feedback. Data uploading and downloading operations are great opportunities for functional animation. For example, an animated loading bar shows how fast a process is going and sets an expectation for how fast the action will be processed.

Image Source: xjw

• Navigational transitions. Navigational transitions are movements between states on a website — for example, from a high-level view to a detailed view. By default, state changes often involve hard cuts, which can make them difficult to follow. Functional animation eases users through these moments of change, smoothly transporting them between navigational contexts and explaining changes on the screen by creating visual connections between states.

Image Source: Ramotion

• Branding animation. Suppose you have dozens of websites that have the same exact features and help users to accomplish the same tasks. They might all offer a good user experience, but the one that people really love offers something more than just a good user experience. It establishes an emotional connection with users. Branding animation plays a key role in engaging users. It can support a company’s brand values, highlight a product’s strengths and make the user experience truly delightful and memorable.

Image Source: Heco

Mobile considerations

Today, almost 50 percent of users access the web from mobile devices. What does this mean for us web designers? It means that we must have a mobile strategy for every website we design.

Practice responsive web design

It’s essential to optimize your website for the vast landscape of desktop and mobile browsers, each of which has a different screen resolution, set of supported technologies, and user base.

• Aim for a single-column layout. Single-column layouts usually work best on mobile screens. Not only does a single column help with managing the limited space on a small screen, it also easily scales between different device resolutions and between “portrait” and “landscape” modes.
• Use the “Priority+” pattern to prioritize navigation across breakpoints. Priority+ is a term coined by Michael Scharnagl to describe navigation that exposes what’s deemed to be the most important elements and hides away less-important items behind a “more” button. It makes use of available screen space. As space increases, the number of exposed navigation options increases as well, which can result in better visibility and more engagement. This pattern is especially good for content-heavy websites with many different sections and pages (such as a news website or a large retailer’s store). The Guardian makes use of the Priority+ pattern for its section navigation. Less important items are revealed when the user hits the “All” button.

The Guardian employs the Priority+ pattern for its section navigation. Image Source: Brad Frost

• Make sure images are sized appropriately for displays and platforms. A website must adapt to look perfect on all devices and in all resolutions, pixel densities, and orientations. Managing, manipulating and delivering images is one of the main challenges web designers face when building responsive websites. To simplify this task, you can use tools such as Responsive Image Breakpoints Generator to generate breakpoints for images interactively.

Responsive Image Breakpoints Generator helps you to manage multiple sizes of images, enabling you to generate responsive image breakpoints interactively.

Going from “clickable” to “tappable”

On the mobile web, interaction is done via finger taps, not mouse clicks. This means that different rules apply when you’re designing touch targets and interactions.

• Properly sized touch targets. All interactive elements (such as links, buttons and menus) should be tappable. While the desktop web lends itself well to links whose active (i.e. clickable) area is small and precise, the mobile web require
  s larger buttons that can be easily pressed with a thumb. When a tap is used as a primary input method for your website, refer to the MIT Touch Lab’s study to choose a proper size for your buttons. The study found that the average size of finger pads are between 10 and 14 millimeters and that fingertips range from 8 to 10, making 10 × 10 millimeters a good minimum-touch target size.

Smaller touch targets are harder for users to tap than larger ones. Image Source: Apple

• Stronger visual signifiers of interactivity. On the mobile web, there is no hover state. While on a desktop, it’s possible to provide additional visual feedback when a user hovers the mouse over an element (for example, revealing a drop-down menu), a mobile user would have to tap to see that response. Thus, users should be able to correctly predict how an interface element will behave just by looking at it.

Latest COVID-19 Information

Today’s products must be accessible to everyone, regardless of a person’s abilities. Designing for users with impairments is one way that designers can practice empathy and learn to experience the world from someone else’s perspective.

Users with poor eyesight

A lot of websites use low contrast for text copy. While low-contrast text may be trendy, it’s also illegible and inaccessible. Low contrast is especially problematic for users with low vision and who struggle with contrast sensitivity.

Gray text on a light-gray background is hard to read. The experience will be far from good, and the design simply won’t work.

Low-contrast text is hard to read on a desktop, but it becomes even more difficult on mobile. Imagine trying to read low-contrast text on a mobile device while walking in bright sunlight. This is a good reminder that accessible visual design is better visual design for all users.

Never sacrifice usability for beauty. The most important characteristic of text and other vital elements on a website is readability. Readability requires sufficient contrast between text and background. To ensure that text is readable by people with visual impairments, the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) has a contrast-ratio recommendation. The following contrast ratios are recommended for body text and image text:

• Small text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background. A ratio of 7:1 is preferable.
• Large text (at 14-point bold and 18-point regular and up) should have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 against its background.

Bad: These lines of text do not meet the color-contrast ratio recommendations and are difficult to read against their background. Good: These lines of text follow the color-contrast ratio recommendations and are legible against their background.

You can use WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker to quickly find out whether you’re within the optimal range.

Color blind users

It’s estimated that 4.5 percent of the global population experience color blindness (that’s 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women), 4 percent% suffer from low vision (1 in 30 people), and 0.6 percent% are blind (1 in 188 people). It’s easy to forget that we must also design for this group of users, because most designers don’t experience such problems.

To make design accessible for these users, avoid using color alone to convey meaning. As the W3C states, color shouldn’t be used as “the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.”

One common example where color is used as the sole means of conveying information is alerts in forms. Success and error messages are often colored green and red, respectively. But red and green are the colors most affected by color-vision deficiency — these colors can be difficult to distinguish for people with deuteranopia or protanopia. Most probably, you’ve seen error messages like, “The fields marked in red are required.” While it might not seem like a big deal, this error message appearing in a form like the one below can be extremely frustrating for people with a color-vision deficiency. Designers should use color to highlight or complement what is already visible.

Bad: This form relies only on red and green to indicate fields with and without errors. Color blind users wouldn’t be able to identify the fields in red.

In the form above, the designer should give more specific instruction, like, “The email address you entered is not valid.” or at least display an icon near the field that requires attention.

Good: Icons and labels show which fields are invalid, better communicating the information to a color-blind user.

Blind users

Images and illustrations are a significant part of the web experience. Blind people use assistive technologies such as screen readers to interpret websites. Screen readers “read” images by relying on alternative text attributed to the image. If that text is not present or is not descriptive enough, blind users won’t be able to get the information as intended.

Consider two examples — first, Threadless, a popular t-shirt store. This page doesn’t say much about the item being sold. The only text information available is a combination of price and size.

The second example is from ASOS. This page, selling a similar shirt, provides accurate alternative text for the item. This helps people who use screen readers to envision what the item looks like.

When creating text alternatives for images, follow this guideline:

• All “meaningful” images require descriptive alternative text. (A “meaningful” photo adds context to the information being conveyed.)
• A text alternative isn’t needed if an image is purely decorative and provides no useful information to the user to aid them in understanding the content of the page.

Keyboard-friendly experience

Certain users navigate the internet using their keyboard, rather than a mouse. For example, people with motor impairments have difficulty with the fine motor movements required for using a mouse. Make the interactive and navigation elements easily accessible to this group of users by enabling interactive elements to be focused with the Tab key and by displaying a keyboard-focus indicator.

Here are the most basic rules for keyb
oard navigation:

• Check that keyboard focus is visible and obvious. Some web designers remove the keyboard focus indicator because they think it’s an eyesore. This hinders keyboard users from properly interacting with the website. If you don’t like the default indicator provided by the browser, don’t remove it altogether; instead, design it to satisfy your taste.
• All interactive elements should be accessible. Keyboard users must be able to access all interactive elements, not just the main navigation options or primary calls to action.

You can find detailed requirements for keyboard interaction in the “Design Patterns and Widgets” section of the W3C’s “WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices” document.

Testing

Iterative testing

Testing is an essential part of the UX design process. And like any other part of the design cycle, it is an iterative process. Gather feedback early on in the design process, and iterate throughout.

Image Source: Extreme Uncertainty

Test page-loading time

Users hate slow-loading web pages. That’s why response time is a critical factor on modern websites. According to Nielsen Norman Group, there are three response-time limits:

• 0.1 second: Feels instant for users.
• 1 second: Keeps the user’s flow of thought seamless, but the user will sense a slight delay.
• 10 seconds: Pushes the limit for keeping the user’s attention focused on the operation. A 10-second delay will often make users leave the website immediately.

Obviously, we shouldn’t make users wait 10 seconds for anything on our websites. But even a few seconds of delay — which happens regularly — makes an experience unpleasant. Users will be annoyed with having to wait for the operation.

What usually causes slow loading time?

• Heavy-content objects (such as embedded video and slideshow widgets)
• Unoptimized back-end code
• Hardware-related issues (infrastructure that doesn’t allow for fast operations)

Tools like PageSpeed Insights will help you to find the causes of slow times.

A/B testing

An A/B test is ideal when you’re struggling to choose between two versions of a design (such as an existing version and a redesigned version of a page). This testing method consists of showing one of two versions randomly to an equal number of users and then reviewing analytics to see which version accomplished your goal more effectively.

Image Source: VWO

Developer handoff

UX design process has two important steps: prototyping the design and developing a working solution. The step that connects the two is called a handoff. As soon as the design is finalized and ready to be moved to development, designers prepare a specification, which is a document that describes how the design should be coded. A specification ensures that the design will be implemented according to the original intention. Precision in the specification is critical, because with an inaccurate specification, the developers will have to either rely on guesswork when building the website or go back to the designer to get answers to their questions. But assembling a specification manually can be a headache and usually takes significant time, depending on the complexity of the design.

With Design Specs (Beta) feature in Adobe XD, designers can publish a public URL for developers to inspect flows, grab measurements and copy styles. Designers no longer have to spend time authoring specifications to communicate positioning, colors, character styles or fonts to the developer.

Adobe XD’s design specs feature (in beta).

Conclusion

As with any aspect of design, the tips shared here are just a start. Mix and match these ideas with your own for best results. Treat your website as a continually-evolving project, and use analytics and user feedback to constantly improve the experience. And remember that design isn’t just for designers — it’s for users.

For regular UX insights sent straight to your inbox,sign up for Adobe’sexperience design newsletter!

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by Brian Dean · Updated

In this post I’m going to show you EXACTLY how to rank your YouTube videos.

In fact, this is the exact process that I used to grow my channel to 295,347 views per month:

So if you want to get more views, subscribers and traffic from YouTube, then you’ll love this new YouTube SEO tutorial.

Let’s dive right in…

How I Grew My YouTube Channel From “Oh No!” to “Heck Yeah!”

Before we get into today’s video SEO tutorial, a quick backstory:

When I first launched my YouTube channel I struggled to get ANY views.

Fast forward to today, and my videos rank for all sorts of competitive keywords, like “on page SEO”:

“Link building”:

Heck, I even rank in the top 3 for “video SEO”:

And because I know how to rank my videos, my channel now generates 295,347 views and 9,193 subscribers every single month.

Now that you can see that I know what I’m talking about, let’s dive into the steps that I used to get these results.

The YouTube SEO process begins with video keyword research.

Here’s exactly how to find the right keywords for your YouTube videos:

First, generate a list of keywords ideas.

Your first step is to generate a big list of potential keywords. Then, in the next step, I’ll help you find the best keyword from your list.

Here’s how to find keywords for your YouTube Videos:

One of my favorite strategies is to use the YouTube’s Search Suggest feature.

All you need to do is head over to YouTube and pop in a word or phrase…

… and YouTube will hand you a bunch of keywords related to what you typed in:

These suggested keywords are GREAT.

Why?

Because these are terms that people actually type into YouTube. So there’s no need to wonder if they’re popular or not. If YouTube suggests them to you, they 1000% are.

You can also go to a popular video in your niche… and copy the same keywords that video is optimized around.

As you probably know, keyword optimization is a KEY part of YouTube SEO. So if a video has lots and lots of views, chances are, that video is optimized around a popular keyword.

To execute this step, go to another channel in your niche.

Then, sort their videos by “Most Popular”

This will show you their videos that have generated the most views:

Next, choose a video from the list. Obviously, you want to pick a video that you can create an awesome video around (more on that in step #2).

But in general, if the video is in your niche, it’ll work.

Finally, see which keywords that video is optimized around. This is easy.

Just check out the keywords that video uses in its title, description and video tags:

(To see a video’s tags, I recommend the VidIQ Chrome extension. It shows you a video’s tags right on the page)

You can also find some excellent keywords in your YouTube “Traffic Source: YouTube search” report. This report shows you all the keywords that YouTube users have searched for to find your videos.

In many cases, these are keywords that you already know about (because you optimized your videos around them).

But sometimes you’ll find a handful of keywords that you never would have thought of.

For example, here’s an example of a keyword I found in my “Traffic Sources” report:

This is a keyword I would have NEVER found using any other strategy. But I know that people are searching for it in YouTube, so it makes for a great keyword to add to my list.

Second, find the best keyword from your list

Now that you’ve generated a list of keywords, it’s time to choose the best one from your list.

Specifically, you want to target low-competition keywords.

This is ESPECIALLY important if your channel doesn’t have that many subscribers. If you swing for the fences and go after competitive keywords, your video is gonna get buried in the search results.

Instead, you want to find keywords that don’t have a lot of competition.

How do you check?

All you need to do is:

Search for your keyword in Google.

And check out the “About results”:

This number represents the total number of videos in YouTube about that topic. The higher this number, the more competitive a keyword is. So you want to targe
t keywords that have a low “About results” number.

(How low should you go? Every industry is different. So I can’t give you a specific number to shoot for. Just focus on choosing keywords that have low competition for your niche)

For example, when I search for “YouTube SEO”, there are 10,700,000 results:

That’s a lot.

So if I was just starting out, I’d try a few other keywords, like “YouTube ranking factors”.

Bingo! That keyword only has 26,800 results.

And that means that this keyword MUCH less competitive.

Finally, a bonus tip: search for your keyword in Google.

Here’s the deal:

Most views on YouTube come from within YouTube’s platform.

But don’t stop there. Your video can get 2-5x more views if you can ALSO get it to rank in Google.

How?

The trick is to optimize your videos around keywords that already have video results in Google.

You see, Google only includes videos in the search results for certain keywords.

Unlike a “normal” first page with 10 webpage results, for certain keywords Google reserves a good chunk of the first page for video results:

In general, Google tends to use video results for these types of keywords:

• How-to keywords (“how to make cold brew coffee”)
• Reviews (“beats by Dre review”)
• Tutorials (“Setting up WordPress”)
• Anything fitness or sports related (“Cardio kickboxing”)
• Funny videos (“Cute animals”)

Why is this important?

Well, let’s say you optimize your video around a keyword that doesn’t have any video results in Google. In that case, you’ll ONLY get traffic from people searching on YouTube.

But if you optimize for a video keyword, you’ll also get targeted traffic to your video directly from Google’s first page.

The question is:

How do you find these magical keywords?

All you need to do is search for one of the keywords you found in the last step.

Then see if any of the keywords you searched for have YouTube video results, like this:

Simple, right?

Once you’ve found a Video Keyword, it’s time to see if there’s any search volume for that keyword. Otherwise, you might rank in Google for a keyword that only gets 20 searches per month. That’s not worth it.

So make sure target keyword gets at least 100-1k searches per month in Google (you can find this information using the Google Keyword Planner):

Why 500 searches per month?

If you can get that video to rank in Google, then a lot of those searchers will click on YOUR video in the results.

That means you’ll get more high-quality traffic to your video, and ultimately, your site.

Here’s a real life example:

Because Backlinko is in the SEO niche, I’m going to look for video keywords using searches like “keyword research tips”, “how to build backlinks” and “SEO tutorial”.

Bingo! The keyword “SEO tutorial” brings up 3 YouTube results in Google:

Sure enough, that keyword exceeds our minimum of 500 monthly searches:

So that would be a great keyword to create a video around.

In fact, I already did

Speaking of creating your video…

Step #2: Publish a High-Retention Video

Here’s the truth:

If you want your videos to rank, you need to keep people watching.

The amount of your video that people watch is known as Audience Retention.

And YouTube has gone on the record saying: “Audience Retention” is a HUGE ranking factor. To quote YouTube:

In other words:

If your video keeps people on YouTube, YouTube will rank your video higher in the search results.

(After all, YouTube wants people to stay on the platform so they click on ads. And if you help them with that goal, they’ll promote your video).

The question is:

HOW do you create a video that keeps people engaged?

(Also known as a “High-Retention Video”)

Here are 3 simple steps that work GREAT. I had to learn these 3 steps the hard way. But thanks to this short video, you can start pumping out High-Retention Videos right away.

As you can see, High-Retention Videos DON’T require a fancy camera or microphone. Actually, you don’t really need to sweat production value that much.

As long as your video is valuable and interesting to watch, you’re good to go.

The bottom line?

If your video stinks, it won’t rank…no matter how optimized it is for SEO.

Unlike Google (uses backlinks and other signals to evaluate the quality of a piece of content) YouTube has no such luxury. So they rely on Audience Retention.

That said, Audience Interaction is one of several ranking signals that YouTube uses in its algorithm.

So let me show you the 5 other important YouTube ranking factors:

Video Comments

If someone leaves a comment, it sends a strong message to YouTube that they probably enjoyed the video (or at least engaged with it).

In fact, when I recently analyzed 1.3 million YouTube search results, I found that comments STRONGLY correlated with ranking highly in the search results:

So make sure to encourage your viewers to comment on your video… and reply to comments that you get.

“Subscribes”After Watching a Video

If someone subscribes to your channel after watching your video that sends a HUGE signal that you have an amazing video.

The best way to get more subscribers on YouTube? Ask people to subscribe. Seriously, I’ve found that asking viewers to subscribe at the end of my videos significantly boosts my monthly subscribers numbers:

Video Shares

How many people share your video on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook?

Think about it this way: people don’t share crappy videos, right? So when YouTube sees that people are spreading the word about your video, they think: “This must be an awesome piece of content!”. And they’ll give you a rankings boost.

(Also, social shares bring more people FROM those networks to YouTube… which they like).

Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

When someone searches for your keyword in YouTube, which result do they click on?

Your video… or someone else’s?

As it turns out, YouTube pays VERY close attention to this user behavior. The percentage of people that click on your result is known as “click-through-rate” (CTR). Obviously, the higher your CTR, the better.

In other words, you want YouTube searchers to click on your result.

And YouTube notices that lots of people are clicking on your result, they think: “We need to rank this video higher up in the search results!”.

On the other hand, if people are skipping over your result, they’ll drop your rankings.

The best way to boost your CTR? Create compelling thumbnails and titles.

For example, you can see that my title and thumbnail stand out from the other results for this keyword:

Thumbs up/Thumbs down

Self explanatory

Video Length

Like with text-based articles in Google, longer videos rank better.

I consistently see longer videos outperform shorter videos in YouTube and Google search.

And the data supports this. The YouTube ranking factors study that I mentioned earlier also found that longer videos have an edge over short videos (at least when it comes to YouTube SEO):

For example, if you search in YouTube for the keyword “WordPress”, 2 out of the top 4 videos are an hour long.

How long should your video be?

I wouldn’t sweat this too much. Just focus on creating the best video possible.

If it makes sense for your video to be 20+ minutes, go for it. Don’t worry about your video being too long. If it’s awesome, people WILL watch it.

The coolest part about all of these stats is that you can track all of them in the new YouTube Studio:

That way, you can see how you’re doing… and improve your videos over time.

OK so you’ve created your High-Retention video, it’s time upload and optimize it for SEO.

Step #3: YouTube Video Optimization

Here’s how to extract the most SEO value from your video:

SAY Your Target Keyword

You’ve probably noticed that YouTube now automatically transcribes your videos. And they’re pretty darn accurate:

So if YouTube sees that you mention your target keyword in your video, they’ll “hear” it. And because you’re actually SAYING the keyword that your video is optimized around, YouTube will better understand that your video is about that term.

Video Title

The title of your video should be at least 5 words long. That way, you can include your full keyword without keyword-stuffing.

For example, this video title from my channel is 10 words …only 3 of which are my target keyword (“higher Google rankings”):

Power Tip: Like with a blog post, I’ve found that you get a slight video SEO boost by putting your keyword at the beginning of the title.

So if you were trying to rank for “surfing tutorial” you’d want a title like: “Surfing Tutorial: Learn How to Ride a Wave Today”.

Description

Your video’s description is super important.

Your video description helps YouTube and Google understand the context of your video. And the better they understand your video, the higher you’ll rank (and the more often you’ll show up in the Suggested Video sidebar).

Here are the basic guidelines for the description:

• Include your keyword in the first 25 words
• Make the description at least 250 words
• Include your keyword 2-4 times

This SEO-optimized description helps tell Google and YouTube what your video is about without being spammy.

Here’s an example of a description for a video of mine that’s optimized around the keyword “On-page SEO”:

Notice how I include my keyword a couple of times… without being spammy? That’s what you want to do.

Tags

Tags aren’t super-important…but they help.

Here’s how I use video tags for my videos:

1. My first tag is my exact target keyword (Example: “Google SEO”).
2. I also include a few variations of that word or phrase (Example: “Google search engine optimization”)
3. Finally, I make a few of my tags other topics that my video covers (Example: “Link building”, “Content marketing”)

In short: just include a few keywords to help YouTube and Google learn what your video is about.

Pro Tip: Targeted tags not only help you rank for your target keyword…

…but get you to you show up more often as a related video in the sidebar area of YouTube:

So don’t be afraid to use the same tags that your competitors use. In fact, it’s a YouTube marketing best practice that has worked for YEARS.

When your video’s tags match a video that someone’s watching, you have a good chance of showing up in the Suggested Video section.

And that’s all there is to optimizing your video to rank in YouTube.

With that out of the way, it’s time for a step that many people skip over: video promotion.

We talked a lot about creating videos that maximize Audience Retention and user experience signals. Which is important.

But for YouTube to measure these signals, you need to get views on your video!

Here are some strategies you can use to get targeted views to your video:

Mention Your Video on Quora and Other Q&A Sites

Quora, forums and other Q&A sites are some of the most popular sites on the web (in fact, Quora is one of the most popular sites online).

But if you try to go in there and spam your blog content, you’re going to get banned. That’s why you want to link to YouTube videos.

And not only can you get a high quantity of views… but the views you get from Q&A sites are high-quality too.

(In other words, high-retention views)

Think about it:

You’re posting your video in a place where people are desperate for information on a given topic. So the people that watch your video will watch a good chunk of your video to help them learn more about that topic.

To execute this step, just search for a keyword that describes your video’s topic. Then, find a question that you can answer.

When you find a question that seems like a good fit, answer the person’s question as best you can. Finally, link to your video at the end of your answer.

Here’s an example:

Link To Your Video In Your Email Signature

People that email you (like your mom) generally like you.

And if you’re like me, you get A TON of emails.

So when you add a link to your latest video in your email signature, you just set up a pipeline is high-retention views.

Embed Your Videos in Blog Posts

Whenever you write a blog post (on your site or as a guest post for another site), think to yourself:

“Where can I embed a YouTube video into this post?”

For example, when I mentioned “The Skyscraper Technique” in this guide, I embedded a video to explain how the strategy worked:

This INSTANTLY got my video a few hundred high-quality views.

Use Playlists

Playlists are one of the BEST ways to get more views on your videos. After all, playlists automatically play every video in the playlist… which can lead to thousands of extra views every month.

Here’s how to set them up:

First, look over your videos. And identify 4-5 videos that have a common theme or topic. For example, when I look at the videos I’ve published on my channel, I notice that I have quite a few that cover the topic: “link building”.

Then, create a playlist that includes that set of videos.

Finally, include that playlist on your channel page. Rinse and repeat until you have at least 3 playlists on your channel.

Speaking of your channel page…

Optimize Your Channel Page

An optimized channel can help your videos rank better in two ways:

First, your channel itself can rank in YouTube. Here’s an example:

Second, a great channel page=more subscribers. And getting more subscribers can indirectly improve your rankings.

First and foremost, you want your channel page to look nice and professional. In fact, when I updated my channel page to look like this…

…I noticed an uptick in views and subs.

Also, include keywords in your channel’s about section. Here’s an example:

See how I use terms like “white hat SEO”, “link building” and “search engine optimization” in my channel description?

These are all keyword that I want to rank for in YouTube.

Obviously, you don’t want to use keyword stuffing or any shady stuff like that. Just naturally sprinkle in words and phrases that you want your videos to rank for.

Here’s What To Do Next…

OK so I hope this guide helped show you how to rank your YouTube videos.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

What’s helped you rank your videos in YouTube?

Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

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Next-level SEO training and link building strategies

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