Powerful Tools That Will Help You In Your Daily Projects
Present day, choosing the most powerful web tools is an art in itself. There are so many options that look very similar and are extremely hard to differentiate without spending money and time to test them. The best web design tools out there help you work smarter rather than harder and achieve the desired result within a shorter period of time. We bet that you’re after such tools. However, you probably don’t feel like trying and testing all the solutions available on the web to determine the best ones among them. That’s why we bring you a collection of 39 powerful tools to use in 2019 to sizably rev up your workflow.
We covered the most popular fields for you: website and logo builders, website themes and much more.
Creating a website in 2019 is simpler than ever. There are many ways to do it but today we will discuss the best way. WIX is a brilliant website builder packed with over 500 beautifully designed website templates that can be used by anyone. WIX is being already used by over 140 million users from 190 countries, every minute a professional and stunning website being published on their platform or on private domains.
WIX is packed with tons of features and options. You will find a friendly interface that will guide you every moment, a professional logo maker, a drag-and-drop builder that will help you fully customize everything you need, over 200 Apps designed to help you grow your business online and over 500 designer made templates to get you started.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, marketer or digital agency, you’ll get all the resources you need: tutorials, training programs, webinars, professional forum, the Wix Experts Blog and more.
Build the exact website your client needs with advanced design features and professional business solutions. With Wix, your clients can manage their entire brand or business online.
Everything matters in business and many things can and will have a huge impact on converting and growing your company numbers. Your website design, your logo but also your invoices and contracts. These are your business card. Improve your company image in seconds with the right tools. With eversign you can sign electronically contracts, NDA’s and many other document types. If you are a freelancer, you can easily get out of the crowd by using this modern and secure solution.
In a few steps, your new document will be signed electronically by all parties. The built-in document editor gives you all the tools you need to edit, send and sign documents in seconds. Use the powerful features to make your life easy. Set up templates for your most frequently used contracts or forms, share them with your team and reduce drafting time. Configured to allow for simultaneous work, eversign will increase your document-related workflow immediately.
Go paperless and register for free with eversign.
- Logo Creator and Branding Suite by Tailor Brands
If you’re looking for an entire collection of design tools that anyone can use, you’ve come to the right place. The Tailor Brands branding suite starts with a logo maker, which comes with preset color palettes that make any logo look good. What’s cool about Tailor is that they provide a quick solution for people who want a unique, professional-looking logo, but they give you full control over your logo design if you want to make your own changes.
However, Tailor’s pièce de résistance is their new and improved Master Design Tool, which comes with a studio full of top-notch, editable designs, and an intuitive editor that you can use to design anything from social cover banners to email headers. Whether you need branding materials or just want to design a nice holiday greeting, this platform has you covered across the board.
Don't let your WordPress theme limit your creativity. Instead, choose Total. The Total drag & drop WordPress theme includes intuitive, built-in options to create your dream website. Use the drag and drop page builder to create custom layouts (bonus: you can even create custom header & footer layouts!). Then take advantage of hundreds of live Customizer settings for fonts, colors, backgrounds, archive pages, and more to finish your design. Total also comes with portfolio, staff, and testimonials posts types as well as compatibility for popular plugins including WooCommerce, bbPress, the Events Calendar, and WPML.
Creating highly converting land pages is super simple with Landingi. This is the most complex, all-in-one and easy to use the solution on the market that you can use for building unlimited pages, without having any programming skills or previous experience.
Create great landing pages with Landingi.
Darwin Pricing is like the swiss knife in the dynamic pricing software development field. They are an expert, a key partner that you need for increasing your sales volume, revenue, and the net profit. Darwin helped Otto Group which is a huge corporation with over $13 bn annual turnovers to do that and they will help you for the same.
Drop them an email.
Codester is a huge marketplace where designers and developers will find thousands of awesome scripts, codes, app templates, themes, plugin, graphics and even more. Always check the Flash sale section where hugely discounted items are being sold.
Are you preparing to launch a new product, company or you want to buy a new website domain and you are out of ideas regarding the name? Using Name QL you will get solutions in seconds. You simply write down the base name that you like and the software will offer you lots of variations to pick from.
Bad links (broken or malicious) are extremely bad for your company. Most of the visitors that are finding such links are never coming back to that websites. Their trust is quickly lowering, and they get angry for losing time.
Manually searching for these links can be extremely complicated or even impossible for large website which are having thousands of links or even more.
Use Dr. Link Checker to automate the scanning for you and repair the links in minutes.
Rank Math SEO is the most powerful WordPress plugin that will take care of your SEO. It is packed with
lots of great stuff while keeping the interface simple. It loads super-fast, it is easy to configure and use, and it has everything you need for on-page SEO .
Generate more traffic with this effective, yet very simple solution.
A good-looking poll, quiz and survey will be completed and shared. How to achieve that? It’s super simple. Use the online quiz maker by Opinion Stage and you can design you own without having any coding skills or previous experience.
Join over 10,000 happy users and create gorgeous, fully customized quizzes.
WP Hacks is a highly respected WordPress resource website which is packed with lots of great stuff. You will find detailed tutorials, themes, plugins and deals, everything being handpicked. Check it.
Meridian Themes is a powerful WordPress theme developer which is quickly becoming a top solution for many of us. In their portfolio you will find pixel-perfect themes that load very fast and are easy to fully customize for your needs.
WP Review Pro is the best review plugin for WordPress, being loaded with 14 types of rich snippets, with multi types of designs, Facebook and Yelp reviews and many more.
Build a great WordPress review website in minutes with the best solution on the market.
Grace is a powerful HTML template that is featuring a high impact full-screen homepage header and a full-screen image slider for your projects. The theme is lightning fast, SEO friendly and it is loaded with lots of features and options that will make your website stand out of the crowd.
Looking to build a high converting landing page for your website? Landing is a free Bootstrap 4 website template that you can use for any type of landing pages you need. This one-page theme is having a pixel-perfect designs and it features a smooth scroll, slick slider, slant sections, table pricing and a lot more awesome stuff.
Presenting your website design or mobile app correctly will help you as much as creating high-quality stuff, improving your ROI. Now you can present your iOS app in a professional and easy way using this excellent iPhone X PSD mockup.
NextGen Gallery is used by over 1 million happy users, being the most complex, all-in-one and preferred solution to display stunning galleries or sell images. Make it even more powerful by getting the PRO extensions.
Use NextGen in your projects and make your website stand out of the crowd.
Photocrati is building the best photography themes on the market, working closely with photographers to solve all the issues that general themes are having for this niche. These themes are pixel-perfect, SEO friendly, are super simple to customize and load extremely fast, which is very important when displaying stunning galleries with lots of images
For $99 you will get the theme plus the NextGen gallery plugin.
TeslaThemes is among the few premium WordPress developers which is focused on building the best themes that man can possibly create. All their templates look great, are fully responsive, SEO friendly, and are loaded with tons of features and options.
With over 6,000 customers worldwide, ShowThemes is building the best WordPress event themes on the market. The secret behind these awesome themes that solve all the issues that general themes have in this niche, is that they have worked closely with event professionals, knowing perfectly what and where to fine tune.
Getting your website up and running has never been easier. Create your unique website today with uKit. It’s an all-in-one solution where you can browse the library of designer-made templates to choose the one that suits your needs, set up SEO, add social media accounts, and go online in a matter of minutes! Don’t wait, start your exciting web adventure!
uLanding is an easy-to-use, yet powerful landing page builder that has everything you need to create your professional digital identity and get online in a matter of minutes. Select one of stunningly-looking designs and customize it by adding texts and images. Custom color schemes, font combinations, and parallax effects will allow taking your landing page design to a completely new level. Fast, easy, and hassle-free.
Want your site content to go viral? uSocial offers a set of effective tools to achieve that — modern and beautiful like and share buttons. In addition to like and share buttons, you can take advantage of the Social Locker (hides your web page content behind social buttons until a visitor performs a required action) and Get More Visitors tools (an inviting pop-up window).
Logaster is the way to go if you are looking for a brilliant logo design and you want to keep spending at its minimum. Write the logo name and in less than a minute, the logo generator will show you lots of designs to choose from. Pay only if you find the design you like.
Content Snare will help you get content from your client without the hassle. Create "requests" with all the pieces of information you need from the client. Use the built-in templates or create your own. 2. Send Specify a due date and a follow up schedule. Let Content Snare do all the client chasing instead of wasting your precious time. 3. Approve Content Snare will notify you when something is ready for approval. Lock it in, or request changes before checking it off.
The company is also dedicated to helping digital agencies grow through the accompanying podcast, Agency Highway.
It's as simple as it sounds, start using it. Start a free trial.
Work Examiner is a popular internet monitoring software that you can use to improve productivity, to prevent data theft and for many other scopes. It is loaded with tons of features and options that you should check on their website to have a better understanding.
Start a 30-day free trial.
MailMunch is a popular landing page builder that you can use to build unlimited landing and squeeze pages, without having any programming skills or previous experience.
Create high-converting landing pages within minutes using the drag-and-drop landing page builder.
InvoiceBerry is a dedicated invoicing platform that works excellent for small and medium businesses. Creating and sending fully customized invoices takes less than 60 seconds and the platform can be used also for tracking expenses, managing customers and much more.
Sign-up for a free trial, no credit card required.
Bonsai Contracts is a dedicated solution for freelancers, where they can create, fully customize, sign and store contracts and invoices. It’s the most professional such solution in this niche, solving all the normal issues that general software suits have.
SuperbWebsiteBuilders.com is the number one destination for users, who are searching for simple yet powerful web building tools. The website contains dozens of reviews, which provide truthful information about hosting providers, website builders, their overview, merits and demerits as well as niche specialization. Users, who have doubts regarding the best service to work with, may use the ratings compiled based on the reviews.
Xfive has a team of developers who care, and they can be hired as an extension of your team or separately for bringing to life your projects. They have over 10 years’ experience in web and mobile development, being a top choice for all types of customers, from small companies to large corporations.
Discuss your project with Xfive.
actiTIME is an online project time tracking software that allows users to track time, register leaves and add comments in a weekly timesheet. It works excellently for all kind of companies, from the small ones to Fortune 500 huge corporations.
Start a free 30-day trial.
One of the best ways to take your business up to the next level is to integrate online calculators and forms to your site. How can that be done? Easy. That’s what uCalc was created for! Allow your customers to calculate your services costs. They can also make online payments via the PayPal payment processor. Don’t wait, try it today — it’s free.
You found an awesome font, but you don’t know how to identify it? What Font Is represents the best font identifier on the market, being super simply to use and free. You upload the picture with the font or you write down the URL, and the rest is being made by the software. This web tool is loaded with over 450k fonts (premium and free) and a powerful font AI that will show you the font you are looking for plus over 60 similar fonts.
What font you looking for? Try www.whatfontis.com to get the answer
Wokiee is more than a gorgeous multipurpose shopify themes, it’s a powerful design tool that is packed with lots of designs and layouts, tons of features and options and a friendly interface that will help you build a store that stands out of the crowd.
With Pixpa anybody can create an online portfolio, without having any coding skills or previous experience. It is having a powerful drag-and-drop builder, lots of gorgeous templates, a friendly interface and tons of features and options that will make your portfolio stand out of the crowd.
You need urgently a logo design, or you have a tight budget? Instant Logo Design is the best solution for you. You simply write down the logo name, you decide if you want a slogan or a symbol and then you are good to go, choosing the design you like.
Everyone wants to get a strong online-community around his or her services. How is it possible? When you have Gravitas, nothing will be impossible for you. This marvelous MotoCMS 3 flagship has rich functionality and unforgettable design that will make people fall in love with your website. There are several key factors that you will be extremely happy to take advantage of. As an example, you are going to get seven ready-made websites, 30+ elegant pages, social integration, Google Map, and many other excellent features.
Founded in 2014, TMS was built and grown around developing a powerful service to extend or back up your tech team. Since then they represent the expert solution that you need for PHP, Node.JS, React, Symfony, Laravel and many others. Thousands of businesses and people around the world are using web applications built with TMS.
Get in touch with them.
Ways to Make Your Next Design Presentation Memorable
You’ve probably spend countless hours making your design. It doesn’t matter if you’re working on a new product, a website, or a logo project, your design won’t be enough to impress most clients. If you really want to be successful, then you’ll need to be a good salesperson as well. You need to share the story of your work. This means creating an interesting and memorable presentation. Keep in mind that the presentation should solely be about your design and your client; not about you.
In order to make a good impression, you will need to create a fascinating way to present your design and be attentive to all questions and concerns your client has. Doing this is the only way to create a good presentation. However, here are some great ways for you to make it more memorable.
Use Color Carefully
Color is one of the most important components of your presentation, so it’s best to use it carefully. Keep in mind that you don’t want to create something that’s too colorful or that won’t match your design. Make sure it’s in sync with what you’ve created in order to add more style to it. It’s recommended that you use only 2-3 colors throughout your whole presentation. Instead of constantly changing them up and confusing your clients, a small number of carefully picked colors will make your presentation more memorable.
Use Presentation Binders
Simply displaying your design on a PowerPoint presentation and sharing the story behind it can be enough to persuade some clients. However, if you want to ensure your designs get sold, you’ll need to get a bit more creative. Know that some clients simply won’t be listening to what you’re saying. Not because you’re boring, but because they listen to presentations countless times a week and have probably grew tired of them. Clients such as these like to focus on the design of your presentation. They want something that will make them impressed just by looking at it.
Because of this, it’s a good idea to use custom printed presentation binders as well. They will help ensure that each of your clients will be paying attention to what you’ve created. While some will be listening to the story you share, others will be looking at the presentation folders and the content inside them. No matter what your clients do, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll like both you and your design by the time you’re done with your presentation.
Explain Your Designs
Despite the fact that this should go without saying, many designers forget to explain their projects. This happens because they understand why it looks the way it looks and why they chose to include specific elements into the design. Nevertheless, you should remember that just because you understand your designs doesn’t mean that your clients will too. Your explanation doesn’t need to be long, but it should cover some of the most important decisions you made while creating the design.
Create a 3D Mockup
Coming up with an elegant product design might be enough to convince certain clients, but you’ll have much better chances of selling your projects if you create 3D mockups as well. After all, your clients would love to get an idea of how the product would look in the real world. On the other hand, if you’re creating a logo design, you can print it on different materials to show them how it looks when it’s not on a computer screen. In case you’re making a website design, allow the clients to visit it and go through the various pages you included.
Show Your Passion
If your clients see that you’re excited, they’ll get excited as well. Instead of being nervous before presenting your idea, you should be filled with enthusiasm to share your new creation with other people.
Long Tail Pro vs SEMrush - Which One to Use
As we start to witness the difference before a couple of years and now. Yes, millions of businesses are getting focused on the websites and grab the attention of the people in a quick time. By following the businesses through online sites, you can reach the target people at a maximum level. Well, this is what millions of people are expecting to get recognized among the people. If things are better, even you can convert the viewers into customers. Hopefully, this thing will bring more benefits as well as profits to your business.
When you are looking to develop your business through online websites, it is essential for you to add suitable keywords and get the best SEO services for a better result. If these things are managed to handle, then your website may get ranking among the top sites. To make this thing happen, we need to focus on SEO services and get better results on time. Also, they are helpful for all the employees if they are struggling in your business to lead. At the end of the day, this is what most of the business people are looking forward to focussing on it.
Choose the best thing to get massive reach
In order to reach the target people, we mainly required best services to lead in a better way. To make this thing happen, you can go for long tail pro or SEMrush that whenever you want. Even most of the business people may focus on that and see the benefits in a shorter period. If you are running the business, then make sure to know about the best things that which are better in terms of comparison. Once the best tool for your business is found, then you can take over that for experiencing the best result. In terms of gathering more information, you can follow https://www.journalreview.org/long-tail-pro/ that whenever required.
Which is better?
If you are struggling to choose long tail pro or SEMrush for a long time, then make sure to find that which one is best. Well, if you want to choose long tail pro, then you can search for better keywords that suit your content. Also, they are highly helpful for your business that when it comes to handling through internet marketing. By using this tool, you can search for long term keywords that whenever you want. By following the better keywords, you can carry your business among the target customers in a short time.
Also, it has the potential in order to know more about the competitor’s business. According to those businesses, it will help to search the better keywords that work with your business. Based on the niches, it may bring any keywords that work well with the business.
Are you looking for other tools to improve your business? Then you can search for SEMrush that whenever you want. If you choose the SEMrush, then it will proceed further to track the rankings. Also, it will be helpful to check out the website’s performance for all the time. At the same time, it also possible for you to find the best keywords that suit your business. The major highlight of this tool is where you can expect huge traffic to your website. Also, it has the potential to lead the business among the other businesses. At the same time, it is simple for people to access this tool. The thing you need to do is utilize this tool for your business that if you are struggling to handle. After the comparison, SEMrush is mainly coming up with various features to experience.
Alternatives to utilize
In case, if you are searching for the alternative tools, then you can also prefer KW finder, SE Cockpit and more. However, these alternatives will bring you a better outcome and performances to your websites. In order to choose the decent tools, make sure to check out the reviews which are mentioned across the internet. When you compared long tail pro with SEMrush tool, then the reviews for SEMrush tool is better for sure. Also, based on the loads of features where millions of people are utilizing this tool for their business in terms of marketing.
Types of digital brand marketing and SEO services
Millions of people have started to focus on their businesses to develop. In order to develop the business, it is important to associate with websites as per the current scenario. In recent years, most of the businesses have shifted to online platforms to make things better and smoother. Now, the query has been raised among most of the business people is whether the business requires digital brand marketing. Well, the answer is yes. If you are looking to sell your products, then digital brand marketing is playing a crucial role.
Utilization of SEO services
In terms of promoting the business among the viewers or looking ahead to develop your business among the competitors, then SEO services are always required. People, who are in the initial stage but looking for a business to pick, make sure to follow the SEO services in general. For information, you can search for various types when it comes to digital marketing. However, as per your convenience, you can choose the right one and move ahead. Here the discussion is all about different types of digital marketing that can be handled with the support of SEO services.
Get support from Search Engine Optimization
If you are planning to handle the business, it is important to keep it in mind that you need to lead among the competitors. With the support of SEO, you can make your website as the best in terms of rankings. Also, it will help you to get attention among the people for sure. This thing makes your businesses get top ranking among the other competitive businesses. If these things are handled, then the traffic, conversions, activities and more will be highlighted throughout handling your businesses.
When handing the SEO, the keywords are always playing a vital role in terms of bringing the business to the top among the competitors. This thing makes SEO as one of the important tools to be utilized for your business.
Follow Social Media Marketing
In recent years, people are very much addicted to handling social media sites for various purposes. Well, they are not just only using for communication purposes or uploading the stuff like photos or videos but also allow the users to market the products to its maximum. If you are very much aware of social media sites to handle, then it is easy for you to market the business in a quick way. Also, you don’t need to spend much time on it during the period of digital brand marketing.
Marketing through content
Whenever looking for marketing, then your website must be having the best and attractive contents. Based on those contents, you can lead your business towards the target people. Also, the contents must be engaging from start to end. All you need to do is offering the contents which are different and attractive. When handling the contents, make sure to plan for the relevant contents to post and proceed further.
Hopefully, this thing will help the people to market the business in a better way. Also, make sure to offer the services in your contents to share and get recognized among the customers. In case, if the content is good, then there will be chances of sharing the content with others in a quick time. With these things, your business will get highly recognized among millions of people. If you are looking for the contents, then you will find various categories to choose from. As per the requirements, you need to choose the right templates.
Prefer Email marketing
If you see the Email marketing, then it is mainly considered to be the older marketing thing where still many utilize for marketing purposes. When it comes to Email marketing, you can share the content that must be impressive. Yes, the contents must be attractive which will help to encourage people to share it with others. Also, most of them are very much aware of using Email for various purposes. Hopefully, the email marketing for businesses is going to be helpful for sure.
Well, it is also said to be one of the best ways in terms of marketing the business and its services in a shorter period.
Wrapping up
Even we should know that the SEO services are helpful for all the business people as per the current scenario. Hopefully, the above-discussed marketing strategies are going to be offering the best result when it comes to handling the business.
What Your Customers Want From Your Company this Year
The beginning of a new year is an excellent time to set goals for your company and make decisions on where to invest your time and money. Satisfied customers come back to your business in the future and tell others what they love about your brand. Figuring out what your customers want builds your business on multiple levels.
In a study of consumers, researchers learned customers value a positive experience so much that by the year 2020, customer experience (CX) will become even more important than price and product features in highlighting some brands as consumer favorites.
CX is made of intricate layers and hard to define. Below are six key things customers want more of from brands they patronize.
1. Get Personal
The world becomes more impersonal every year. If you phone a company, a computer offers responses. If you go to a grocery store, a machine checks you out. However, even though more and more things are automated, people want a personalized experience that applies specifically to their needs.
Your first step toward a more personalized experience is understanding your target audience and their pain points. However, you should also target language, offers and customer service based on each customer. Search engines offer information such as the customer's regional location, and social media informs you of their interests.
Coca-Cola has a Share-a-Coke campaign that offers personalized coke bottles with a variety of names. Name Cokes are in stores, but you can also order a Coke with a specific name or saying through their website. Offering a product with your name on it is the height of personalization. Your site might provide ideas for services in the location of the site visitor or something more straightforward, but the more customization you give the better.
2. Respect Customer's Time
Most families today have two people working outside the home and children involved in activities after school. They don't have a lot of extra time, and their time is valuable. Anything that saves a customer time endears your company to them.
Speed up your website. Most people won't wait around longer than a few seconds for your site to load.
Offer conveniences and keep checkout pages and forms as short as possible. If you offer customer service or ordering via telephone, reduce hold times as low as possible.
3. Collect Detailed Information
Don't make customers repeat the same information over and over again. Collect the necessary details to serve them effectively and make sure key people in your organization have access to that data. If a customer calls and complains about a product issue, they shouldn't have to repeat their entire problem when they call back the second time. Instead, the customer service rep should pull up the data and instantly know the issue they're having.
DY Concrete Pumps offers a custom quote that allows them to gather contact information and provide a chance for the user to include a personalized message. The custom quote offer is located at the bottom of the landing page with a bright yellow call to action (CTA) button that grabs the users attention.
4. Embrace Augmented Reality
Experts predict smart augmented reality glasses with reach 5.4 million people by 2020. Already, augmented reality permeates everyday life. Cinemark theaters offer games on the big screen leading up to movies that work with a Smartphone or mobile device and allow movie-goers to play games through augmented reality. The phone works with the image on the screen.
Advertisers place ads in magazines that work with an app on your phone and come to life. Pokémon Go became all the rage a few years ago, as players used their surroundings to view Pokémon you can only see in the app. As AR becomes more popular, expect to see it utilized more and more.
One way of utilizing AR on your website is through images that, when hovered over or clicked on, become a 360-degree video the user interacts with. You could also consider developing apps for smartphones that allow a user to place the item in their home and see how it looks.
5. Offer Better Communication
Customers want communication with you to be easy and accessible. Around 51 percent of consumers state businesses should be available 24/7. Smaller companies and startups have a smaller budget that doesn't allow for 24/7 customer service. Fortunately, you can automate email and chatbot responses, answering some questions automatically and letting customers know you'll get back as quickly as possible on others.
Look at the different forms of communication offered on your website. If you only provide your email, add a live chat option and a toll-free number. Make communicating with your brand simple and painless as possible.
Razer offers high-tech products such as laptops, headphones and keyboards. Note how their support page provides several options to get in touch with them, including a searchable knowledgebase, live chat, a toll-free number, email and community help.
6. Exceed Expectations
Customers come into a transaction with your brand with certain expectations. Once you understand what expectations your typical customer has, you can not only meet but exceed them.
For example, if your typical customer expects 24/7 customer support, work not only to offer 24/7 customer support but to also shorten your response times.
When you receive a complaint, solve it beyond what the person asks. If they want a replacement for a product damaged in shipping, include a small free item and thank them for the chance to make things right and overnight the package. Create goodwill with your customers, and they'll tell others about your brand.
Talk to Your Customers
If you're not sure what your customers want, ask them. Send out a poll and ask what areas need improvement. Pay attention to customer complaints, as well, and see if there are any patterns. No matter what type of business you're in, your success boils down to the relationship between you and your customers. Find the right mix, and you'll keep the customers you have while also attracting new ones.
Lexie is a graphic designer and typography enthusiast. She spends most of her time A/B testing websites and creating style guides. Check out her blog, Design Roast, and follow her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
Why Cybersecurity Should Affect Your Web Design
Cybersecurity should be at the core of your design before you consider any other elements of your site. Hacking is a serious problem, especially if you collect sensitive data. Your customers need to know they can rely on you to protect their personal information.
About 64 percent of companies have experienced some type of web-based attack. From the smallest business to the largest corporation, all are at the mercy of hackers if they don't put some security measures in place.
A hacker attack occurs every 39 seconds and impacts one in three Americans. With those statistics in mind, put your site users at ease by implementing the following security measures into your website designs:
1. Collect Less Data
One way to protect your customers is to limit the amount of data you collect and store online. Collect only what is an absolute necessity for you to complete an order. If you don't need their birth date, then don't ask for it. Minimize the information so if the worst happens and you do have a security breach, the hackers get less information than they otherwise would.
Some sites collect all types of information in an attempt to market to their users. While there is value in knowing the names of your customers' children and their ages, this also puts them at risk. This type of information is often used to gain access to sensitive accounts with qualifying questions.
2. Secure Your WordPress Site
About 75 million sites use WordPress as their content management system (CMS). Unfortunately, if not appropriately secured, it is vulnerable to hackers. Take the time to secure your WordPress site.
- Use complicated usernames and passwords that aren't easy to crack.
- Use a plugin to block anyone trying to log in with the username admin.
- Change your dashboard location from wp-admin to something with a different name.
- Utilize SSL.
- Add a firewall.
Those are some basic things you can do today to protect your WordPress site. You should delve a bit deeper into the topic of securing your WordPress site and close off any backdoors that allow hackers to gain a foothold.
3. Secure Your WordPress Database Prefix
The default database prefix is wp-. Hackers are well aware that most people will stick with the default settings. You can throw them off and hopefully drive them away by changing the prefix you use for your database. Changing your database prefix isn't complicated, but you should always back your site up before making changes.
Changing your prefix protects you from SQL injection attacks. There are plugins you can install that allow you to quickly change your database prefix without a lot of PHP knowledge, such as Brozzme DB Prefix or iThemes Security.
4. Create a Privacy Policy
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now requires website owners to list clear policies on how they protect user data and how they use that data — even if you don't live in the EU. If you have even one customer who falls under GDPR, you must be compliant. You've probably noticed that some sites have privacy policies that are so complex you'd have to be a lawyer to understand them.
Don't do that to your site visitors. Keep your language clear and readable, so site visitors understand what you plan to do with the information you collect and the measures you have in place to protect them. Keep privacy policies simple and to the point. It's probably easier than you think to get GDPR compliant, but it is essential to pay attention to this aspect of your security plan.
5. Secure Your Own Devices
One way hackers gain access to websites is through your devices. No matter where you're working, upload files via virtual private networks (VPN). A VPN lets you remotely upload files without using a public network that might be vulnerable to attack. A VPN works similarly to a firewall to encrypt and protect your data from hackers.
If you are working in a public location and using their guest internet access, secure your device by choosing a public location in your Wi-Fi settings. Limit who can see your device to avoid a situation where another patron gains access to your files and thus to your website.
6. Do Frequent Backups
Let's say the worst has happened and a hacker gained control of your site. They've infiltrated every single file and you have no idea how to fix the problem. If you back up your site frequently, this is less of an Armageddon scenario than if you don't. There are programs you can install that run backups on a regular basis and many website hosting companies do their own nightly backups.
No matter how many safeguards you install, there is a possibility hackers will overtake your site. However, if you have a complete backup, then it isn't as much of a problem. You simply work with your hosting company to find the way they entered your site, secure it and wipe out the old data, uploading your backup in its place. Your site is only down a fraction of the time it would otherwise be.
One of the biggest challenges as a designer is getting into the habit of backing up your work every time you make the slightest change. It's easy to forget this step and lose hours of work because a hacker takes over your site. Either set up automated backups or get into the habit of doing one each time you finish changes.
Cybersecurity Matters
The most beautifully designed site in the world isn't useful if it gets hacked. Consider the backend of your website's design to prevent hackers from getting in. Make your site user-friendly, but also consider the type of information you collect and how you can keep it safe for those who entrust you with it. Cybersecurity is just another element of web design that makes your work better than your competitors'.
Lexie is a graphic designer and typography enthusiast. She spends most of her time A/B testing websites and creating style guides. Check out her blog, Design Roast, and follow her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
How to download YouTube videos safely
You need a very good downloader to download YouTube video safely. Even though there are hundreds of such downloaders available, finding the right one can be little time-consuming and you may need to do some good research. The best downloader will have some definite advantage over the general downloaders which are available today. The following factors are very important in choosing a downloader which will help you to download you Tube video safely.
Speed up the downloader
Speed of the downloader is very important. There are some downloaders which are very sluggish and they need few hours to download a simple video. You cannot wait hours for the downloader to download a video. You need a downloader which will download your videos with a fast speed. There are some YouTube video downloader apps which will download a two-hour full HD video in just four minutes. Such fast downloaders use the multithread technology and as a result of that you get the benefit of getting your video within few seconds.
Supports any format
Find a video downloader that will allow you to download You Tube videos in any format. Which should download the videos in MP4, WebM, 3GP, FLV formats. You should also be able to save any YouTube music as MP3 files. Such a downloader should be able to rip web links to AVI, MKV, WMV, iPhone, PSP, Android, phones, etc.
Save several videos at once
Your downloader should allow you to save several videos at once. There are many downloaders which does not allow this feature. Would you like to keep downloading videos one by one doing everything manually? Definitely not. You need a downloader which will help you to save time by saving several videos at once as you want.
Original quality
Just make sure that the downloader you are using preserves the original quality of the videos. If you get a low quality video that you cannot use or which is very much pixilated, what is the use of downloading the video? It is just a waste of your time and Internet. You need a downloader which will preserve the original quality. Some of the downloaders may even help you to improve the quality by allowing you to download in a higher resolution. It is also important that your downloader allows you to download 4k and full HD videos. With time, the quality of the videos in you Tube and other sites are increasing and so you downloader should be able to handle the latest type of videos and download it for you within a short time. Find a downloader that supports different qualities such as 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, 240p, 180p.
Ability to limit download speed
It is important for people with slow Internet connection to limit the download speed. However, most of the downloaders are not sophisticated enough to allow such ability to limit download speed. However, there are some very good downloaders available which will allow you to limit download speed according to your wish. Choose a downloader which has this facility.
Ability to download from different sites
There are some downloaders which will allow you to download videos only from a few sites. On the other hand there are downloaders which will help you to download such videos from 10,000 sites. Which one will you choose? You should be able to capture online videos easily from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch, LiveLeak, Veoh, local and adult sites.
Freemake Video Downloader is a downloader that have all the above mentioned features. It lets you download YouTube videos and 10,000 other sites; save videos, playlists, channels in HD, MP4, MP3, AVI, 3GP, FLV, etc. It is absolutely free. Download it here
Seamless Lite New Features: Custom Shapes & Shape Galleries (How-To)
COLOURlovers spend countless hours creating amazing Patten Templates using Seamless Lite. Today, we are happy to announce some amazing new feature updates to the in-site seamless pattern design process.
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Along with the new features, Seamless Lite has been given some big love and a smoother, speedier designing experience should be noticeable.
How-To: Custom Shapes + Shape Gallery from COLOURlovers on Vimeo.
How-To: Custom Shapes + Shape Gallery
"Save as Shape" Tool
You can now save individual elements using the newly installed “Save as Shape” tool. This will allow you to keep those wonderfully complicated design elements you have been creating for a single Pattern Template. Only NOW, you can re-use those awesome pieces in any number of Pattern Template variation by using, “My Shapes” located in your Shapes Library on Seamless Lite (when you are logged in).
How To Use "Save as Shape"
In Seamless Lite, create a shape from multiple shapes using the preexisting shapes in the Shape Library. Select all layers that make up this custom shape. No need to group these either, when you save the shape as a single element it will automatically group it and give it the name you give your shape upon saving,
Select your shape layers and click, Save as Shape" in the layer tools area.
Preview your shape element, give it a title, description if you want, tags and then Save Shape.
That simple! At this point, shapes cannot be shared with one another (unless you do that privately - it's your choice).
Shape Galleries: A Place to Show Off Your Abilities!
A new gallery for all of your custom shapes, will be added to your profile page the moment you create and save your first shape with the "Save as Shape" tool.
Gallery element for your Shapes (above)
Gallery view of your shapes allows the same filter-view options as other creations on the site.
Each shape has its own information page just like the other creations on CLCOLOURlover.com. Everyone has the ability to LOVE, FAVE and SHARE this shape made by you! Additionally, you have the ability to download the .SVG file, located under the, made "with Seamless Lite" link and DELETE or EDIT the shape profile under the OPTIONS drop-down.
Shapes will also stream on to the homepage of COLOURlovers.com as they are being created. So let's see what you got?!
Reaching More Lovers of Color: Color Stream iPhone App Acquired
We've known developer/designer Sahil Lavingia for a while now and have continued to be impressed with the apps and services he puts out. One app in particular we've had our eye on is his color app Color Stream, an iPhone app that helps create & save color palettes... Something near and dear to our hearts.
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So when the opportunity came along to acquire the app and provide continued color inspiration to the tens of thousands of Color Stream users, we jumped at the chance. And one of the reasons we made our iPhone app free is so all Color Stream users could switch over to our ColorSchemer app without having to re-buy anything. They'll be joining the nearly 100,000 users of the ColorSchemer app and can continue to get the updates for our top color app at no extra cost.
If you're a Color Stream user, now's a great time to join the family and get the free ColorSchemer app to continue to receive updates with the latest and greatest features and integration with the COLOURlovers community.
The Color Stream app was a well-designed and built app that worked great for creating palettes from scratch, or from a photo... but the biggest thing it was missing was an awesome community of creative people to share those palettes with, and now that's changing! We're excited to extend our community to more and more creative people and we look forward to even more inspirations that this growing and diverse mix of new users will create.
Download ColorSchemer for iPhone Now.
ColorSchemer Studio 2 for Mac (+COLOURlovers)
Some people call them color palettes and some people call them color schemes... Now we're all part of one big family. We've known Aaron from ColorSchemer for a few years now and have talked on and off about how we could work together. Well, I'm excited to announce that we're not just working together, we're joining color forces.
The new release of ColorSchemer Studio 2 for Mac of is the first hint at what the future holds for that partnership with the integration of the 1,000,000 COLOURlovers palettes directly accessible via the software gallery browser. Pretty soon you'll not only be able to browse palettes from COLOURlovers, you'll be able to save your palettes right to our site from your desktop. You'll see the best of what we've been building and the best from what Aaron's been building begin to form together here and in ColorSchemer Studio.
ColorSchemer Studio 2 for Mac OS X
ColorSchemer Studio 2 is a professional color-matching application for your Mac that will help you build beautiful color schemes quickly and easily.
Use ColorSchemer Studio to identify color harmonies for the web (RGB) or print (CMYK), create palettes from photos, search over a million existing color schemes, mix colors, create gradient blends, and much more!
ColorSchemer Studio 2 takes color matching and management to a new level with a number of advanced new features and tools, including:
CMYK Support
One of the most common feature requests we get is for adding CMYK support, and now ColorSchemer Studio 2 has it!
Not only that, but this new release goes even further by color-managing both RGB and CMYK colors, so you can specify color profiles (just like in Photoshop and other pro graphics apps) to make sure your colors look exactly as you intended.
Color Management/Color Profile Support
ColorSchemer Studio 2 now color-manages all displayed colors. You can now work with specific color profiles to ensure your color-critical work comes out right the first time, whether it’s for the web or print.
COLOURlovers Integration
Connect to the COLOURlovers community to browse, search, and download over a million color palettes right from the program.
LiveSchemes – Color relationships that you define
The new LiveSchemes tools help you to visually create color harmony relationships as easily as dragging colors around the color wheel.
Create custom LiveScheme formulas based on color theory, or your own creativity. You can also reverse-engineer and color-shift existing color schemes with a simple drag & drop.
Browse your saved LiveSchemes to apply custom color theory relationships to any color to build a ready-to-use color scheme.
QuickPreview Layout Templates
ColorSchemer Studio 2 now comes with 13 different QuickPreview layout templates that you can use to experiment with color scheme ideas in a variety of different settings, including website, blog, print and pattern layouts.
Color Variations
Use the new Variations palette to find colors that are similar or related to any starting base color.
Color Groups
Organize your colors into groups or folders within your Favorite Colors when building your color schemes.
ColorSchemer Studio 2 also adds a bunch of other enhancements to give you more control over your colors:
- New ways to pick colors: Use the new spectrum picker, or select from among the included color libraries.
- New import/export formats: Including Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE), PNG, and XML formats.
- Enhanced Contrast Analyzer Check text and background color combinations for sufficient contrast and readability, based on W3C, WCAG, or HP accessibility recommendations.
- Drag-color-to-text Drag a color from ColorSchemer Studio and drop it right into your HTML and it will automatically be converted into a hex value in your code.
- Improved UI: Most tool windows have been combined into an easier-to-manage single-window interface.
Happy Huesdays: Special COLOURlovers Offer
In the spirit of Black Friday... we're extending a more colorful offer. If you purchase a license of ColorSchemer Studio in December and get a FREE Sponsored Membership on COLOURlovers as a thank you (a $20 value).
Just email us with your Order Number for ColorSchemer Studio and your COLOURlovers username and we'll upgrade your account. (Already a Sponsored Member? We'll give you a gift credit to use next year or give away.)
Licenses/Upgrades
ColorSchemer Studio 2 remains $49.99 per license, and discounted upgrade licenses are also available for registered users of ColorSchemer Studio v1.x for $29.99.
» Purchase a license
» Upgrade your license
» More info
Also, if you purchased ColorSchemer Studio v1.x after Oct 1, 2009, you are entitled to a free upgrade to ColorSchemer Studio 2. Visit the myColorSchemer section and enter your Order Number to upgrade your license key.
As Always... You Can Make it Better
This isn't just a product to sell you... this is a product for us to grow together. We've always taken special care to only work with quality products and never compromise the wonderful community and culture we have here. The partnership with ColorSchemer is brand new, so we've only had a little amount of time to work on integrating our services. We plan on bringing the best of both worlds together in the future and you can help us with that.
-What would you like to see ColorSchemer include from COPASO?
-What would you like to see COLOURlovers bring online from ColorSchemer?
Aaron is now a part of the COLOURlovers family, so welcome him and and let him know how he can help you share the love.
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