Web Design & Marketing News

Google Embraces Responsive Design, Recommends You Do the Same

Scott Gilbertson — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:35:49 PDT

Responsive Book: Google's Chromebook site as seen by a phone (left) and a tablet.

If you’ve been waiting for responsive design to go mainstream, wait no more. While The Boston Globe‘s responsive redesign made a big splash in the developer community, The Globe has nothing on the latest web giant to throw its weight behind responsive design — Google.

That’s right, Google is now suggesting developers use responsive design tools like media queries to handle the variety of screens now accessing the web.

The Google Webmaster blog has posted a new article, Responsive Design – Harnessing the Power of Media Queries, that walks beginners through the basics of creating a responsive website.

It’s not the most thorough tutorial we’ve seen, nor is it the best — Google conflates breakpoints with device width, something we’d recommend against — but nitpicking aside, Google’s official blessing will no doubt help move responsive design to the front burner in many people’s minds.

It’s worth noting that while a tutorial is nice, Google isn’t necessarily making the leap to responsive websites for its own properties. Indeed, sites like Gmail or Reader are excellent arguments for maintaining separate mobile designs. If your “site” is actually a web app as complex as Gmail then we suggest doing what Google does — hiring a fleet of developers to build an maintain separate websites for different size screens.

Chances are, though, that your site isn’t that complex and doesn’t have the developer teams that Google can afford. Even Google uses responsive design when it makes sense. To go along with the new tutorial, Google offers up that the new Chromebook website is responsive, which shows off the company’s responsive design chops.

Google confirms Panda 3.6 update came on April 27

Joe Meloni — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:15:42 PDT

Google has reportedly confirmed the launch of Panda 3.6 to Search Engine Land, which said the algorithm rolled out on April 27. The move capped off an especially hectic eight-day period for Google after rolling out Panda 3.5 on April 19 and its first Penguin algorithm on April 24. Google told SEL that the move is just another of the updates it makes regularly to ensure the highest quality results are delivered to its users. Like other Panda updates thus far in 2012, the 3.6 roll out was a fairly minor data refresh and likely affected very few websites. While Panda and Penguin focus on different elements of site quality, the pair of algorithms have made it made it increasingly clear that SEO campaigns must focus on the user experience. Developing website content that offers relevant information to users was (and is) critical with Panda, and Penguin highlights the need for a natural keyword strategy. Brafton recently highlighted that the first Penguin update looks to punish sites engaging in black hat SEO tactics - namely keyword spamming and link schemes. Companies using SEO should not abandon their campaigns, but any focus on attracting search crawlers that negatively impacts a quality user experience could hurt sites.

Online ads struggling to resonate, shift to web marketing could yield better ROI

Joe Meloni — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:36:56 PDT

A report from AYTM Market Research found that just 16 percent of consumers believe online display ads are an effective medium for advertising products or services. Moreover, less than 14 percent of respondents said they usually pay attention to ads they see on the web. With many consumers reporting dissatisfaction with aggressive website display or pop-up ads, companies can use internet marketing to appeal to their target audience. Shifting from overt advertising to marketing through information and interaction can help businesses improve the appeal of their products and services. Sixty-six percent of respondents said that they regularly read news websites and an additional 51.8 percent access blogs. Pairing marketing with information through news content marketing can help companies avoid spending money on display advertising campaigns that may be ignored by prospects. Focusing on using website content to drive search standing will result in prospects organically finding information and navigating through the conversion funnel without feeling overwhelmed by ads. With so many relying on news sites and blogs, using content as target marketing can help inform these news-hungry readers, while boosting their interest in and products and services as well. Brafton recently reported that news has become one of the most popular forms of content on the web. Whether it's from their smartphones, tablets or other devices, more than 60 percent of Americans access news content on the web every day.

Companies looking for SEO skills, outsourcing may have the answer

Joe Meloni — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:48:31 PDT

A report from Wanted Analytics found that SEO skills are among the most frequently sought by employees in a number of fields. As the web, search specifically, becomes increasingly popular, companies are actively trying to adjust their website content and other material to ensure that it stands out in search rankings. According to Wanted, there were 24 percent more job listings with SEO knowledge and skills as a requirement in March 2012 than there were in 2011. Moreover, most of the positions were for technical or marketing capacities, which are both becoming more pervasive in non-traditional companies. Aside from greater demand for SEO professionals, other new media marketing skills are increasingly important. For example, experience in Google Analytics and other web metrics used to assess the value of different marketing material and inform later decisions is important for businesses of all kinds. Content analytics are largely based on the success of SEO campaigns. Finding employees who can analyze data to create valuable SEO and content marketing strategies can be difficult for some. However, turning to third-party agencies that can handle the creation and assessment of these campaigns could help organizations struggling to find the right mix in one employee. Brafton recently reported that 70 percent of companies using some form of content marketing will outsource at least one aspect of their campaign moving forward. With 87 percent of organizations using website content to improve their web presence, turning to an agency with experience in the field may help campaigns stand out more effectively.

Six tips to make Google+ drive SEO and social success for your

Valpo Creative Marketing — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:58:02 PDT

Six tips to make Google+ drive SEO and social success for your business: Insights from ad:tech San Francisco
Still finding your footing with Google+ as part of your social media marketing and SEO mix? You're not alone. Marketers are struggling to capture the interest of Google+ users who tend to spend just 3 minutes on average on the site (compared to an hour on Pinterest). Moreover, +1's on business' brand Pages versus websites versus search ads don't always seem to surface when expected. At this week's ad:tech San Francisco, the Think...

Strategy Analytics Says U.S. Mobile Ad Spend Will Double This Year

Michael — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:25:33 PDT

According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, mobile ad spending is estimated to grow substantially throughout the remainder of 2012, just as it has during the first four months of the year.

The new forecast suggests that mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 85% in 2012 from $6.3 billion to $11.6 billion.

But in the U.S. alone, ad spend for mobile advertising will balloon much, much faster – likely to the tune of 128%, or $4.2 billion.

These latest numbers largely coincide with last week’s report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which indicate that for full-year 2011, revenues soared to a landmark high of $31 billion.

“That milestone represents a 22 percent increase over 2010’s full-year number, which itself had been a record-breaker at $26 billion,” IAB finds.

“This historic moment, with an especially impressive achievement in mobile, is indicative of an increased awareness from advertisers that they need to reach consumers where they are spending their time—in digital media,” says Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “Pushing past the $30 billion barrier, the interactive advertising industry confirms its central place in media. Across search, display, digital video, digital provides a wealth of opportunity for brands and consumers. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it is likely that the tremendous growth in mobile will continue as these screens become even more crucial to the marketing mix.”

Discovering Your Brand Essence

Derrick Daye, The Blake Project — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:01:54 PDT

A process called "laddering" is often used to uncover the essence of a brand. Laddering is based on the notion that brand meaning can be deepened by examining progressively more abstract implications of a brand's features. The bottom rung of the ladder represents the starting point, which is usually an attribute. The implication of this attribute is a functional benefit, which is the second rung on the ladder. And the implication of a functional benefit is an emotional benefit, which is the third rung on the ladder. Finally, the emotional benefit implies the brand's essence. As the ladder is ascended, the focus is less on the attributes of the brand and more on the role that the brand plays in consumers' lives.

To illustrate the laddering process, consider how the weight-loss brand Jenny Craig might use laddering to market its weight-control meals. Jenny Craig delivers low-calorie meals that provide the needed balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. The implication of these attributes is that they will facilitate healthy weight loss. Losing weight will enhance physical appearance and thus self-esteem, as reflected in greater satisfaction with life. Thus, Jenny Craig's essence is enhancing the enjoyment of life, which is the consumer's goal in using the brand.

Brand essence can also be developed by associating a brand with brands in other categories that share a common goal. In a McDonald's ad depicting a blind date, a young man named Larry calls on his date. He immediately attempts to manage her expectations by clarifying who he is and who he is not. He points out that he is not a doctor, lawyer, banker, or CPA. He is a store clerk. He tells his date that they will not be dining at a bistro, casa, or maison, nor will they be attending the opera, the symphony, or the ballet. Instead he proposes that they drive in his ordinary car to McDonald's and then go to a movie. The factors common to Larry's job, car, and choice of restaurant and entertainment imply McDonald's brand's essence, an unpretentious place to get a good meal.

The association of a brand with products in disparate categories often results in the anthropomorphizing of the brand. Thus, brands might be viewed as having a gender, age, social class, as well as personality characteristics. Apple is approachable, Burger King is masculine, and Old Navy is family-oriented. Cartier watches are upscale and Timex is for everybody. Thus, in developing a brand's position, it is important to recognize that the benefits selected reflect the brand's personality, which is as much a part of the brand as its category membership and point of difference. Indeed, when Levi's positioned its brand to attract upscale consumers, it dropped its line of coveralls, which implied that it was a blue-collar brand.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By: John Wiley & Sons, excerpted from Kellogg on Marketing, 2nd Edition by Alice M. Tybout (editor), Bobby J. Calder (editor), Phillip Kotler (foreword by) (c) 2010 by The Kellogg School of Marketing.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

How to Install and Customize Varnish for WordPress

Austin Gunter — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:00:13 PDT

The following is a guest post by Austin Gunter of WPEngine.com.

If you’re looking to boost performance for a content-heavy WordPress installation, adding a cache like Varnish is a great way to boost your site’s performance.

NB – This is an advanced topic, and only relevant if you have full control over your server (e.g. you’re on a VPS). It does not apply to regular webhosting.

What is Varnish?

Varnish Cache is a web app accelerator, or a caching HTTP reverse proxy. Install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents, and the Varnish community claims that it speeds up delivery by a factor of 300 – 1000x.

In a nutshell, caching a webpage means storing a copy of that website’s content for future visitors to see. Varnish can cache pages of your WordPress site so that your server doesn’t need to call the database each time a visitor visits your site. This reduces server load because the stored copy means the webserver doesn’t have to go find the same images and content for each visitor.

Varnish caches page data in virtual memory, so your site will load much faster, providing a killer SEO boost. Google found that every additional 0.5s load time meant 20% fewer site visitors (Source). Reducing the page load time can dramatically increase your visitors and boost your search rankings at the same time.

Varnish themselves have put together a great video for explaining what it does, as simply as possible:

Installing Varnish

Varnish is free software that you can install this afternoon. It runs on Linux, and primarily FreeBSD, but can work on other platforms as well. Once installed, you can customize how incoming requests will be handled with the Varnish Configuration Language (VCL).

This flexibility means that each Varnish install can and should be designed with a particular site in mind.

You’ll want to begin with a basic configuration of Varnish, and then begin testing small changes as you get the hang of how it works with your particular site, and how the functions work. There are several different subroutines that tell Varnish how to respond to requests going in and out, to errors, and so on.

I’ll start with a basic set up, and then cover basic VCL functions that you’ll be tweaking as you go.

Step by Step

Setting up Varnish is pretty simple. I’m going to assume you’re using Apache on a Debian-based system. It does work on other systems too though.

Start in the command line with this:

apt-get install varnish

First, you want to configure Apache to listen on port 8080 of the localhost interface. Varnish can then listen on port 80 (Where your visitors connect). In /etc/apache2/ports.conf, edit the following settings:

NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1:8080
Listen 127.0.0.1:8080

To get Varnish to start (it won’t by default), edit the following in /etc/default/varnish

START=yes
DAEMON_OPTS=”-a EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS:80 \
	-T localhost:6082 \
	-f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
	-S /etc/varnish/secret \
	-s file,/var/lib/varnish/$INSTANCE/varnish_storage.bin,1G”

Replace EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS with the IP of your external IP address. It can also be an internal address if your server is setup behind a load balancer, or something like NGINX. This setting controls what IP address and port you want Varnish to bind to and listen on.

Now edit /etc/varnish/default.vcl, which should already exist with lots of it commented out. Start by changing the default backend.

backend default {
	.host = “127.0.0.1”;</p>
	.port = “8080”;</p>
}

Now Varnish knows that Apache is listening on port 8080 of the localhost interface, and you can start using the functions. The majority of the work will be with vcl_recv and vcl_fetch, and if you don’t call an action in this subroutine and Varnish reaches the end, it will execute the built-in code from default.vcl.

Note: you never want to cache wp_admin, wp_login, or similar pages.

Here’s how it works – the 4 basic subroutines in your Varnish config which you need to handle requests are:

sub vcl_recv

This is called at the beginning of a request and tells varnish what to do with that particular request: whether or not to serve it, how to serve it, and which backend to use.

Varnish receives a request from your browser, vcl_recv and chooses to do one of 3 things with it: vcl_hash, vcl_pass, and vcl_pipe (More details on those in a minute!). You can change the request if you like, altering cookies or removing the request header.

sub vcl_fetch

vcl_fetch is called after a document has been successfully retrieved from the backend. Use this to alter the response headers, trigger ESI processing, or try alternate backend servers if the request failed.

The request object, req, is still available, and there is also a backend response, beresp, which contains the HTTP headers from the backend.

sub vcl_hash

You can call hash_data on the data you want to add to the hash. This subroutine may terminate with calling return() with one of the keywords, hash or proceed.

sub vcl_deliver

Call this before a cached object is delivered to the client. This may terminate with deliver, error code, or restart. Deliver, delivers the object to the client. Error will return the specified error code to the client and abandon the request. Restart will restart the transaction and increase the restart counter. If the number of restarts exceed the max_restarts, varnish emits a guru meditation error.

Actions

There are a number of actions you can take inside each subroutine as you customize Varnish:

pass

Pass the request and subsequent response to and from the backend server, not cached. pass can be called in both vcl_recv and vcl_fetch.

lookup

Called from vcl_recv to deliver content from cache even if the request indicates that the request should be passed. You can’t call lookup from vcl_fetch.

pipe

From vcl_recv, pipe short-circuits client and backend connections and Varnish will just sits there passing the data back and forth, logging the data, so logs will be incomplete. Beware that with HTTP 1.1 a client can send several requests on the same connection and so you should instruct Varnish to add a “Connection: close” header before actually calling pipe.

deliver

Deliver the cached object to the client. Usually called in vcl_fetch.

esi

ESI-process the fetched document.

The Varnish community has a very detailed tutorial on using VCL, and the functions that you can perform on your site, which I won’t go into here.

Example Configurations

Hopefully this post has given you a good introduction to Varnish, but the best way to truly start playing with it is to see some sample configuration files.

The Varnish website has a great collection sample configurations, which can make a perfect starting point for building your own.

More specifically, Mattias Geniar has put up sample fetch and receive configs for WordPress on Github.

Suffice to say that Varnish is very customizable and can do wonders for WordPress. A great example would be a Membership site. You can customize Varnish to cache content based on a user’s permissions, on their membership level, or even if they’re just visiting your site.

Facebook uses Varnish to great avail, and no doubt they have customized it to hell and back, but it goes to show you how efficient and flexible Varnish is.

Plugins

Update (13 Apr 2012): Thanks to Alexander and Pothi for letting us know about an updated Varnish plugin for WP 3.0+ and one on WP.org also for purging your cache (Also, check out both of these guy’s blogs for more Varnish and WP performance tips!)

The varnish plugin will purge the cache when content is added or edited, and it works for multisite. The plugin does include a sample config file for your Varnish backend, however, keep in mind that when you’ve customized it for one particular site, those customizations may or may not play nicely with a different site.

Have you had any luck installing Varnish for your WordPress? What works and doesn’t? Feel free to share some of your ideas in the comments!

comScore Search Engine Rankings For March 2012

Drew Bowling — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:22:51 PDT

comScore released its search engine rankings for March 2012 today and, much like the surface of the moon, movement remains largely nonexistent. In February, Google, the monthly leader in search, claimed 66.4% of the market share whereas in March, the search engine claimed… 66.4% of the market share. Similarly, Microsoft, and by Microsoft we mean to say Bing, remained at exactly the same market share in March as it had in February with 15.3%. The biggest shake-up (and I use that phrase completely incorrectly) to happen this month was the 0.1% decrease in Yahoo!’s stake of the search market while AOL increased 0.1%.

18.4 billion explicit core searches were accrued in March, with Google netting 12.2 billion of them, roughly 6,000,000 more than February. Bing saw a smaller increase of less than 200,000 and totalled 2.8 billion searches, 5% more than February, in order to land at its well-lived in abode of second place.

One final note of search trivia: For March, 68.6 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 25.9 percent of searches were powered by Bing. At least Yahoo! appears to have slowed down its decline in the search race this month.

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

Scott Gilbertson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:36:48 PDT

A handful of the many screens your site needs to handle. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.com

Responsive design means making your website readable no matter what screen it might be on. In the words of karate master Bruce Lee, “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.” Lee may have been talking about your mind, but his words apply just as well to your website. To paraphrase the rest of that quote, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup; so, you put your content on a tablet, it becomes the tablet; you put it on a TV, it becomes the TV.”

On a more practical level, achieving a Bruce Lee-like command of the fluid web means ditching the pixels and points for flexible units like ems or percentages. There’s a lot more to responsive design than just fluid layouts, but it’s definitely a key part of the process.

Curiously, when it comes time to use the other universal element of responsive design — the @media query that applies the actual responsive design — most of us revert right back to pixels with something like @media all and (min-width: 500px) {}. It seems logical; after all, you’re trying to fit your content into a window with specific dimensions, so why not use pixels?

Certainly you can, and most sites we’ve seen up to this point use pixels for the actual media query breakpoints, but it’s worth noting that you can use ems here as well.

Lyza Gardner over at Cloud Four recently posted a look at why Cloud Four’s new responsive design uses ems in its media queries. Here’s her reasoning for Cloud Four’s em-based approach:

Folks who design for traditional reading media — where the content really is king — don’t center design decisions around the absolute width of content-holding elements so much as around the optimal line lengths for the content they’re flowing. There are some tried-and-true numbers one can shoot for that make for the “right” number of letters (and thus words) per line for comfortable human reading.

Thus actual column width is a function of font size and ems-per-line.

The rest of the post walks through how Cloud Four used em-based media queries to create a better navigation experience on their site. Some of the advantages may not apply to every responsive design, but there is one additional benefit that works nearly everywhere — em-based media queries mean that your site will handle user zooming much better, applying media queries instead of allowing content to overflow its container.

But perhaps the best part of an em-based approach is that it seems to work in nearly every web browser. Cloud Four’s post doesn’t get into the specifics of their browser testing so I fired up a couple of virtual machines and tested their site and my own simplified demo page in every major browser.

According to my testing, em-based media queries work properly in all OS X browsers. (I tested the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera.) Only Firefox and Opera apply media queries on zoom, though. (Chrome and Safari need a page refresh before the query is applied.)

On Windows 7 Firefox, Opera and Chrome behave the same way they do on OS X. IE 9 also worked fine and, like Firefox and Opera, applies media queries when zooming without needing a page refresh. Judging by the comments on the Cloud Four blog, Chrome on Linux may have some issues, but in my testing Firefox and Chrome on Fedora worked as expected.

All the mobile browsers I tested on Android worked as well (Firefox, Chrome, Opera Mini and the default Android browser). On iOS Mobile Safari applies em-based queries as you would expect.

In the end you certainly don’t need to use em-based media queries. As many sites out there demonstrate, pixel-based queries work. At least for now. However, as a wider range of screen sizes begin to access the web switching to em-based queries may put you ahead of the game. Em-based queries mean addressing the content-width rather than just the screen width and that feels like a more future-friendly approach.

How Do I Build My Brand?

Bob Ruffolo — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 02:30:21 PDT

Businesses ranging from small to large are all aware of brand development. But where a lot of brand development seems to be lacking is in smaller businesses. One common misconception is that in order to have “brand development”, you need a lot of money to invest into it.

Well, I’m here to tell you that couldn’t be further from the truth. Not everyone needs a large ad campaign like Coca-Cola to stand out and get recognized. After speaking to several small business owners about their own brand development, one thing became abundantly clear: they lost sight of what the key elements behind their brand development…

How to Improve Your mozRank

Bob Ruffolo — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:30:16 PDT

While most people seem to be solely concerned with their “PageRank”, firms and individuals who are SEO savvy know that other SEO ranking tools, like mozRank, play a huge and important role in just how well your site is performing on the search engines as well.

I’m not trying to say that PageRank isn’t important; it is. But the more that you tap into also satisfying the mozRank requirements, the higher your site will rank.

For more on boosting your search engine rankings, be sure to check out our free eBook on “10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your SEO.”

So what is mozRank and how does it differ…

Online Marketing News: Social Media ROI Gets Serious, Know

Valpo Creative Marketing — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:47:53 PDT

Online Marketing News: Social Media ROI Gets Serious, Know Your Metrics, Facebook Search Engine, Twitter Rumors & What They Mean For You
Are Your Social Media Efforts Worth The Money? This infographic recently released by Radian6 dives into how online marketers are currently measuring social media results as well as questions many marketers are asking. Some of the highlights include: Equation for determining ROI Customer Engagement Importance of ROI 3 Rules for Building Business Relationships Building your network both online and offline requires effort....

Social media marketing yields up to 17 percent of web leads

Valpo Creative Marketing — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 20:31:10 PDT

Social media marketing yields up to 17 percent of web leads for some companies
Social media marketing campaigns have helped companies effectively using them generate an average of 17 percent of their leads, a report from the Aberdeen Group. While the channel has been a strong source of new business opportunities for most companies using it, those with the most engaging campaigns have seen 230 percent more leads with their activity. Launching marketing campaigns using Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms has helped businesses expand their...

Case Study on Building for Mobile First

Jake Rocheleau — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:17:55 PDT

Advertise here with BSA

Designing for the web used to mean perfecting an HTML and CSS layout in all the popular browsers. Although this is still the case today, modern web browsers have shifted onto many alternative media platforms. No longer is your average web user sorting articles solely from their monitor screen.

I’d like to offer a few ideas on why you should consider designing websites for mobile first. This case study looks at a few simple ideas that are often glossed over – yet have a huge impact on the modern Internet. It’s important that your website can scale with all different forms of incoming traffic.

Working with Limitations

Our first natural instinct when designing is to push away limiting factors. But unfortunately there isn’t a way to combat the mobile interface – it’s small, portable, and touchable to boot. It’s almost like we’re working with a whole new set of rules!

And this is exactly the reason that building your design targeted to mobile first will save you headaches later on. When you’ve already written hundreds of CSS styles and you have the layout working perfectly in desktop browsers it’s easy to call it a day. You likely won’t want to spend even more hours coding to optimize the layout for mobile users.

If you can start off working with the limitations on mobile devices then you’re simplifying the whole process. This forces you to consider which page elements are really important. What do your visitors need to focus on? Scaling up and adding more page UI for bigger screens is a gratifying process as well.

Numerous Devices

The mobile trend was set into motion through the iPod Touch and original iPhone launches. Since these releases Google Android has also gained in popularity, along with similar tablet PCs.

You can hardly count the total number of mobile devices on the market right now. But thankfully their operating systems mostly all support a similar number of standard webkit browser engines. This means if you can build your site to run nicely in Mobile Safari it should behave properly in Chrome as well.

You may also want to consider other 3rd party web browsers if you need to support all mobile users. Mobile Firefox for Android and Opera Mini for iOS are two of the most popular names. Their rendering systems behave similar to their desktop counterparts, so there shouldn’t be too much of a struggle.

Supplying Alternatives

If you have the time to focus on mobile then it will show in your web development work. But no matter how pretty your mobile layout comes out you should always offer a reference back to the original desktop design. Some mobile browsers will let users zoom and pan around the page while also supporting frontend scripts such as jQuery.

It’s regarded as good practices to not trap your users into a minimalist layout. If your main website supports important features then some users don’t want to miss out. This is also the case for iPad and tablet users.

Deploy and Test!

You don’t need to be confident in all the projects you end up building. Web design is all about trying new things and sometimes screwing up. But we learn from our mistakes and this is how we can grow as artists and individuals.

Keep trying out new ideas and layouts to fill in mobile screens. You have the option of going with responsive layouts that will adapt to any screen size. But alternatively CSS media queries and JavaScript plugins can cover all the functionality you’d need to detect a mobile visitor.

The smartphone industry is constantly changing shape much like our World Wide Web. There is really no way for tracking the next big trends in mobile websites and web apps. But there is a great argument that mobile is growing very rapidly and may soon be the dominant form of Internet access.

Keep these thoughts in mind as you sit down to build or sketch out your next project.

Conclusion

I hope you agree that mobile web design is the way of the future. There is plenty of support for newer CSS3 properties and even most JavaScript effects. When you consider how many tech lovers are switching to smartphones it’s no surprise that things are moving so quickly. Let us know your thoughts on the mobile design industry in our post discussion area.

Advertise here with BSA

43 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Matt Petronzio — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 14:32:45 PDT

If you missed any of Mashable‘s resources this week, hopefully it wasn’t because you were dealing with that nasty “Flashback” virus (make sure you check if your Mac has been infected by using this nifty script).

Once you know you’re not one of the 600,000 unlucky ones hit with the malware virus, get caught up with our weekly features roundup!

This week, we’ve covered the ways to add LinkedIn to your company’s website, tech time warp videos that will take you back to the ’80s and ’90s and memes brought to life via Twitter. We also have a Q&A with author Jonah Lehrer, an office tour of StumbleUpon’s San Francisco headquarters and infographics on topics ranging from slacktivism to employee privacy. We even have the best Draw Something sketches from Mashable readers, like you.

Go ahead and enjoy this week’s digital media resources.

Editor’s Picks

How to Be Creative: The Science of Genius
In his book Imagine: How Creativity Works, author Jonah Lehrer posits that geniuses are not superheroes, but rather products of unstifled imagination and free-flowing ideas.
How One Website Connects Those in Need With Government Assistance
Finding a government program specifically tailored to one’s needs and location can be difficult and intimidating. That’s where innovative website Aunt Bertha comes in.
Conan O’Brien Takes Over Mashable for April Fools’ Day
Just in case you weren’t obsessively checking Mashable last weekend, we wanted to give you the full picture of one of Mashable’s best-ever April Fools’ Day pranks. Enjoy!
Why ‘Slacktivists’ Are More Active Than You Think [INFOGRAPHIC]
Sortable created this infographic, which looks at the rise of slacktivism.
11 Early Pics From Android Instagram Users
Instagram launched for Android, and users are already flocking to the app to show off their best skills.

Social Media

Get Your Nerd On With Nerdist Industries’ New YouTube Channel
Nerdist Industries has launched a new platform for its nerdy content in partnership with YouTube.
7 Useful Pinterest Tools to Supercharge Your Pinfluence
Several third-party sites and services have piggybacked on Pinterest’s success, and can help you get more out of the social networking site.
10 Hilarious Memes Brought to Life on Twitter
Can’t get enough of those “Advice Animals?” Follow you these memetastic characters on Twitter for non-stop Internet hilarity.
20 TV Shows With the Most Social Media Buzz This Week [CHART]
Which TV shows generate the most buzz on social networks? Find out each week from our social TV chart.
Pinerly: Hands on With the Newest Pinterest Analytics Tool
New startup Pinerly wants to help you get a grip on your “Pinalytics.” We go hands-on with the beta service.
How Google+ Can Succeed at Business Without Really Trying
G+ is Google’s Trojan horse thanks to these features, which make it a great tool for enterprise social collaboration.
What’s at Stake When Employers Ask for Social Media Passwords? [INFOGRAPHIC]
Who is requesting access to social media information? Does access to employees’ social media passwords leave an employer legally vulnerable?
MLB Fan Cave: The Core Of Major League Baseball’s Social Strategy
The MLB Fan Cave and the people in it are at the very core of Major League Baseball’s social media strategy.
8 Tips To Maximize Your Brand’s YouTube Presence
Brands need a YouTube game plan. Here are eight tips for creating such a plan and turning your brand’s YouTube channel into a video hotspot.
25 Most-Buzzed Universities on the Internet
MIT is the most-buzzed about university on the Internet.
9 Ways to Engage Your Employees on Pinterest
Businesses can use Pinterest to encourage employees to get to know each other, and to communicate their personalities to the wider public.
How Social Media Can Help You Land That New Job [INFOGRAPHIC]
Social media can play a major role in finding that first job or hopping to a better one.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable‘s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business & Marketing

4 Facebook Features Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore
Marketers need to know which networks are the most vital to their industry, and what features are key. In Facebook’s case, there are four.
YouTube’s 20 Most-Shared Ads in March [VIDEOS]
March’s list of most-shared YouTube ads is quite diverse. We’ve got tear-jerkers, special effects, animation, comedy and more!
The Impact of Online Giving [INFOGRAPHIC]
Millions of charitable dollars are given online every year. Where does it all go? What’s it worth? And how have digital donations changed the game?
Impact Investing: How One Foundation Empowers Social Entrepreneurs
Mashable spoke with John Walker, finance director of Echoing Green, a foundation that awards grants based on the individual’s potential and not the business plan.
9 Ways to Add LinkedIn to Your Company Website
Adding LinkedIn’s social features to a company website is a great way to tap into the large-scale recruitment platform. Here are the nine key plugins.
3 Twitter Rumors and What They Could Mean for Brands
Twitter is trying to become more attractive to advertisers. Read on for three possible changes Twitter could be making for brands.
Stumble Into StumbleUpon’s San Francisco Office [PICS]
Take a look inside the discovery platform’s innovative California headquarters.
How One Company Helps Sales Teams Leverage Their Social Influence [VIDEO]
Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of Nimble, talks about how social media can be combined with CRM for better sales.
5 Best Practices for Creating Viral Branded Videos
Want to know how to get your brand’s campaign to go viral? Here are a few great insights to consider.
Crowd-Powered: Why Doritos Lets Fans Make Its Super Bowl Ads
The cheesy chip company gives the reigns to its consumers to develop Super Bowl commercials. Here’s how it all works.
How One Non-Profit Aims to Create Open-Source Government
This politically tuned non-profit’s objective is to make the government’s public data more accessible to everyone in real-time.
Learning Experiment Sparks Student Imagination With Cute Robots
Reboot Stories uses experimental education projects to keep kids in low-income areas engaged with learning.
Crowdfunding: What it Means for Investors
The crowdfunding feature in the recently passed JOBS Act will not only impact startups, it will affect investors, too. Here’s how.
4 Ways to Rethink the Press Release
Check out the four examples of companies reinventing how they use and present the press release.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable‘s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

10 Upcycled Gadgets for Your Home and Office
Check out these 10 upcycled tech gadgets repurposed as modern home and office accessories.
20 Cool Easter Eggs Hidden in Google’s 8-Bit Maps
Google Maps transformed into a gamer’s paradise, adding an 8-bit layer filled with landmarks and gaming characters to its virtual globe.
7 High-Tech Cars that will Save You Gas Money [PHOTOS]
With the price of gas topping $4 a gallon in many parts of the U.S., people are once again buying more fuel-efficient electrics and hybrids.
25 Best ‘Draw Something’ Sketches From Mashable Readers [PICS]
We asked Mashable‘s readers to show us the best Draw Something sketches they have created.
How ‘Draw Something’ Is Taking Over the World [INFOGRAPHIC]
It’s official: The world is obsessed with Draw Something. Learn the numbers behing the break-out game’s astounding growth.
Hang Ten! How the History of Surfing Went Digital
How the author of the successful Encyclopedia of Surfing is gathering online support to take the print project completely digital.
This Is What Your Future Home Might Look Like
Believe it or not, the future of the urban architecture could be in plain sight. We explored two viable options.
9 Bold Predictions for the Digital World of 2020
Click through the slideshow to see what our experts foresee: artificial intelligence, cloud computing, virtual healthcare and digital jewelry.
Happy 404 Day! Here Are the Web’s Funniest Error Messages [PICS]
In honor of 4/04/12, we recapped some of the Internet’s funniest 404 error messages.
7 Tech Time Warps That Will Blow Your Mullet Off [VIDEOS]
These YouTube videos look at today’s most used apps and technology as if they had been created in the ’80s and ’90s.
7 Crazy Tech Toys You Could Buy With Your Tax Refund
The average U.S. federal tax refund is $2,946. Think of all the awesome gadgets you could get with it!
8 Handy Tablet Styluses to Boost Your Creativity
Whether you’re sick of getting fingerprints all over your iPad or you want to get seriously creative, try a stylus for your tablet.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable‘s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, akinbostanci.

More About: Business, COMMUNICATIONS, Features Week In Review, Social Media, Tech

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

Scott Gilbertson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:36:48 PDT

A handful of the many screens your site needs to handle. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.com

Certainly you can, and most sites we’ve seen up to this point use pixels for the actual media query breakpoints, but it’s worth noting that you can use ems here as well.

Lyza Gardner over at Cloud Four recently posted a look at why Cloud Four’s new responsive design uses ems in its media queries. Here’s her reasoning for Cloud Four’s em-based approach:

Folks who design for traditional reading media — where the content really is king — don’t center design decisions around the absolute width of content-holding elements so much as around the optimal line lengths for the content they’re flowing. There are some tried-and-true numbers one can shoot for that make for the “right” number of letters (and thus words) per line for comfortable human reading.

Thus actual column width is a function of font size and ems-per-line.

All the mobile browsers I tested on Android worked as well (Firefox, Chrome, Opera Mini and the default Android browser). On iOS Mobile Safari applies em-based queries as you would expect.

BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital

Valpo Creative Marketing — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:52:36 PDT

BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital Impact Conference Keynote
Can BFF’s lead to more effective marketing? That’s the topic of discussion for the PRSA Digital Impact Conference opening keynote featuring Caryn Marooney, vice president of technology communications for Facebook. Before going to Facebook, Caryn explained that she ran an agency, however she talks about having felt like a mechanical bunny always chasing something and not catching it. Why?...

Businesses spending more on local web marketing campaigns
A

Valpo Creative Marketing — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:11:45 PDT

Businesses spending more on local web marketing campaigns
A report from BIA/Kelsey found that a focus on local campaigns and channels is contributing to the growth of overall internet marketing investment. The company that spending on local marketing initiatives will continue to grow through 2016, as businesses look to enhance their ability to appeal to nearby prospects. While local marketing typically applies to the B2C businesses trying to appeal to shoppers in their areas, a changing economy has placed emphasis...

Web Design & Marketing News

Google Embraces Responsive Design, Recommends You Do the Same

Google confirms Panda 3.6 update came on April 27

Online ads struggling to resonate, shift to web marketing could yield better ROI

Companies looking for SEO skills, outsourcing may have the answer

Six tips to make Google+ drive SEO and social success for your

Strategy Analytics Says U.S. Mobile Ad Spend Will Double This Year

Discovering Your Brand Essence

How to Install and Customize Varnish for WordPress

What is Varnish?

Installing Varnish

Step by Step

Actions

Example Configurations

Plugins

comScore Search Engine Rankings For March 2012

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

How Do I Build My Brand?

How to Improve Your mozRank

Online Marketing News: Social Media ROI Gets Serious, Know

Social media marketing yields up to 17 percent of web leads

Case Study on Building for Mobile First

Working with Limitations

Numerous Devices

Supplying Alternatives

Deploy and Test!

Related Readings

Conclusion

43 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Editor’s Picks

Social Media

Business & Marketing

Tech & Mobile

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital

Businesses spending more on local web marketing campaigns
A

Top 10 Social Media Marketing Questions

Web Design & Marketing News

Google Embraces Responsive Design, Recommends You Do the Same

Google confirms Panda 3.6 update came on April 27

Online ads struggling to resonate, shift to web marketing could yield better ROI

Companies looking for SEO skills, outsourcing may have the answer

Six tips to make Google+ drive SEO and social success for your

Strategy Analytics Says U.S. Mobile Ad Spend Will Double This Year

Discovering Your Brand Essence

How to Install and Customize Varnish for WordPress

What is Varnish?

Installing Varnish

Step by Step

Actions

Example Configurations

Plugins

comScore Search Engine Rankings For March 2012

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

How Do I Build My Brand?

How to Improve Your mozRank

Online Marketing News: Social Media ROI Gets Serious, Know

Social media marketing yields up to 17 percent of web leads

Case Study on Building for Mobile First

Working with Limitations

Numerous Devices

Supplying Alternatives

Deploy and Test!

Related Readings

Conclusion

43 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Editor’s Picks

Social Media

Business & Marketing

Tech & Mobile

Build Responsive Websites Like Bruce Lee

BFF’s for Increased Online Marketing Reach? PRSA Digital

Businesses spending more on local web marketing campaignsA

Top 10 Social Media Marketing Questions

Businesses spending more on local web marketing campaigns
A