eTrader provide high-quality ecommerce websites for garment decorators who wish to market and sell their products online. Not only has this service helped countless clothing companies to find their feet on the world wide web, it has also allowed many other businesses to supplement their main revenue stream by selling a range of garments via eTrader affiliate websites.

Being a primarily web-based business, eTrader naturally wanted to ensure that their own website was giving visitors the best possible impression. That's why they asked the Designer Websites team to help them update their site with a brand new design and some improved functionality for potential clients.

eTrader's new website has just gone live, and we're all extremely pleased with the finished job. In this blog post, we'd like to briefly talk about some of the improvements that have been made...

eTrader's old website had begun to look a little dated, but far more importantly, the site was not optimised for mobile devices. This meant that anyone viewing the eTrader site on a smartphone or tablet would have found it difficult to navigate the website as easily as a desktop user.

The new eTrader website is an entirely different story. The site's new blue and white colour scheme looks fresh and modern. bringing the eTrader brand right up to date; furthermore, the responsive, mobile-friendly design allows the site to fully accommodate the needs of mobile/tablet users, adjusting to fit screens of any size.

 

Jump Factory is a brand new trampoline park that's set to open in Basingstoke next month. Situated in a converted warehouse, the park will consist of more than 80 trampolines, plus other installations like a half pipe and a giant airbag.

 

Trampoline parks are all the rage right now, appealing to everyone from mums and babies to trained athletes looking to sharpen their skills. At time of writing, Jump Factory's grand opening is still more than a month away, but thanks to the assistance of our social media specialists, the park is already attracting a lot of attention online:

 

 

Amazingly, Jump Factory's Facebook page has already racked up more than 2,200 likes - not bad for a business that's yet to even open!

 

As you can probably imagine, the Jump Factory team are expecting a lot of demand when they open their doors on the 29th of February (leap day, appropriately enough), and so they asked us to design and build a top-quality website that would make it easy for potential customers to learn about the park and book visits online.

 

And, as usual, the Designer Websites team were more than up to the challenge! The Jump Factory website went live earlier this week, and we're pleased to report that early bookings are already flooding in. Jump Factory's website features a colourful, dynamic design that aims to appeal to serious jumpers as well as to families in search of a fun day out; the site is also fully responsive, making it easier for the people of Basingstoke to book their jumping sessions via smartphone or tablet.

 

Recently we were approached by Access Training Academies, a trade qualification course provider who were interested in improving the usability and search engine performance of their website.

The development of new technology moves at an alarmingly accelerated rate, and it's important for business owners and web developers alike to keep up with these changes in order to respond to customer demands. One of the biggest changes to how we search and browse the internet today has been the popularisation of portable devices such as smartphones and tablets. We are now able to search for products and services online at any time we wish with practically no restrictions, dramatically changing the way in which we browse and keep up with online content. As a direct result of these changes, website owners need to adapt their sites in order to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers.

This is why responsive web design has become such a popular solution in recent years. Internet users now expect to be able to transfer from one device to another with ease, and well-made responsive websites deliver consistency and adaptability to users while making the lives of SEOs much easier in the process. In this blog post, we will highlight some of the differences between responsive and non-responsive websites, demonstrating why the former option is usually the better of the two.

Images are a great way to capture a user's attention straight away, which is part of the reason why it's important to include great-quality visuals on any website. A non-optimised website can pose many problems when viewing these images on portable devices, including increased loading times. Responsive web design utilises flexible grids, layouts and images in combination with intelligent use of CSS media queries to address this problem, allowing visuals to appear clearly across a multitude of devices with varied screen sizes. 

As noted above, responsive websites are a great way to prevent images from losing their impact when viewed on devices with smaller screens. This goes for the text and navigation of a website, too; by optimising a website for use on mobile devices, web developers are able to streamline content while making it easier for users to view and navigate the site.

Some would argue that a dedicated mobile website performs better in this respect, particularly in the case of news sites with a lot of written content or ecommerce sites with a variety of functions that are difficult to translate. But here's the problem: due to the fact that every website must found its reputation from scratch, regardless of a separate website being part of the same brand or business, a separate mobile website will struggle to perform well in search engines. A responsive website, on the other hand, can deliver a great user experience across all devices whilst also preserving the site's reputation by keeping everything under one URL.

Recognition from Google is of vital importance to every website owner, due to the simple fact that high Google rankings drive a lot of traffic. If you're looking to improve your Google rankings, it's important to keep an eye on the bounce rate of each page on your website; a high bounce rate means that users leave quickly because they can't find what they are looking for.

Non-responsive websites often fail to translate content efficiently from one device to another, and this can force mobile visitors to give up on your site very quickly. This is why responsive websites seek to prioritise usability in their design, benefiting both the customer and the website owner by improving the search and share experience. The issue of consistent reputation (see above) is also part of this wider experience, as it once again makes it easier to get your site noticed and ranked higher by Google. Having a single URL for all versions of your site makes it easier for Googlebot to crawl and index the content while avoiding any accidental duplicate content issues. meaning that all positive reactions will be valid on other devices.

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And there you have it: a short guide to the difference between responsive and non-responsive websites, and how they function for users and businesses.

Have you ever seen a photo of something microscopic (such as a dust mite or a red blood cell) and wondered how that photo was taken? Well, there's a high probability that it was captured using a scanning electron microscope, or SEM; there's also a reasonably good chance that it was taken by the team at PSmicrographs, who specialise in SEM photography and provide a huge variety of detailed stock images to the people and the organisations who need them.

We quoted PSmicrographs for a responsive website design, and work was soon under way to make their extensive image library easier to browse on mobile devices. That work has now been completed, and www.psmicrographs.co.uk is now a fully responsive website, functioning just as well on smartphones and tablets as on desktop computers.

If you need scientific stock photos of anything from chromosomes to wolf spiders, we heartily recommend that you visit the PSmicrographs website and browse their comprehensive collection of SEM images. Whether you're browsing the website on a PC, an iPad, or your mobile phone, we are confident that you'll find it easy to navigate and a joy to use in general.