But, sometimes, life happens and you have to work alone on a project. Be it a specific technology, budget reasons or something entirely else, it doesn’t really matter. Working alone doesn’t mean it’ll suck or be really stressful if you keep yourself in check.
I worked on a couple of projects as a solo frontend developer, but I rarely had the feeling like I couldn’t do it or that I maybe didn’t learn as much as I could have. If you “act” like there is a whole team involved (or that someone new will be joining you on the project), that can force you not to take shortcuts and do everything properly.
Don’t be lazy
Avoid shortcuts
It’s really easy to skip a couple of steps when working alone because, honestly, is anyone going to notice? The answer should be yes, you’ll notice it!
Opening a pull request that will be merged to master immediately might seem illogical, but having everything consistent will surely help you out in the long run. On top of that, you might notice something wrong when you’re doing a once-over.
Keep your code neat
Keeping your code neat is something you also shouldn’t skimp out on. Linters, prettiers and everything else should be setup as if you were in a team!
Be your own QA
Writing tests is a no-brainer. It’s always a great relief knowing that stuff works even after a refactor. Not having to constantly think about that will allow you to focus on more important things! That shouldn’t change even if you’re working alone.
Documentation!
It might be boring, but if you don’t do it, nobody will. At a first glance, it doesn’t seem important since you’re the only one that will be reading it. I can tell you that I know for a fact that the future you will thank you for it. It’s unrealistic to expect you’ll remember every little detail, even though you’ve written everything yourself. Having a good documentation means that some of the mental burden can be relieved because you can refer to it at any time.
Heck, something might even change within the project and your new teammate will be even faster with the onboarding.
Ask for help
Collaborate with other frontend developers
I have the benefit that there are other brilliant teammates on other projects. They might not know the domain of my project, but they can offer technical help if you explain it to them. Try to make it easy for them to understand it, and I’m sure that you’ll get new insights. The same goes for asking for help online. Just because you’re alone on the project doesn’t mean that you have to do everything by yourself.
If you have work colleagues, it’s not a bad idea to assign them on a pull request once in a while. You might be surprised how tunnel-visioned you can get!
Learn about the domain from backend
If there’s a backend, I’m sure you can discuss domain issues with them, as well. They probably know a lot and it’s a good idea to double-check with them. You might learn about something you weren’t aware of!
Improve wherever you can
Now that you’re alone on the project, you can do anything to improve your development experience. If there is a task that needs to be automated, why wouldn’t you automate it? If you can get the budget for it, you’ll save time and you’ll learn something new. This is a great opportunity to make up for not learning from your teammates. Something that a senior colleague always set up can now be done by you. It might seem daunting if it’s out of your comfort zone, but hey, how else are you going to learn?
From personal experience, these situations taught me some skills I would rarely have the time to research in other projects.
By sticking to these tips, I’ve been able to maximise my learning and do quality work as much as I could. Not having a teammate doesn’t mean that you really have to be isolated from everything else. And, who knows, you might even get someone working on a project by your side so you want to be proud of what you’re capable of doing all on your own, right?
The post How to work as a solo frontend developer appeared first on VVDesigns.]]>Unfortunately, what many experts forget is that UX doesn’t just apply to digital pages. That means that you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your website homepages to your email marketing messages and even your listings on Google.
Today, we’re going to explore ways you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.
Why Your Search Engine Listing Matters
Let’s start with the basics…
89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine.
That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.
Developers and designers know that first impressions count when it comes to succeeding online. However, they assume that those first impressions happen on a social media channel, a landing page, or a home page.
The truth is that most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or a fantastic CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.
Just as UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed and strategic manner, UX in search engine results works the same way.
How to Make Your Search Listing Stand Out with UX
So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?
It’s much easier than you’d think.
STEP 1: SHOW IMMEDIATE VALUE
Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately apparent.
When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things:
- Your headline
- Your meta description
Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that the title of your web page is going to grab the audience’s attention.
The best titles deliver instant value.
Immediately, these titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.
The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.
It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:
- Informative: Show your audience value immediately
- Optimized for mobile: Remember, your audience might not see your full title on some screens. That means that you need to make the initial words count.
- Easy to read: Keep it short, simple, and straightforward. Speak the end-user’s language
STEP 2: BUILD TRUST WITH YOUR URLS
Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.
When designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.
Within the website that you design, you can implement things like trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. In the search engines, it all starts with your URL.
Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols
Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.
Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.
STEP 3: BE INFORMATIVE WITH YOUR META DESCRIPTION
To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.
In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.
To master your meta descriptions:
- Use the full 160 characters: Make the most of your meta description by providing as much useful information as you can within that small space.
- Include a CTA: Just as CTAs help guide customers through the pages on a website, they can assist with pulling in clicks on the SERPs. A call to action like “read about the” or “click here” makes sense when you’re boosting your search image.
- Focus on value: Concentrate on providing your customers with an insight into what’s in it for them if they click on your listing.
Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.
STEP 4: DRAW THE EYE WITH RICH SNIPPETS
You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.
On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. In search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.
When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product and contact pages because they can show off reviews.
Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.
Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. You need to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.
STEP 5: PROVIDE DIVERSITY (TAKE UP MORE OF THE RESULTS)
As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?
The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.
Making sure that you or a client has different content rankings for the same keywords can significantly improve any customer’s experience on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.
To access the benefits of video, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”.
STEP 6: ADD AUTHORITY WITH GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool for improving UX in the search results. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.
With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and any online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences find a business quickly. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.
Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:
- Choose a category for a business, like “Grocery store.”
- Load up high-quality and high-resolution images
- Ensure your information matches on every platform
- Use a local number for contact
- Encourage reviews to give your listing a five-star rating
Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client gets more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.
STEP 7: USE STRUCTURED DATA MARKUP TO ANSWER QUESTIONS
If you’re already using rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a plan for structured schema markup. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will more accurately guide your customers to the support they need.
Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. For example, you might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.
Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information.
For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.
Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does many positive things. First, it makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and valuable.
Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.
Constantly Improve and Experiment
Remember, as you begin to embed elements of UX into your search engine listings, it’s essential to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are constantly changing too. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.
Like most aspects of exceptional UX, mastering your SERP position isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. Instead, you’ll need to work on constantly expanding your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.
Make sure you have plenty of tools set up to offer reports and insights into the kind of changes that you may need to make to align with search engine expectations.
Making the Most of UX in the SERPS
It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver excellent UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer has.
This means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines most of the time. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.
Don’t underestimate the power of UX in SERPs.
The post 7 UX PRINCIPLES TO BOOST SERPS appeared first on VVDesigns.]]>Of all the frameworks out there, React may be the best choice for beginners. React can do what other frameworks can, but it doesn’t obscure your code. It is easy to learn and equally easy to master, as opposed to some other frameworks which can sometimes be difficult to understand. Software development is one of the fastest-growing industries around the world and contributing to open-source projects is an excellent way to improve coding skills in general aside from tutorials.
Getting started with React is a great way to start building web apps and it’s easy to learn for beginners thanks to a huge community of developers and free tools to make development faster. There are many great open-source projects that are available for free so you can start playing around with React.
If you are a UI developer who likes playing around with HTML, and wants to get deeper into styling with CSS, and JavasScript to create visually impressive web and mobile app interfaces with high interactivity, this is the way to go. You might be thinking of Vue or Angular but React is your best option since it is the most beginner-friendly and currently the most popular javascript library.
These help people learn how to use React to build simple web apps and e-commerce websites or just learn the basics and reuse the source code and React components for a project at work, practically as a template, so you can be more efficient at your work. It will also help you generate project ideas if you want to create a personal project to show off your skills and boost your portfolio.
What makes a React open-source project good?
Choose a project that will keep your needs fulfilled. Avoid picking an open source project that’s too uncomplicated to change or debug. Find a project that you think will look appealing and useful to others.
1. Best Practices In The Industry
Open source projects can serve as guidance in front-end development and UX design to new and seasoned developers, especially when working with React is a big advantage in a startup environment that is working on cross-platform app development projects that requires an all-around when it comes to both front and backend dev.
2. Improve Your Skills
Sharing your knowledge, experience, and code with others (while they share the same in return) can prove quite a unique and effective method of learning new things.
3. Networking And Self Promoting
Being a part of an active open source community is also often a great way to polish your skills! Taking opportunities to get acquainted with other open source developers can help you build and establish a reputation for yourself within your targeted field.
How To Choose Worthwhile React Open Source Project
Choosing the right project can be tough if you don’t know where to start looking. However, to be certain of selecting an appropriate open-source project in the React ecosystem, keep these things in mind:
1. Active Community
It turns out that it is crucial to discuss the project with someone if a difficult problem appears that needs resolving.
2. Project Popularity (think GitHub)
If there’s a lively community of contributors working on open-source React projects. You can be sure that the project has grown in popularity and there will be thorough documentation to help you out along with plenty of help from other contributors.
3. Organized Documentation
The last piece of the puzzle to look for in an open-source React project should be clear and concise documentation so you can read up on any issues with a specific codebase or library.
Best React Projects for Beginners
It is crucial to learn the basics before diving into more complicated projects. Before you learn the fundamentals of how to build a site, it’s best to have a good understanding of the tools you will be using.
1. React Bootstrap
React Bootstrap is available for free and it’s a powerful tool for building production-ready apps. If you’re looking for best practices for building the front-end framework for your project, check out React Bootstrap! It’s a great starting point for anyone looking to add interactivity and responsiveness to their app. React Bootstrap gives you the freedom to choose how you want to build your app. You have the option of using the framework by itself or using it as a starting point for future integrations. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or you need a new tool to work with, React Bootstrap is a great option.
2. User Interface React Select
The team behind React.js has made a UI experiment for select inputs. See how it works and learn how to develop your own version. When it comes to making an application, it’s important to have a good user interface(UI).
Re-select is a library that allows people to select options from a list. This is a great tool for people who are building websites or web applications. It has many different features that make it easy for developers to create a rich user interface. The best part is, it’s open-source and available for free on Github.
3. Storybook
Storybook is an open-source tool that allows you to develop UI components in isolation. One of the many benefits of this tool is that it doesn’t require a lot of overhead since it runs outside of your app and on a separate page. This helps you focus solely on the development process without worrying about application-specific dependencies. Storybook creates test-driven projects by keeping track of different states or variations and helping product developers visually implement changes in each example without starting from scratch every time based on the end goal or specifications they must abide by.
4. Draft.js
Draft.js is a library you can use to create a new open-source project. It’s used for writing markdown and transforming it into a wide range of formats. You can take what you’ve written, and export it to a website, PDF, ePub, or a blog post. It’s used for web and mobile development and is easily customizable with a vast library of plugins and components. It’s maintained by a small group of developers, and the community is very active in creating new plugins.
Use React components in design
How about saving some time and reusing your React UI components in the design stage? Now, with UXPin Merge, you can connect our prototyping tool with any Git repo where you store the UI code or directly to Storybook. Then, simply bring the components to the design tool so that UX/UI designers can work with them in the design process. The benefit? You don’t need to code the component from scratch – just copy and paste the ready code from the Spec Mode in UXPin design editor. The whole product development process gets easier and designs get in line with the standards!
Conclusion
Getting started with React.js can be overwhelming at first. And so, if you’re just starting out with coding, we highly recommend looking into open source projects on GitHub.com as a way to dip your toes in UI development and UX design or get adept at iOS web apps, and maybe even tackle full-stack dev. You can learn a lot by working on a project that’s already been developed by other people & take your web development skills to the next.js level (pun intended). Want to include your React components in the design process? Get Merge technology.
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