These are what some of the biggest websites looked like 20 years ago and you won't believe it...

Since the World Wide Web was invented in 1990 designers and web developers have been constantly working to improve its original clunky basic text design into a simple, fast and eye-catching user experience. Check out some of these amazing web design transformations from the past 20 years!

1. Smart Insights

Smart Insights is only 8 years old, but we wanted to highlight the design transformations we've gone through. The site originally started as a blog as seen on the home page in 2010. It's evolved into a marketing publisher - keeping its roots in content, but now offering premium services and elearning for members.

2010

2015

2018

2. YouTube

YouTube…

The pain of finding B2B survey and user research respondents is real. Here are 6 solutions including free and paid services.

Finding relevant survey respondents for market research projects can be hard and the cost can be eye watering too, particularly if you're in a specialist B2B niche or you need senior respondents. We all know that one of the hardest parts of doing any B2B research is often something which is undervalued- “getting respondents” and more importantly “getting the right respondents”. So you’re running a survey and it’s pretty niche, say you’re looking for B2B respondents purely for research rather than lead generation – where do you start? Where do you actually go for respondents? We’ve scoured the web and even given some of these a try, for our 6 ways to find B2B survey respondents.

Option 1: Google Consumer Surveys

It might be branded “consumer surveys” but they have lots of B2B publishers…

Chart of the Day: How perceptions of the applications of AI differ between agencies and brands

In our infographic reviewing the applications of AI in marketing, we explore 15 different applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across the customer lifecycle from media buying to marketing automation and chatbots. It's around a year now since we developed this infographic, so it's interesting to know how widely used AI is, both by businesses and their agencies. In today's Chart of the Day, I'm sharing some research which helps show how AI is being used for marketing. The sample is smaller than what I would usually look to share and it is skewed since it is a customer survey of Albert and AI tool for marketing, but with relatively few adopters of AI, this is inevitable and I thought the report below might be useful both for agencies and brands to learn about the 'Use Cases' of…

Standing out online is not a question of quick fixes. It’s a question of mindset

Web design sits at the core of a site’s success. It communicates the substance of what you do and why anyone should care. Peel back the veneer of a lot of sites and you’ll be surprised by how many fail to do either. More people are online than ever. Standing out online is not a question of quick fixes. It’s a question of mindset. There are now nearly 200 million active websites, and over 3.5 billion internet users. Yet the average user visits less than 100 sites each month. That all adds up to a lot of competition. The internet is busy on a level we can barely conceive, and only so many sites can rise above the bustle and have their voices heard. Modern resources mean just about anyone can make a website, which is great.…

How and where to get human input for your web experiences

We live in an age of high online connection, but low interpersonal connection. Even in relatively casual settings, people just don’t chit-chat as much anyone. And this bums me out in my gut. Why? Because, as social animals, we long for human interaction. In fact, recent research shows that people with strong social ties are not just happier, but they live longer.

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It’s the same on the Web; true social interaction - not just posting content and comments - is limited. True, some websites do offer phone and chat support, but it’s often handled by entry-level employees untrained in sales tactics, and sometimes lacking interpersonal empathy. We’re…

Consistent connection matters, regardless of the season

Communicating with your customers isn't about waiting for the right moment. It's about reaching them during times of need, times of plenty, and everywhere in between. Take educators, for example. Although most schools make spending decisions in March and April, our "Digital Marketing Trends in the Education Market" report found that educators are actually most engaged during the month of July — when 97 percent of K-12 schools are out of session. If marketers only spoke to educators during the spring purchase period, they'd miss a critical time when educators are ready to consume content. Not only do educators have less time to read and share content during the height of the spring semester, but they also often use the summer months to plan lessons for the coming fall. Without a year-round approach, marketers couldn't truly call themselves educators' partners. Just like educators, other audiences have slower and busier seasons. They go in and…

CXJM is essential to help you lay down your plan of attack and start realizing the opportunities for delivering against customer experience objectives

It's no secret that most marketers are on the same trajectory and curve when it comes to Customer Experience. Although some are further along the journey than others, almost all are heading towards the common goal of achieving a single customer view. Therefore, most will have also had some exposure to Customer Experience Journey Mapping (CXJM) in some way, shape or form. As an approach, CXJM is essential to help you lay down your plan of attack and start realizing the opportunities for delivering against customer experience objectives. When conducted properly, the process will give you a better understanding of what the experiences of your customers really are and how you can start to plan effective communications around them. Part of my role is now leading the entire Journey Mapping process…

Use these 11 classic techniques to boost email engagement

Is a bottleneck breaking the momentum of your emails? It’s time you rethink your email marketing strategy and create interesting emails that can get you better subscriber engagement. With 149,513 emails being sent each minute, standing out in the inbox is of utmost importance. Below, EmailMonks brings to you simple email marketing mantras that can help you to develop visually impressive emails for your subscribers all over the world. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/]

1. Use interactivity

According to State of Email Report 2018 by Litmus, interactive email design will be the top email design trend in this year. In addition to GIFs and cinemagraphs, email marketing has now transcended to hamburger menus, accordions, sliders, hot spots and search bar right in the email. 

2. Incorporate parallax…

Track keyword optimization data that truly matters

We all know the drill. To pick up the most searched keywords, do our best to rank high and pay SEO consultants for achieving the position #1. Well, this isn’t necessarily the worst possible approach. However, in today’s SEO, it doesn’t work that much unless you’re a big corporation and count expenses on search engine optimization in thousands. So what can you do to pick the “right” keywords, optimize our website for them and track their positions? I’ll give you some tricks & tips how to get the best of both keyword optimization and rank tracking and I’ll show you an example in a short case study. [si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download our Premium Resource – Successful SEO guide" description="Our comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optimisation best practices isn't just for SEOs, the clear explanations mean that it can be used by marketers to ask the…

The aim of multi-platform customer service is to provide customers and audiences with options on how they would like to communicate with brands

These platforms also deliver a seamless service experience for customers, regardless of what channel they may choose to use. Delivering a smooth customer experience means having to understand your customers in order to better assist them with their queries and concerns without hassle. According to Exo Level Seamless Retail Study, 49% of consumers believed that companies should focus on integrating in-store, online, and mobile shopping channels to improve transactions. An overwhelming 89% of respondents wanted to shop for products in a manner that is most convenient for them, whether they use mobile devices, in-store transactions or online catalogs. Multi-platform customer support services should focus on the ability to track customers’ communications and their purchase behavior across various service channels. Having a multi-platform customer support service is by far the most…