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Using Emojis in Website Design 🥳

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 20:56:08 GMT

Have you ever considered using emojis in website design? For many of us, the answer has been no, never . Certainly they’re too casual for proper design, right? Maybe not.

Emojis do a certain job better than words can: they convey emotion and non-verbal cues. This effortless ability can represent a true value in situations where copywriters can often struggle to properly convey tone and intent with written text.

Making the Case For Emojis ��

In an era where digital communication is becoming increasingly dominant, businesses (and their websites) simply cannot afford miscommunications.

Vik Verma, CEO of unified communications platform company 8x8 Vik Verma explains in an interview with Forbes how emojis have become useful in professional settings:

“Plain and simple, emojis help employees communicate more effectively with each other. They can indicate tone that might otherwise be misconstrued and can boost credibility. What’s really important is getting your message across as clearly as possible, and if emojis can help with that, then go right ahead."

Are Emojis Right for Your Site? ��

If emojis are commonplace and even used professionally in business communications, are they right in website design? It depends.

Emojis can certainly be viewed as informal. If the personality of your brand is NOT informal, use of emojis may not send the right message to site visitors. However, for sites where playfulness, whimsey or culture-rich branding is in play, emojis can be fair game.

And as you’ll find later in this article, emojis can also be useful in more fundamental ways such as SEO, meta tags, and drawing the focus of shoppers.

Let’s look at some use cases for emojis in website design…

Examples

✨ Headlines

Adding an emoji to a headline can convey a gesture that is instantly recognized as friendly, familiar and human.

�� Page Navigation

Combining emojis with site navigation can reinforce the purpose and direction of a nav item. Consider using emojis in your site nav to highlight certain levels of navigation in multi-level page structures or to add clarity to pages that may feel vague in the context of your site structure.

�� Bullet Points

It seems so obvious when you see it in practice! Using emojis in place of bullets help visitors clearly understand the purpose of a list item at a glance. Try it in tables as well!.

�� Page Titles

Browsing the web with multiple tabs open is simply a way of life these days. Draw attention to your tab effortlessly with an emoji that relates to your site’s subject.

�� Page Meta Tags

Browsing the web with multiple tabs open is simply a way of life these days. Draw attention to your tab effortlessly with an emoji that relates to your site’s subject.

How to Use Emojis in Blinki ��

Mac

Press Command + Control + Space , then select your emoji.

Windows

Press Windows logo key + . (period) , then select your emoji.

Online Resources

Visit an online library such as emoji.muan.co , then select your emoji.

Notes

In this article, we referenced adding emojis to text editors in the Blinki builder. But keep in mind that emojis can be added to most any place text can be entered – such as page titles or page meta fields.
The size of an emoji is determined by the font size used in the text editor.

New! Add Signup & Login Capability to Your Native Stores

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 15:08:23 GMT

You can now add signup & login capabilities to your native stores. This gives your store a better way to track visitors and customers, improve personalized marketing efforts, and allows you to learn more about your customers’ behavior through collected data.

On the store customer’s side, this update delivers an intuitive order and account management, a fast checkout process, and robust account security - all important factors that directly affect online customers’ shopping experience.

Already have a native store you’ve built? Then the store sign up & login capability is automatically included, and the user will first encounter it during checkout (as an invitation to sign in or register). All you have to do is review its design and content settings to adjust it to your needs.

Effortless order management

Help store customers stay on top of their orders with the brand-new account dashboard. From real-time order tracking to easy access to order history, managing orders has never been simpler.

Lightning-fast checkout

One of the things that can deter a potential store customer from purchasing is a lengthy checkout process. With this new signup & login capability, customers can now save shipping and billing addresses in their account, manage their preferred payment methods, and check out a lot faster for the ultimate shopping convenience. Offer store customers a shopping experience that’s as intuitive and seamless as possible.

Robust account security

Build trust and confidence in your clients' eCommerce sites with Blinki’s state-of-the-art security measures. Our store login functionality incorporates enterprise-grade security and advanced encryption methods to protect customers’ sensitive data.

Native Store Now Supports Bank Transfers, Buy Now Pay Later and Other Payment Methods Through Stripe

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 09:30:28 GMT

We’re happy to announce there are now (many) more payment methods you can add to your native stores’ checkout, using your existing Stripe gateway.

Adding more payment methods expands merchants’ global reach, but also delivers an excellent user experience to store visitors. When ready to pay online, seeing a familiar, trusted payment method will create a positive reaction among store visitors while merchants will see higher conversions on the store overall.

New payment methods now available through Stripe

Stripe now includes numerous types of payment options you can choose from, including:

e-Wallets - from Apple Pay and Google Pay to Cash App Pay, MobilePay, AliPay and WeChat Pay, to name a few
Buy now, pay later payments - like Affirm, Afterpay, Clearpay and Klarna
Bank transfers - including ACH Bank Transfer for US and Canada, and SEPA bank for European customers
Real-time payments - like PayNow and PromptPay for Asian businesses

Once you or your client turn on one or more payment methods over at Stripe, you'll see those new methods in your store's Payment providers tab, and they'll be active and available for the relevant checkouts.

Some questions you might have - and their answers

Will this require any actions from the merchants?

Once merchants turn on the new available payment method(s) in their Stripe account, these will automatically update in our platform (assuming their Stripe account is properly connected and active), and will show at checkout. No additional actions are required on their part. Also, merchants won’t need to reconnect their Stripe account or create a new one to make this happen.

What if merchants prefer not to add more payment methods via Stripe?

Ideally, all merchants stand to benefit from using this new payment method integration, but if they prefer to keep their current checkout experience, they can.

Can merchants still add PayPal on top of Stripe to accept payments via PayPal?

Yes, this option will remain available as it is today.

What are the restrictions for Klarna and Afterpay?

To make Klarna and Afterpay available at checkout for store buyers, you'll need to make sure that:

These payment methods are turned on in the merchant's Stripe dashboard
The merchant Stripe account’s country matches the customer’s country (e.g., Canada with Canada, US with US, EU with EU).
The currency matches the country (e.g., CAD in Canada, USD in US, Euro in EU).
The purchase is a one-time payment (not a subscription or membership plan)

For more information on Klarna and Afterpay, see Stripe’s documentation on the subject.

Go ahead and start integrating more payment methods into your native stores to help offer a personalized and more engaging shopping experience to your customers.

New Template: Church Community

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 11:18:44 GMT

Meet our newest template, designed specifically for community based organizations, groups and agencies. This multi-page template is ideal for faith based organizations, but can work just as well with any others that have similar site and content requirements.

Whether your client represents a church, a mosque or a non-profit organization, this template includes everything you could possibly need to show everything that organization is doing. In addition to static pages with content, the Church Community template includes pages for video and podcast streams that you can set up for your client. This gives their organization the power to keep their community close, engaged and united - wherever their members are.

Here are additional features unique to this template you should know about:

Use Dynamic Pages for content like programs, podcasts and music

If your client’s organization uses multiple channels to communicate with its community, and needs multiple pages with the same basic layout (but different content), you can turn the template’s Groups, Podcast and Music pages into Dynamic Pages .

A trendy color palette to keep your site modern and stunning

We’ve used a beautiful collection of colors for this template, and it's already set up as the template’s Theme Colors, meaning it’s super easy to make color changes if you need to, and they’ll instantly update everywhere across your site in widgets and elements connected to these colors.

Menu, pages and sections to showcase all the organization has to offer

The template includes an expandable menu layout that looks great on all screens. In addition, its pages are designed for promoting upcoming events, and include a section for inviting community members to download the organization’s app, if it has one.

Easy and intuitive donation based payment capability

Simply set up a payment gateway for the site using Stripe, and offer site visitors an easy way to make a donation to the organization. In addition, there’s an option for your client to use a page for presenting an annual report for a church or another organization.

In addition to all of these capabilities, the Church Community template includes standard pages like about us, a blog for articles and posts, a dedicated page for children and youth programs, a visit us page, FAQ sections and a lot more.

To use the Church Community template for your next site project, go to the Templates page .

Jump-start Your Relationship with Customers with the Form’s Auto-Reply Email

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 11:46:12 GMT

We’ve added a new capability to the Contact Form widget: setting up an automated reply email to people who submitted a form on the site. This new email can also include a copy of submitters’ form message.

Creating and customizing an automated reply to submitted forms is your chance to help clients create more engaging relationships with their customers from the very beginning.

Help to jumpstart your brand + customer relationship

When you add a new Contact Form widget to a site, it will now include a preselected option to add an auto-reply email to form submitters - including fallback email message text you can obviously change and customize to your needs.

How to customise the auto-reply’s default email message

To edit the default email message, go to the widget’s Content panel. Open the Submissions tab and select Actions after submission . Scroll down to Email settings , and look for the preselected Auto-reply to form submitter toggle.

Below it you’ll find editable email text sections you can personalize however you wish: Sender’s name (the email’s “from” field), Email subject line, and the message itself.

This is also where you can control whether or not the form submitter will get a copy of their submitted form data in the automated reply email. This will be preselected by default, too.

How this will affect existing Contact Form widgets in your sites

Any existing Contact Form widgets you have on your sites will now include the toggle option to send an automated reply to form submitters, but it will be turned off by default. To enable it on existing sites, open the widget’s Content panel as mentioned above and turn it on manually.

Introducing the Brand New Media Slider (with Video!)

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 11:47:45 GMT

We'd like to introduce to you the new Media Slider widget, offering many new and improved layouts, video slides and even text-only slides, and allowing you to customize it the way you want. Sliders on sites can be an effective interactive tool for visitors to browse content in a more focused and organized way.

One slider, virtually endless content possibilities

Use the Media Slider widget to deliver different content types like testimonials, FAQs, product presentations, a team section, services and more. It’s the perfect widget for highlighting a certain aspect of a business in an engaging way.

So what’s new? Quite a bit

We’ve built the Media Slider to include all the capabilities you could possibly need to build exactly what you want, and deliver an attention grabbing slideshow your site visitors will enjoy. Here are the highlights of the new capabilities you’ll find in the Media Slider: Lots of new layouts to choose from

Browse numerous layouts and find the one that fits your site and business. From a standard carousel to a more unique slider layout, you’re bound to find one that your client will be happy with.

Add video slides

That’s right, video slides are a top engaging way to convey a message. Get site visitors’ attention from the first second.

Text-only slides

Add a slide without an image for a compelling message to site visitors. The choice is yours.

Control playback, slide transition, design and more

The widget’s Design panel includes lots of options and settings to choose from, so you can customize it to your client’s needs.

How will this affect sites that include the Image Slider?

The new Media Slider widget replaces the previous Image Slider widget. Any existing sites you have with the previous Image Slider widget will remain as they are with the slides they include. If you’d like to switch to the new Media Slider for your existing sites, you’ll have to remove the older image slider, and then add the new Media Slider widget to your site instead.

Enjoy More Schema Power in the Blinki Platform

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:31:41 GMT

We’re excited to share that the Blinki platform now supports schema markup for videos , blog posts and native store products .

What's schema, anyway?

Also known as structured data, schema is additional context search engines use to understand a page's content, so they can better show it as a rich or enhanced snippet in relevant search results. For example, we can use schema markup on a product page so Google can verify the product details like price, quantity in stock and images, then use these in Google Shopping search results.

When your site content appears in rich results, it can give it a competitive advantage and better click-through rates. We recommend running the page you enable schema on through Google’s Rich Results Test to see that Google finds them!

Easily add the necessary schema markup to site videos

You can now enter 3 new video details that together provide Google with the necessary structured data to display your videos in rich SERP results for relevant organic searches. When editing a video on your site, go to the Video Content tab and scroll down to Video Schema . Enter the video’s title, description and upload date.

Enjoy automated schema markup for blog posts

That’s right. For every new blog post you publish, the Blinki platform will automatically generate the necessary schema markup for that post, saving you the overhead and additional time you would have otherwise had to spend on this.

Native store products now get automatic schema markup, too

We want to help you focus on building and growing your client’s store and business. That’s precisely why we’re now automatically generating the schema markup for every active product in your native store catalog .

Goodbye Writer’s Block, Hello AI Content Assistant

Tue, 23 May 2023 11:35:49 GMT

We’re excited to announce Blinki’s brand new AI Assistant, now available in the Text widget .

Harnessing the power of AI right within Blinki

Blinki’s focus has always been on empowering you with the tools you need to deliver high-performing websites quickly and at scale. Now with AI, we’re taking it to a new level.

We want to equip you with game-changing capabilities integrated right into the platform that can make a significant impact on your business . Now you can leverage the power of AI without leaving Blinki or breaking your workflow, saving valuable time in the process.

Meet your new AI Content Assistant

To kick off the integration of AI capabilities within Blinki, you’ll find the AI Assistant ready and waiting where you spend most of your time when building a site - creating and optimizing content using the Text widget . This is the very first step in our planned long term investment in AI.

Get suggested texts within seconds

To generate content, simply select an option from the AI Assistant’s menu in the Text widget, describe in a few words what sort of text you need and within seconds it will suggest content that you can then customize however you wish.

Check out this paragraph, generated by our AI Assistant for Moble, a sustainable home products store:

The quality is in the details

To make sure you get high quality and relevant content from the AI Assistant, we’re incorporating some basic details about the business into each content prompt.

That’s why when you first use the Assistant on a new site, we’ll ask for a few details about the specific business behind the site. It’s a one-off action that will automatically add the relevant business context to any future content prompt to make sure the suggestions you get are the most relevant.

Make quick edits and preview suggestions

Want a quick rephrase of a sentence your client has sent you? Have a big block of text you’ve written that’s too long for a certain site section? Use the AI Assistant’s Quick edits menu options to improve the text, make it shorter or longer, and even fix its spelling and grammar.

For each suggested piece of content, you can choose to preview it on the canvas and see what it looks like before making your decision final. And if you want to copy any of the suggested texts to share with others or use elsewhere, that’s also available for your convenience.

In case you want to explore or compare additional versions of the same content, hit the Try again button to generate a new version.

The Text widget is just the beginning

Blinki is focused on developing integrated solutions that meet you throughout your site journey, from your first conversation with a new client to publishing and maintaining the site. We'll be adding additional capabilities and improvements to the AI Assistant regularly. Keep an eye out for more AI integrations in other parts of the platform.

The AI Assistant is available in English with more supported languages coming soon, and is currently available as part of your existing plan package at no additional cost.

Find the Right Apps for Your Site with New App Store Categories

Mon, 15 May 2023 11:42:46 GMT

It’s now much easier to search, find and install the right apps for your site, thanks to newly added app categories in the Blinki App Store.

We’ve created simple categories that can help you better orient yourself and find the apps and site capabilities you need, based on common themes like SEO (where you can find apps like WooRank, The Near Me and Google’s Search Console), Accessibility (like AudioEye and UserWay), Communication (like Chaty for example) and other categories.

Start browsing apps in the Blinki App Store

To get started with browsing and discovering the apps available in the Blinki App Store, simply go into the editor of the site you want to add an app to, and hit App Store on the left panel. As soon as you enter, you’ll see the app category list.

Introducing the Secondary Theme Button

Mon, 01 May 2023 11:55:48 GMT

Enjoy the power of site theme for buttons - easily set and change the style of your site’s theme primary and secondary buttons to keep design consistent across your site, and to cut your overall design time.

Easily style and edit your site theme buttons

Control your theme button’s design using the regular design panel you’re already familiar with in the Editor - it now includes the additional theme button style section on the top.

All site widgets containing a button will have the primary and secondary theme button selection option.

Now Available in the Native Store: Abandoned Carts

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 11:54:02 GMT

Now there’s an easier way to look at and understand visitor’s interactions with your store: abandoned carts.

This newly added feature to the native store allows you to view the list of your store’s abandoned carts, the items they include, and information about the customer who left it (in case they left any details).

For now, you’re welcome to view the list of all your store’s abandoned carts, dive into an individual cart, and even copy the customer’s email address to manually send out an email for retargeted marketing efforts.

Recovery campaigns and more actions on the way

Very soon we’ll be adding more options and actions to the abandoned cart feature, like recovery campaigns. So stay tuned.