David Martin Design

Web Design, Web Hosting, & Digital Marketing

Tag: Web Design Tools

  • 5 Figma Tools to Improve Your Web & Digital Marketing Strategy

    In today’s ever-evolving digital marketing and web design scene, streamlining your workflow is more valuable than ever. Amid a plethora of tools, identifying those that can truly streamline your strategy instead of distract can be a formidable task. Figma’s community shares files and plugins that are helpful for crafting professional web and marketing content. In this article, we focus on five practical user-made Figma tools that can refine your creative process and make your web and marketing strategy faster and more professional.

    1. Complete Favicon Generator by Ernest Ojeh

    Today, responsive website design isn’t a nice to have – it’s a requirement, and favicons are no exception. This handy design file by Ernest Ojeh takes your finalized favicon image and lets you see what it looks like across different browsers and devices. This is perfect for ensuring the chosen brand icon can be easily recognizable across devices and to show clients what it’s going to look like in various browser tabs and search engines. Additionally, each version that’s generated is contained in a frame with a matching name so using the included embed code is a simple copy paste procedure.

    Complete Favicon Generator Figma file by Ernest Ojeh

    2. Social Media Images Size by Andreslav Kozlov

    Remembering all the different ideal image sizes across all the different platforms can become quite a headache. Failure to do so often results in subpar, low quality, and pixelated posts that look unprofessional and uninspiring to viewers. This plugin by Andreslav Kozlov allows you to import perfectly sized Figma frames tailored for a wide array of social media platforms at the click of a button. Whether it’s the square layout for Instagram, the wide banner for Twitter, or the unique dimensions for LinkedIn, this plugin has all the popular platforms. This useful plugin saves time and elevates the quality of social media posts, ensuring they look crisp and engaging on any platform.

    Social Media Images Size Figma Plugin by Andreslav Kozlov

    3. Social Media Templates by Ravn

    Having your social media images in the proper size and body content ready is great for clients, but this Figma file lets you take that to the next level. With Social Media Templates by Ravn, now you can show exactly what a client’s content will look like across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X/Twitter. It even includes a prototype section with interactive carousel mockups for posts with multiple images!

    Social Media Templates file by Ravn

    4. Realtime Colors by Juxtopposed

    This isn’t your average color palette generator. realtimecolors.com is a color and font visualizer platform specifically for web designers. Using a website structure template, now you can generate and see colors and fonts provided via Google Fonts in real time. Another notable feature is it’s expansive export options – you can save and send these examples simply by sending a link to clients, providing an easily accessible starting point when making design decisions. You can also export by download, QR code, CSS code, the Figma plugin, and more, making documenting and implementing these colors and fonts on your website and marketing materials a breeze.

    Realtime Colors home page
    Realtime Colors type options
    Realtime colors export options screen
    Realtime Colors Figma plugin example

    5. ColorLabels by Naren Abbaraju

    If using the Realtime Colors plugin isn’t easy enough, here’s another to make things even easier. ColorLabels by Naren Abbaraju quickly lets you label color swatches on Fimga in a variety of formats, including RBG, HEX, HSL, and HSB. The best part? Color Labels can also automatically detect and apply Coolors.co‘s custom color labels. Calling a color swatch Aquamarine instead of #67EFE1 or “the light greenish one” is much easier for you and your clients to say, understand, and remember. It’s one of those simple changes that make the process a little more approachable.

    Example of the ColorLabels plugin created by Naren Abbaraju

    Closing Thoughts

    Navigating the world of Figma tools designed to enhance your web and digital marketing strategies can feel like entering a gold mine. With the right tools, you can supercharge your creative process, increase your efficiency, and present a polished, consistent brand image that resonates with your audience.

    Every new tool feels like a game-changer. But remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The vibrant community of Figma is loaded with new plugins, files, and ideas that are just waiting to be discovered, used, and shared.

    So, what’s the next step? Start including one or more of these tools in your strategy today. Share your triumphs and trials with them. Trade ideas with the community, learn from each other, and keep your toolbox ever-evolving. Most importantly, remember that in the ever-changing world of web and digital marketing, your greatest tool is your adaptability.

    Let’s embrace Figma to not just reach, but to exceed our creative and strategic goals, and propel our narratives into the stratosphere.

  • 5 Informative (And Free!) Web Design Tools That Can Teach You More About Your Site

    Above all, websites are vehicles designed to help you achieve larger goals. For example, a restaurant’s site might be created to increase awareness and encourage patrons to visit (or order takeout). An entrepreneur might rely on a website to inform potential clients about his or her services. 

    While a website is an ideal tool for online marketing in the 21st century, there’s no guarantee it’ll work the way you intended. Website design requires constant monitoring, updating, and adjusting in order to ensure a site is optimized for performance.  

    In order to be able to make the right adjustments, you have to first gather accurate information about your site’s functionality. Fortunately, there are a plethora of online web design tools that provide insightful and in-depth data about a site’s performance. Let’s take a look at a few you should know about.

    1. SEMRush 

    Touted by many online marketers as the premier and most comprehensive online marketing tools, SEMRush offers users an in-depth analysis of their site’s advertising information. 

    It offers data regarding paid and organic search traffic, domain referrals, backlinks, and more. This is all available in SEMRush’s free report, although you can unlock an even more extensive review for the paid version. 

    Despite being advertised as an all-in-one platform, SEMRush probably won’t eliminate the need to use other online web tools. Still, it’s a great place to start your advertising research. 

    1. ScanWP

    If you know a site is running WordPress but aren’t sure which theme, that’s where ScanWP comes in handy. Simply plug in the URL of the site, hit “search”, and you’ll be provided with a host of helpful information such as the theme version, price, associated tags, and where the theme can be purchased. 

    ScanWP even comes with Plugin detection so you can get a better idea of what’s been added to the site. Compared to other online web design tools, ScanWP is rather minimal but that’s one of its advantages too! It’s a great option for WordPress fans and can even be downloaded as an extension for Chrome browser for integrated use. 

    1. Nibbler

    Nibbler isn’t as well known as some other online web design tools, but it still earns a spot on the list. With the free version, you can put five different pages through the Nibbler tests which analyzes your site based on more than a dozen factors and offers an overall score.

    The total score (out of 100%) is an aggregate rating of your site’s accessibility, experience, technology, marketing, and more. In addition to this composite score, you’ll get a deeper breakdown of each factor, giving you a better look at your site’s strengths and weaknesses.  

    Nibbler even offers a handy list of top priorities for improving your site. 

    1. GTmetrix 

    GTmetrix is an informative online web design tool that analyzes a site’s page performance. Whether you’re trying to improve search engine optimization (SEO) or implementing a new theme, it’s always important to know how site changes are impacting overall functionality. 

    In its “speed visualization” section – pictured above – GTmetrix provides an insightful breakdown of how quickly (or slowly) your site loads by second. This gives you a better idea of how users interact with your site. 

    This online web design tool’s report page acts as an analytics dashboard where key indicators of site load speed are neatly organized and summarized. Similar to Nibbler, you’ll also get actionable tips for improving your site page speed. 

    1. Pagelocity 

    Customer experience is an integral component of website design. If you’re looking for a web design tool that’s geared towards analyzing your site’s optimization in this area, Pagelocity is an excellent choice. Its analysis focuses on three different categories: on-page SEO, performance, and code insights. 

    On-page SEO offers insights into various factors on your site that are critical to SEO such as headings, keywords, and links (both internal and external). Performance analyzes your site’s composition including scripts, style files, and images to determine its overall functionality. Lastly, Code Insights goes a little more in-depth to look at a site’s markup which refers to tags, classes, and page speed. 

    Your Local Web Design Expert 

    If you’re not sure how your website is performing, David Martin Design can help. With decades of experiencing building, designing, and optimizing sites, David knows what it takes to keep websites up and running efficiently to meet your goals. Feel free to contact David to learn more.