colorful weave designed from many linked threads

Useful Links for DIY Content Design

Are you a content designer who writes copy and designs web pages? Me, too! One day I’m rewriting metadata for a web page. The next day I’m mocking up a landing page. Here are resources I’ve found to help me with my multi-disciplinary projects.

Figma and Web Design

Figma is an online design tool made especially for apps and websites. Students can get Figma for free, but the rest of us must buy a subscription. It isn’t hard to get started making mockups with Figma, though true mastery would take time!

Figma Tools and Plugins on Smashing Magazine

Data Visualization tool from DataViz Project

Happy Hues Website Color Inspiration

CSS Shadow Palette Generator

CSS Gradient Generator

Nuggets of Wisdom About Influencing Humans

User Experience Research

My stress response is learning new things. Go figure. So during lockdown in 2020, I studied Human-Computer Interaction with Cornell University online. This opened up a world of User Experience ideas and research techniques.
Here are free templates for UX/UI research projects from the very reputable Neilsen Norman Group.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/free-ux-templates

Copywriting

Writing good copy takes time and care. I have been writing a first draft and then using the free version of the Hemingway editor app to polish the text. I can write metadata descriptions much faster using Copy.ai. Copy.ai will write a few descriptions and then I choose the best fit for my webpage content. My one complaint is that the descriptions are often bland and predictable. This can be fixed by combining phrases from a few options or changing a word or two.

Hemingway Editor App

Spelling and Grammar from Grammarly

Copy.ai

SEO Campaigns

Here are two ways to keep track of your SEO campaigns.

Google Trends Explore

MOZ SEO Software
MOZ offers a free subscription level and moderately priced courses you can take at your own pace. The toolbar extension for Chrome shows the domain authority, page authority and Spam level for every page you visit. It will show the same information on Search Results. It is very handy for competitor research and monitoring your site.

Do you have a suggestion for this list? Did you find a broken link? Use the contact form to let me know.

I’d be happy to hear from you.


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