What Reddit Life Is All About

Founded in June of 2005 by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, Reddit has become one of the top entertainment social networking websites in the world. Reddit’s global presence contains content of text, photo, video, and direct link posts.

The name Reddit (sort of) sounds like, “I ‘read it’ on Reddit.” Reddit has users in  over 190 countries with over 5 billion total page views and over 114 million visitors per month.

At first, I was a bit perturbed by how validated the content is and who was posting, thinking to myself that anyone and everyone is on the web, so how do you know what is being shared is legit?

I went to post in the Ask Me Anything (AMA) subreddit and I had to provide a link providing confirmation that I was actually who I said I was. That made me feel better, especially when I was inspired to write my first AMA post after reading a post from USA Today reporter and American astronomer Seth Shostak, known for his extensive research for search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Tips from seasoned Reddit users:

·      User temporary17: “If you criticize someone's post, do so constructively. Never attack the person behind the post, even if they deserve it.”

·      User greyclocks: “Don't just stay subscribed to the default subs. Find subreddits that you like or interest you. There's a subreddit for everything.”

·      User Mexican_mudkipz: “Reposting is not bad! If gives you free karma!”

·      User sheymyster: “You can pick up a lot of software super cheap. I recently built my first gaming computer and I picked up a Windows 7 ultimate key for $19, I think it's usually like $200 retail. I believe the subreddit is/r/softwareswap.”

Great tips, but what is all the talk about a “subreddit”? A subreddit is a forum dedicated to a specific topic. You can even create your own subreddit, but let’s not get too ridiculous that nobody would think to search for a keyword linking to your subreddit. These titles are not hashtags. Some of the popular subreddits are: Funny, Pics, Gaming, AskReddit, WorldNews, Politics, and Random. There are also unique subreddits like: TodayILearned, ShowerThoughts, AdviceAnimals and NotTheOnion.

If you really get into Reddit, you can work on your karma. Fellow Redditors can upvote or downvote a post, link, photo, or anything else you might share. Reddit states, “If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.”

Reddit’s community has grown far and popular, offering something for everyone to read or laugh about. Reddit is an interactive community that can help get things accomplished!

Adaptive Design Means A Website With High Usability

Websites today are all about ‘authority’. A site’s authority can be measured in many ways; from traffic analytics to third party indices to social media approval to organic rank to conversions, aka sales. Ultimately, the value of an organization’s site is measured by its stakeholders’ performance expectations. It’s the site’s authority on the web, however, that gets you there.

Whether it’s known to them or not, companies considering rebuilding their corporate site are likely dealing with authority issues. Low authority on the web can be caused by many factors such as aging infrastructure, site architecture, usability issues, content issues or all of the above. It all boils down to providing a good quality user experience. 

Delivering A High Quality User Experience

The first step in delivering a quality user experience is knowing your audience. This means we must not only attract our target audiences, but we must retain them on our site. If your target audience visits your site and there’s no spark, there’s no retention. And if there’s no retention then your goals and the expectations of your stakeholders will not be met. If there is one thing we know about most audience, it’s that they love attractive visuals. Engaging these audiences through stunning creative is the key.

Beautiful creative, however, is only part of a quality UI design. The design must also provide a fantastic experience across multiple devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions. This is where Adaptive Design concepts should be applied. If you don’t have a mobile-optimized version of your web site then this is not only a problem from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective as stated by Google (i.e., lower organic rank), but it can result in usability issues on mobile devices such as small tablet devices and smartphones. These usability issues generally result in higher bounce rates and less time on site for mobile visitors. Higher bounce rates also contribute to lower authority.

Solving These Issues With Adaptive Design

Adaptive Design seeks to dynamically adjust you web site’s page content based on the size of the screen or the type of device visitors are using. This methodology results in a smooth user experience regardless of the device being used, plus it adheres to Google’s best practices for high organic rank in mobile searches.

Combining a great user experience with superior functionality is the golden ticket when it comes to achieving authority with your web design. And Adaptive Design is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.