Design for Change

Known has the “King of Web Standards” and a longtime hero of ours is Jeffrey Zeldman. He’s one of the brains behind WordPress, the blogging software launched in 2003 that has evolved into a popular publishing system for websites. Jeffrey once said…

“Your company’s survival is tied to the ability of the products it makes to work in situations you haven’t imagined, and on devices that don’t yet exist.”

When we’re asked to design a “responsive design” website, we still start with words. Before one pixel of design is undertaken, we have done our research on all their competitors and listed the top keywords for our customer’s industry. We list what sticks out in our research, we come to understand our customer’s pain points, we search for the “big idea” for the messaging, we list all the reasons why someone wouldn’t purchase from this customer and overcome possible objections, we describe products and services honestly and in process we find our voice and craft the entire message for the website’s content. 

Next we create the brand message. Starting with the current logo, we create a brand messaging style guide based on the website’s copy. We gather all the social proof like customer testimonials and case studies and optimize the images to look great on all device sizes such as desktops and mobile phones.

Copy dictates design, not the other way around.

Because we started with the end in mind, we have all the content for the entire website and have created a site map. Every paragraph has a goal and a call to action and the content document is packed with relevant SEO words and phrases. Then we build the wireframe to define the layout structure on the many device form factors (2-dimensional sizes). On the left side of the wireframe is the site design as it will be viewed on computers; the right side is for tablets and mobile devices. Saved as a PDF, this document serves as a “go by” during coding and development.

But what about the future of websites? The answer may surprise you. Look at that growth of wearable devices like the Apple watch. We already use responsive design to translate websites on smaller screen sizes like tablets and mobile phones, but our wearable device is already forcing web designers to redefine responsive design. It’s more intuitive and less distracting to glance at a device on your wrist. Watch for it. The Internet of Things (IoT) is on the move!

How to Choose Your Website’s Domain Name

Choosing a domain name for a new website, is an important business decision. Updating a domain for a current website to improve traffic results is an important business decision. Let’s look at some of the best practices and a few things to avoid when it comes to choosing domain names.

whats Your Brand

Make it match

Match your domain name to your brand—your company name. Why? When people hear about your product or service, they will type your company name into a search engine or a browser address bar.

Say what you mean

Short is good, but meaningful is better. When combining words, be sure the name says what you mean. The site for teachers, Teachers Talk, probably wishes it had not used the plural form for its brand name (teacherStalk), and therapist group’s site visitors keep seeing theRapist.

Check your results

Do a Google search for your brand. The results you see will be what others see. Be sure the domain name you choose, when googled, won’t put you in embarrassing company. You want to stand out in the crowd as honest, relevant, and meaningful.

Remember spellcheck

If your business is new, finding an available domain name can be a challenge! To get around this, company names are intentionally misspelled, like Flickr and Blnk. Keep in mind, someone searching for your name may see spelling correction suggestions at the top of search results and overlook your site even if it’s listed.

Think longterm

Choose a name and stick with it. It’s hard enough to print new business cards, but changing a domain name once registered and used on the web is much harder.

Use exact match domains safely

An exact match domain (EMD) is a domain name that precisely matches a search query that will likely drive traffic to your website. For example: buycheapjeansonline.com The problem is that Google sees EMDs as spam and may not even rank your EMD domain at all because they give an unfair advantage. But, if you are a solid, genuine business that just happens to have a brand name that also looks like an EMD, then you should be fine. Just be sure that your content supports your claim—and never forget that when it comes to websites, content is KING. Nothing else matters as much.

SEO in the Age of Siri and Alexa

SEO Trends for 2018: How to Get on the First Page of Google

After being in the digital marketing space for almost a quarter century, we consider it an honor to share our knowledge and know-how with peers and fellow business owners. Recently, we presented an educational “mini-seminar” that touched on meeting the new challenges for website SEO in light of trends toward image-intense responsive websites and the rising popularity of Google Voice, Echo Alexa, and Apple Siri voice-activated search queries and long-tail-plus SEO keywords.

Our Coffee Talk presentation to the Hobe Sound Chamber of Commerce was on Tuesday morning, March 13, 2018. Coffee Talks are small group educational events hosted by Hobe Sound Chamber member organizations four times a year in the John H. Filer Memorial Boardroom, an adaptable meeting and event space adjoining the Chamber’s offices on Bridge Road.

Presentation Outline:

  • SEO Keywords Trends in 2018
  • Text, long-tail & long-tail+ keywords defined
  • Good keywords vs bad keywords
  • Influence of voice search on keywords
  • Importance of mobile first design and content
  • How to build outbound links and backlinks
  • Important of image SEO
  • SEO for the User Experience in 2018 and beyond
  • What do to now to be ready for 2019

We believe that when we work together with other business owners in our community, as a community, we help spread the story of Hobe Sound—and that collectively we
become a better town because of it.

Feel free to download our presentation on SlideShare, and if you want to learn the backstory about SEO trends for 2018, or if your company might benefit from a personal no-obligation one-on-one conversation about your current SEO issues, give us a call at (772) 932-7969 or contact us via email ac@activecanvas.com