web design

A Proper Rethink: Why Businesses Should Revisit Their SEO Strategy From Time to Time

Posted on by Mario

SEO tips

In the business world, some departments have it far easier than others. The HR and the finance department for example is usually static and unchanging, there might be certain periods where they’re much busier than the usual but you’re usually juggling around the same things. Contrast this to those working on the field of marketing, where trends change as often as the pop culture fads. In one moment, you might be making references to the latest Avengers film while in the next; you might be talking about something else entirely.

Marketing has always been about the zeitgeist, searching for something that’s currently dominating our current discourse and if appropriate, using them for our own benefit. This has been the case for decades and will probably remain true for the foreseeable future. As a relatively new branch of marketing, SEO is also bound by the same rules and as we go further into this discussion, I’m going to outline several reasons why it’s a good idea for businesses and SEO services alike to revise their SEO strategy from time to time to keep up with the ever-changing landscape.

Adapting with the latest marketing trends

Before the start of the final season of Game of Thrones, Mountain Dew aired a commercial featuring some of the brand’s usual collaborators humming the series’ theme song. During the Marvel-related euphoria that coincides with the latest Avengers two-parter, Infinity War and Endgame, my social media feed was also filled with so much Avengers-related content that you can’t swing a metaphorical dead cat without hitting Thanos’ absurdly large chin. The same thing also happened during the run-up to Harry and Meghan’s first child.

Taking advantage of the latest pop culture trends has been part of the marketing playbook for as long as that playbook has existed but it’s pretty common for brands to give the same treatment to their whole SEO strategy in general. Making fresh & original contents does help with SEO but that’s far from enough as SEO as a field encompasses a whole lot more than just content. SEO has one foot in technology and the other in marketing and the fact that these two fields never stay rooted in place should be enough to convince you.

Google’s algorithm are constantly updated

Search engine algorithms are constantly tweaked based on the data they’re getting from queries submitted by their public. Most of the time, these tweaks are minor but every now and again, Google rolls out one major update or two that should definitely prompt a proper rethink on your part. These major updates are usually announced beforehand and while the technical details of what the update would change is kept strictly confidential, some general information revolving around the update would typically be published to keep businesses from being caught off-guard.

To keep you abreast of what’s cooking at Google, it’s a good idea for business owners to subscribe to the Google Webmaster blog as that’s where news around Google’s search technology is published. Even if you aren’t fully in control of your SEO strategy, you have a contract with an SEO services company that does the heavy lifting for you, say, it’s still a good idea to at least keep yourself informed so you could tell when they’re doing the job you paid them to.

The world of web development are constantly updated with new technologies

SEO is broadly divided into two categories, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. The latter refers to things you do outside your webpage for the purpose of generating traffic such as posting on social media platforms while including a link to your website. Meanwhile, the former relates to the things you do inside your website such as uploading blog posts to your website and optimizing how your website is displayed and loaded, which directly revolves around the world of web design & development.

A decade ago, when a webmaster wants to optimize their website for mobile devices, they have to go through the painstaking process of stripping the more sophisticated elements of their website and adapting the size of the remaining elements to small screens and a portrait landscape. Eventually, with the advances made in mobile devices and web development, the concept of responsive web design becomes the new normal with websites now simply adapting to the size and orientation of the screen they’re displayed on.

Responsive web design is just one example in how web development practically changes the world of SEO as Google at the moment considers responsive web design to be the model for mobile optimization. However, this could change in the future as companies experiment with new display models such as folding phones and VR, which is why it’s important for business to adapt their on-page SEO strategy with the latest news in web development. What is considered a best practice now might turn obsolete in just a couple of years.

Being on the first page is good, being first period is better

Another reason why businesses might want to take a second look at their SEO strategy is simply because there might be a better way of doing things or because your current strategy just isn’t working. Comfort is the enemy of progress and thanks to the somewhat esoteric nature of SEO, there’s always something you could do in order to achieve a better result. It’s possible for example that the keywords you’re optimizing for is slightly too generic and your effort is practically being bulldozed by bigger brands with considerably more brand recognition. It’s also possible that your contents just aren’t relevant enough to be given top billing on search engine results.

The business of optimization is akin to a true friend’s work; it’s never done. There’s always something you could to increase efficiency, either by getting more results using the same amount of resource or getting the same amount of results by using less resource. Even if you feel your current SEO strategy is working well enough, it’s never a bad idea to take a second look as there are probably a couple of things to try out that you might’ve previously missed.

How to Design for Engagement by Making Use of Colour, Type and Space

Posted on by Mario

design tips

I don’t know about you but I see design as something personal – something that moves the heart. If a design was a real person, I’m pretty sure it would be multi-tasking. Not only can a design show beautiful art to the eyes, a design can also be useful for many things. I’m sure you guys know why someone invented card holders. Yes, card holders are designed to keep your cards secure and neat. Aside from that, a design can also change the mood of a person. Trust me, I was all grumpy and upset when the Uber driver I booked was impatient to wait for me this afternoon that he left me after I walked far to get there. However, soon as I got another Uber driver, I was mesmerised by his car design that made me comfortable and even forget my anger. It is the power of design. If you have a business, surely, design is something you should prioritise. Whether it is your product design, packaging design, or even your web design; you should prioritise its usability, not its design looks only. In this article, I’m going to tell you how to design your website with engagement in mind using colour, type and space. Keep reading to find out!

Colour

Colour is a powerful tool in a design. When it comes to visual communication, few features are more effective at attracting attention and influencing our feelings and perceptions—which is what makes colour such an important part of establishing a mood in your design. Colour also has a way to understand your language. Why do we say people are “seeing red” when they’re angry or “feeling blue” when they are sad? That’s because colour can connect to our moods and emotions in a unique way. So, how do we create a mood using colour? In design and branding, pure or bright yellow can attract attention well, much like red, but generally creates more friendly and fun feeling. Yes, we have to choose colour carefully.

Type

When I say “type” in this article, I meant “fonts” or “typeface.” Yes, this is also an important part of design. If colour was the face, type was the language you would use for speaking with your audience. Font choices often set the tone for the whole design and can influence viewers’ feelings toward and interactions with your design, which is why it is so important that a font’s mood fits with the context of your project.

Space

If colour was the face, type was the language, then space was the…space you were giving to your audience. We’ve probably all seen designs that are so packed with text and imagery that it’s hard to even know what you’re looking at. How did that design make you feel? Confused? Stressed? Repulsed?

The visual space in a design can have a big impact on how viewers interact with and perceive your design. A good composition that’s easy to navigate will help viewers feel comfortable and encourage them to spend more time with your design. A cluttered or messy layout, on the other hand, may cause your audience to decide not to engage with your design at all. The space you are using is how you make it easier for your audience to understand your content.

When you understand the meaning of space, type and colour, you can also understand your customers as a whole. Therefore, you can also engage with your customers in a more effective way and fun at the same time.

Dealing with Alternative Facts: The Importance of Truth in your Brand Storytelling and Marketing

Posted on by Mario

marketing tips

Looking back on 2016, the decision by Oxford’s Dictionary to name ‘post-truth’ as their word of the year feels remarkably prescient. I honestly thought that the fudging of the truth done by Brexit campaigners and Trump’s liberal use of facts were going to be an aberration, that ‘post-truth’ is just going to a word-of-the-moment thing that would quickly fall out of favor but it turns out I was wrong. We’re now about 6 months into 2019 and it’s been firmly established that we’re now living in a post-truth era.

The year 2016 opened up our eyes on how disruptively powerful fake news can be, especially when combined with the far-reaching power of social media. On a large scale, they can be used to effectively hijack a referendum and a presidential election while on a much smaller scale, these distortions of truths and facts can be used to create a brand narrative to bolster its standings. It’s the latter that is going to be the focus of our discussion and one that should be of particular interest to marketers and SEO services alike.

Brand storytelling in the age of alternative facts

Mere weeks after 2016 ended, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and now counselor to the president, underscored the absurdity of the age we live in when she used the phrase ‘alternative facts’ in a discussion about the attendance numbers for Trump’s inauguration, which was notably smaller than the one for Obama’s. Last year, just as Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s administration was ramping up, the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, made waves by saying that ‘truth isn’t truth’ and that facts are essentially in the eyes of the beholder.

This depressing line of thinking isn’t just strictly limited to the political world; we’ve seen several marketing examples in the past few years that eerily resemble these talking points. First, we have the comically absurd case of Billy McFarland’s Fyre Festival, where a promise of a luxurious festival experience in the Bahamas turned out to be a real-life reenactment of The Hunger Games. There’s also the case of Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos where she went from holding the number one spot in a list of richest self-made women in Forbes in 2015 to being charged for defrauding investors in 2018.

In both of these cases, they both were pushing a certain kind of narrative that holds little to no basis on the truth and as expected, the backlash for both was as harsh as they were swift. Elizabeth Holmes in particular, with a black turtleneck and an eccentric personality that is not unlike Steve Jobs, was extensively covered in the mainstream media for a few years before her house of cards came tumbling down. Both McFarland and Holmes are now famous for all the wrong reasons and that’s the kind of future prepared for you once you start playing around with the facts.

Latching on to a truthful narrative

Finding a great pair of jeans is easy; you can easily find quality raw selvedge denim made by small, premium brands all over Australia but so far, the only denim brand I actually love is Sweden’s Nudie Jeans. Not because of the quality of their product but because their commitment to sustainability. Loving a brand’s product is different from loving a brand and this is what makes brand storytelling potentially powerful as they can inspire the kind of loyalty that quality products simply won’t be able to.

The key to this loyalty however is trust and the funny thing with trust is that once they’re broken, they’re not something that could easily be regained and the internet has a ridiculously long memory. From here on out, every single time you look up McFarland’s or Holmes’ name on Google, you’re going to be presented with a chronicle of their misdeeds. I don’t know if this is a case of Wikipedia vandalism but Billy McFarland’s occupation is now listed as fraudster, not entrepreneur as he originally claimed.

Finding your own truth

A brand’s narrative is their identity and if a brand doesn’t have an identity, what would make you stand out from an ocean of similar businesses. It would be like trying to connect to a machine that churns out one product after another. Sure, the product might be of a high quality but they would be sorely lacking in personality. Dig deep into your business (or yourself) and try to find out what makes you, you and try to use the same line of thinking into your company.

A life unexamined is not a life worth living and trust me when I say that a dash of existential crisis every now and then is actually good for your soul. Asking those big questions can be life-affirming and they might be just exactly what you need to discover your brand’s truth. If you’ve been asking those questions for a while now and you still find yourself without an answer, then you might have bigger problems than just your marketing. Your brand identity should serve as the core foundation of your business, including your marketing, and without a message to send, your marketing would just be pure fluff.