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Getting your website noticed: SEO basics

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

It’s the end of a dark wet winter here in San Francisco. Now that it ’s finally spring for most of us, it’s time to take a look at some signs of rebirth in industries far and wide, namely the website redesign. Last month Kelly explored our work creating Merchant Construction’s revamped identity and a stellar website is a great application of a new identity system.

In a period of economic downturn such as this one, an excellent way to get the most bang for your advertising buck is making good use of your website. One way to make your website the best it can be for your business is SEO.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, the art and science of creating content for your website that is easily scanned by search engines like Google or Yahoo. The exact algorithms these sites use to search and rank are obviously trade secrets, but there are widely accepted methods for optimizing your site for search.

Every time you search Google for a term, it ranks all of the searchable sites and returns to you what they believe is the most relevant to your query. Enter in “how to make a million dollars” and see what comes up. On second thought, don’t. If your business is about green building, or you’re a local merchant of organic produce, you want Google to be able to put you towards the top of the list when someone searches for “organic apples San Francisco.” Good SEO for your site helps push your site towards the top of the results list.

What are some simple ways to ensure your site is given a fair shake in the search engine ranking game?

The basics start here:

  • How long have you owned your parking spot? The longer your site has existed, the better it’ll be ranked. Have you owned www.amazingbeetfarm.com for 15 years? This will up your ranking, so pick a good URL and stick with it.
  • Are you using keywords in your links, headlines and body copy? Keywords are words and phrases searched by users at sites like Yahoo, Google and Aol.com. If you use descriptive words in your links and body copy, your site will be easier to cache by these search engines. An example of non-descriptive linking: “To find out more about our free estimates click here.  The link, “click here,” doesn’t describe anything about your site. A better choice: “Our free car repair estimates get you back on the road quickly.”
  • Pretend you are running a newspaper. The content “above the fold” or visible in the top half of the average screen size is more important than content “below the fold.” Just like in the newspaper trade, the heavy hitting stories that you want people to know about first should be at the top of the page. This “above the fold” content is given more weight in search engines.
  • Choose your words wisely. Wanting to be highly ranked is great, but getting a high rank in a generic search term is really hard. For example, a local realtor wants to be the first agency to come up in a search for “San Francisco homes.”  There must be thousands of other sites that want the same thing. A better goal might be a specific neighborhood  and price point in San Francisco homes, like “Potrero Hill homes under $700,000.” Using this phrase a few times on your pages, especially in headlines and links, can help your page ranking.

These suggestions just scratch the surface of SEO strategies. If you are looking to create a website that is optimized for today’s search engine technology, we would to love to speak with you.

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Posted in Web | 1 Comment »

Coloring your brand’s world

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

She saw red. He was green with envy. Are you feeling blue? Often colors are used to evoke and express emotion in language and design and there’s a reason. People see in many colors (and some don’t; to see your website as a colorblind person would, go here), a distinct trait not shared with many other animal groups. Whether we are aware of it or not, the colors we see affect us, and can be used in  branding strategy to your advantage.

What are culturally relevant colors? The colors that personally appeal to you may not be the colors that are best for your company. Branding agencies often recommend that you choose the color on the color wheel that is opposite your competition, to distinguish your logo from theirs. But what do you do if another stakeholder in the market has chosen red to their green, or purple to their yellow?

Looking at cultural factors can help you wade through the many choices as you develop a color palette for your business. In the U.S., many food companies use red in their logotypes, including Pizza Hut, Coca Cola and Google’s new Android phone. Red is seen as an auspicious color in many Asian cultures, and in business parlance it’s a good thing if your company is in the red. But studies also show that people eat more in red rooms. In other words, if you’re developing a weight-loss company, you may want to avoid red altogether, and you’ll note that most fast food brands have some significant red elements in their color systems.

American bridal companies may blanket their sites with creamy whites and eggshell colors, but an Eastern bridal site would do better to avoid white, as its historically seen as the color of mourning.

Still, as cultures increasingly intersect in the global marketplace, perceptions of colors will necessarily change and what was once a color of weddings and funerals may come to signify wind energy and aerospace engineering. During the Victorian era, blue stood for girls because it was seen as passive, and pink was reserved for boys, as it was considered more linked to the vitality of blood.

Likewise, global economics and corporations have an effect on perception of colors. Studies show that fashion colors are often more muted in times of economic turmoil, and these trends necessarily pass on to color choices in other sectors. Thus, the neon pink and iridescent orange of the boom days of the 1980’s clash with the distinctly calmer tones of many corporate websites of today.

Finally, color can speak of a company in and of itself. Remember the Windows blue of the 1990’s when they controlled 98% of the personal computer market? The same goes for classic Coca Cola red. They both stood for a particular brand in their customer’s minds. Even if you don’t have a 98% market share, and may not have a giant red sign over 101 telling drivers to drink your soft drink, don’t overlook the importance of careful color choices in your branding. Do you want to blend in with your competitors because you are a small brand looking piggyback on the cachet of another bigger brand with the same colors? Or do you want to choose an unusual color set to stand out from your bigger counterparts?

Whether or not cultural color choices are in your mind, we are visual creatures, and the colors of your competitors and cohorts has an effect on the perceptions of consumers.

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Posted in Design, branding | 3 Comments »