We should create content for people, and content for machines. We have the benefit of more eyes, which is good for our SEO and our Content Marketing, and as they say “The Internet is free, but it’s not for nothing”.
Are similar pages on your site ranking #1 and #7? You may have Keyword Cannibals rampant on your website. What are they and how can you stop them?
Your website should contain many things, but there are 4 things it shouldn’t lack. Read about the importance of content, speed, security, and accessibility.
Here are 9 tips for a multilingual marketing approach. Reach people in their location and in their language.
Clean marketing allows things to go from A to B faster, easier, effectively and more efficiently. There is less friction. Speeds wins. You win!
WordPress is perfect whether you are a beginner or a professional. Use it for your cat’s blog or your online shop. With the Full Site Editor you can design in WordPress even easier!
Accessibility means creating websites so people can use them without restriction. It is an important part of sustainable, hygienic marketing.
We shouldn’t beat ourselves – or others – up about duplicate content. We have bigger problems today. Instead, we should embrace it.
SEO is about getting in front of people. We can do that by matching our content, products, and services, with the keywords people use to search. Keywords don’t exist alone. You don’t research keywords once. It is an ongoing activity. They are important, but they aren’t the Alpha and Omega of SEO.
Forget contracting an agency. Do you have a website? Do you have access to email and social media? Then you can promote your business, yourself, for free.
Who is a “senior” and who is not? Our access to technology is dependant on other demographics than age. Usually it’s about money, education, and access to the internet.
The Internet and digital technologies are becoming increasingly important in more and more areas of everyday life. How can we ensure the participation of older members of society in the current digital transformation? For everyone to benefit from these technologies, it will take more than the ability to download apps to smartphones or transfer money via online banking.
The term “senior” means different things to people. Usually it means someone with more experience. Older workers have more experience but a more difficult time finding work. Why is that? Perhaps freelancing is the answer.
How Can You Plan, Write, and Market a Book While Dealing with Writer’s Block? This is not going to be the final word on the subject. More like a pre-penultimate teaser article. With revisions. Writer’s block is a myth. The real problem is often that you don’t take writing a book seriously enough. Don’t despair. You aren’t alone.
Marketing Hygiene is the process of maintaining the freshness and function of your marketing tools, processes, and strategies to preserve the overall health and wellbeing of your business.
Your Online Marketing Hygiene includes your Social Media, Website, Online Shop, Email, Search, and Controlling assets and tactics.
Today, most people are visible and have some presence on the internet. The internet pulsates and throbs with the artistic progeny of literally billions of people. From TikTok to Blogs, Facebook to Pinterest, Amazon to eBay, the world wide web is bloated with our well-intended artistic creations and our constant need to be found and heard. Is it too much?
Google announced that it will phase out 3rd party cookies in the Chrome browser. It also does not plan to build any similar tracking devices. Their plan is for this to happen in 2023. This change will affect anyone advertising with Google Ads, as 3rd party cookies are important for retargeting us when we move from one website to another.
Your website is your 24/7 marketing platform. Don’t forget to perform a checkup once a quarter. A Site Audit is something you can do yourself. Find out how in Bridget and my TechTalk #5!
It’s no big secret that SEO actually IS all around us. Whether we are on Social Media, running our websites and online shops, or watching YouTube videos, our content optimizes search engine results for good or bad. Hopefully, it make our lives better.
I swore I wouldn’t write another SEO post for a while, but it isn’t working. Obviously. I have my SEO class to teach, there’s a 1 euro SEO ebook coming out this summer (200 pages for a euro – pretty cool), then there are the articles I write for clients which while not exactly SEO tasks need to be found and engaged with, so are on the cusp of SEO.
Many of our website themes deliver fonts, icons, and other 3rd party material directly to our websites. This is easy and fast and something we don’t think about. This data is sometimes delivered unsecured, and over time it might become a lot of data, thus slowing down our websites. What can we do about that and why would we do it?
Online pornography is just one example of when too much delight, over an extended period, is bad. Expectations of porn sex in our own relationships are high, and only a few people can meet them, and probably not for a prolonged time. Online pornography, like any other customer expectations we are continually trying to exceed, is simply not sustainable.
No medium stands alone. I discovered something interesting when proofing my last book; it was the first time that I incorporated Alexa into my editing process. I always find errors in the printed book that I never found in the online version. When listening to the book I found errors that I never found when reading it in the printed version.
If you can do something faster, then you have an advantage. The same goes for websites. No one likes a slow website. Join Bridget and I as we look at how you can speed up your website!
We Talk About Our Schools Until Our Dying Day. How Many Brands Can Claim the Same Thing? Recently, on episode 208 of the SDM Show, Rob Cairns sat down with Bridget Willard and I to talk about the third book… Read More »Schools Benefit from Customer Loyalty that Most Businesses Can Only Dream About: a Talk with Rob Cairns
Social Champ is an all-in-one social media automation tool used for media management and content scheduling. It can help you automate your social media presence and streamline posting on social platforms. I like it, and I use it. Give it a try yourself today – for free!
What is the purpose of a Sitemap? Do Sitemaps help SEO? Are Sitemaps still relevant? How do I create a Sitemap? The answers to these questions and more are just a click away!
There is the “Aha moment” when we stand back and ask questions about everything we do. How did that work? Are we doing the right thing? Analytics and tracking allow us to capture the impact of what we are doing on our website, social media, and advertising. It gives us the chance to measure our success or failure so that we can optimise our efforts.
Education is changing. It’s moving further from the classroom and the fixed lesson plan to somewhere more ad-hoc and less physical. If we think about how our tech culture has changed over the last generation, education is probably going to undergo even more drastic changes as we enter the virtual world of research, teaching, and learning.
I was invited by Social Champ to talk about Google Core Web Vitals, and it was a great Twitter hour. Thank you, guys! There were a lot of good questions, and the community on Social Champ are great. So what are the much talked about Google Core Web Vitals anyway?
Typewriters, handwritten letters, face-to-face chats, and even slow-cookers have more to do with SEO and Lead Generation than we would believe. In fact, so do Sustainability and Mindfulness. Wait! I kid you not. Keep on reading and I will prove to you how a paper invitation to a home-cooked meal can improve your SEO and increase your Lead Generation.
Do you cook? You either love it or hate it. We consume 35 tons of food in our lifetime. That’s a lot of cooking. Let’s enjoy it! These three tips should inspire you to make the best of the Home Office months. I even include a special exercise tip!
Story telling is an integral part to most marketing. A good story is worth it’s weight in case studies. People don’t want facts. They want to be delighted! Read more and listen to the podcast right here.
Chances are we will stick to our new years resolutions as long as the bubbles last in the bottle of champagne we opened on New Year’s Day. We shouldn’t let that get us down. Certainly looking back over the year I can pat myself on the back for a few small steps forward.
‘Twas but days before Christmas, and all through the classroom, Students tweaked projects, as I looked on, via Zoom. Their WordPress themes were crafted with great care, In hopes that good grades soon would be there.
Build a Website Using Only HTML and CSS As you can see, I was hoping this post would appeal to as many interest groups as possible, while covering my bases with top ten keywords, right? The only thing missing is… Read More »Cater a Wedding for 100 People Without Using a Food Processor or Build a Website Using Only HTML and CSS
If you can do something faster than your competitors you will win. But, is being fast the best goal to have? What about being sustainable?
How do you first generate interest in your school and the programs you’re offering? You make sure you’re well covered in social media. You make sure you’re well covered for search engine optimization. Once you’ve got people’s attention, they’re going to go onto your website.
weird I know. It was as I was cleaning my hotel room in preparation for checkout I remembered what I wanted to write about this week. It was about perceived value.
Carol Stephan invited Bridget Willard and I to participate in her Twitter #DigiBlogChat on Tuesday, November 2nd. Pretty exciting! It’s now the second time I’ve done this. The topic was Giving – especially GivingTuesday with questions by Carol, Bridget, and myself.
Looking for SEO Tips and Which Hotel Has the Best Cookies? We Have You Covered! 6 SEO Tips this week from Bridget Willard and myself. Read on and check out the video – here or on YouTube.
Adding an online course is a win no matter how you look at it. People search the internet for solutions to their problems. Online courses deliver exactly that!
I just completed teaching another 2-week SEO/SEA course last week. Every class is different. There are learnings in each class that are new – and can be brought into the next class. SEO is free! You only need to invet the time. Google helps. A lot! Check out ten days of SEO right here.
Page builders help everyone speed up the process of creating a website. The bad news is they might be slowing down the finished product. The good news is they don’t have to.
I was fortunate enough to talk with Rob Cairns this month about my book “Digital Thinking: Websites, Online Marketing, and more”. Check out this excerpt or listen to the podcast.
Carol Stephens invited me to talk with her and others on her Twitter DigiBlogChat about eLearning and Teaching. How’s it been, and where is it going? his a change for the better or the worse, or somewhere in the middle? Let’s talk about it and see where it’s going! See you then!
Why not answer people’s questions before they ask them? Turning a simple phone call into a content marketing strategy is as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. With a little creativity, you can turn the obvious into the extraordinary!
Waiting for the Future of Content When the sun finally came out this afternoon, I walked around campus and talked with Bridget Willard. It’s what I do. We have more than just a few clients and co-authored books in common. … Read More »Storytelling, Characters, and Content Marketing — It’s All Real
I know SEO is important. Search Engine Optimisation means your content needs to be precise, targeted, and convincing. Just like your golf swing! Just nine holes, but hey, we’re on vacation right? Have a great time!
Reasons why being your own brand may not the best choice for you A post in progress. Feel free to share your thoughts here at the bottom! Be your own boss – from home! Set your own hours! Earn 20K… Read More »7 plus Reasons You May NOT Want to Be Self-Employed
Cooking for yourself lets you control the ingredients. You also take more time preparing a meal than you would opening a bag of chips or stopping at a drivethru. It’s a healthier alternative. It’s also fun. It’s also content marketing.
Say the term sustainability and you open up quite a few rabbit holes. However, like any term, the best way to understand it is probably first to look for the ‘why?’ behind it. It all comes back to looking for doughnuts on Google. Do you want to talk about doughnuts?
What are four important things nonprofits need to think about when it comes to their online marketing? The second of our online marketing books is coming out in July, and this one is specifically aimed at helping nonprofits with their… Read More »4 Online Marketing Tips for Your Nonprofit
Branding and Design. Keep it Simple and Consistent Logo, Design, Website, Brochures, Signage … Design and Branding is a big step for many small businesses. It’s a big investment that will need to ride the waves of changing trends. Bridget… Read More »Branding and Design. Keep it Simple and Consistent
Understand the entire customer journey and design your Small Business experience around it Small Business advice from the Corporate sector? For sure! Working in the Berlin start up scene, Konstantin Mihov (twitter @imperfiction) is no stranger to out of the… Read More »The Sweet Aroma of (Marketing) Empathy
Exciting things that you can do with Content Marketing This week we’re going to be talking about all of the exciting things that you can do with Content Marketing. What is Content Marketing? Content Marketing is two-fold. First, it’s using… Read More »Content Marketing for NonProfits
Some things to think about. I’m putting together some notes for an SEO class, and I know you probably won’t be able to join me. A few of my juiciest tidbits are here for you. Sorry, you’ll miss the slides themselves.
Last week I lost a client. When we met they had a small WordPress website and nothing more. Now they manage their own website, Google Ads, and Social Media. They are even really good at SEO. They don’t need me anymore. Well, perhaps if they get stuck they will email me. Do you know what? I feel great!
Effective conversation is a critical part of Small Business success! We live with a constant flow of information via print, radio, TV, the internet, and between our family, friends, and colleagues. Our attention is always being joggled by another attempt… Read More »Getting into the Conversation
Bring Savvy Consumers to Your Website with Specific Keywords. Should you use broad keywords or specific keywords on your website? Did you read an article about long-tail keywords? What about bidding for keywords? What if someone comes to your site… Read More »Bring Savvy Consumers to Your Website with Specific Keywords. Define the Conversation on Your Terms.
Your Small Business in the Big Internet Think your small business is too small for Google ads? Think again. But how much should you spend on ads? The marketing spend for small businesses is recommended to be about eight percent… Read More »Yes, Your Small Business or Nonprofit Can Get Results from Google Ads on a Tiny Budget
The layout, structure, purpose, and content of our website need to be regularly updated and analyzed, as do the activities and needs of our visitors. It can feel messy. It can feel exhausting. You do this to your wardrobe almost daily though, so don’t neglect your website.
Insight from marketing practitioners who work with small businesses, non-profits, and schools Hey everybody! It’s Bridget and Warren, and we’re back with some more insight from practitioners who work with small businesses, non-profits, and schools, giving you some real hands-on… Read More »Two Hands-On Learnings for Small Businesses and Non-Profits
We want to help our friends who are small businesses, like navigating through the blah, blah, blah, big agencies and all of their jargon that makes them feel very expensive and important. Let’s talk about some of the things that small business owners can do right now, themselves without hiring a big SEO company!
Welcome to the second in a new series for Small Businesses, to help you with your Online Marketing! If you would like to find out more, see our real hands-on advice from our Online Marketing book for small businesses! In this week’s post, and video, Bridget Willard and I, are going to talk about the top three things small businesses, or anyone really, need to consider when using Social Media.
Read More »The 3 Most Important Things About Your Social Media
Welcome to a new series for Small Businesses, to help you with your Online Marketing! We are so psyched to help you that we also wrote a book to help you! In this post, and video, Bridget Willard and I, are going to talk about the top three things small businesses, or anyone really, need to have on their website.
Read More »The 3 Most Important Things on Your Website
Another year and another chance to do everything right Yet another year and YET another chance to do everything right! I hope you did well on achieving that goal in 2020. It was a messed up year. A lot of… Read More »New Year, Old Resolutions?
Happy @Home to all, and to all, a good night! ‘Twas but days before Christmas, and all through Home Office,My colleagues were working, in pants, none could notice.Our Youtube videos were crafted with care,In hopes that new clients soon would… Read More »A Very Home Office Digital Christmas
Building things, allows us to think about them. Thinking about things, allows us to understand them. It can save us money, give us a sense of gratification and value, and it can also give us another perspective on what others do.
We used to use tools for a specific purpose, retrieving them individually from our toolbox or tool shed. Our mobile devices now offer us everything we require in one tool – information gathering, entertainment, problem solving, security, communication, and ultimately – gratification and self-confidence.
Sure, even a senior digital marketer like myself can discuss niche influencers and prosumers and how personalisation and leadership lead to productivity in new work. Or we can just talk about how your marketing campaigns pushed sales numbers up this quarter. Which makes more sense to you?
As a lecturer, consultant and networker, Warren teaches online marketing to the people who are furthest away from digital technology: senior citizens. A target group-oriented approach is indispensable. At CBM, he passes on his know-how and his wealth of experience to participants.
Voice Search we understand – “Alexa, where can I find the closest florist?” “Siri, what’s playing at the cinema tonight?” Right? this we understand. Voice Content Marketing is that after three espressos. It’s not even very new. Two years ago they were taking about it. Is it yet a thing though? Not so much. But it will be.
We hear the terms „online community“ and „social networks“ quite often. The temptation is to think these are so much different than any other community or ways of socialising. They certainly seem to have morphed into something different. The underlying rules of social interaction, however, haven’t.
For some of my friends, Home Schooling was always a reality. For many of us, digital teaching aids were a way of supplementing what we considered below average teaching. This is not to criticise our teachers most of whom are amazing. It is simply an answer to the way this generation of children learn and live. Digital Natives are simply born multi-taskers.
Even though books have not been classified a necessity during the Crisis (while wine and chocolate have), we have probably read a great deal more in the last four to six weeks than we had done previously. There is something wonderful about picking up an actual book and turning the pages that transcends an eBook.
Ah, the good life! Working in your pyjamas, eating what you want at your desk – did I say desk? I meant of course the couch, or the bed! No blah blah from colleagues disturbing your train of thought, no morning commute … just you, your laptop, and the coffee machine. Home Office is heaven, right? It’s also a privilege. So many people would like to stay at home, especially in the current situation. If you can work at home, then you are very lucky.
Digital is redefining our customer experiences, the value chain, fullfilment processes, marketing, sales, and customer loyalty. As we become more catered to and become more demanding, what we used to expect in the way of Customer Satisfaction is morphing into a demand for Customer Delight.
Menschen haben immer Technologie genützt zu Problemlösung – ältere Menschen sollten davon nicht ausgeschlossen sein. Senioren möchte auch mitreden, mitmachen. Aktive Mitgestaltung der Gesellschaft sollte für alle möglich sein. Medienkompetenz oder Digitalkompetenz ist dafür eine Voraussetzung.
As they say – don’t think about what you have done, think about what you will do! 80% of resolutions normally fail by the second week of February, so the odds are against us. How did I do with my 2019 resolutions? How did YOU do? :o)
‘Twas days before Christmas, but all through the classroom,
My students were working, both local and via zoom.
Mailchimp campaigns were crafted with care,
In hopes that their grades soon would be there.
An important characteristic of eCommerce is that it is not really a distinct sector. When we talk about eCommerce, the concept that usually comes to mind is of course online shopping. eCommerce means enabling all of an organisation’s operations. It is not enough to just set up an online shop.
In preparation for an upcoming class, the actual difficulty most countries are finding themselves in – ie the lack of skilled tech workers – is at the center of our workshop. If you know how many hours there are in a day, compared with how much work you have to get done, the problem of how we keep up will not be lost on you.
CERN announced, on 30 April 1993, that the World Wide Web would be free to use for anyone. Free is a relative term. The Internet has been valued at around 1 Trillion dollars a year. By most standards, a Trillion dollars is a bit north of “Free”.
Ensure a good UX on your website by having updated content Websites Should be Inclusive User experience. You’ve heard of the term, and like most of us accept it to mean how you feel using a website, or accessing an… Read More »Let’s Talk User Experience
I googled “working for non-profits”, which many of my clients are, and I found results for 5 reasons, 8 reasons, 12 reasons, 19 reasons. I think there is 1 good reason to work for non-profits, small local businesses, and educational organisations.
Speed wins. If you can do something faster, you have a better chance to succeed. If you can ideate faster, produce faster, test faster, win customers faster, and innovate faster than your competitors you will win. But, is being fast and winning necessarily the best goal to have? This month, Charlie and I look at a much more upbeat, positive side of Digital Transformation – the methodologies that are on the cusp of this transformation. Learning to fail in order to succeed, taking the time to reflect, being people-focused, and being authentic.
The idea that you could like a robot and they you might at first seem a little creepy, but is the love we have for our smart phone the precursor for spending our evenings with an android? This may seem the stuff of science fiction, however the possibility remains tied to our changing attitudes towards sex and intimacy in general, and the current digital transformation we are experiencing.
Digital Native or Digital Immigrant? Our Digital Society is developing faster than current infrastructures can adapt or respond. Added to the technological changes that confront us, is our extended life expectancy. Older professionals have never had a tougher time finding… Read More »The Digital Cloud with a Silver Lining
SEM, SEO, SEA … it helps to understand how Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) work When a user enters a search query into a search engine such as Google, they expect the search to return results (websites) which completely satisfy their… Read More »SEO – Build It and They Might Come
If you thought we had reached the zenith of our consumer culture, then buckle your seatbelt! Product placement via VR and AR. AI product search filter logic. Social Media shopping – feed to shopping basket. AI shopping personalisation. Drone delivery.… Read More »Online Shopping – Order and it will Come
Quo Vadis WordPress Last quarter we relaunched four websites in three CMS. The quickest was of course produced (mostly on a train with wonky wlan) in WordPress. I say of course because a WordPress website is simple to build and maintain,… Read More »Quo Vadis WordPress
Just like your average website, HTML has come a long way When I was at school there was no HTML, no internet, no websites, but there was BASIC with which we programmed small games – and which was a hell… Read More »Are We Failing HTML 101?
Even in our digital world, the simple act of reading is still the best way of getting information into our brain It has been a really hectic month, and for the first time in many years I seem to be… Read More »Live Longer and Healthier – Read!
Creating effective, relevant, and useful content that answers the needs of the users Another year and another chance to do everything right. Chances are we will stick to our new years resolutions as long as the bubbles last in the… Read More »New Year, New Resolutions
Happy Computing to all, and to all a good night! ‘Twas but days before Christmas, when all through the office, Marketing was working, our campaigns were flawless. Adwords were measured on our tablets with care, In hopes that our bonuses… Read More »A Very Digital Christmas
The four roadbocks to an effective digital strategy If you are like me, and started work in the pre-digital years, you are probably wondering how we managed to work without all the buzzwords. It was a simpler time. We had… Read More »Buzzwords and our Digital Discourse
What is the purpose of content and managing what we are doing with it in an efficient and effective way Content Marketing is one of the many digital buzzwords you cannot avoid these days. You may also have stumbled across… Read More »Content Marketing – Trending Since 1732
Choosing the right tool for your project I am often asked how I manage my projects, and which method I prefer. I may be an old Waterfaller at heart, but I don’t think there is so much difference between the… Read More »Agile, Waterfall, Adaptive, Pert, Lean … and Cake
What exactly do we mean when we talk about eHealth? The global eHealth market had $41.52 billion in revenue in 2017 and that is expected to increase to $220.65 billion by 2026. Growing demand for eHealth solutions and services, our… Read More »Your Mobile Phone Just May Save Your Life
The integration of digital technologies into everyday life Digital transformations have hit the skids, falling prey to poor leadership, disconnects between IT and the business, lagging employee engagement, substandard operations — just about every area required for success. That’s the… Read More »Is That Digital Transformation I See Before Me?
The GDPR scare afforded us the opportunity to clean house On May 27 the GDPR/DSGVO took complete effect and our websites will never be the same. The law came into effect all the way back in 2016, but we were… Read More »GDPR. GDPR Everywhere …
The creation of an Online Shop I was recently asked to assist with the creation of an online shop. I have written here before about building a website, but an online shop raises further interesting questions. The website will not… Read More »So You Want to Build an Online Shop?
What does the future hold for us if we are unable to afford access to information, or to the best tech? Elysium, In Time, Upside Down – some of the many dystopian stories where a small segment of society with access… Read More »The Digital 1%
Code Kids Code! We are moving soon to another state; one which has Latin in the school curriculum. Our son is quite good with languages, already speaking English, German, and Russian – but he is a bit worried about Latin (“Where… Read More »See Jack Code. See Jane Code. Code Kids Code!
What is this WordPress CMS anyway? I have been giving a lot of WordPress workshops lately, and was wondering what I should write about this month. Looking through my past posts, I saw my Shout out for Drupal and thought it perhaps… Read More »A Shout Out for WordPress
Beware of Technology Bearing Gifts We have had many discussions with people both for and against having “Alexa” at home or in the office. Black Friday decided for us, the small Echo Dot in the end. I mean, HALF PRICE!… Read More »Beware of Technology Bearing Gifts
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night! ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the office,Programmers were working, their coding was flawless.Scrum notes were stacked on the tablets with care,In hopes that The Client soon would be… Read More »A Very Techy Christmas
When people talk about a Responsive Website, they are usually talking about one that works well on a mobile phone. Responsive means however, that it should work on any size screen. Even larger ones. There are more than 200 (about) different standard size screens from mobile ohones to desktop screens. What about the screens you see in hospitals or train stations? Shouldn’t a website scale nicely outwards as well as inwards? Read More »(What is) Responsive Design?
Trying to figure out what’s the best way to communicate with prospective students? Do you use email or social media? Do you prefer telephone contact, messaging, or a written letter? What’s the best way for enrolment professionals to meet their goals in this fast-changing & highly competitive environment?Read More »Marketing Never Sleeps
The third-place win of the German right wing AfD party in the recent election there left many people stunned. Stories in the media asking who voted for the AfD mirrored those in the US after Donald Trump was elected president. Almost as if something was happening that no one had any idea about. Like a cold shower hit them. In our always-connected lives, it is very interesting that many people are living in such a bubble. Read More »(Anti-) Social Media
Remember life before the internet and mobile devices? Remember communicating without emojis? How about sending a letter to the editor and having it edited before it appeared a week later in the local paper? Turning the radio off and driving to work without hearing a phone or navi? Do you recall not mistaking propaganda for news, or having friends who had beliefs different from your own? Then you missed a great breakfast meeting Tuesday with just such people. Hope you can join us next time.Read More »Conversation is King
We were recently told by a friend it was “pretty scary” how you always seemed to see items advertised on one platform which you had viewed on another platform. At some level, it probably is disconcerting.
Tracking pixels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacon) are one of many ways websites repeat to users what they see on another site, in the hope they will click on it. Read More »I Click Therefore I am
Recently a company relaunched their website. They had a website made for them which is neither responsive nor offers a mobile option off to the side of the desktop version. This company is not a client of ours, but we do know one of the main stakeholders. Interested, we of course asked about the reasoning behind the project. Was it a soft launch, stealth launch, prelaunch …? Well, we learned that it was none of the above. They had simply taken a long, hard look at their users, a longer look at the needs of those users, website analytics, all the bits and pieces. Then they decided they only needed a desktop friendly website.Read More »Do You Really Need a Responsive Website?
“Technology. Everyone’s so afraid of missing what’s next they never bother to fix/optimise what’s here now.” I read this tweet by Luke Wroblewski a few days after the team had the same sort of conversation during a project meeting. We were reviewing what to keep and what to throw out of a website. The client wanted a real spring cleaning, and they wanted something new – something fresh. The problem with “New” is that it soon becomes “Old”. As they say: “There is really nothing wrong with a bologna sandwich.”Read More »Our Relationship with (Tech) Things
We may think of Mobile First and Responsive Design being in answer to a mostly mobile phone accessed internet. However, Samsung just unwrapped its new 3400 pixel monitor and kids are accessing the internet more and more from their game consoles. So how do we ensure our websites will be seen regardless of device size? Mobile Different, Mobile Forward, Device Agnostic, Resilient Design, Pattern-Based Design … there has lately been a lot of discussion about how we ensure visitors can access and use our content regardless of screen size.Read More »The Ghost in the Design
Two User Experiences in the last week stand out in my mind – one rewarding and one hellishly frustrating, and both involving accessing an account on a banking website. According to Wikipedia “User experience (UX) refers to a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system or service. It includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership. Additionally, it includes a person’s perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency.”Read More »My Take on User Experience
I was asked in January to give a talk to a class of students who had spent the term studying Cultural Diversity. While you won’t be able to enjoy the excitement of actually being there – touching a old ‘brick’ mobile phone or marvelling at the super presentation graphics – the subject of Digital Culture is interesting enough that I thought I should share the talking points as this month’s blog post. I’m just dusting the surface of course. You can take a course on Digital Culture that lasts two semesters if you were keen. Of course this post means you don’t have to sit the exam. Read More »Digital Culture 101
Thought your “web handicap” was good? Well, Google will begin testing a Mobile First search index this year. What does this mean? In a nutshell, if your website is not mobile friendly – and by website I mean not only the layout and design, but also the content – your website could be indexed AFTER the website (probably of your competitor) that IS mobile friendly.Read More »A Real Game Changer
Remember the amazing world of Fax Marketing? Mobile phones that only dialed numbers? The first website you worked with? How did we manage before all this tech came along? Obviously not very well, because soon afterwards the App arrived. Google and Apple opened their app stores in 2008 and today we spend most of our time with our smartphones communicating via apps both native and web based.Read More »Is That an App I See Before Me?
A recent article in Times Higher Education addressed big data and student recruitment. A very timely article. During the recent US election campaign, President Donald Trump spent considerably more of his budget on big data voter research (this is not polling) than Hillary Clinton. Some of his money went to Cambridge Analytica whose clients have included the UK Ministry of Defence, the US State Department, and NATO to name a few.Read More »The Student in the Machine
It is said that Higher Education student recruitment is a 4 billion dollar business – and that is just in the US. We were crunching the numbers the other day, comparing the number of freshies with the average cost of recruiting a student, and we are going to suggest that that number is probably really kind of low. But, it’s a big number.Read More »Click Me!
Starting fall 2015 American college and university students were able to apply for federal student aid based on their family’s income from two year’s earlier (this year for 2018). This will be available for all students seeking financial aid for the 2017-2018 academic year.Read More »The Prior Prior Year
Just exercising our fingers here and getting our thoughts together between support requests. Feel free to jump up and down, cheer, laugh, or bang your head on the desk, or simply raise your eyebrow – as the mood takes you. What is this Drupal CMS anyway? Here is the elevator version. Haberdashery, Sporting Goods, Ladies Wear … going up!Read More »A Shout Out for Drupal
As branded Facebook and other social media spaces increase their popularity, visits to corporate websites are beginning to level off. People want to interact, and more and more that interaction happens best in social media, and not on a corporate website.
Card Sorting workshops are an integral part of our (and probably your) website projects. Possibly a little less common is taking that to the next level. Our client wanted a new approach to their website relaunch, and had never tried Design Thinking. We wanted to give their team the chance to let their imaginations loose and let them imagine a persona (target group) and how the website would serve that persona’s needs.Read More »What is this Design Thinking Anyway?
What’s the difference between print and web writing? Print readers read, web users scan.
Your audience(s) will use a different reading style for print and another for the web. Online readers are more time goal-focused and want to quickly locate the information and solutions they need.Read More »Writing for the Web
So you want to have an agency build your website. I’ve put together this handy worksheet to help you think about the project. This is a business plan for your website. The more information you can give the agency, the better. Read More »The Client Worksheet
I read this really GREAT article (from 2013) while researching a talk on Responsive Design. The subject of the article is the defaults that exist in web communication and how it is important to set some new ones.Read More »Defining New Defaults in Web Design
You don’t need a degree in Computer Science to code. In fact, some of the better coders out there have degrees in literature and languages. It’s never too late to learn code – and learning, just like any language, makes you literate – and adds another skill that might just translate into earnings. Computational thinking can aid problem solving and help with understanding large amounts of information.Read More »To Code or Not to Code …
While “Content First” should be your guiding principle, the term “mobile first” means creating a mobile version of your website first and then expanding to desktop and big screen. This is a good strategy as more than half of internet access is made from mobile devices. Read more about Mobile First … Read More »Mobile First
So you want to build, or perhaps re-launch a website. You have copy, images, tips from your friends and colleagues, probably a good idea about what your competition is doing. You have a domain name, possibly a hosting company, you have a navigation list and maybe a design idea mapped out in pen. This you bring with you to your first meeting with the agency you have chosen to realise your website. You think you’ve covered all the bases. Then they ask the question, “Have you given any thought as to the CMS?” You sit there for a moment and then reply, “CMS? Content management system?” “Yes” they nod.Read More »Do You Need a CMS?
“What are we trying to accomplish with this information?” Content needs to be delivered simply, and answers to problems made clearly available.
A workshop together with Bright Solutions at the German Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation Jahrestagungen in 2015. The steps are still relevant today!
Our marketing content may be the first impression people have about us. How can we make our content easier to produce and more converting?
Digital is about finding the best way of achieving goals, promoting your brand and services, through electronic connected media.
Always wanted to study in the USA or Europe? Well schools there want you too and are not above using social media to recruit you!
Whether people see our content and respond to it is as much a matter of our understanding their goals as it is understanding their context.
One of the most important elements to understanding SEO and search rankings is feeling empathy for (understanding) your audience. Why are they on your page? What were they looking for?
Content should be accessible, and if we want reach this means perhaps adding another language. Building a multi-language site is not so difficult.
Open Source CMS are free but “not for nothing”. “Free” is not usually a word you think of when planning a website, but it is not a dream. Open Source CMS are free CMS. Of course, you may need a developer or two …
Hobsons released a new report called Beyond the data: Influencing international student decision making. The report is based on Hobsons’ International Student Survey and provides important insights into how international students decide where they will go for study abroad.
Not only are colleges marketing like crazy these days, but students are casting their nets ever wider in the number of applications they submit. The internet makes this easy.
