Posts tagged: SEO

Just like how your finger print is unique to you, so should be your personal identity. It is that small little something that helps to set you apart from the competition and how you can come into your own.

But what is brand identity design? In short, it is what shapes your business and how it is perceived by consumers and competitors alike, so it is important to get it spot on first time around. But a lot of other questions can arise, such as; How do you create a strong brand identity? Why will having a solid brand take me and my business to the next level?

How to develop a strong brand identity:

Usually before I start developing a brand or even a logo for a client, I ask them, to identity as a person representing or even owning their business, what makes them their brand? I know it sounds a little like wax on and wax off, but at the very core of brand identity, no matter how pretty the branding it, it is the people that make the brand.

Some key questions I ask my clients to help identity their brand is:

Their mission – why did you develop this company?

Their values – what beliefs drive your business?

Positioning against competitors – Who are their competitors, and what is their USP (unique selling point) that makes them stand out from the competition?

Their ideal brand personality – if their brand was a person, what kind of person would they like them to be?

Communication – if their brand had a voice, what kind of voice would it have and how would they wish to communicate their voice to their consumers? ­

These key components are what help me and other graphic designers help gain an understanding of your brand and how to define it through the art of design. Therefore, it is important that as a client, you have a clear understanding of each point. A simple brainstorming session, with yourself or other colleagues will help you gain an understanding of each of these key elements and may make you feel like Mr. Miyagi as a bonus! ­

Now you’ve identified these key elements and who you are as a brand, this is when the fun begins, it is time to start building the brand and bring it to life! To show who you are to the most important people to your business; your customers.
 

Taking your business to the next level:

This one is where a lot of business owners tend to draw the line, now they’ve got a solid brand that represents them as a reliable and honest business, they see that as the endgame but it isn’t enough.

Referring back to what I said earlier, a brand is much more than a logo, product or a website. You and your team are the driving force and branding runs through every aspect of what you and your team do; from how you answer the phones to the design and marketing choices you make for your marketing material to how well a product performs against a competitor.

Branding fuses both what you produce as a business and how your consumers interact with your products, it’s a delicate balance, the yin to yang and what Mickey was to Rocky. One can’t exist without the other.

Therefore, also having a strong brand and marketing strategy is a must, this is a topic for another blog but a few core marketing strategies could encompass; content marketing, email marketing, social media, video and influencer marketing to name a few.

I work with clients when I can outside my day job, if you’re interested in talking to me about anything, especially about Karate Kid, please get in touch with me at: keighley@keighleyhand.co.uk or 07990 818889

WordPress is one of the best content management systems and without a doubt one of the my favourite. Using this fantastic tool, the internet and a lovely website is all within your grasp. But with everything, it can have its pitfalls. Here is a list of some of the common mistakes I’ve experienced and how to fix them.

1. ‘There’s a plugin for that…’
The words every web developer dreads to hear, whenever I build a website with WordPress, the old analogy that ‘less is more’ works a treat! Don’t get me wrong, plugins are great! They allow you to add functionality with the click of a button! However, they can add lots of bloated code and tables to your database which will slow your site down and possibly create security weaknesses. So choose wisely, don’t install plugins that aren’t necessary and ALWAYS try to use ones that are highly rated and from a valid source. On the other end of the stick, make sure you remove plugins you aren’t using, removing them helps to speed up your site!

2. ‘I’ll do it later…’

I’ll admit it, I don’t always update my website, I think we’re all guilty of letting those annoying little notifications build up with the excuse, ‘I’ll do it later’. But with WordPress and all its plugins, make sure you update it! Outdated versions open up all sorts of little nasty security threats, especially for hacking! There are weirdos and people with nothing better to do that try and hack these websites, so don’t put your at risk! Update when you can!

3. Resize or it’ll slow down!

Large images that are not optimised for web are the main cause of slow loading pages. No one likes a slow website so make sure you save images for web resolution and optimise them as much as possible. In an ideal world, you’d want to save images to have a maximum width of 2000 pixels and saved at 72dpi. But if an image will only ever appear at 100px width on the site, then save it at this size. This is termed ‘serving scaled images.’ There are useful and highly rated plugins that can optimise images for you within WordPress like, WP Smush or even a website called Tiny PNG.

4. Security Breach!

After WordPress is installed, the default username is “admin,” which is a pain in the backside in terms of security. Hackers can easily guess that name and take control of your website. During installation you’ll be given the opportunity to change the admin name to something else.

5. Accidentally blocking search engines

Certain WordPress settings can impair your site’s ability to be found by search engines. If you’re ready for your site to be found by a larger audience, you’ll want to ensure that a certain little annoying box isn’t checked within your Settings to make it SEO-friendly. To find out if you’ve made this mistake, from your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings -> Reading. Make sure that the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not checked. When this selection is checked, it suppresses the site’s pagerank, telling search engines not to inspect the site’s content. (You’ll want it checked if your site is still under development.)