Redswish - carefully crafted banter

Managing Brand Consistency

There’s no debating the fact that an online presence is essential in today’s market. Indeed there are only a few niche industries that do not rely upon or are affected by the global transition from workplace to web.

When it comes to doing it right, anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the way the Internet works will agree that representing your business or product online is by no means as simple as throwing up a website and claiming your territory in a small corner of the web.

Aside from the many factors that make a ‘great’ website, such as careful usability consideration, good aesthetic design and well-written copy; there are the numerous other external variables including SEO, PR and email marketing etc that help to promote your website, and in turn your brand.

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Location Independent Living (and working)

While on my little trip at the moment I met a Scottish couple and, aided by a few German beers, we got to know each other a bit. Amongst the hours of gradually blurrier conversation we talked about what I do for a living and the ability my line of work affords me to actually work anywhere in the world.

By this I mean that I could be in a small Thai village or on a Caribbean island but, providing I have an Internet connection, could still technically do my job. This may sound simple and in some aspects it is, but it can still be a scary step to take when you’re settled in a cushty regular job or of course if your line of work requires you to be within a certain location.

This lifestyle is indeed job-specific, and lends itself very much so to online entrepreneurs and designers, SEOs etc. I’ve never met my previous 3 freelance clients, but to be honest I don’t need to. We’ve spoken over the phone and via email and the work has been completed successfully and if anything at less expense.

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10 SEO elements all websites should have

As I’m on holiday this week, tripping around Europe, I’ve little time to be writing blog articles. But fear not! Jerry Low has kindly stepped in to supply his top 10 SEO elements that all websites should have. Enjoy!

Seriously, you don’t need an expert to optimize your website for better search engine rankings. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), after all, is not rocket science. It is something you can learn and do it yourself – all it takes is some serious readings and hard work.

However, there is something we need to know before we start any real SEO work – the direction of our entire SEO campaign – What we are trying to achieve? What are our targeted keywords? Who are our competitors? That led us to the most important preparation work before any SEO campaign get started – keyword research.

Keyword research is crucial as it acts like a compass for your website or blog. A proper keyword research reveals the supply and demand trends in your industries thus giving general idea on which keyword you should focus on.

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Buying and Selling Blogs

Initially, the concept of ’selling’ or spending large quantities of money on a virtual database-powered 2D on-screen entity may seem absurd. But let’s face it – blogs make money, therefore they have value and in turn become a commodity that can be sold or used to make more money!

Although the blog marketplace may seem like a far off notion to most bloggers, there is a surprising amount of currency to be made by building up high profile, high traffic blogs and trading them off for a tasty sum. Take this story from Problogger for example. And there are similar stories of bloggers selling off their hard work for up to millions of dollars.

Before you get carried away, creating a worthy blog that draws in mass traffic becomes a full-time occupation and can even require several writers. It takes time and hard work, but the pay-off can be huge. Here I’ll discuss some of the pros and cons of buying and selling blogs, whilst examining the market in more detail.

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A note on accessibility – body background colours

Accessibility (dare I say it) guru (oh dear I said it) Jeffrey Zeldman recently pointed out on his blog that very few (and I’ve tested this, it is very few) websites actually specify CSS body background colours. Some of you may think “What? How stupid of them!” and some of you may think “What? Why the hell does that matter?“, well believe it or not it does matter.

Users, and I do not mean disabled users, visually impaired users or accessibility freaks but all users have the ability and many take advantage of the ability to specifiy default body background colours, font colours and font sizes among other things. This can aid readability, help colourblind users, satisfy personal preference and hell; some people just love to mess around. The problem is, by forgetting or neglecting to specify a body background colour – your website could appear as so:

An exaggeration? No, not really. If you don’t believe me check out some of the reliable comments on the respective article. A surprising number of users choose to maintain a default browser background colour other than white.

Good news!

Let’s face it, all you have to to avoid this (assuming your site’s background colour is white) is to slip the following into your CSS:

body {
background-color: #ffffff;
}

No way! Yes way. Just a little something to remeber.

A note on font sizes

As I mentioned above, users can specify default font sizes and colours as well as background colours. So it’s also important to take this into account. The chances are you’ll specify a font colour naturally to suit the site, but people often dictate font sizes in pixels (and yes, I’m no exception). Always try and use ems to describe your font sizes – for more information on typography accessibility you can check out my recent post on Accessible Web Design or this fab article on A List Apart.

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Growing for Movember

Image courtesy of www.biggerbetterbeards.org
This month me and the fellows (males) at Flame will be growing moustaches, while trying to refrain from letting loose our uncontrollable natural beards (well, if I could grow one!)

Why are we doing such a crazy thing? Well, for charity of course! Allow me to indulge you…

The men in the office are growing fine moustaches throughout the month of ‘Movember’ (as opposed to November) in support of the Movember Foundation – an Australian based, not for profit, charitable organisation that creates awareness around men’s health issues, with a focus on prostate cancer.

So, why do I bring this to your attention? 3 reasons:

1. Because it’s cool, and I’m spreading the word about a good cause.
2. To explain to those who may meet me over the next few weeks why I will look so ridiculous.
3. Ahh, that’s right – I want your help!

How can you help?

All we ask is for a monetary donation to go towards the foundation. We’ll be looking ridiculous for 4 weeks while you can do a little bit to help a good cause.

How much? Anything, anything at all from 1p to ‘ridiculous figures’. Every little helps and no donation will be considered too small.

Sounds great – cash or cheque?

In this modern day we don’t even need sponsor forms. You can go straight to the Movember site and donate to our team – The Mo Fo’s…

So, get your wallets out – meanwhile we’ll be keeping our razors away!

For more information on the Movember Foundation visit their site at www.movember.com.

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Designing with data

The amount of information we come into contact with every minute on the Internet is absolutely staggering. Both consciously and subconsciously we are constantly absorbing tons of data; whether it be in text form, imagery, video, or audio and regardless of whether it’s been actively seeked or encroaches in from the sides.

Everyone knows that people don’t read web pages, they scan them. Therefore prioritising the information that really matters should be the primary goal when designing. However some designers get lost when trying to either squash too much information in or by loosing sight of what’s really important – why the visitor is there, for the sake of adverts or bombarding them with splash information to try and draw them further into the site.

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