Category Archives: content marketing

Impact Of Typography On Web Design + Tips & Trends

August 23, 2013Blogging, content marketing, Small Business Marketing, Web DesignImpact Of Typography On Web Design, typography, Typography in Web Design, Web Design TypographyPeter Marino

Typography In Web Design

Back in 2006, I read an article published by Oliver Reichenstein. Even in 2013, one thing about it really sticks out to me. It is the rather simple point that 95% of what is on the web is typography. I had never thought about that before, but it is true. The internet is primarily text based, even on videos of images where there is at least some context explained in the description. Which means that the majority of the web is made up of typography in one form or another.

This might seem rather obvious, but I had genuinely never considered the true impact of typography on the web, or in web design. Even a website that is almost entirely images would have to have some text t get to a secondary page. If you had no secondary page and it was all a single page with no text on it at all, you still have the typography used for the URL. There is no way to have a website that doesn’t incorporate typography in a viewable form in some way. That doesn’t even take into consideration the text used for coding behind the scenes.

For me, this is an incredible fact. The web is this interwoven collection of languages and text, something I might never have realized had I not read Mr. Reichenstein’s piece.

When looking to effectively incorporate typography into your web design, it is about more than just going with what looks pretty on the page. By thinking of it as being dynamic in the face of so much content, you instead have to stand out among that 95%. Using certain tips and examining the trends can be a good way to do that.

Trends In 2013

Grunge fonts

Grunge Fonts – Fonts that throw back to the 90’s grunge movement, such as what you would have seen on album covers and show posters, have been making the rounds a lot this year. Especially on websites for apps and programs. A few examples are All Ages, Scorched Earth and the more grunge chic font Dirty and Classic.
Large Fonts – Web designs that use huge lettering as their primary design have been more popular this year than ever before. They sit in the center of the page, acting as a header with smaller fonts beneath that better expands on what they are trying to advertise. Often these designs don’t rely entirely on typography, but are broken up by images and sign-up forms. A good example if ShopFlow, which uses large text but doesn’t let it entirely overpower the site.
Going Vintage – A lot of vintage looking typography is being used lately, and this is probably my favorite trend of the year. Whether it is handwritten script or something that looks like it might have been made from a classical typewriter, there are some really great examples out there. Pinfluence has several types of typography on their site, but the header is very vintage in look. Another rather nice font I have seen used on several blogs lately is Mercury Script from Creative Market.

Tips For Using Typography In Web Design

Keep It Simple – I am not one of those people who will insist that you use a single font for a web design. It comes out looking bland, quite often, or more like a blog post than a website. But you shouldn’t overdo it, either. Two or three fonts will usually suffice, and create a dynamic design that can really pop.
Offer Plenty of Empty Space – Having your text too close together can ruin the design, even with the perfect font selected. Properly measure the space between every line, so it looks more clean and less cluttered. You should also measure space surrounding the area containing the text, as well as the kerning (space between letters). All pacing should be consistent, and these subtle changes can make a big difference, especially when using serif fonts.
Use Pronounced Headers – Whether you are doing an entire paragraph with a more pronounced font/size, or just the beginning letter, it is important to pronounce the beginning of sections with something that stands out. With an article, this can be as simple as just using bold to breakup the text. But in a design a more creative approach is necessary to differentiate one section from another when skimming the page.
Select Colors By Readability – That design you developed with the light pink font might seem pretty cool. But it might not be optimized for all users, and so can negatively impact the end result. You don’t want anything that could create eye strain, look wrong on mobile devices or potentially be invisible to those with color blindness. Contrast is a great way to select a color, such as light fonts on dark backgrounds, or dark fonts on light backgrounds. Small differences in tint are usually all that is needed for a creative design, like dark blue instead of black.

Have any tips on using typography in web design? Or have you seen some examples of trends this year that you think hold merit? Let us know in the comments.

Our guest blogger Michelle is the creative blogger for Dobovo.
We take typography very seriously!

How To Focus Your Social Media Strategy

August 19, 2013Blogging, content marketing, Facebook Marketing, Pinterest, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Marketing, Viral marketingPeter Marino

Things are getting all hyped up

With all of the recent buzz around the changing value of links and what this might have to do with social signals, a lot of people are getting lost in the shuffle. Which is more valuable they ask, a link or a social signal (a “like”, a mention, a retweet, a share, etc) and how should they go about obtaining whichever is most valuable?

Video: Focus Your Social Media Marketing

This video focuses on targeting your social media strategy at a local level. Definitely some food for thought!

Adding to the increased activity and discussion is the appearance of dozens of new social websites. Some focus on sharing and bookmarking, others on visual elements (similar to Pinterest and Instagram), and still others on text-based status sharing. Because of this it is difficult to choose which social channels to cast your lot with. How can you know which of them is right for your business? We’ve done a few posts on this topic before, if you have a moment take a look at them to learn more about circumspection and the selection of appropriate social channels for your brand.

Simplify your direction and focus your social strategy

The idea of working smarter, not harder comes into play when figuring out how to simplify and focus your social media strategy. You want to make things easier and more fun for everyone, yourself included! People don’t take to social media sites to be marketed to or preached at, but if you can make things interesting and entertaining enough, once you throw some ease of use in there you’ll be sure to see results in no time!

Link to your website – This is one way that you can make finding your website easier for your social audience. Imagine that someone comes to your Facebook page, likes what they see, and decides to “like” your page to receive future updates. After a few posts they decide that they want to see your website and get more information about your products and services…but they can’t find a URL anywhere. It is all too easy to place a link to your website in most social media profiles, and if you’re not sure how to do this, a simple web search will turn up all kinds of tutorials!
Seize promotional opportunities – Take advantage of promotional opportunities like Facebook’s option to promote a post. While some people claim that these services are not effective, you will not know how they will go over with your brand and it’s audience until you try. Make sure that you have plenty of options available for your audience to choose from when it comes to engaging with your brand socially!
Keep your membership count low – And by this I mean to only sign up for the social channels which will most benefit your brand. Not every brand is well-suited to every social channel; you can choose a few that are most likely to benefit your brand and post to them frequently and see better results than a brand that signs up for everything and never maintains a presence on any one channel.
Stick to original content – Whatever you do, don’t try plagiarizing something and then promoting it on social media. Try not to just republish / share things that other people have already shared. Instead use your head and work with a professional content creation team and social media management firm like rankpop.com to create unique, original content that is sure to delight your fans!
Don’t ignore visual channels – While they might not seem suited to your brand at first, check out Pinterest and Instagram and similar networks and see how other brands like yours are faring in such an environment. YouTube is also a great way to showcase your brand and generate some social buzz. All you need are a few videos and you’re ready to enter the game.

Our Guest blogger is Kris Dietz: I love creating something amazing then spreading the word about it! My mission is to develop and mold SEO into an amazing outlet of sharing valuable resources. I enjoy networking and meeting like minded individuals.

The Art Of Balancing Content Creation And Promotion

August 16, 2013Blogging, content marketing, Copywriting, guest blogging, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Viral marketingPeter Marino

Many people can be seen to be debating over content creation and promotion. Both are known to be unique and important in their own way and individuals are recommended to give a good amount of attention to them in order to acquire a good feedback from the customers and real-time visitors. When it comes to the importance of choosing between the two, nothing can be said since both the processes are considered to be equally significant. However, ineffective content creation really does not help the content promotion as it fails to pique the attention of the target market. On the other hand, good content creation with low content promotion does not easily reach the customers, resulting is low feedback and followers in the long run.

Importance of Efficient Content Creation

Content creation can be difficult for people who are not really aware of it. It is essential to create good content beforehand in order to attract the customers. The process of content creation and promotion is linked to each other and both become worthless even if one is ineffective. Therefore, in the beginning, interesting and well-written content must be written for the purpose of promoting it in the long run.

Benefits of Efficient Content Promotion

Since content promotion is equally as important as content creation, individuals are recommended to give a good amount of attention to it in order to avoid any kind of shortage in the target audience in the near future. It is essential to publish content at as many sites as possible in order to give it an adequate amount of coverage and promotion. Without promotion, content ceases to exist and acquires extremely low rankings in the search engines, which is likely to ruin all the chances of possible promotion in the long run. Effective content promotion allows many WebPages and blogs to achieve a high status and ranking in the search engines, resulting in higher web traffic on a daily basis.

Preventing Audience and Content Shortage

A balance between content creation and promotion is a must in order to achieve success. Even if one ignores, then the other is not likely to act the way it is supposed to. The fact that bad content creation ends up in audience shortage and bad content promotion ends up in content shortage gives all the more reason for people to maintain an appropriate balance between the two. The one and only way to do so is to take both the processes seriously and to attend to both the content creation and promotion on an equal basis.

Acquiring Content Harmony

The main strategy for creating a balance between both the processes is to indulge in content harmony. According to a lot of research and professionals, content harmony can be achieved through the correct usage of both the content creation and promotion and that too, on the right time. The results are going to be much better than just following content creation or content promotion. Good content creation can be satisfactory for the time being but it undoubtedly results in a shortage of audience in the long run and the same is the case with promotion as it tends to create a vast content shortage.

Content Creation and Promotion for a Successful Marketing Campaign

An effective process of employing both the content promotion and creation ends up in a successful content strategy which enables people to earn a good amount of profit in the long run. Businesses must really follow both the strategies in order to excel in content creation and promotion. Content harmony is something which can be easily achieved by hard work and determination. All marketing campaigns can be easily successful if people try and concentrate on both the content related and promotional aspects of their business in the long run.

Our guest blogger, Jordon, has varied and broad career in the technology world and he is one of the most experienced SEO writers who love to spread the knowledge through his informative contents. His articles mostly cover the exact step by step working procedure and current research, inventions in the technology field. His most of the case studies can be found on Climb Digital.

How To Deal With Social Media When On Holidays

August 15, 2013Blogging, Business Tech, content marketing, guest blogging, Instagram marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media MarketingPeter Marino

If you’re a small business owner, you may be going away at some stage over the summer. As wonderful as summer holidays are, they also create a degree of trepidation as regards your business.

Finding the correct balance between escaping work when away and also maintaining some degree of control and ensuring everything is working well can be hard. As you full well know, social media can take hours and needs regular attention. However, you will still want a break of some sort – so how best to partially automate social media when away to ensure things are ticking over – we take a look.

Quality not Quantity

The key to getting some time away from social is down to first deciding on a quality not quantity philosophy. One great piece whether created or shared by you is worth ten average pieces in the social media sphere.

Content

Finding good content for curation and channelling it to one place can be easily achieved with a little organisation prior to you going away. The likes of Feedly and Trap.it among others are great feeds for finding worthy content.

XYDO is also a good app for personal curation and allows you to find personalised content that is relevant to your business and worthy of sharing with your audiences. Set a couple of these apps up before you head for warmer climes and finding content worthy of sharing should be a lot easier.

Automation

There are a number of fantastic tools out there that can make for excellent additions and are fantastic for automation purposes. Our own favourite Bufferapp allows you to line up those sharing prospects for the times that best suit your own specific social media accounts. A few minutes each day or every few days when away topping up your Buffer can work wonders when you’re away. It saves you time, effort and ensure you maintain a good relationship with followers when away from the desk.

Apps such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck also provide you with plenty of benefits too. These are ideal for more generic tweets and shares and allow you to schedule times that suit you. These shares can be prepared for as far in advance as you like, though they will obviously smell of automation to some degree.

However, we find at mysocialagency that apps like Hootsuite allow you the opportunity to monitor other people’s content, check up on analytics and monitor conversations – also beneficial when away.

Discipline

On a lot of levels, the most important thing is discipline. How many of us begin our social media task, whether at work or at home, and then end up being distracted and performing numerous other tasks? Setting a time limit for how long or how much management you’re going to do each day and sticking to it limits the time and stress involved and ensures you don’t feel bad for not spending more time on task.

It’s nice to get away from it all and these apps will help you almost do so completely by increasing efficiency and lowering time spent in front of the screen. What are your tips for keeping your social media ticking over when away?