9 SEO Tips You’ve Probably Forgot About
Published on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 – 12:00 am | 34 brilliant comments »
This is a guest article by David Walsh*.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has, as most of you probably know by now, become one of the most important elements when setting up a website. Still we notice that many website owners, for some reason, tend to neglect implementing it in their creative process. Jacob published an all important SEO rules for designers but there is always lots to learn. I thought that it was about time to write another nine tips on the topic.
1. Proper use of <h1> and <h2> tags
Headers and sub-headers are not only useful for making up a good layout. Search engines do also love it when we use headers. But that is when we use them wisely. This means that you should use them in a way that makes sense - do not spam your site with various headers as it is a sure way of keeping both the search engines and the visitors away. Most important sections of a page should be H1 and H2 and then smaller sections should be H3. H4-H6 are rarely used tags.
2. Remove useless code
The purpose of optimizing your site is to make it as available as possible for all involved - you, the visitors and the search engines. This is just as important when we are talking about the code of the website. Take advantage of an XHTML validator to make sure that all of your code is readable.
If you own a blog and tend to write drafts in MS Office, copying and pasting back into WordPress is a code nightmare. Check the “HTML” tab when in the writing new post page of WordPress; Office adds a lot of garbage code. Remove it. A good alternative is to copy & paste your article into a text editor and then copy and paste the article into your next blog post.
3. Internal linking
Internal linking is a great way of keeping your site user-friendly. Search engines also like to see well placed internal links if they are relevant and serve a purpose. Use good anchor text to your pages and link within strong pages. Also, more than a couple links to the same page have no meaning. Some sites put “hawaiian vacations” three times in a text and link back to the home page. It is not only annoying to the visitor but also worthless.
And most importantly, don’t create orphan pages; pages that are not internally linked anywhere.
4. Footer links are to be kept at a minimum
One type of link that gets close to no attention by the search engines are the footer links. Sure, they are good from an internal navigation purpose but that is about it. You should thus try to keep the bottom based links at a minimum.
5. Do not use images as links
As the search engines try to crawl everything on your website, your task is to make it as easy as possible for them. This is the reason why you should not use images (excluding banners) as links. Proper text is much easier for the spiders to read. Another quite common mistake that designers tend to make is embedding much of the important content in Flash, which search spiders obviously will not be able to read. While Google has begun to read websites based in Flash, it is not a good idea to have a site that cannot be searched.
6. Keep the URLs friendly
Not only your domain name and onsite content should be optimised for keywords. Make sure that you implement the same strategy for ALL of your URL strings as it is a great way of increasing your ranking on search engines.
7. Use the noarchive and noindex tags
Some people seem to think that all of their content has to crawled and indexed by the search engines. Pages such as the “About” page and the “Privacy Policy” page are all good to have but there is really no reason for them to be indexed. Make sure that you use the noarchive and noindex tags. And do not go overboard, putting a noindex in the index file of your website means that NOTHING will be found by the search engines. Sounds to dumb to say that? There are a few designer sites encountered that are not indexed by Google because they left an universal no follow tag.
8. Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is beneficial for search engines as well as for the visitors. Since the bookmarks are saved to the web, instead of to your browser, they are easily shared with friends - good for all parties involved. Be careful though, many plugins for social bookmarking have 100 links that pop up and they can break the external link count of a page. Too many external links devalues all the links on a page, so make those social bookmarking icons “nofollows.”
9. Do not overuse Ajax
For some reason many developers and designers seem to feel as if they have to impress their visitors and implement Ajax features all over the place. Big mistake. Ajax will not get indexed by search engines and your visitors will not be able to send the page to their friends, as the URL does not reload.
Recommended SEO Resources
- 10 SEO Rules For Designers
- SEO For Blogs
- SEO Best Practices - 13 Top Tips
- My 26 Best Link Building Tricks
- Website Grader
- 7 SEO Blogs & Useful Articles
*About the author: David Walsh is a writer over at Web Hosting Search. WHS is a guide to web hosting and tutorials. If you need to get a hosting plan, anything from cheap web hosting to server hosting (the big guns), WHS is the place for you.
34 comments thus far »
Designer’s Favourite Fonts & Why
Published on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 – 12:00 am | 82 brilliant comments »
I sent out a tweet (follow me) asking my followers (and Facebook Friends) what their favourite font was and why - these were some of their replies… what about you?
For the record, at present, my favourite is Gill Sans as I find it so versatile, especially when working with other fonts.
Times. Simple, but not boring, and timeless.
Via @Carmabella
Franklin Gothic Medium and Verdana. Both are just so easy to read even at small sizes.
Via Adrian Lujan (Facebook)
Franklin Gothic Book Regular. Easy to read.
Via Dylan Lee Hodges (Facebook)
I really love the clean lines of Franklin Gothic family mixed up with classic letter forms of Adobe Caslon.
Via @BridieMacdonald
Gill Sans Light because is delicate.
Via Barbara Culinas (Facebook)
Other than Helvetica, it’s Gotham , because it’s clear, it stands out and modern… Applicable on small sizes too.
Via animate_me
Totally into GOTHAM right now. Clean, great bold-face, solid.
Chris Skinner (Facebook)
Gotham, purely because I’m Batman in disguise.
Via David Airey (Facebook)
Not THE - but A favourite: FF DIN - for clarity, the weights, more attitude but not to much character, reads in small sizes
Via @simikken
I would say Philosopher. It’s a stylish, modern font that is similar to common fonts so that it’s functional and elegant.
Via @bixtin
My favourite font is called “mutlu” because my finance has our daughter’s name tattooed across his chest in it…
Via @artbyjaz
Don’t know… for paragraphs I like Futura Lt BT, I guess because it looks clean and helps me fit all the text.
Via @edMaga
Futura, Neutraface, Garamond, Rockwell
Marcos Luis Hernández (via Facebook)
Big fan of Futura, it’s clean but has personality. I like its curves.
Sasha Endoh (via Facebook)
Futura, Verdana, and Myriad Pro I use the most.
Stan Perl (via Facebook)
Actually fond of Metroscript cause I’m on a big vintage graphic period!! Montreal is also a good sans serif one.
Via @MonsieurH
Americana is my favourite sans-serif, and Charcoal is currently my fave serif.
Lisa Du Plessis (via Facebook)
TJ Governanti (via Facebook)
Trajan Pro, classy and elegant and I love the Q in it.
Tareq Alsamman(via Facebook)
SWISS 721 family….looks classy and elegant.
Mohamed Shinaz Saeed (via Facebook)
I’m torn, it’s either Papyrus or Comic Sans. Actually, my two favorites are Sketch Block and Geo Sans Light. I find it reads so well, and looks very clean and minimal.
Via Will Higgins (via Facebook)
Christine LeBlanc Payne (via Facebook)
Comic sans! Haha, no, seriously, I think is Trebuchet and Futura .
Diane Hernandez (via Facebook)
Trebuchet… because who doesn’t like saying “Tray-boo-shay”, and it has a sturdy, even thickness to its stroke which lends itself nicely to big bold headers for websites
Jayson Akers (via Facebook)
Helvetica, Frutiger, timeless.
Sanja Karic (via Facebook)
OK someone has to say it…Bleeding Cowboys !
Brian Nelson (via Facebook)
Myriad Pro (boring I know) & Boberia
Andrea Guevara Higham (via Facebook)
I like Century Gothic, its an easy to work with font.
Maikel Beckers (via Facebook)
Garamond - totally unfazed by time, style, and trend.
Shakun Harris (via Facebook)
Helvetica, and 2nd would have to be Helvetica, just pipping Helvetica. In all seriousness though, my vote goes to Helvetica.
Via @burdzelkrai
Helvetica - swiss design at its best.
Via @loveannon
Helvetica Neue for it’s incredible versatility-Letter spacing, size and the font variations can get you thousands of new fonts.
Via @baffleinc
Helvetica - classic and contemporary, timely and timeless, all rolled into one.
Via Rafael Armstrong
The Helvetica Neue family, it just gives so much choice in one family and looks clean and sharp on screen
Via @keanrichmond
Helvetica Neue. A more refined font compared to Helvetica, versatile & simply elegant
Via @zilch
Helvetica. Since it was the cleanest and most common beautiful font i’ve ever seen.. No font is close..
Via @thematrixuum
Got to be Helvetica family - so much range in a single font in terms of variety in weight and styles and so timeless!
Via @threemenoneshed
I like comic sans for fun & verdana for an elegant look
Via @beiruta
Comic sans, it makes everything patronising
Via Jon Hassall (Facebook)
No font list could be complete with out someone mentioning Comic Sans. On that note check out this short documentary on the typeface, it’s worth a watch. I loved the quote from the Comic Sans designer, Vincent Connare:
“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography, but if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography either and you should get another hobby.”
Recommended Typography Resources
- The Top 100 Best Fonts Of All Time
- 30 Fonts All Designers Must Know & Should Own
- How To Choose A Font
- 54 Typography Resources Every Designer Should Bookmark
What is your favourite font and why?
82 comments thus far »
Logo Design Book Recommendations (+Video)
Published on Monday, June 15, 2009 – 6:04 pm | 26 brilliant comments »
I’ve recommended some of the best graphic design books before here on Just Creative Design however I have not recommended logo design books before.
In the video below, I give an insight into 4 highly recommended logo design books along with a flip through of what you will find in each book. Read more »
26 comments thus far »
Guess The Logo Game
Published on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 – 12:00 am | 86 brilliant comments »
I recently watched a game show on TV and one of the mini games shown on the program was based around guessing logos. The host showed a small segment of a recognisable logo and the contestants had to guess what the logo was.
I was quite fascinated at how you could instantly recognise the logo by being shown only a small segment of it. I’ve tried to recreate the game here in this blog post. It just goes to show how crucial an effective & recognisable logo design is for your business - unlike like these bad logo designs.
There are 10 logos in total… please do leave your guesses / thoughts in the comments.
Logo 1.
Logo 2.
Logo 3.
Logo 4.
Logo 5.
Logo 6.
Logo 7.
Logo 8.
Logo 9.
Logo 10.
For those who need a helping hand, I’ve provided a big clue - a logo mashup of all the logos above. Only use it if you are truely stuck or want to check your answers. Click here for clue / answers (opens in new window).
86 comments thus far »
Fake Logo Designs: Revisited
Published on Monday, June 1, 2009 – 4:31 pm | 87 brilliant comments »
It was about 5 months ago when I brought up the topic of ‘fake logo designs‘. Basically the point was that many logo designers are placing ‘fake’ logos, for made up companies, in their portfolio.
It isn’t the fact that the logo is ‘fake’ but rather the company and whether that these fictional designs are actually a measure of the designers skill and /or experience.
I would like to quote Steve from Logo Factory on his view of fake logo designs as his opinion is exactly where I stand.
All in all, the idea of creating pretend company logos isn’t terribly offensive - all designers at the beginning of their careers have to indulge - but does it give an accurate representation of a designer’s ability to deal with real-world client demands and actual company requirements? I’d say no. I guess at the end of the day, sites like Logopond and Logosauce are great for visual eye-candy, they’re not particularly helpful in seeing how designers attack real branding and logo development issues, nor how a designer can problem solve some of the more mundane and banal design problems that are presented in the ‘real’ world.
But how can a client decide on a logo designer based on their portfolio? I believe Briana had a great reply:
Personally, I think that using fake logos and other types of fake work is fine for demonstrating creativity and technical skill. And it’s only fair that they’re disclosed as such in a portfolio.
But if they are used in a portfolio then the designer better have something else that backs up their business and communication sense because that’s what fake work lacks – the real world give and take relationship with a client.
Adding onto Briana’s quote of “something else that backs up their business”, here are some other values one should keep in mind when hiring a designer.
- Experience & Proven Success
- Testimonials
- Their Design Process
- Awards Won
- Strength of Portfolio
- Time Frame
- Price
- The Questions Asked
- Professionalism
- Communication
In regards to disclosing fake logo designs in portfolios, I would have to commend Logopond (a logo inspiration gallery) for putting in place a new system for differentiating fun and client work - which comes after many others speaking up about this topic of fake logos. If you notice on each LogoPond members showcase page, there are now new icons that help you differentiate what is client work or not.
Below you can see what each icon means along with a screenshot of where you can find these icons.
Take note of the red circles, highlighting where you can find each icon.
Below you will find a screenshot of the upload screen of where the designer can choose the “logo status”. At present, it seems that it is not compulsory to choose what the status is, however, I believe it should be, to ensure that the system actually works. I’d like to know what you think?
I also believe that this system should be put into use across other inspiration galleries and I will be doing so from now on for all new submissions on my own logo inspiration gallery, Logo of the Day.
Logo of the Day & Fictional Logos
And whilst on the topic of LOTD, many people have expressed their opinion on whether or not myself and Jeff Fisher should showcase fictional logo designs on the LOTD site.
Take August West’s response to a conceptual logo:
Not a fan of the “working backwards” logos.
It’s too simple to base an idea for a company around a logo. I find it much more difficult to base a logo around a company’s particular needs. I could come up with random, cute logos for companies that don’t exist all day long. Just my humble opinion.
Although I agree with August on most parts, the main point of the LOTD inspiration gallery, is to give exposure & inspiration to other designers. For this reason, we do showcase a conceptual logo from time to time.
Update: August 2009
We are no longer accepting fake logo designs on LOTD.
By doing so it gives exposure to the designers, thus bringing in potential clients for them. And it works too… we’ve received numerous “thank you” emails from designers, stating that they have received paying clients from their exposure. The site has also brought in many clients & traffic for myself and book sales for Jeff Fisher whilst giving inspiration to other designers… so it really is beneficial for all involved.
The most recent success story coming out from Logo of the Day was the recent sale of the Logo of the Month logo, Coffee Cup (as seen above) that was sold via the ’stock logo’ IncSpring website.
Below you can see the purchaser’s comment left on LOTD:
Well, I just saw this logo last night here and thought about it all night. I fell in love with it immediately. I have been searching for a logo for my coffeehouse for about two years now and just bought it from the link above today. I, and those I asked today, thought it was evocative, trendy, elegant, and fun! I’m so happy I ran across this site and saw that logo on a whim!
I congratulated them on their new purchase, in which they wittily replied:
Thanks a Latte
and all hail the Internets!
So yeah, I am all for fake logos… as long as they are rightly identified as so.
87 comments thus far »
Subscribe