What Is The Device-Agnostic Approach To Design?

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If you look at the tags for most articles on responsive design, you will notice the way most writers connect responsive design to mobile design. Thinking of responsive design as a mobile design method kind of misses the point however.

When Ethan Marcotte first coined the term ‘responsive design’, he wrote, “responsive design is not about ‘designing for mobile’. But it’s not about ‘designing for the desktop’, either. Rather, it’s about adopting a more flexible, device-agnostic approach to designing for the web.”

So what exactly is device-agnosticism? It is the main selling point of responsive design. The device-agnostic approach to design is designing for every device at the same time, or focusing on no specific device. PC Magazine defines it simply as saying the approach is “not tied to a particular device.”

I won’t say more about the benefits of thinking agnostically about devices, as it is already covered in just about every article I’ve done about responsive design. But, what I will say is I made the same mistake many have by slipping responsive design under the idea of mobile design. Thinking that way still focuses on the needs of devices. Instead, as Sarita Harbour from Web Designer Depot, explains, you should stop thinking about the needs of devices, and start thinking about the needs of the consumer. Isn’t that what is most important anyways?

 

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What Do You Need To Know For SEO In 2013

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SEO changed so much, it is hard to predict what will be best for 2013. Just this past year, Google has issued so many changes that it has become pretty much a constant. Trying to pinpoint where we will be a year from now almost feels impossible.

Paul Bruemmer from Search Engine Land, however, believes he knows how to keep up with everything for the next year with just a few tactics that can help guide you. Some are timeless, such as always keeping up with the best SEO practices, specifically starting with the Google 2012 Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. When in doubt, Google usually has an answer for any SEO practice you should be focusing on.

Social Media is, of course, also going to be a strong driving force in SEO for the next year, as there are no signs of them losing popularity. Even with the ever-changing heirarchy of sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are solid constants that can be leveraged increasingly to keep in touch with consumers.

Falling behind in SEO is dangerous for your career and your clients, and any good SEO knows to keep up. Brummer’s suggestions are by no means comprehensive, but if you are wanting to make sure you’re in a good place to take on the coming year, the article is a great start.

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Nonprofits Social Media Model Could Improve Your Own [INFOGRAPHIC]

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INFOGRAPHIC

In 2012, even nonprofits were utilizing social media. MDG Advertising looked into this developing trend and found that the inclusion of social media marketing meant more exposure and more donations for these organizations, as reported by The Huffington Post.

The innovation of ‘Giving Tuesday’, which grew over social media, is a glowing example of what is possible when online marketing is utilized properly. The model used by nonprofits is not revolutionary. Rather, it is simply a testament to why putting the time and effort into social media marketing is necessary.

While you browse the included infographic, think about how you can increase your conversions through a better social media strategy.

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The Differences Between Branding, Identity, And Logos

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You know how sometimes a group of words are thrown around together so much their meaning becomes blurry? If you don’t understand what I mean, think about how you understand brand, identity, and logo. Almost any article about logo design will intrinsically link these three words together without clarifying where the line between each one is. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else.

Jacob Cass from Just Creative noticed this and put it upon himself to clarify the differences between brand, identity, and logo, and what each does. Breaking it down simply:

  • Brand is the “perceived emotional corporate image” of the business all together.
  • Identity combines all of the visual aspects that form a brand.
  • Logos identify a business in the simplest form by using icons.
It is a heirarchy in which a logo is part of the visual identity of a company, which helps mold the brand as a whole.

Branding

It is hard to write shortly about branding, as Cass even points out, but to summarize the concept, it is the audience’s idea of a service, product, or organization. Visual aspects of the brand including its marketing and logo can help mold it, but ultimately, the audience decides the shared perception overall. “A designer can’t make a brand […] a designer forms the foundation of the brand”, which the audience then builds upon with their reception of the product and marketing as a whole.

Identity Design

That foundation the brand is built on is it’s identity, or its image. Every business creates sets of visual devices they use to interact with their audience including color palettes, fonts, layouts, etc. Every visual aspect is considered part of the identity, even things like a web page design, and especially the logo.

Logos

I’ve talked quite a bit about logos before, but when it comes down to it, a logo identifies your brand. It becomes one of the most prevalent aspects of the image, and shapes how customers perceive your brand.
According to Cass, a logo doesn’t sell or describe a company, but that is the only aspect of his article with which I don’t completely agree. Once a business is established, their logo is understood by the quality of the company and product it represents. However, for young businesses trying to establish themselves, a quality logo is important in attracting companies by letting them quickly know what that company does and showing they care about how their audience feels about them.

Conclusion

The three are absolutely linked, but when writing about them we often make it unclear what each seperate part really is. Logos affect identities, which set the floor for a brand. All are important, but they are all unique to each other
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So What Is SEO Really?

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Most average people have know idea what SEO is, and have probably never even heard the term before. Still, the industry is essential to running a popular and credible website. It is important enough that there are an inordinant amount of people writing about it every day online. That wide amount of people writing has lead to the spread of apparent misinformation, usually by well-meaning people who were never exactly explained what SEO is and what one does.

That type of misinformation, though well intentioned, seems to have lead to a bit of an identity crisis for the market. We can see it in a couple recent articles for Smashing Magazine. The first is called “The Inconvenient Truth About SEO” and the second is its rebuttal. The first simulataneously cites the spread of misinformation as a huge issue in the field, while also attributing numerous non-SEO practices to the industry. While trying to show that a lot of the practices offered by so-called “SEO experts” are can actually be wastes of money, Paul Boag also shows that his own idea of SEO has slipped askew from what SEO does.

The rebuttal, by Bill Slawski, on the other hand is aimed at resolving these questions about what an SEO does, and more importantly, doesn’t do. Summarizing it in short would not do justice to the full explanation he offers, so I suggest just diving in and reading what he has to say.

It is hard to say that Bill Slawski’s idea of what SEO does is exactly correct either, as the people working in the field are the ones who define it, and some SEOs have been using these practices. Instead, think of it as a way to get closer to a more traditional spin on current SEO practices, and what SEO really means.

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The iPad Mini Makes Us Question How We Do Design

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The internet relies on agreements and standards to work, especially web design. With the constant barrage of new devices and input types, there is the need for each design to follow these agreed upon practices, less our entire system fall apart. This is why it confuses designers when a device or browser seems to ignore those practices.

The iPad Mini is a huge problem for many designers. The device-width viewport tag is set to the same values as the original (and obviously larger) iPad, which means that every button, logo, and line of text, appears 40 percent smaller. To someone using the tablet, this means everything is tiny.

That’s not to say the iPad Mini is the only rule breaker out there, but it is the latest high profile case which makes us all have to reconsider how we do design. The writers from A List Apart have used the issue to try to understand just what the issue is, and why breaking the agreed upon practices could actually be good for designers.

 

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Why Do Some SEOs Still Gather Data Manually?

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SEO relies on data. That’s a pretty simple fact. Still, for some reason, some SEOs still do all their research by hand and manually track their performance, usually by making Excel charts that seem to stretch for days. I honestly don’t completely understand how they put the time into even trying to do this, at this point in SEO. So for this article I won’t be answering the question posed in the title, but instead showing why manual data gathering doesn’t make sense anymore.

To do well in SEO, you require fresh and accurate data to base your decisions upon. If you spend all your time and effort doing data gathering by hand, how do you have the time to make solid judgments and strategies for your customers?

SEO, of course, did start out with that exact manual strategy, but the reason it isn’t anymore is because this very problem I’m talking about. There is simply too much data, and data gathering can be easily automated, so doing it by hand is a waste of time and resources.

But, for those few SEOs out there still doing things the old fasioned way, there are pleny of ways to get all of your data gathering automated quickly. Myles Anderson from Search Engine Land gathered a quite a few tools you could use to get started, as well as answering just about any question about local SEO tools anyone has had ever.

It is a comprehensive guide, so if you just need the tools, head straight for that section, but if you need more convincing or don’t understand how the tools work or their benefits, Anderson makes a strong case with his explanations.

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What’s Next In Web Design This Year

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We’re officially in 2013 now, and it is time to plan for the year ahead, if you haven’t started already. Planning means trying to predict the biggest trends that will hit design before they get here, which can be tricky, but there are plenty of lists already out there of people making their predictions.

The one I believe is the most accurate is Andrew Kuchariavv’s article on Intechnic. He starts with the same item that has topped just about every list I’ve seen, and seems less like a prediction than a statement. Yes, responsive and adaptive design will only be more important in the next year. There are a few drawbacks, but the bottom line is responsive design means a quality design will look good, if not great, on any display from an iPhone to a desktop.

Predicting parallax scrolling will be more common in 2013 however is a bit more of a reach. Parallax scrolling is a technique where multiple layers of a website scroll at different speeds, creating a 3D effect. For an example, check out Bagigia’s website. There have been sites with parallax scrolling for a short while now, but it is only now beginning to catch on, because it works great for product presentations and looks excellent on smart phones or tablets.

Probably my favorite prediction Kuchariavv made might be more of a hope than a foresight, but it is still fairly probable Flash could finally die in the next year. Javascript, HTML 5, and CSS3 enable just about every animation effect you could make with Flash, but without the need for plug-ins, and compatibility issues with mobile devices.

The next year looks promising for web design, and I personally am excited to see what comes out. There are always the new things we can’t see before they get here, but just these trends suggest websites will keep getting sleeker and more fun to use.

 

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Yes, The Disavow Links Tool Works

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After Google launched the disavow link tool in mid-October, there were a fair amount of doubters and those that claimed it doesn’t work. Dixon Jones from Majestic SEO, a well known and respected member of the SEO community posted in a Google+ thread that he used it for a site and it worked to remove a manual link penalty.

SEO Roundtable has the exact posts he made explaining the process and what happened. For Jones, the manual penalty was removed fairly efficiently, but those wanting to use it for a Penguin link penalty may need to wait for a new refresh.

The best option is of course to try to avoid link penalties or bad links, but the world isn’t perfect. If you’ve dealt with the root issue which caused the penalty, the disavow links tool may just be the solution you need.

 

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Online Marketing Predictions for 2013

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As with any business, you not only need to keep up with current trends and updates in online marketing, but you also need to be looking ahead to attempt to predict some of the changes ahead.

To help with this task, Business2Community presents their predictions for the 2013 landscape of social media and search engine marketing. If you’ve stayed current with the trends of the past year, there aren’t any big surprises here. But, it’s nice to see a succinct list of things to keep an eye out for in the coming year.

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