Reading Time: 2 min It feels hard for me to believe, but today is the 20th anniversary of the first release of WordPress (you can see the initial announcement here). The story of WordPress actually began earlier, with a project called b2/cafelog in 2001. It was a similar product that was essentially abandoned by its creators, so Matt Mullenweg […]
Websites
Location pages are no longer helpful for SEO
Reading Time: 2 min Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a post explaining how Google doesn’t really change the rules when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). While they change the algorithm quite often, virtually all of those changes are simply to tighten up what they’ve been telling us for years. Now they’re coming after useless “location pages” […]
The lock icon in your browser is going away because people don’t understand what it means
Reading Time: 2 min Web browsers have had the padlock icon next to the website addresses for years to show that the site has an SSL certificate and that your data is protected between you and that website. For years it was mostly just ecommerce that had that, but in 2017 Google started pushing all sites to use SSL. […]
Empathetic Marketing
Reading Time: 3 min The single best thing you can do with your marketing is to always keep the end user in mind. When we build websites for our customers, we frequently remind them that the site is not for them — it’s for their customers. A common joke among web designers is that clients always seem to want […]
Powerful systems that work come from simple systems that worked
Reading Time: < 1 min Nearly 14 years in, our process for building websites and digital marketing strategies is pretty fantastic. The outcomes, both visually and financially, are a winner for everyone involved. 14 years ago the process wasn’t nearly as strong or detailed, but it worked, and helped lead us to where we are today. In his book “The […]
Keyword-rich domain names can cause problems
Reading Time: < 1 min It’s long been known that keyword-rich domain names don’t really help with search rankings. If your site is “www.cheap-used-cars.com”, you’re not going to rank better for “cheap used cars” simply due to the domain name. That said, I never really saw much downside to them. They don’t help, but they don’t hurt. However, Google’s John […]
We all have accessibility needs
Reading Time: < 1 min Website accessibility is something I’ve shared a lot about. We’ve written about it on the GreenMellen blog, devoted a podcast episode to it, and there are a handful of posts on here as well. Polishing up the accessibility of your website is a great thing, and makes it so all users can consume the content […]
Set them free to do their thing
Reading Time: 2 min When building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance. On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen. On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new […]
Keep it simple: Sonder to Empathy, or Experience to Work
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve written a few times on here about the goal of keeping things simple, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t fall prey to overly-exotic words sometimes. Two examples showcase that. Sonder First is the idea of sonder, which I wrote about a few years ago. While many people may not know the word, reading […]
A video on your home page is likely a sign of bad messaging
Reading Time: < 1 min This isn’t an ironclad rule, but if you have to include a video on the home page of your site to explain how your product or service works, it’s likely a sign that your messaging needs help. Not long ago, the guys on the Marketing School podcast made this very argument, and I tend to […]