SEO 101 for designers

Search engine ranking affects the amount of traffic coming to a website in a big way. Rarely do users go past the second page of search engines when searching for something. Therefore, it is important to have your website on the first two pages for you to get any substantial traffic.

“I want to build a brand for my business…all I need is a logo.” This is the common misconception running in the minds of many clients who are looking to brand their business. They misconstrue a brand for a mere symbol, logo or a trademark used on a signboard outside the company gate. However the reality is otherwise…the logo designing is just a minor part of entire branding process. A brand is what separates large corporate giants from their small scale competitors.

Google updated its search algorithm this week to help reduce webspam in its search results.

These changes were made in response to increased criticism of Google and its search engine results. The criticism has been partly inspired by the emergence of newer forms of webspam alongside traditional webspam (pages that consist of lots of keywords and phrases without context or meaning that “cheat” their way up to higher search ranks).

It was quite in vogue last year to be incensed over the privacy-related misdeeds of a certain monolithic social network, but let’s be honest — did anyone ever read the privacy policy to begin with? How about the Terms of Service?

2010 was a BIG year on the internet.   Take a look at how email, social media, websites and blogs changed over the last year

LinkedIn, the business professional's platform, is not always the first choice when we think about growing a business. Growing a business in social media we immediately think of Twitter and Facebook as they have the power of engagement. People interact more on Twitter and Facebook as we can send a @tweet or post on a wall whereas with LinkedIn the direct contact is still via email. The immediacy and also the deeper relationships that exist with Twitter and Facebook do not always lead to business opportunities.

Priority Inbox is revolutionizing how Gmail users receive e-mail — instead of dredging through loads of messages, Priority Inbox users are benefiting from Google’s algorithm, which predicts which e-mails are important based on which ones a user opens and responds to. This new feature is the first big innovation since the spam filter that has ruffled feathers for e-mail marketers.
 

The feature’s algorithm considers information such as who sent the e-mail, how many others it was addressed to (and who they are), which label it falls under and which words and phrases are used, to determine if it is worthy of the “important” marker. If the system makes a mistake, users can correct it, and it improves over time.