The importance and role of SEO?
 
With dramatically increased popular searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire. If you have completed and launched your website, then it is time to do some marketing to enhance your visitor rate. Do you understand what SEO it is and what it does? Do you know why your website needs it and why it is one of the most effective methods of making your website more visible to your target audience? If your answers are no, then It is time that you learn more about SEO.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is a method of preparing your website so that it provides high quality content and attracts a larger volume of high quality traffic. Although SEO strategies are always changing and offer no guarantee, the results of their application are often tremendously successful. At Backbone Advertising we carefully and closely work with our clients to meet their needs and to make them number 1 on top search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
When optimising your website, you should always use organic SEO techniques means 'white hat' rather than 'black hat' SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, using invisible text and creating fake web pages that are not visible to users. Black hat techniques aim to manipulate search engine spiders on a short term basis. They often backfire. Once search engines like Google Yahoo and MSN notice that your website uses black hat SEO techniques then your website will be banned permanently. Then, it will be almost impossible for anyone to find your website without first knowing your web address.
Search engine optimisation or SEO is something that a lot of people are talking about since the existence of search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN. If you run a website that relies on customer referrals or you build intranets you might not care if your site does not rank high in Google, Yahoo or MSN. Plus, getting random customers from a search engine might cause more problems for your site such as if you are not set up for international customers or your site is more private. But in general cases SEO is really important for your website, for a free website evaluation...got to www.backboneadvertising.com to see how your site rates.

Branding – Old School to Present

Way back in the day, cutting my teeth in the Graphics industry was a lot of fun with great buddies to work with and so much to learn and explore in an ever evolving industry. (Not to mention the youthful exuberance and endless energy…I think I miss that the most)

The tools of the Graphics industry back “In the day” were of the old school variety, the design work was done with actual ink and masks were hand cut on Rubylith to create large fills of color.  All of the elements of the finished piece were then loaded onto a 15 foot horizontal camera and set to whatever scale or percentage of the original you wanted.

The resulting film was hand fed through the developer, rinsed off and dried for the next step in the process which was also photographic in shooting the resulting image onto a direct emulsion coated screen, rinsed off then dried…Wow…that used to take a while to do and was a process I still hold close to my heart.

Now  I “live” in the Adobe creative suite and can effectively create a design today in less time than it took to change the developer fluid in the old days…I don’t miss that part..blech.

Having the old school fundamental experiences has given me a solid understanding of the techniques and the process involved in creating designs and layouts, but the end result has never changed.

Branding is the process of creating, broadcasting and circulating your brand name and creating an image for your business.

Branding can be applied to your entire corporate identity as well as to your visual identity which includes everything from logos to business cards and stationary to packaging to advertisements as well as online presence.

The visual identity component is what always interested me, designing a  logo that is strong and transfers well to the business card which transfers well to the signage and all other graphics, each component should resemble the other including your online presence.

I have always taken great joy and pride in creating new corporate identity packages for aspiring business people ,  or giving a facelift to a business sitting on a plateau.

Either way I chuckle to myself when I think back upon the old school ways versus the new age techniques and I salute the graphic designers old enough…and fortunate enough…to have experienced both worlds….cheers!