OUR BLOG

Infographics are a great way to showcase statistics in a clear, striking format, but putting your first one together can be daunting. There are many benefits to creating an infographic, not least that they are very easy to share and link to on social media sites like Twitter. Also, other blogs and sites may link to them if they follow-up on the information contained, which can provide lots of links back to your site and boost its authority in search engines. What Makes a Good Infographic? But what makes a good infographic? Data is key here - a graphical representation…

One really common trend last year in blogging was the infographic.   My friend Simon @ Ouno Creative loves a good infographic, they’ve been the subject of the agency’s christmas card campaign for the last two year.  Informative and artistic they were too. But not everyone has the skills, or tools to create a great infographic. Step up Piktochart, a website that makes it easy to create an infographic for your next blog article.  Last year I used Piktochart to graph my achievements in my local business networking group 4Networking. It illustrated the story I was trying to tell, and prompted…

If the route to a good blog is a constant source of interesting questions to answer on a regular basis, how do we go about formulating those questions?  It turns out little research has been done on how the brain works when formulating questions.  This article is a little aside from yesterdays discussions on blogging. Read on... Asking good questions.…

Finding inspiration for good stories for a business blog can be a challenge.  This article from SEOMoz suggests that asking lots of questions is a good strategy. Read on... How to blog successfully about anything.…

Blogging is an artform that scares many micro-business owners. But a well written blog on a website can help humanise the organisation - making it warm, friendly and sometimes even witty.  They are a chance for your to communicate the voice of the brand you’re trying to communicate, and I think they are important.   But where to start?   Through our Simple Sites programme of small websites for start-up businesses, I get to meet  a lot of business owners starting out on the journey to defining the business, proposition and brand.  Many are B2B and many think blogging isn’t for them…

Google is a reputation engine judging your site on the number and quality of links is receives as well as shares on social media sites.  This article from SEOMoz gives a suggestion for how to get more of both. Read on... Get links and social shares.…

As I mentioned yesterday usability experts like Jakob Nielsen have been advising against Click here as a link title for years.  But the problem is still very much with us.  In this article from Smashing Magazine, we bring the problem right up to date.  Packed with great examples this really is a great article. Read on... Are you still using "Click Here" for a link?.…

So I’ve talked a lot about tone of voice a few times, but I really like this article from Smashing Mag.  Giving examples from various sites they show how tone of voice can really help to give a unique feeling when you read a site. Here’s two examples, first Starbucks: “To say that Starbucks purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffee is very true. That’s the essence of what we do — but it hardly tells the whole story. Our coffeehouses have become a beacon for coffee lovers everywhere. Why do they insist on Starbucks? Because they know they…

The real advantage of a good blog is that it can humanise your company.  Many good business blogs are light hearted, more irreverent - yet still managing to deliver a information which is on message.  This article discusses finding your blogging voice, and uses examples from the MailChimp blog. Read on... Finding your voice.…

I’ve mentioned some of the trends from 2012 that are set to grow in 2013, in a recent few posts.  Well infinite scroll certainly went mainstream in 2012, with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest all using it.   Personally, few things drive me more more crazy than the infinite scrolling on Facebook which stops me from reaching the footer navigation which has links you can’t access elsewhere.  But beyond that there is some evidence that users access more content through infinite scrolling interfaces than where traditional pagination is used. This article from Econsultancy gives a good short overview the pros and cons.…