Tag: SEO

How Do You Implement Mobile First Technology?

Posted on by Robinette Kelly

4 steps to bring your client up-to-date for thinking “Mobile First”.

I have adopted a steadfast rule in my work: I never show a client a draft unless their product is completely mobile-friendly. This approach helps my clients recognize the importance of mobile in building their business and online presence.

To effectively teach your clients about mobile-first technology, consider following these four steps:

1. Emphasize the Significance of Mobile-First:

By now, we understand that “mobile-first” refers to enabling users to perform almost any task on their mobile devices, with minimal impact on content, loading time, and functionality. In today’s world, where people spend a significant amount of time on their mobile devices, it is crucial to emphasize the concept of mobile-first design.

Despite its prominence, there are still individuals who prioritize aesthetics over mobile functionality. Take a moment to browse the web on your phone, and you’ll be astonished by the number of non-mobile-friendly sites. Initiate discussions about mobile design right from the first client meeting to establish its importance.

2. Educate Clients on Framework, Design, and Mobile-Optimized Content

As smartphones become more and more powerful, it’s important to keep up with the rising technology and bringing out clients along as technologies change. If you want the user to have the best-possible experience, by teaching your client the process, they will understand the process and importance of mobile first.

Whether it’s design, content or navigation, implementing the mobile first strategy during the review process, my client will begin to understand the importance of how designing their product for mobile technology will help their business.

3. Simplify your look and feel

When designing for mobile, be selective about the content and graphics displayed in the mobile view. Users navigate through sites by swiping and tapping, so it’s crucial to streamline the mobile experience.

Avoid large graphics or menu bars that take up too much screen space, as they can hinder navigation. Teach your clients how to identify areas that can be simplified for mobile and encourage the use of interactive buttons and mobile-friendly image galleries. By involving clients in this process, you save time and effort in explaining and training them later on.

4. TEST, TEST, TEST⠀

Prioritize thorough testing to ensure mobile-friendliness before presenting a project to clients. Whether you’re using a website builder, WordPress templates, or HTML/CSS, implementing the mobile-first strategy saves time, minimizes errors, and impresses clients.

Educate your clients on the testing process and emphasize that changes made to improve mobile performance, such as turning off large hero graphics or simplifying the menu, are done to enhance the user experience.

While these steps may seem basic to some, it is important to evaluate our strategies, client interactions, and consider adopting a mobile-first mindset. Share your own mobile-first techniques and experiences to further enhance the discussion and encourage growth in this area.

Do you have a specific technique for mobile first that you can share?

Robinette Kelly is a dynamic digital marketer and industry leader with over 25th year of experience driving digital success.

5 Tips to Optimize Your Personal Brand in 2019

Posted on by Robinette Kelly

Is your digital presence optimized for the upcoming new year? As business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers, our personal brand is more important now than ever before.

Following are my top five quick tips to ensure your personal brand is ready for success in 2019.

1. Your Name.

2. Social Media.

More often than not, when you are being considered for a project or new position, at some point your potential client will dive into your LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media accounts.

If you have not updated your LinkedIn for five years, how will your potential client know what a great fit you are for them? If you still have those party pics deep down in your Facebook account from 2009, those need to go. Take the time, get in there and clean it up.

3. Online Portfolio.

When you are considered for a project or new job, one of the first requests from a potential client is a link to your online portfolio. Whatever the work may be, big or small, if you are proud of it, show it off. By keeping your portfolio up-to-date, you are one step further to landing the next big gig.

A good place to keep up with your online portfolio is LinkedIn. Remember to update your profile as you renew certificates, attend training, speak at conferences and or land new projects. Set a goal for 2019 to update your portfolio every month. By taking your best projects and adding them to your official online portfolio, your personal brand will look fresh and up to date.

4. Leads.

Is your website optimized for inbound leads? Check your online profiles, social media accounts and website. Your website should offer a potential client a way to contact you by email, phone number, contact form, and social media buttons. Contact information should be readily available on your social media bios. Don’t forget to use call-to-actions on your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. 

5. Value.

Understand your true worth. As a highly experienced digital marketer who has recently jumped back into full-time freelancing, it has been challenging for me to come up with the right pricing schedule. I know my worth, but I have a tiny inside voice whispering to me “you can’t charge that much…” Remember your skillset, and how you can actually help your client succeed.

If you have been a freelancer for a while but haven’t evaluated your prices recently to meet your skill set, do some research and consider a new pricing structure. Besides, you know you are worth it!

Comment below how you are implementing your personal brand and what tips you recommend for freelancers in 2019.

Have a wonderful holiday week!

Robin

Robinette Kelly is a dynamic digital marketer and industry leader with over 25th year of experience driving digital success.

 

3 Top SEO Tips that Stand the Test of Time

Posted on by Robinette Kelly

As December winds down each year, I admit I consume a multitude of blog posts summing up the year in digital marketing along with insight into where we may be headed. I find these yearly posts about SEO, social media and digital marketing interesting and informative.

Mindset in 1995.

Today, I wanted to look back further into search engine optimization past and share my top three SEO tips that have always been around and aren’t going away anytime soon. Following are my three top SEO tips that will never go out of style.

Tip number 1: Cut the Clutter

Back in the 1990’s when we designed for 640×480 and site visitors were using dial-up to access web content, we knew every tiny bite could potentially add up and cost us visitors. We quickly learned we needed to optimize our content for site speed. The way we did this was by keeping our code lean and clean, optimizing images down to the exact viewable size and looking for anything else that might slow down our site. Back in the early days, it was simple to scan HTML and find what may be causing an issue.

In today’s world, site speed is taken into account for your search engine ranking, making it more important than ever to render your site. While we may no longer be concerned about optimizing a .jpg down to 20k, the concept of site speed still holds true today. User expect fast websites. As the world becomes increasingly mobile, and consumers expect on-demand content, poor site-speed can be detrimental to SEO.

Learn more:

Tip number 2: Keywords

  • URL. When putting together your main site URL along with your sub-pages, implementing descriptive and straightforward web addresses is a must. The more readable the URL for visitors the better. Not only are you helping the reader navigate your site, but you are also helping the search engines crawl and index your content appropriately. Here’s a great resource for naming conventions and SEO.
  • Metadata. The title tags are used to tell search engines and visitors what your page is about. I am amazed at how many web pages do not follow this rule. So the second tip for keyword strategy is to creatively and strategically write a unique title tag for each page implementing the keywords for that particular page. When writing your description tag, follow the same principle. It’s still debated as to whether a description tag has any weight at all. However, by concisely using the meta description tag to inform your reader what the page is about in an exciting, creative way, you draw in the reader and raise your click-through rate.
  • Content. Your page content is why the reader is on your site. Your page content should be written for the reader, not for the search engines. It’s both a science and an art to developing great content for SEO. As long as you are aware of the keyword phrase you are targeting, you should end up with the right amount of keyword density.
    I also want to mention, that when possible, it’s good practice for your URL, title tag and page header to match.

3. Consistency and Accuracy

  • Links. Check for broken links and outdated information. A user who comes across inconsistency on your site won’t hang around long.  When linking externally, more often than not the page you are linking to at some point may no longer be valid, causing a broken link from your page. Thus, leading your reader to the back button from your site. The rule applies to internal links as well. If you are part of a larger website, are you checking that all links work properly and content is still available?
  • Content. Yes, again, content. Freshly-written content is loved by the search engines. By consistently bringing readers high-quality, well-researched content, readers learn that you are the go-to person for your niche. With the explosion of social media, it’s easier than ever to bring fresh content to your readers on a timely basis. If you are not taking advantage of social media such as blogging, tweeting, sharing, what are you waiting for?

Want more SEO? Below are a few of my favorite search engine optimization articles I’ve read over the past few weeks:

Robinette Kelly is a dynamic digital marketer and industry leader with over 25th year of experience driving digital success.

Confessions of a Web Professional Part 2 – Don’t be Afraid of Change.

Posted on by Robinette Kelly

One of my favorite YouTubers, Casey Neistat posted a video this week that resonated with me. Casey was talking about change and how it can affect us. While Casey was discussing the change coming about in his family, what he said at the end of his video hit me like a ton of bricks.

“While it’s natural to be scared of change, you should never let that fear keeping you from making changes.”
Casey Neistat

Over the past year, I have gone through a tremendous amount of change in my professional life. After working as the Webmaster for UT Tyler for almost 18 years, my time at the university is coming to an end in a few weeks.

Continue reading “Confessions of a Web Professional Part 2 – Don’t be Afraid of Change.” →

Confessions of a Web Professional-Where it All Began.

Posted on by Robinette Kelly

I have decided to begin my new blog with a series called, “Confessions of a Web Professional”. In this series, I will discuss my life as a web professional, how I became obsessed with search engine optimization and how working in the field of higher education has transformed my life.

I hope you find these posts entertaining. I would love to hear about your introduction to the World Wide Web and your thoughts on the Digital Marketing industry. It would really mean a lot to me if you shared this post. Let’s keep the conversation going, drop a comment below.

Part 1 – The Information Super Highway

I am in my 25th year as a Web professional and over the years I have worn many hats. But for the majority of my career, my official my title has been Webmaster. Those of us in the industry know this is a catch-all title. I am not complaining, I have been given the opportunity to learn a tremendous amount of information which has propelled my career into all sorts of amazing directions.

Today, however, I want to start from the beginning. When did I first discover the internet? What compelled me to start a career in the internet business? How did I decide to learn HTML?

Let’s go back to 1994, the year I discovered the “Information Highway”.

mom-jeans

Continue reading “Confessions of a Web Professional-Where it All Began.” →