We're sure many of you are familiar with the term SEO and what it stands for. If you’re not - very briefly - Search Engine Optimisation is the process of enhancing a website so that search engines such as Google and Bing list that site on page one of their results when people search using popular terms to find the product or services that a company sells.

As part of a marketing mix, we have a handful of clients that we provide SEO to on a monthly basis, all of whom have been using us to do so for a minimum of two years, some for as many as five years.

SEO is of course now a very competitive sector, and whilst investing in getting a page or site to appear on page one is possible, keeping it there is another thing, especially when the businesses you compete with who offer similar services, are also trying to become top Google dog too.

In our last month’s reports one of our clients had every single one of their terms ranking on page one, sixteen of which were in the top three, and eight of which were in the #1 spot. Not surprisingly their business has grown *significantly * since we started working for them three years ago.

So if your website is well designed, looks great and gets compliments, but rarely generates any enquiries or phonecalls, then it’s time to ask yourself what if it did? Once you have, call us on 07 3300 6308 and ask, what can absolute do to help?

Website design is incredibly fast moving. By experiencing the very latest interface developments on a continuous and evolving basis, visitors will opt to browse elsewhere the instant that a site they’re viewing fails to meet their expectations. To give this claim some relevant context, here are a few of our observations about where it’s at right now, and why:

Long scrolling pages – started with the goal of getting visitors onto a specific landing page and converting interest into action. Landing pages typically contain sufficient information needed to allow an informed decision and numerous prompts to ‘contact for more info’, ‘sign up for details’, or ‘get in touch NOW’. Often with zero navigation options at the top of the page, they essentially focus the purchase decision to a very clear YES, or a NO.

Landing pages have evolved into an easy to navigate and anticipatory experience; it’s far easier to swipe your finger up on a mobile phone than it is to locate the menu button, then choose the next page or info that you want to read. Additionally, viewers now typically scroll further and further to see what else is on a page before choosing to move on, and a well-balanced page with excellent content, features and functionality will tease them down, down … and further down.

Easy navigation – mentioned above but now essential to keeping visitors on your site, smartphones are still considered fiddly for more detailed activities. No one really wants to type a report on one when there’s a real keyboard available, do they? That said, smartphones are now the most used device around the world between the hours of 7am – 10am. Mobile usage now accounts for more than half of the world’s internet browsing traffic and logically, mobile user interfaces need to provide the ability to explore a site quickly and easily. Hence the growth in popularity of longer scrolling pages. But what other implications does this have? How about a less complex navigation menu structure? How about a large clear nav menu that fills the screen rather than running along the top edge of the screen? Why do I have to scroll all the way back to the top of the long scrolling page? That’s right. Sticky menus - which hide when scrolling down, but re-appear when a slight upwards gesture is made - back to the top buttons located in the footer, and responsive hamburger menu buttons are all part of this movement of convenience.

Making it fast – whether you’ve read this article word for word so far or just skimmed it, you’ll have probably have gathered that the common driving factors behind website design are currently page load speed and ease of use. The reason that website design has moved so rapidly is that the software and hardware technologies supporting it keep evolving at a furious pace.

PHP is the language that many web servers use when your phone, tablet or PC/Mac requests a web page. Whilst you may not know anything about PHP, what you should know is that PHP7, now active and available for over 12 months, is 20% faster than its predecessor PHP5. Chances are that your website could be performing a lot faster than it currently is, which would make for a better user experience and contribute to better ranking in Google’s search results.

Fast to complete forms – this one is kinda obvious, but we’re noticing the benefits of it a lot more on websites that have been reviewed to address the problem. It goes without saying that with any online form asking for user information, the more information that you are asked to enter, the less the likelihood that you’ll complete and submit it. This sentiment is further compounded with the use of smaller interfaces which can, as already mentioned, be a bit fiddly at times. Think trying to find the right symbol on a touchscreen keypad whilst you’re rattling along on the commuter train!

Not surprisingly, the shorter and more straightforward the form – just your name and email address will do – the higher the submission success rate of user details from a page.

Mobile responsive – Let’s begin with a confession; we still host a few websites that were designed and coded before tablets were launched and smartphones came to prominence. As you no doubt know, whilst these sites will still display on a smartphone, they aren’t optimised to display on a smartphone, so you will most likely see the whole page on your mobile screen.

“What does that text say? Can you zoom in? Ah forget it … go back to the search.”

The discipline of designing a website first for a desktop, then considering how it will look on a mobile device has been turned on its head. Many websites are now designed around the smallest potential viewing platform, for example 1334×750 pixels for a iPhone6, and their design layouts are then adapted to larger screen displays where the content can be flowed to a wider browser window and presented horizontally as well as vertically.

Also for probably a couple of years now, Google has been penalising websites that aren’t responsive to mobile platforms, so if SEO is important to your business, but you are still running a site that was designed pre-smartphone, then you have quite a battle on your hands.

Images – a picture saying 1,000 words. We say it in briefing meetings all the time, and in web design it’s truer now than it ever has been. Images bring life to your site, Instagram feeds give it a value of currency, in terms of being live, and the world of web design has seen a move towards less words and more pictures, particularly in combination, especially where the images are relevant to the vision of the business and branding. Ultimately this is being used to better communicate the product or service experience, rather than telling someone about it with lots and lots of words.

Of course, none of these trends are set in stone and what’s proving popular right now may be a thing of the past in 12 months-time. If there is a monumental shift, we’ll let you know on our blog. And not forgetting, if your website needs a monumental overhaul or just an enquiry form to be streamlined, call us. We look forward to discussing it.

Announcing when we’re NOT going to be here usually invokes a sense of panic!  Marketing and design projects that our clients have been putting off for ages need to be jump-started - pronto! So, whilst it’s definitely early, we are mentally prepared for the challenge and would like to announce our office closure dates this Christmas. Please make a note in your calendars, we will be closing on Friday 22 December at 4pm sharp, and re-opening on Monday 15 January 2018. Should you need a digital, print or marketing project completing before the 22^nd, please call us asap.

As a graphic design business that specialises in brochure design, one of the conversations that we regularly find ourselves having with clients concerns the form that their printed brochure might take and how it might be folded. Fold types can be very effectively used to gain more interest, to better support the main selling proposition, or to simply sidestep the norm.

So, to help ourselves as well as to provide a handy reference guide for our clients, we’ve gathered together a selection of the most popular fold types used for printed documents with four, six, eight, ten and sixteen pages as a convenient list for anyone considering sales leaflets, brochures, direct mailers or newsletters.

The Half-fold, also known as the single fold or book fold, is mainly used for brochures and newsletters, and works well in both landscape and portrait formats. The most common instances are as A4 portrait brochure, opening up to a landscape A3 size, but it can be used at many varied sizes and is still most commonly seen in newspapers.

The classic Tri-fold, also known as a letter fold, roll fold or c-fold creates a six panel format and presents a great, compact document with good surface areas both inside and out, making it easy to read and fold back together again. These are particularly effective because the three-page centrespread provides a great space with which to communicate your key messages and make serious impact. We often consider ‘the larger the better’ and these work really well at A4 portrait size (when folded), but can be commonly seen at DL size (folded) which opens out to a horizontal A4 sheet of paper. The outside right panel can often be used to great effect too with a sales proposition or conceptual focal point, or by trimming the front cover right edge to reveal some of this page, which sits beneath the cover when folded.

Roll folds can be also be effectively used for eight, ten or more pages if desired, as can the below z fold. Having more pages enables these types of documents to carry more text or communicating info heavy designs so are perfect for promotional leaflets, programs, tutorials and step by step instruction guides.

The Z fold, also known as a zig-zag, fan fold or accordion fold is simply a different way of scoring and folding a tri-fold. Instead of folding the third panel in from the right, it’s folded out, making a z shape with the top edge. It is commonly used for flyers, mailouts and brochures, and of course for folding letters so that they fit into a DL envelope.

Die-cut z fold. Take the flat z fold artwork, cut a horizontal angle from left to right and then fold it together to create a document with an angled front panel which is shorter in height than the middle and back panels. Simple difference, great impact.

The Gate fold, double fold or window fold format is perfect for graphically-heavy designs. Gate folds also create a six-panel document but, with the two outer panels being narrower than the central panel, the format presents a brilliant way to tee-up then present the message by the reader having to open up the document like a pair of saloon doors.

Double gatefold brochures constitute four panels, so eight pages. The two ends of the sheet are folded to meet in the middle, and the document is then folded in half again. They are ideal for large presentations and for small format product sales brochures or catalogues with limited but numerous products.

Double Parallel folded documents have four panels, which creates eight pages. Whilst they may sound confusing, the quite simply consist of an often wide and short flat rectangular sheet, which is first folded in half, and then in half once again in the same direction.

French folds are made by folding a sheet in half vertically, and then horizontally. The two folds create eight panels, four on the front and four on the back. This enables a document which when folded is the size of a booklet or brochure, which when opened expands to a final size that feels like a poster. This format is most commonly seen with maps and charts, and can be used to great effect with newsletters or for promotional items for where many individual products or events need to be included.

We hope that you now feel fold-enlightened but if you still have questions about a format that we haven’t explained – think origami – we’re only too happy to help, so drop us a line or call to discuss.

Mipela GeoSolutions are a young systems and software design company. In just under ten years they have grown to become one of the premier Location Information Management and GIS companies in Australia.

With a suite of software products that are designed to help companies be more efficient and productive, they use their product suite to integrate existing business systems, creating workflow automation software solutions, enabling mobile data capture and collection, and introducing service management software solutions.

Predominantly they deal with the energy and infrastructure sectors to help enable large scale asset management solutions.

A very smart and IT savvy bunch, they had in recent years designed, produced and maintained their own perfectly coded website, but had concluded that their best use of resource was to focus their developers on customer specific solutions.

They had already asked Absolute Media to help out with some modifications and updates, but following a competitive pitch, we embarked upon the process of improving their bold online presence, and making it more straightforward for other members of the team to add to the website design by building it on the Wordpress Content Management System platform.

Our approach in redesigning their site was to create a more professional site whilst deploying their already strong brand which needed honing to promote their status as pioneer in their industry. Introducing a responsive design layout, and making the site much easier to navigate, particular emphasis went into the structure of their product pages and variable support content, with their being lots of media available for some X-Info products, and others having much less to communicate their benefits.

It's back to the design school drawing board! We decided that it would be beneficial to revisit the key logo design considerations if you are planning to have a new logo developed, both as a refresher for us and as a guideline for you if you're after a distinctive and individual result.

The logo design process is regularly a very emotive journey where the outcome has to satisfy the needs of both you - the client - and your customer audience, even though you may have differing subjective viewpoints.

Fundamental to this is a good understanding between you and your designer, because ultimately it could take a lot of work and revisions to get the across the finish line. Without a good rapport the result will most likely end in compromise.

What's the point? Logo design considerations

Effective logos allow clients to connect with and recall the values of a business and brand. To be successful a logo should be recognisable, and therefore needs to factor colour, style, typographic and size considerations into a unique device. Establish a concept and find an individual and original way to visually communicate it.

Avoid overused imagery

It's VERY difficult to communicate your individuality with a jigsaw puzzle piece (i.e. 'we are the missing piece' concept) when it's one of the most overused graphic images EVER. There are many established themes in logo land and you would be wise to avoid having something that you like re-worked because you think it's a good fit. Instead consider the basis of your business, its unique qualities, its personality and individuality, what it means to your customers … and question how this might be communicated with graphics and words.

Don't just decide on price

You know we would say this. Corner cutting is a necessity in the first months of any new business, but we (as almost certainly every other design agencies has) have seen clients who unfortunately have realised that their off-the-shelf, cheap-o design doesn't meet the needs of the business 18 months in. A lot of clients already know this, and are acceptant of the fact that someday soon they'll get the logo redesigned. What they don't always comprehend are the implications of not just reproducing new materials, but the problems of having to effectively communicate the update to their customers with the new identity, especially if there is a new name too.

Consider scalability and reversal

With a mind-blowing plethora of media to apply your logo to, it's important that a design is legible in the smallest available space (think web page favicon)  and that it will look schmicko on that Flinders St digital advertising space that you've been promising yourself once you've make your first million. So don't just look at your prospective logo design in isolation. Question where it's most likely to be seen and how it might look in those environments. The perfect result will provide you with a seamless translation of your brand across a wide variety of different platforms

Simplicity is the key

A famous designer once wrote that 'Design is so simple. That's why it is so complicated.' In light of each nugget of advice that we've outlined above, the overwhelming opinion is that simplicity really is key when it comes to recalling your logo design.

There are of course an infinite list of considerations when navigating the logo design process and these are just some of them, albeit the most important ones. To discuss your logo design Brisbane needs, call us now on 07 3300 6308 and we'll take the journey together.

The process of creating and visually representing information, once known as data visualisation, has recently become more popularly known as 'infographics' or 'data viz' if you're really cool. These intriguing visual representations of report findings, data or knowledge have become very popular in the business world, and when you examine the various reasons why, it’s not surprising.

Infographics allow complex content to be communicated quickly, clearly and often memorably.

Far more eye-catching, interesting and visually engaging than pages and pages of data, their rationalisation down to a number of key indicator statistics, combined with the use of images, and brief bursts of summary text, done effectively, can give an injection of life to even the most snore-inducing report findings.

So if you are considering using your latest report findings to create a stunning graphical representation, exactly where and how can your business benefit from this investment?

1. Searchability

In a world where we now use the internet to constantly search for answers to questions, detailed information neatly packaged as an infographic is hugely eye-catching. Having made your content easier to identify, examine and digest, especially for a search hungry public with a very short attention span, infographics are search result gold, guaranteed to get click-throughs to YOUR site, rather than to your more verbose, less visually striking and possibly even boring competitors.

2. Shareability

By being attractive eye candy, easy to find on the web, and extremely helpful, infographics are also immensely shareable. An extremely effective way of driving traffic to your website, they are great attractors of backlinks from online articles, promoters of link sharing, and generators of embedded links to other websites. People that find them, talk about them and share links to them with their social networks, the net result of which is increased traffic to your website and improved search engine ranking.

3. Credibility

The businesses that create and publish infographics increase the stature of their own corporate profiles by doing so. Companies that publish and promote industry specific information are perceived as credible authorities by their peers. Doing this with meaningful and reader friendly visuals generates credibility … with bells on.

4. Printability

Data visualisation has always been popular in corporate annual reports brisbane, in the form of graphics such as bar charts and graphs. Infographics are becoming even more so; representations of data as meaningful graphics make report content far more communicative, and even more impressive and, dare we say it, put a positive spin on results which might suggest otherwise.

Such has been the impact of infographics originally commissioned for digital use, that we get also regularly get requests to produce the artwork as posters and graphics for boardrooms, offices and exhibitions.

The long and short of it is that infographics rock. They're the zeitgeist, they're here and now … and they work wonders.

Contact our Brisbane office today and we'll gladly email you examples of the infographics we’ve produced for the likes of Intel, NineMSN and GE.

Why is it important to write your copy in a specific style for websites, as opposed to print or other media? It has been shown that reading habits on screen vary greatly from reading habits off screen. People are much more task-oriented online, and read at least 25% slower on screen. It's a good idea to write about half the amount of text for a web page that you would ordinarily write for an offline document.

Successful website design is about keeping all your information organised in bite-sized chunks, tailoring your content to your audience, and presenting information in a way that can be easily scanned and searched.

1. Present Information Concisely

Visitors want information in bite-size chunks, and they want it now. Usability studies have shown that very few users (around 15%) actually read the text on a web page word-for-word. Rather, the vast majority of users scanned the content looking for keywords or phrases that either contained the information they wanted or possessed some relevance to their interest.

Page titles and meta descriptions are used by people and search engines - make sure they are relevant and concise and help to lead the user to the information they're searching for.

Here are some tips for keeping your content brief:

• Write concise sentences.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• Use subheadings to break up content
• Provide a summary or overview of key points for longer articles before providing the details.
• Provide clear, concise calls to action.

2. Use Bullet Points

Titles and bullet points are the most-read copy on the page. Lists are preferable to paragraphs because they are easier to read and scan, and also carry an implication of succinct information. Make sure that your bullet pointed information is concise, and not just your descriptive text with bullet points applied!

The following list shows which words tend to be read on a bullet list ("word" is read content; "ignored" is ignored content):

• Word word word word ignored
• Word word word ignored ignored
• Word ignored ignored ignored ignored
• Ignored ignored ignored ignored ignored
• Word word ignored ignored ignored
• It makes sense to write your bullet points then reorganise their placement according to importance.

3. Write Search Engine Optimised Copy

The content of your website is critical to its success on many levels; it can have an effect on your website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rankings (Google places emphasis on sites with well-structured content). Search Engine algorithms are made up of many factors and complex calculations. Why not make the most of the one factor that you have complete control over - your content?

Overall, good SEO copy has:

• A minimum of 300 words per page.
• Between 7% and 9% keywords per page.
• One principal topic per page.
• Links to other relevant pages on the website.
• Succinct, page and paragraph headings that are also rich in keywords.
• Summary bullet points.

4. Formatting

Keep your formatting clean and tidy. Most users want to find information succinctly and won't have time to appreciate a plethora of font styles, colours and sizes.

• Use the same font across all pages. A web-standard sans serif font such as Arial or Verdana is easy to read and ensures that your text will be viewable across all browsers and to all users.
• Underlined text is the standard convention to differentiate links form other text. Don't underline text if it isn't a link as this confuses and frustrates users.
• Use bold text to highlight important words or phrases.
• Avoid using all capital letters, even for headings - it is the web equivalent of SHOUTING!
• If you intend to use images or graphics in the content area of your site, make sure they are of a consistent style, and do not detract from the content itself.
• It's a good idea to ensure images are resized so that they don't increase page download times. If you want users to have an option to view a full size image, have the low resolution web version on the page, and then link that image to the higher resolution version.
• Remember to use a caption for each image - alternative text is an important usability aspect for users who have images turned off or who are using assistive devices (such as screen readers).

5. Provide Content For Offline Reading

Sometimes you may have a lot of information that your users need to read in full: case studies, white papers or reports for example. Allow your users to choose whether they want to read it online or offline. Rather than uploading the content of a long document, you can create a link to the document so it can be downloaded for offline reading. PDF documents are generally accepted as the web standard - they also look more professional and Acrobat Reader is free to download. Finally, ensure the document is titled appropriately for your website (rename the working file title if required).

6. Check Speling, Grammer And Punktuation

A website with content that contains grammatical and spelling errors can lack credibility and doesn't cast the business in a favourable light. How thorough and focused on quality do your potential clients think you will be if you haven't taken the time to check your website copy that is made public internationally?

For any further information or resources about content writing for the web, please contact Will Nuttall on 07 3300 0494 or solutions@absolutemedia.com.au

Q: What use is your website if prospective customers can't find it?

A: Nowadays, when we need a quick answer to something, more often than not we chuck the words into a search engine such as Google or Bing to see what solutions are offered.

Every day, searches are being made for the products or services that you sell, in your area, and when they are, is your website featured in the results? If it is but it's beyond the first couple of pages, then you are missing out on potential new business.

If you want to improve your search result position for search terms specific to your business, then you need Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as it's known in Brisbane!

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving your website's ranking position in the organic, non-sponsored listings area of a search engine results page and when done effectively, it's like having a salesperson working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is now also considered to provide the highest return-on-investment of any kind of online marketing.

The factors affecting a website's ranking position include its design, its content and its level of 'endorsement' by other credible websites. Whilst the concept of improving your website's position with a search engines result pages is relatively simple, it is the strategy, and the implementation of actions specific to your business to achieve this goal, which are a bit more complex.

Absolute Media have been optimising websites for more than 10 years, which is a long time before someone invented the mouthful of a phrase that we now all know as Search Engine Optimisation. Brisbane has many 'SEO specialists' that will happily lock you into a long-term contract and charge you much more than is necessary to do a good job. But that's just not our way of doing things.

So if you want to:

• Increase visitor numbers to your website
• Convert website visitors into customers
• Grow your business online

… contact us today to organise a no obligation assessment.

We are delighted to be basking in the afterglow of Absolute UK’s success this week, having received a ‘Commendation’ at the prestigious Mi Awards in the “Best Sport or Leisure Marketing Strategy” category, for their work on boxer Amir Khan’s official website.

The Mi Awards reward and celebrate the UK’s best marketing businesses and effective strategies.

Absolute’s award winning website for Amir Khan, the former two-time world champion and former unified WBA and IBF Light Welterweight champion, received nominations for numerous prestigious awards and was trending as ‘site of the day’ on the internationally recognised www.awwwards.com website following its launch.

UK Managing Director Chris Hodgen explained, “Our success is actually Absolute Australia’s success too. We share developer resources on larger, more complex website development and digital projects and the team involved with Amir’s website design have also worked on numerous large ecommerce websites for our Brisbane studio’s clients in recent months.”

“Of the four nominations in the category Absolute were up against some tough competition so it is a fantastic achievement for our work to be recognised at this level.”