There are countless 'experts' out there who will try to convince you that if you want to get to the top of Google you need to blog. Cobblers. In order to get to the top of Google you need to talk the language of the Customer and it turns out that blogs are great ways to engage with your Customers and begin talking with them. Blogging is a two-way channel for communication so please do join in and tell us what you're thinking. If you're on the go, you might prefer to grab the RSS feed for this blog.
We've changed our default position when it comes to sourcing and generating content for Customers' websites. This significant shift in our approach to the resourcing of websites has come about following the recent launch of a website with an unbelievably-long gestation period.…
Steve Whiting - 28th November 2023
This afternoon I received an email in my inbox, an email that immediately lit the blue touch paper, and I am finding it difficult to imagine a worse piece of marketing. Please buckle-up and assume the brace position; this is about to get passionate.…
Steve Whiting - 26th October 2023
There's an awful lot to read into the words of a website. This blog post considers the immense distance between the words if and when; and illustrates how just one word change can have you re-thinking the entire tone of your website.…
Steve Whiting - 22nd June 2023
Yesterday, I was turned-away from the website of a charity that I wanted to make a donation to. The error message I was shown, you may see above. This experience is completely unacceptable and needs to be called-out. The purpose of this blog article is to underline that this is NOT how the web is supposed to be and to highlight where the blame for this error lies. …
Steve Whiting - 18th January 2023
The question as to which content and links one should put on a website homepage continues to flummox many a website owner - myself included, it would now seem. As I wrote an email to a new client last week, it hit me hard that I really wasn't practicing what I preached.…
Steve Whiting - 23rd March 2022
The growth of short form content continues its growth and, to some, it may appear as though the website, with its ability to do long-form better than anything else, is beginning to look old. Yet the HTML webpage is the foundation of everything your present-day thumb scrolls and remains the original and, perhaps, best short-form content management and presentation system around.…
Steve Whiting - 21st December 2021
This blog is a blog about website code - you know, the stuff that you probably prefer not to think about; the stuff that your website is actually made from. You may have chosen to ignore code but, if you're thinking about buying a website, then please don't ignore this blog. I've been meaning to write this website blog post for many years but I've never felt as though I had the correct metaphor to run with - until now.…
Steve Whiting - 11th November 2020 - 1 Comment
My problem? I'll tell you what my problem is. The website home page - site of some of the most heated discussions I've ever witnessed Customers have about websites. Too often, I have found myself being drawn-into such internal politics to add weight to one viewpoint in a final push for victory. So I now need to put this out there, for what it's worth. My unshakeable, hard-fought-for opinion concerning the website home page is long-overdue an airing. 🛎…
Steve Whiting - 30th July 2020
Throughout lockdown we've noticed a steady, yet unsurprising, increase in the attempts to force entry to the websites we've designed and built. Reassuringly, none of these attempts have yet been successful. The inboxes of our Customers have witnessed an increase in the volume of email claiming to have hacked their website and plundered the data within. Reassuringly, all of these attempts at extorting bitcoin payments are baseless scams. Hackers and scammers are treating lockdown as an opportunity to try their luck with you and your website. So this blog explains how a zero trust policy helps us anticipate, challenge and defend.…
Steve Whiting - 9th June 2020
Have you ever started writing a blog intending to write about one thing but then found yourself veering off-piste? Well, this blog started out as a post about how the Photoshopping of website photographs was something that makes a critical (professional) difference in web design. But, soon after I started, the words web design professional began to crawl and make me uncomfortable. In a world of web design professionals, I feel it's time to ask the open question: what makes what web designers do professional? 🧨…
Steve Whiting - 15th May 2020
Sitting right at the heart of responsive web design lies one simple principle - that you cannot guarantee what a website will look like on a device or a display that's not in-front of you. We love an acronym in the IT sector and I've just created a new acronym: LOOM, meaning 'Looks OK On Mine'. The acronym is intended to shine a spotlight upon one of the biggest misconceptions in web design. To begin illustrating the point, here is a live example from one of our own responsive web design projects.…
Steve Whiting - 29th April 2020
A question of evolution: the chicken or the egg - which came first? With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to look back and figure out that the egg came first. Yet, when it comes to livestreaming and building a following, it would appear that it's less easy to engage retrovision to figure out which comes first: content or audience? So, don't look backwards - look inwards. Here's how and why.…
Steve Whiting - 24th March 2020
The scale of the coronavirus COVID-19 is now becoming apparent. While no-one is able to state with any degree of certainty what the impact of the virus will eventually be, one thing is certain: that business will not be the same again. We're going to look at the role of your website, how best to communicate during and beyond the crisis to discover the long-term positive contribution a website can make in the face of a pandemic.…
Steve Whiting - 20th March 2020
Hidden within the <head> of every web page lies the capacity to store invisible (meta) data about the webpage that is visible. The purpose of this blog is to make meta much better for you and the people who use your website. A web page's hidden data is not invisible to everyone; Google reads it and, if you care to, so can you. Yet most people don't care to read or write this valuable hidden data, possibly because code is perceived as being scary.…
Steve Whiting - 12th November 2019
Despite what you may think, hit websites are still not simple to create. Sure, the TV ads might make the choosing, buying and renewal of a website simple but none of these three actions has anything to do with making your website a success. So I've come up with an analogy that'll help you appreciate what a thoroughbred website looks like and what a website that's, well, pony looks like.…
Steve Whiting - 5th September 2019 - 1 Comment