After you’ve had your much-needed (and well-deserved) rest and relaxation for the holidays, it’s time to get back down to business again. When it comes to web design and maintenance, there’s nothing worse than aimlessness. Rather than float into the new year without a solid plan, why not jot down a few goals to keep…
We use Google AdWords a fair amount in our business, which is one way we help our clients gain additional attention online. They allow you to display ads for your business on premium search engine real estate offered by Google (at the very top of their primary results page, along the right-hand side, and in…
As owners of a service-based small business, one of the hardest learning curves for us was to figure out what to charge for services. We want to provide great value for what we do, but we also don’t want to find ourselves overworked and underpaid. This just leads to frustration and hurried work, and the…
Website updates happen all the time, but it’s usually stuff you don’t see. Meticulous care of the sites we build means consistently keeping up with security fixes to avoid hackers, maintaining the version and theme, and constantly downloading new plugins to stay up to date. All of this must be done to ensure the functionality…
Grammar is hard. I get it. I have more than 20 years under my belt as a writer and editor and there are still certain habits I find myself falling into, still common errors that are very hard to avoid, and still some spelling errors I consistently make. But as hard as grammar is, it’s…
At Emphasize we are very lucky to have had several clients over the years who have become friends. Because our online marketing philosophy is collaboration combined with creativity, we work very closely with our clients … in fact, we have been told that our thoughtfulness and approachability are what people like best about working with…
There’s a lot to website content development that goes far above and beyond simply putting words on a page. There are keyword density limits, ethical SEO practices, and good website writing habits to adhere to, plus it’s just not all that easy to put together compelling content on subjects that may be complicated, convoluted, and…
The question most new site owners ask me is, “How do I get people to my website if they have never heard of me before?” The first answer is build your website thoughtfully, with relevant content development, ethical SEO practises and consistent analysis of analytics and data to keep improving on the honest results earned.…
As we at Emphasize Design work with a lot of small companies that are just establishing themselves in their chosen market, a lot of the time the first thing we work on together is your logo design. Your logo is the first step towards your brand identity, and is pivotal for helping to determine not…
I don’t think of myself as the boss of the Emphasize Design team, but my background is in business and management and my role involves a lot of the same types of principles. I see my main responsibility as motivation, and I am always doing my best to keep pushing us forward so that we…
A few years ago it was all about Yelp reviews being the most influential on your business’s reputation. But it’s now it’s the almighty Google review. Not only do they trump Yelp reviews for searches, they can also greatly improve your SEO. A good Google review not only reflects well on your business, it’s also…
It used to be that one of my most dreaded tasks doing content development for Emphasize was writing a marketing email. It seemed practically impossible to strike the right tone. I want to sound peppy and engaging, but I also want to seem like I know what I’m talking about. I also want to get…
Anyone who has ever worked in print publications will know there is a constant jockeying between the designers and the writers. Designers want space to be artistic, writers want space for their words. And an 8.5×11-inch piece of paper doesn’t get any bigger, no matter how clever you are. The best thing about the Internet…
Part of my job as the content creator for Emphasize is to keep on top of how results are being displayed on the Google search page. Optimizing content to show up properly and provide the right sort of information when it’s found is an integral part of the website design services we provide. Major Elements…
Since the first version of the Penguin update went live in 2012, Google has been especially focused on weeding out Black Hat SEO and rewarding sites that offer valuable content. Google’s penalty algorithms will tag sites using unscrupulous methods of gaining visitors to their sites. One of the elements they have focused on is inbound…
In our last blog we went through five ways to improve your SEO results while also improving your website and the user experience at the same time. Thanks to continuous improvements in Google’s algorithm, nothing is more important than good content and smart website design. Your site’s search performance is dependent on its overall quality,…