Must Design

SEO For Web Designers
Web designers are where rubber meets road for Search Engine Optimization, but it is unrealistic to expect designers to become SEO experts. This Haiku Deck sets reasonable expectations and outlines a handful of technical SEO best practices sure to help any web designer understand the most Darwinian of practices - today's SEO.  

Web Designer SEO
Our SEO Tips for Web Designers hit a nerve. It is heading to 13,000 views (probably today). We hit a nerve because web Designers are where SEO rubber meets the road. This Haiku Deck is full of SEO tips for web designer including:

* Know who has the banana and why.
* Know how much SEO you need to know.

* Learn what is MIST vs what is Gorilla.
* Listen Digitally.
* Understand how SEO & Content marketing work together.

* Design to Win Hearts, Minds and Loyalty. 

And More SEO tips designed for designers.  

Web designers shouldn't be SEO experts since keeping up with DESIGN is a full-time job. Nothing has made that truth more apparent than my first week learning CSS, SCSS and the like at The Iron Yard Code Academy in Durham, NC this week.

But web designers are where SEO rubber meets the Google Road so understanding a handful of ideas is critical to the online success of any designers creations. This deck was created to share with The Iron Yard's Cohort 3 Front End Engineering class Friday January 16th.

Includes our favorite FREE SEO tools and how we use them. Good luck and let us know your SEO / Design experience and we will curate into an upcoming post on http://www.curagami.com.

Social Mobile Web Blowing Up Web Design
The boxy unidirectional web design controlled by wireframes (boxes within boxes) is gone. The social mobile web is crushing, spinning and recreating web design as we write this sentence.

Don't let old "web design thinking" enslave. Help create a revolution in web design by sharing your favorite story of website PAIN. Every shopper, web designer or marketer has a favorite Website PAIN story.

SHARE YOUR STORY to help change the story :).M
http://www.curagami.com/featured/burn-your-website-down/

With 22,000+ views SEO for Web Designers blew up thanks to a defined tribal audiences, advocates and luck. Discover tips on how to blow your content up too.

Why is it so freaking hard to find high quality, high-res free stock photos? Here are the most awesome free stock photo websites + tools.

Web designers shouldn't be SEO experts since keeping up with DESIGN is a full-time job. But web designers are where SEO rubber meets the Google Road so understanding a handful of ideas is critical to the online success of any designers creations.

HOW art director Adam Ladd shows us 10 more of the top design websites, many of which are sure to give you the graphic design inspiration you crave.

How strong is your content marketing strategy? What is SEO, anyway? Read 6 SEO tips and tricks to help you boost the visibility of your web content.

1. Strong Copy Trumps SEO.
2. Do Keyword Research.
3. Share Link Love (i.e. create great content).

Marty Note
Interesting to see how How Design explains SEO to graphic designers. I would take a slightly different tack. Let's reframe SEO in ways graphic designers can understand and adapt.

I create content daily and am learning SLOWLY how to make headlines sing and links flow in. As competition for links goes UP with the rising tide of content publishers are the right side of the bell curve where more than average links reside will learn a few tricks from graphic designers such as:

* ARRESTING Images.
* Demand hierarchy.
* Clear Calls To Action (CTAs).
* Headlines that GRAB and HOLD.

Content that doesn't get read doesn't help. The first rule of getting your content read is find an ARRESTING related image you won't get sued to use. Haiku Deck (http://www.haikudeck.com) is one of my favorite visual marketing tools. Need lawsuit free arresting images? Use Haiku Deck.

Demand Hierarchy is keeping demands on your visitors LOW. When I was a Director of Ecommerce we did extensive analysis of our 40+ homepage links and 5 mattered. Vicious 90%/10% rule in links. Key is to lower choice and eliminate the superfluous. 

CTAs don't have to be "buy now" anymore. We love asking a question with the link between the present page and the answer. Want To Be A Great Internet Marketer? Highlight and underline that sentence and it will get clicked because it is an IMPLIED CTA.

This doesn't mean we are above a good "Learn More", but too many "old style" CTAs can get boring and lose their punch.

Finally your HEADLINE or subheads matter. Headlines should set a hook. Subheads should organize the answer so readers can scan and skip sections. I try to live by the 7 word rule.

I read this rule about roadside billboards. Billboard creators limit their copy to 7 words because who can read more zipping buy at 60 mph. We all zip by at 100 mph on the web these days so short, punchy headlines that align with your arresting image and plant a hook work best.

We like KEYWORDS, Brands and questions in headlines too. Questions create curiosity. Keywords create scenttrail and brands create comfort and "like me" feelings of trust and security.

8 Reasons Web Designers Should Edit Video Too

This post shares four resume-reasons web designers should learn to edit videos such as::

* Video is growing fast.
* Make more money.
* Expands career opportunities.

* Great For self-promotion.

Team Curagami ( http://www.curagami.com ) has 4 more reasons that are more abstract but no less valuable:

* Videos, like websites, tell stories.

* Designing to seamlessly incorporate video is an important challenge few have mastered.

* Video editing is similar to web design just add time.

* Video editing brings a new dimension to web design (i.e. it adds time).

We designers with video skills design better websites and better videos.