ADA Compliance and the future of SEO

ADA Compliance and the future of SEO

Recently you might have heard about "ADA Compliance" within the digital space. What is that, you have probably asked. For starters ADA refers to the American's with Disabilities Act. It was enacted in 1990 to prevent people with disabilities from being discriminated in all aspects of public life.  This includes ramps at entrances of buildings, accessibility for the hearing impaired, etc. Lately this has started to cause a stir in regards to people's websites. The landmark legal case was GIl vs Winn-Dixie Stores (PDF) when a man sued Winn-Dixie Stores because he was not able to navigate their website as a blind man. He argued, and won, that they needed to make their site accessible to him under the ADA. The courts found that Winn-Dixie is a "public accommodation"  and needed to be compliant with ADA guidelines. Since this time over 61 guidelines have been released and updated to make websites ADA compliant. What does this mean for you, dear reader? The biggest question...
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Website Design in 2019; Part 1 – Platform

Website Design in 2019; Part 1 – Platform

In 2019 there are almost an unlimited number of website design platforms. In this post when we say "platforms" we refer to the engine that allows you to build and design a new website. We also refer to them as content management systems (CMS). We get asked a lot what platform do we use or what is the best platform to use if you are going to start a new business or if you need a new website. WordPress Far and away the most popular and most common CMS is WordPress. WordPress accounts for about 33% of all websites on the open internet. Full disclosure - our site is a WordPress site and about 83% or our client's sites are WP when we design them. What makes WP such an attractive CMS is the fact that it can be something for anyone. You can design a massive 250+ page site with eCommerce and highly secured databases, or you can have a...
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The Digital Marketing “Black Box”

The Digital Marketing “Black Box”

Digital Marketing Have you ever gotten a monthly report from your ad vendor and felt more confused after reading it than before? If you've ever bought digital ads at any time, ever, I'm betting the answer is, all the time. This is typically done by design, and sometimes just done by accident. Either way you have found yourself in the digital marketing black box. The largest publishers and media companies sell their own ads and that is how they make the majority of their revenue in the digital space. The name of the game for them is to just sell inventory, just like the dinosaurs still selling print ads and TV ads. Traditional media companies and these publishers sell their ads based off of price or the "data" they use to target people on their site. That's the only way they can really differentiate themselves. Don't get me wrong, banner ads still have their place in the digital world, but the ROI just...
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Social Media Panic: Are We There Yet?

Social Media Panic: Are We There Yet?

With the most recent updates and revelations regarding the big 3 digital / social media companies (Google, Facebook and Twitter) the industry is in a bit of a state of flux. However there is no reason to panic. The big 3 still offer some of the best first party data available for marketers. Everyone is familiar with the various social media channels for personal use, even some businesses have used Facebook or Twitter for business purposes. However, the vast majority of businesses out there today have not been able to effectively leverage the great opportunity that social media provides. Organic SM engagement is an important way to interact with your customers and to continue to tell the story that your website does. Paid SM engagement offers a way to use data and targeting not found in any other medium. Since people that use social media effectively have turned over every part of their customer profile purposefully, advertising on social media can be...
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Witch Hunts and Twitter Advertising

Witch Hunts and Twitter Advertising

Twitter has always been somewhat of a mystery in the larger social media picture for many advertisers I talk to. They have heard of it and have mostly made fun of the premise. During its formative years, before the "witch hunts", the platform was mostly sharing quips with friends and of course sharing food pics. Saturday Night Live even made fun of the hashtag phenomenon, wherein people spoke in "hashtags" in real life and degraded normal conversation even more than we've already accepted. However partly due to certain elections and political development over the last couple of years, Twitter has shifted quite a bit towards a more trusted source of news and information sharing than it ever had been. (source) Smart people have said correlation doesn't equal causality for decades and this certainly fits, but Twitter advertising revenue and effective marketing promotion results have skyrocketed in the last two years. This presents an interesting opportunity for marketers and their advertising clientele. In the...
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