We have reached a tipping point after being constantly bombarded with emails, texts, news, and information buzzing our phones, computers, and TVs. We, as consumers, are spread as thin as ever when it comes to paying attention. It is hard for one to concentrate with all this visual and audible clutter. In the era of the Marie Kondo method of decluttering our homes, we also need to declutter our advertising so that the viewer pays attention.

As a designer, it is my job to coach clients to be part of the decluttering solution. A consumer can be dissuaded to do business with a company based upon their advertising. When a message is too loud, wordy, busy, and confusing, a potential customer will walk away. People don’t have time to figure out what you’re trying to say, so it needs to be concise.

Step 1: Clear Content

Consumers want to know information fast. You are competing for their time, battling against all the other noise. Tell them who you are, what you stand for, and how you can you make their lives easier. Your messaging must have direction to entice the potential buyer.

Step 2: Less Talk

I find a lot of clients feel compelled to over-explain. Hiring a copywriter can help you create clear and concise messaging. Consumers don’t want to get into the minutia of your product; they want the basics and will seek out more information if it applies to them. Simplify your message by presenting the problem and the solution as briefly as possible. You want to give the consumer direction to gather more information from your website. Clients and potential buyers today are resourceful—they will find you if they’re interested.

Step 3: Bold Design

Fortunately for advertisers, good design doesn’t always mean expensive design. Marketers don’t need to break the bank on photography. All it means is that your advertising needs to be visually interesting. If a photo is applicable and striking, by all means, use it. But, do not underestimate the strength of simple typography and the importance of white space, as it can provide the break in the noise that consumers need. With graphic use of color, line, text, and shape, you can create a stunning design that is more than affordable.

When you tie clear messaging together with bold design, you present your customer the most concise, decluttered version of your company. It will attract and keep clientele, which is the big goal for any advertising campaign.

Addie Mirabella is the owner of Mirabella Design Studio.

It’s a common term thrown around by people with business websites who are concerned about their online presence, but many are a bit blurry on the details of the acronym SEO. All of us experience the daily barrage of emails and spam from SEO companies claiming they will get your website on the first page of Google in 30 days or less.

And most of us promptly delete these emails as we clean up our daily collection of digital junk mail. As a web developer, I’ve wondered if anyone actually falls for these claims. SEO spam emails represent a large portion of the 100 billion spam emails that are auto-generated on a daily basis.

In this article, I’d like to shed some light on the SEO world, simply as someone who works with clients that need help getting their website ranked as high as possible in Google. Yes, there are other search engines, but let’s face it...Google is currently the top site for SEO.

What is SEO?
SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization." It sounds straight-forward enough, but what this really boils down to is how well does a website rank in Google during organic searches. Rank is determined by the page a website shows up on, with the first page results having an excellent ranking.

Showing up on page 10 is not so good. Organic search results mean that one is not paying Google to promote a website. You can tell the difference between an organic listing versus a paid one, as the paid listing will note that it is an ad.

The processes involved in getting a website optimized for search engines is a lengthy topic well-beyond the scope of this article. However, I will say that to do it correctly will take a lot longer than 30 days! And of course, the idea that everyone’s website can be on the first page of Google for their niche is obviously not realistic.

The process can take 6-12 months to get momentum going, depending on how much competition there is within the niche and the geographic area an organization is targeting. Obviously larger metro areas present a greater SEO challenge than rural areas with smaller towns.

Even if a business is in a large city with heavy competition, it is still very important to make sure that a website has been SEO optimized. Over time the investment one has made in a website will eventually bear fruit in the form of passive lead generation.

For most business owners, one of the main reasons for having a website is to create more business opportunities, leading to more revenue! One of the primary aspects of maintaining a good ranking in Google search engines is content.

In real estate, the mantra is location, location, location. In the SEO world, the same could be said with the mantra “content, content, and more content.”

Although it can't be just any content, it must be original and relevant to the target audience. Google can tell if content has been duplicated or plagiarized from other websites and sources; there is no way to trick Google's algorithms. However, when one takes the time to do SEO correctly and with integrity, his or her website evolves into an extremely valuable asset that enables web presence to grow over time.

As a web developer, I understand that content is king when it comes to maintaining a website, which is why WebWorm encourages business owners to make a habit of continually adding fresh content to their website on a monthly basis...forever! More content creates the opportunity for potential landing pages where target audiences find services or products; an added benefit is increasing ranking in Google.

Here at WebWorm, we recommend a monthly plan for adding a steady stream of high quality, original content to your website regularly, along with the knowledge of how to optimize that content for SEO purposes. This is the recipe for a solid foundation to build your web presence.

Keep in mind that building a web presence should be one of the highest priorities when thinking about where to invest an advertising budget. Remember, unlike traditional advertising that ends when the ad campaign ends, the investment one makes in a web presence is an actual investment. It is an investment in an organization’s digital property, that it owns, and will continue to bring benefit long after the SEO work is completed.

Tony Culjis is the Director of Web Development at Webworm.

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