Category: Design

Clean Up Your Sidebar!

Does your sidebar look like a cluttered closet that’s stuffed to the gills with distracting ads, images, and text?
Time to unpack your sidebar, look at everything you’ve put there, and consider whether or not it’s pulling its weight.
The result of your efforts? A sidebar that’s good for business.
This week on Hit Publish, host Pamela Wilson invited three Copyblogger experts to share their best advice on cleaning up your sidebar once and for all.
Tune in to Hit Publish to hear from host Pamela Wilson, Brian Gardner, Rafal Tomal, and Brian Clark as they discuss:

Why the very best sidebar might be no sidebar
How your design approach should change depending on where your sidebar is located
The secret power of an “accent widget”
Why sidebars are such a minefield, and how to make yours the exception to the rule

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Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM
About the authorRainmaker.FMRainmaker.FM is the premier digital marketing and sales podcast network. Get on-demand business advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

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A Simple Content Marketing Strategy for Creative Folks

I promoted my business the wrong way for a long time.
Just like many designers and artists, I focused on building my portfolio, posting my work around the web, and waiting for feedback.
I quickly realized this approach wouldn’t take me very far. Why?
Because that’s what everyone else does. And you’re assuming people who aren’t design experts will recognize your creative work as superior.
Most people naturally want to buy from people they know and like. So, how do you display your work while making it easy for prospective clients to learn about who you are?
The conclusion is simple: content marketing.
How to use content marketing to sell your creative work
When I looked around, I saw that many well-known designers run popular blogs, and they teach, speak, and publish books — people like Jeffrey Zeldman, Cameron Moll, Vitaly Friedman, Luke Wroblewski, and Mark Boulton.
How could I improve my authority in the design community using the skills I already had? How could I become recognized as a remarkable designer?
That’s when I started learning about content marketing and how powerful it can be for all artistic and creative professionals: designers, photographers, illustrators, musicians — you name it.
The demand for experts who teach specific skills and share unique content in the creative and artistic space is huge.
The more you create and share, the better results you get. When you become an authority in your niche, more people follow your work, and you get more (often higher-paying) clients.
And if you sell your

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Will Your Website Survive the Upcoming Google Mobile Penalty?

You are standing in a booth. People are lined up, handing you money in exchange for a small book. This lasts, with little let up, for most of the day. At sundown, you tuck your money in a backpack and head home.
This has been your life for the last two years. Business has been good, so there was no reason to suspect anything would be different the next day.
Except there was.
You show up to your little booth, and wait. Occasionally, a customer trickles in, but otherwise you are alone. Around lunchtime, you peer down the lane. A few stalls seem to have a steady stream of customers. But not many.
You look at the calendar. It is April 21, 2015. You scratch your head and wonder if tomorrow is going to be same.
An odd warning about mobile search
The story above is analogous to how Google’s algorithm updates typically unfold. Website and small business owners wake up one day to find the landscape drastically changed.
Panda and Penguin are the usual examples we like to trot out. In those cases, however, those who were caught up in the convulsions deserved their punishments. It was clear they were violating — at least, pushing the limits of — what Google favored.
But Google’s update to their mobile algorithm is different. We actually got an explicit warning that a change to the algorithm was coming.
This was posted on February 26, 2015:
Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness

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How Establishing an Online Persona Can Impact Your Business

Knowing how to position yourself is key to being successful. Those who get it right are great examples of what to do and what not to do.
What would you do if you only had one shot at writing your social media bio — if you were limited to saying all that you wanted to about yourself in 140 characters or less.
Fortunately for us, there’s an “edit” button that allows us to continuously update the things we want to say about ourselves. It gives us the freedom to be “lots of things” and present them as we see fit.
In this 18-minute episode of No Sidebar, host Brian Gardner and Allison Vesterfelt discuss:

Erin Loechner’s about page and how we relate to it
A concept called idea derailment
Being creatures of habit and maintaining personas
What the experts say about positioning yourself
Social media profiles and the “edit” button
Anna Kendrick’s tweet about “holding it together”
Brian the “person” vs. Brian the “entrepreneur”
The “Pole Position” effect and being consistent

Click Here to Listen toNo Sidebar on iTunes
Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM
About the authorRainmaker.FMRainmaker.FM is the premier digital marketing and sales podcast network. Get on-demand business advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

The post How Establishing an Online Persona Can Impact Your Business appeared first on Copyblogger.

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How a Minimalist Design Made an Unexpected Impact on Book Sales

Once in a while, you make a decision that affects your business and 100 percent of your revenue stream.
Such was the case with Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist, except that he had someone else to share the blame with when things fell apart — Brian Gardner.
Nearly a year ago, Brian redesigned Joshua’s website, and along the way Brian insisted he remove the sidebar … which was where Joshua was selling his books. In the spirit of minimalism, they felt it was necessary, and the impact it had was something neither one of them expected.
In this 18-­minute episode of No Sidebar, host Brian Gardner and Joshua Becker discuss:

The prequel to Joshua’s website, Becoming Minimalist
The burden of our possessions
How Becoming Minimalist began
The story of how Brian and Joshua met
Thoughts on Becoming Minimalist’s redesign
Removing the sidebar on Joshua’s website and how it affected book sales
Leo Babauta and selling your readers’ attention
The Proxima Nova typeface
#brocation in Breckenridge and our ski run down Briar Rose

Click Here to Listen toNo Sidebar on iTunes
Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM
About the authorRainmaker.FMRainmaker.FM is the premier digital marketing podcast network. Get on-demand business advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

The post How a Minimalist Design Made an Unexpected Impact on Book Sales appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Website Blunders: How to Look Like a Pro (and Not Like a Fool)

We all know we have just a split second to make a great impression online. Users hover over their mouses, ready to click away from your site if they don’t like what they see.
There’s a lot riding on the quality of our websites. (No pressure!)
This week on Hit Publish, three Copyblogger experts share their best advice on designing websites that put the best face on your online business.
Tune in to Hit Publish to hear from host Pamela Wilson and her guests Rafal Tomal, Brian Gardner, and Tony Clark as they discuss:

The real reason “flat” design has taken hold, and how to recognize it when you see it
The website technology that’s the wave of the future, according to Brian Gardner of StudioPress
How to be inspired by other websites (and not follow their lead blindly)

Click Here to Listen to
Hit Publish on iTunes
Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM
About the authorRainmaker.FMRainmaker.FM is the premier digital marketing podcast network. Get on-demand business advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

The post Website Blunders: How to Look Like a Pro (and Not Like a Fool) appeared first on Copyblogger.

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