Since May of 2011, I've written over 31,000 words on this blog. That may seem like a lot of content, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not very much. The average novel is 60K - 100K words in length, meaning I'm only halfway to my first book. Break it down and I've averaged just 89 words of content development per day since January of this year. Obviously, the actual creation was much more…
As someone who works on a computer all the time, I have quite the fondness for PDFs. We use them constantly in both web and print work, and they allow us to accomplish different things depending on the situation. On the web, PDFs are ideal for sharing documents with visitors that might need to be printed or downloaded, and they can even contribute to your SEO goals, if created properly. As with almost everything, though,…
Before anyone got their news online, before 'online' was even an idea, newspapers ruled the game. Because of their size certain aspects of the layout became hugely important. Headlines and images drew people in to the most important articles, and quick highlights of what lay inside enticed readers further into the paper. As the daily medium of information delivery for hundreds of years, newspapers have had a huge effect on the way we design for…
It's been a long time since we've talked about best practices and web conventions, so how about we make up for lost time with a collection of them for e-commerce? Whatdya say?! A few weeks ago we covered a number of elements that can hurt your e-commerce site's search engine rankings, even if you don't know it. While it's always a good idea to optimize your site for the search engines, in the end it…
Today at BK is akin to an Oreo cookie: good things, sad things, and more good things. Now, I'm in no way implying that the filling of an Oreo is sad (quite the opposite) but it's the basic sandwich concept, OK?
There are a lot of websites out there, which makes search engine optimization so important. For those businesses that rely on their websites to sell products, especially those that can be found elsewhere online, out-ranking the competition is vital. There are multiple pieces to any successful SEO push, a lot of which are beyond the everyday business owner (and the lowly blogger too!), but there are certain things that even you and I could deal…
Depending on your industry, there's usually a season that provides for a bit more down time... a relative breather. For us, that season is summer. Last week we talked about planning ahead for the holiday season to make sure everything was in order... The same approach can be taken for your business as a whole. When business is busy things change, stockpiles get depleted, and it can be tough to keep track of everything. Take…
In the southern hemisphere, Christmas falls in the middle of summer. It can be tough to have a white Christmas in the sweltering heat, so in some countries it's not uncommon to experience some Christmas in July celebrations. Here in the northern hemisphere, Christmas in July provides a perfect excuse for a retail holiday. The two month period between July 4th and Labor day (the first Monday in September) is devoid of any holidays and…
Even if you've never designed a website yourself it's possible that you've heard of the "3-click rule" which states that all of your content should be accessible to a visitor in just three clicks. If a user cannot find what they're looking for in three clicks or less, the rule says, you will lose them. The web design community has a strange relationship with this "rule." While it's widely believed to be false, it still…