Whenever you commission your print or web designer to create some marketing material or a website for your business, you’ll probably find yourself neck-deep in a discussion about which typeface (or font) to use. And more specifically, whether to use a serif font or a sans-serif font.

We’ll explain the terminology in a minute, but choosing a typeface can often be an easy decision if you already have an established brand with comprehensive guidelines that cover typefaces and fonts.

However, if this is a new project, then it’s useful to know the differences between those two types of font – especially if you want to hold your own if you ever find yourself in that discussion with your designer.

Serif fonts

First up, serif fonts. Fonts in this family are recognisable because the letter forms include what are known as serifs. Serifs are those tiny lines and flourishes you can see tailing from the edges of characters, numbers and symbols, and there are a few theories as to how they originated.

One school of thought is that serifs are a legacy from when letters were created with brushstrokes. When coming to the end of a line, brushes tend to flare out a little which creates the extra shape. An alternative theory is that serifs were more functional and were used to neaten the edges of letters when they were carved into stone. But either way, they’re often considered to be easier to read – at least when printed onto paper – than fonts without serifs.

Sans-serif fonts

And that leads us nicely onto sans-serif fonts. As you’ve probably guessed, sans-serif fonts are fonts without serifs. They often look a lot more modern than serif fonts, but their history also dates back to as early as the 5th Century BC and the term ‘sans-serif’ became widely used in the 1830s.

Which is best for my project?

So, while serif fonts have long been the preferred choice for long printed documents like books and manuscripts, the question that you might be asking your designer these days is what type of font works better on screen?

Good question. The generally accepted rule is that sans-serif fonts work better on screen than serif fonts. Why? because modern screens are made up of millions and millions of square pixels (as opposed to really fine printing with ink), and it’s often difficult to reproduce intricate serifs – especially if the individual characters are quite small. Given the square shape of screen pixels, serifs often disappear altogether or are shown a little too big – both of which can make on screen text look messy.

So, in a nutshell, that’s why your designer might suggest a sans-serif font for on screen designs, and a serif font for printed designs.

Better still, you’ll even be able to understand the conversation when it happens, too!

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If you’re familiar with the term, you’ll already know that a CMS (or Content Management System) is the clever bit of software that actually powers your site. However, if you’re still scratching your head, here’s our guide to the top 5 things you need to know about Content Management Systems, and the benefits they offer to anyone who owns or runs a website.

1) They make running a website easy – a good content management system means that you can quickly and easily update the content on your website. So, whether you need to make changes to text or images, update product listings, or write and edit blog posts, it can be done in real time with virtually no technical knowledge.

2) They can save you money – in the past, updates and changes to websites that weren’t powered by a CMS generally needed to be referred back to a skilled web designer or developer. These days, content management systems often mean you pay once for the initial design and build, then only pay for major changes or additions to your site – as most minor changes to text and images can be done yourself.

3) They can improve your users’ experience – content management systems can help ensure that things like your navigation, design, colours, and branding remain consistent throughout your site – which is vital in maintaining usability.

4) They can make site handovers much simpler – if you ever need to work with another web developer or designer, a site that has been built with a well-known and highly-supported CMS will be much easier to get to grips with than a site that has been built from scratch using bespoke – or even obscure – coding techniques.

5) They offer loads of choice – there are hundreds, if not thousands, of content management systems available on the web. They range from huge enterprise systems designed for massive corporate websites and which cost thousands of pounds, to smaller, open-source (or free) systems with enormous user communities.

Which CMS you choose is up to you and your web developer, and will probably depend on what features your site needs, your level of technical expertise, and your budget. Just ask your developer… they’ll be able to talk you through the options.

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The reasons for its development are obvious. For example, a web site that looks great on your 27” iMac might not look so good when you look at it with your iPad’s browser. Or, a web app that offers a fantastic user experience on a desktop computer, might not be half as usable on a phone.

Responsive designs cater for all of these screen sizes. They reflow and refit the site’s content, and sometimes they make fundamental changes to the site’s overall layout in an effort to maintain usability, readability and great looking design.

On paper, responsive design seems like a great idea and millions of web designers agree. However, a growing number of designers are also beginning to speak out against responsive design for a number of reasons… which means the jury’s still out when it comes to this technique’s future.

Here’s our quick guide to the key pros and cons of responsive design:

For:

the most often quoted reasons for incorporating responsive design techniques into a website are development costs and convenience. Imagine building separate versions of your website for desktop computers, iPads, iPhones, Android phones, Blackberries, and any other device that users might use to view it. Not very practical, is it?

Against:

on the other hand, some designers believe that responsive designs which change the fundamental layout of a website go against usability and user expectations. How many times have you visited a URL on your mobile expecting to see the same site you’d normally see on a desktop, only to discover something that looks much different? That’s one of the main arguments against responsive design and for some sites, it’s a dealbreaker.

While we’re not swayed one way or the other just yet, our view is that we’ll probably never commit to just one technique. In fact, we’ll always make sure we use the most suitable tools for the project we’re working on – whatever they are.

And that’s the real definition of responsive design.

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Which is where a website’s content content really comes in.

However, most search engines tend to play their cards fairly close to their chests when it comes to how they define what makes good content, so how can we really know what search engines are looking for?

Well, with millions and millions of websites out there, it’s not difficult to see which ones naturally float to the top of the rankings – and which ones don’t. What’s also easy to spot is what those top sites all have in common when it comes to their content: put simply, it’s unique, it’s relevant, and most importantly, it’s regularly updated.
Keeping your content unique and relevant to your niche or market means that search engines have a straightforward way to rank your site against others. That’s why plagiarised and non-relevant content is often penalised.

But what’s the benefit of regularly updated content? And how can it help your site rank higher?

Once again, the answer is actually fairly simple. To begin with, if search engines discover brand new content on your site often, they’ll visit it more often too. And the more times a search engine crawler visits your site, the more Google juice it will pick up.

Updating your site’s content regularly with new pages also has another huge benefit; by definition alone, it means your site is growing. So it naturally follows that a bigger site with more pages of content will attract more attention from the search engines.

What’s more, having new content often means having topical content. Search engines are clever these days and they know when your site has something to offer searchers who are looking for the latest, up to the minute information. In short, they’ll send more visitors your way if they think your site’s bang up to date.

And finally, new content can also mean covering new ground. By that, we mean growing your content to target keywords and keyphrases which might not be the main focus of your site, but are still relevant to your niche.
So there you have it – regular content updates do so much more than simply make your site look interesting to your visitors… they’re vital in driving natural search traffic to your site, and giving search engines the perfect reason to rate you.

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The answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes. And they’re exactly the same questions you should be asking yourself before you start any kind of SEO activity on your site. In fact, SEO is a whole new art in itself, and here’s why:

1) Have a plan

Painting doesn’t just take pure creativity – it takes measured creativity. Creating a masterpiece takes meticulous planning, plenty of sketching, and hours of thinking before the brush goes anywhere near the canvas. It’s the same with SEO; only you’re not deciding on which subject, style and colours you’ll use… you’re deciding on which keywords, meta and title tags, and page structure to put in place.

Think of a web page as your canvas: your meta tags, title tags, other HTML elements, and the copywriting itself become your paint, and it’s how you use them on the page that makes the difference.

2) Visualise your end product

Before creating a new picture, a good artist will likely consider where that painting will eventually hang, and how it will look in – and work with – its surroundings. SEO is no different; each web page you optimise needs to work within its own website and not negatively impact what’s going on around it. Being able to visualise how this happens with internal and external site links, title tags and anchor titles will make a huge difference to how effective your SEO is.

Think of a website as your gallery: your pages within that website become the paintings on the wall, and you need to make sure that they all complement each other.

3) Tweak as you go

Artists don’t just begin painting and then stop once they’ve ticked off all the boxes – they’re constantly tweaking colours, shadows, composition and angles as they go to make sure that their painting is the best it can be. Put simply, if something doesn’t work, they change it. SEO professionals do exactly the same; the entire process is all about constantly monitoring, reviewing and tweaking your SEO practices, content strategy, copywriting, tone of voice, and link building activities to make sure everything looks right and works well in the eyes of your audience.

Think of search engines and actual web traffic as people visiting your gallery: if they don’t like what they see or it’s not relevant to them, they won’t come back!

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So if that’s the case, how do you leverage that power? Our 5 essential title tag tips should do the trick…

1) Keep it short.

It’s worth bearing in mind that search engines only display a maximum of 70 or so characters of any page’s title tag in their search results. So, if your title tag is longer than that, remember that it will be cut off at the 70 character point and the rest will be replaced by an ellipsis (…). So, try to stick within that 70 character limit, otherwise you risk compromising your the readability and relevancy of your title tag. In other words, it might not make much sense.

2) Keywords are… well… key.

Don’t forget that the whole reason for improving your title tags is because you want your page to rank for certain keywords. With that in mind, it’s essential to use those particular keywords in the tag – and the closer to the start of the tag, the better. Why? Because it will give you an extra boost in the rankings, and users will be much more likely to click on a link that displays they keyword they’re searching on in the most prominent way.

3) Brand it!

If your brand is well-known in your industry or field, then make the most of it by mentioning it in your title tag. Users who skim down search engine results pages will see more of an incentive to click on your link if there’s a company or brand name they recognise, or one they already have some kind of relationship with.

4) Emotional impact.

Try to think beyond what the content on your page is about, and focus on what makes it relevant to the reader. For example, what can the content on this page do for your reader? Will it help solve a problem? Will it help them make money? Will it change their lives? If you can tug on the emotions of your reader inside your title tag, you’ll give them a huge reason to click through to your page.

5) How does it look?

Finally, remember where the content of your title tags appear. Most people know that you’ll see them in search engine results… but the fact that they are displayed at the top of the browser window is often overlooked. So, make sure that your title tags maintain their readability and relevancy in both places – and a good way to check this is to keep an eye on other sites’ title tags and find out what works visually and what doesn’t… and use that (combined with our other 4 tips) to your advantage.

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The research on CGDESIGN was conducted confidentially and we would like to say a big thank you to all our clients who took part and contributed to this achievement.

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One more thing you’d notice back then is that people were mad about swapping reciprocal links. In fact, if you had a website, it was perfectly normal to receive emails almost every day from other website owners asking you to place a link to their site on your site, and offering to do the same on theirs.

It didn’t matter whether either of the sites had similar content. Or even whether they were from the same industry. Reciprocal links made any site look busier, and way more popular than they probably were. But above all, they kept websites topped up with that all-important Google Juice – the not-so-secret ingredient that drove them up the search engine rankings, increased traffic, and ultimately generated revenue.

And it really did work. At least until the search engines wised up and realised that some links were a lot more valuable than others. Which is why, if you fast-forward back to today, you’ll see a very different story has evolved. Thanks to Google’s (and other search engines’) algorithms, swapping links with any old site no longer does the job. In fact, reciprocal links with non-related sites can often have the opposite effect, and send you hurtling back down the rankings.

But it’s not all bad news. Reciprocal links can still offer traffic-boosting benefits, as long as they’re done in the right way. By that, we mean only swapping links with sites that offer content that’s relevant, or complimentary, to yours. That’s because modern search engines rank sites by the importance – and the relevancy – of the sites that link to them. It’s the golden rule to remember when it comes to reciprocal links. And it’s also why, 5 or 6 years down the line, reciprocal links are still one of the most common and effective forms of website promotion.

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Below are some helpful tips to improve the content on your website:

1. We recommend that each web page should have at least 150 words of text on it. There are some cases where this may be difficult, but the search engines really like it so you should do your best to increase the amount of text where you can.

2. The text on your web page should include your most important keyword phrases, but should always remain logical and readable.

3. Always use the phrases that you have used in your other tags (i.e metas, alt, headings, titles, etc.) during the optimisation.

4. Use your most important keyword phrases about 4-8 times per 100 words.

Things that search engines do not like:

1. Sites that use frames in the design.
2. Sites that use dynamic URLs.
3. Sites that use flash.
4. Sites that use image maps for navigation.

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