Everytime someone asks, “How can I increase traffic to my website?” the answer is invariably, “Regularly post new content.” You could be alone in the forest where the proverbial tree fell when you ask this question, and you’d probably get the same answer from a passing bear. The bear might even offer you a course on making website content for only $49.95 USD, involving three easy web seminars. People keep saying that your company blog needs to be more than press releases, and they’re right. They’re often kind of short on details, though. So, here, with no need for seminars or payment from you, I’m here to let you in on the super secret recipe for blogging success that I mostly learned by reading other blogs. Oh, and there was some personal experience, I guess. No, but seriously, some of these tips for maintaining a stream of regular content have worked quite well for me. Other ideas on this list worked really well for other people. If you’re just starting to put together a blog for your company, there’s a lot here that you’ll probably find useful.

Including high quality blogs and other forms of useful, interesting content is a great way to boost SEO and encourage repeat visits to a website. However, with everyone playing the same game, getting visitors flowing to a new site can still be touch and go — even if you do everything right.Increasingly, targeted advertising on Google and social media helps bring new eyes to every lovingly crafted website, and companies relying purely on SEO struggle. The drawback is that this puts a business’ hard-earned cash straight into the pocket of the Internet giants. That’s why they’re worth billions while small businesses struggle. There is a way, however, to get free advertising and introduce thousands of new surfers to your site: by guest blogging, you can showcase yourself — and by extension your company — and usually get a backlink to boot. This is not the game it once was, though, and you’ll need serious dedication and guts to succeed.

Now to stop the all too familiar scenario of seeing a beautifully designed identity go out into the world only to be misused by a client we need to be empowering them with the right kind of identity guidelines. It’s time to take our cue from UI design and start creating guidelines that leave nothing to the clients imagination. I’ve never really enjoyed writing brand guidelines, I always felt it got in the way of the “real” design work i wanted to be doing. But I also really don’t enjoy designing a carefully thought out, beautifully executed logo only to see it used and abused by a poorly informed client. To work on creating a visual identity and then to send it out into the world with the equivalent of a hastily scrawled map on the back of a cigarette packet is woefully inadequate. Through research and conversations with some world class identity designers I’ve found a solution to helping clients use their new visual identity to their absolute – a pattern library. We’ve all seen the beautiful digital UI kits, pattern libraries and style guides created by the likes of Mailchimp for their digital products, well its time to start creating similar for identity guidelines.

When you design for the web, no matter the industry, there are expectations that must be met, and realities that must be accounted for. Although this is true for all forms of web design, it is especially true for logo design. This is something we’ve encountered numerous times. Think about the many different conventions of logo design. They’re usually placed in the top left-hand corner of the page, they are usually linked to the homepage, they’re usually used to reinforce ideas or messages about the brand itself… I could go on. So how do we craft innovative logos in a world where there are so many standards and expectations? We take advantage of them.

Now there’s an old saying about dresses and speeches which rightly points out that both should be long enough to cover the subject. In the modern era, men in particular would be well advised to drop all reference to female attire and talk about blogs instead. How long should a blog be? The infinite Internet has done away with strict word counts and in theory, every online article can be as long as the author feels necessary to get their point across. Unfortunately, many bloggers forget the second part of the old joke relating to dresses and speeches: they should also be short enough to be interesting! The ideal length of a blog will, to an extent, depend on why you are writing it. Is its primary purpose SEO or social media engagement? Do you want to drive sales or gather backlinks? Does your writing seek to provide detailed knowledge, or entertainment? The answer to those questions will have a strong bearing on how long your blog posts need to be. But before we look at the possibilities, there’s one thing you need to know…

Picture it: You’re working full-time as a digital designer for one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. The paycheck is steady, the hours are (somewhat) flexible, and you really never have to take work home with you. To sweeten the pot, there are plenty of perks–free swag from clients and swanky company parties to enjoy. You take for granted the fact that you don’t need to worry about where the work is coming from. That’s someone else’s job. You love your job and your co-workers, but something substantial is missing. Perhaps you are dissatisfied with what you are designing or, even more frustrating, you can’t take ownership over the end results. What is a talented, hard-working web professional to do? That was me a few years ago, before starting my creative digital agency, and something needed to change. In addition to the sentiments previously addressed.