Today we are going discuss the importance of the logo in your overall marketing and branding strategy. The first element that a potential client sees when opening up your website in their web browser. In these milliseconds the visitor is evaluating many elements to form an impression if they “do” or “do not” want to do business with you.

With this little margin for error you are doing yourself a dis-service if you do not have a professional logo appearance. If you do have a well designed and impacting logo you will find customers will take you and your business more seriously. Here a a quote from the iconic designer Paul Rand on logo design:

Paul Rand Quote:

“Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer’s job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting. ”

I believe Paul really hit it on the head with his quote, he really shows us that the logo is what is used to pull all of the different goals of a piece of design together to give it a sense of form. If someone looks at your logo and they believe it looks amateur or novice what do you think they will infer from this on your company? That first impression is just too important to leave to chance.

Here are a few helpful tips for preparing to get a logo designed:

1. Have the name for the company chosen (secure the domain)

2. Gather a list of your favorite colors

3. Gather a list of symbols that would rightfully represent your business and service

4. Write a short summary of your business function to help the designer understand your business

5. Hand drawn sketches are great (even if they are scribble scratch too you)

Here is a question I am frequently asked when new clients call up and are interested in obtaining SEO service for their website. But why is it important and it is right for everyone. After six interesting years of doing this I have to say “yes it is”.

Let me explain why

First I will give some background into the search engine industry and why they have been around since 1995 and now (2002-present) it matters. Many of might remember your first experience searching Yahoo in 1997. I remember many non-relevant searches coming up like if you searched “Brittany Spears” you might get some pr0n website or whatever was the flavor of the day.

Why would this happen?

First, our not-to-be named spammer knew that Ms. Spear was very popular as this moment so they knew that many people were searching “Brittany Spears” in Yahoo! on a daily basis. With this fact they knew a top 10 placement in Yahoo!’s search index would drive significant organic traffic to their website. Second, the algorithm they used at the time was not very intelligent so it was easy to exploit. This was the early days of SEO and it was pretty basic. A little meta tag spamming and some hidden/cloaked text and “poof!” you were magically transported to the top of the search index. (You wonder why our industry has had such a harder time to establish itself).

What happened next?

Two friends and a little company called Google got its feet off the ground. They made is very interesting conclusion. If you weighted website by the other websites that links you. But not quite that democratic, all links (votes) are not created equal. The more weight your website holds then the more weight your link (vote) carries as well. Well folks, this was a game changing event and actually made the Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization industry into what it is today.

Why was this so important?

Well before this advancement you were more likely than not to get non-relevant results when you searched more generic or popular topics. Well this would really tick off the average web surfer. I would even propose that they would even look for alternative search engines until they would find one that would not get such un-relevant search queries. Google gave them this option they were looking for and has helped them gather over 60% of the entire search market.

Was it just Google or did something else happen?

Yes something else happened at the same time and I will take a moment to cover this. Human nature has always revolved around being a “hunter gatherer”. We go to work everyday to “seek” out money to take care of our families. We go to the grocery store to “seek” out the food and we constantly “seek” out information to better our position or educate ourselves. So I would propose that humans had it in them to be “natural” searchers at heart being that is part of our nature throughout history. You might be asking yourself “that is great but how is that relevant too my web marketing”? Let me bring in the other item that happened before I bring us full circle. Second is broadband penetration, this is important and I would say was a major reason of why Web 1.0 never reached its potential. There was a general lack of computers and high speed internet in the average American home. We have now passed that 50% penetration point and most workplaces also have some form of high speed internet access. If we look at the internet itself and the speed that most web services run at we have nearly light-speed access to a plethora of information online (if you know how and where too look). I believe this development has not even begun to really show how it is going to affect society in general being that the internet is still in the early stages of its development. Giving people this type of access, speed and now useful tools to find information is unprecedented in human history. We can see that limited access to information was an effective tactic used to control people so giving this access to anyone should free people over time.

Okay, why is this important?

It is important because this is the last frontier where it is like the wild west online. Many businesses we talk too daily either has never heard or SEO, don’t understand the importance or had a bad experience and are taking that as a reason why SEO is not for them. Well guess what, SEO is fundamentally important and should be the cornerstone too any marketing strategy.  It is still a level playing field with an experienced search engine marketer.  You can have your brand along side the largest brands on the planet.  Unlike PPC (Pay Per Click) or any other advertising medium it is and will always be “pay to play”.   With the search engines making their money from users clicks on the ads that appear along side with the non-paid search results.  They are never (I mean never) going to let people buy there way into these results because they have built trust with the users and if it came to light that Google ever let people buy their way into the index then people will flood to the next search engine that did not practice this type of revenue generating activity and if everyone does this then I personally will be launching a search engine to bring this back to the people.  It is that important and fundamental.

Full Circle (Summary of SEO Importance)

Okay now we have most of the important elements accounted for so we can go into why SEO is important for “any” website or business.

1. People search for things everyday so having your website placed high in any search engine for the generic keywords that relate closely to your core business function

2. This is natural traffic that will come daily depending on the popularity of the keyword or phrase

3. You competitors are doing it or will be shortly once someone explains this too them

4. You have the most level “playing field” you are going to get as a small or medium business owner

5. You can appear along side fortune 500 companies and this enhances your brand

6. Search is only going to grow as more people come online and learn about different methods to finding information or services

7. Search is the ultimate time saver (People love convenience)

8. People assume you can find the best deals online

-Dal

One of the concepts I found that has persisted is that Graphic Designers are Web Developers (Coding) and Web Developers are Designers. This seems to be a common view among many business acumen and the professionals them self.

The problem lies that many times when you receive your website you either have a great design with average coding or a average design with excellent coding. This does not even take into account if the coding is search engine friendly. Most of the time when you meet an exceptional Graphic Design he will have some sort of Art degree. This is a good thing, this means this person has formal training in design, color balancing and strong typography (fonts) skills. Rarely I will find a very competent programmer in this same person that can code their design into a fully functional website.

When you meet a strong coder that has knowledge in Apache (Linux) and IIS (Windows) administration, CSS, PHP and MySQL experience along with other specialty skills you will rarely find a great natural designer or a designer that decided to head down the web programmer career path. These are two separate skill sets that are rarely found in the same person. If you do have someone who says they can meet these two highly specialized skill sets, I would look closely look over their portfolio and evaluate the design and the coding on their own merits.

You will find that if you bring a designer and coder together for your project the end results will more then if you have a single person deliver both.