Mobile-first index: how Google’s changes impact your website

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Mobile-first index: how Google’s changes impact your website

Interested in search engine ranking? Then you ignore Google’s latest mobile-first index at your peril

In 2015 the company revealed “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan”. You can be sure that Google is thinking mobile, even if your stats show that your actual website users are not – yet.

We live in an increasingly mobile world. Internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop worldwide for the first time in October 2016 1.

Internet usage importance of mobile-first index
Internet usage worldwide October 2009 – October 2016 (www.statcounter.com)

Google is constantly working to keep its search engine up-to-date and in line with its users’ needs. Now that means giving over more time to thinking about the needs of mobile users. Hence the launch of Google’s mobile-first index. Whereas Google previously crawled web pages the same way as a desktop user, things have now switched around. Now the web crawler treats the mobile version of each web page as the primary page to index.More

Cardiff back to square one

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Cardiff back to square one

23 April 2017

A very interesting Sunday morning spent at the Cardiff Story Museum on the 90th anniversary of Cardiff City FC winning the FA Cup. This was the first cup final broadcast on BBC radio, club historian Richard Shepherd revealed in his talk. To help commentators describe – and listeners picture – the action, this diagram was published in the Radio Times.

What a great example of an early infographic. It was so simple to understand and really useful to both “client” and “customer”. It was also possibly the origin of the phrase “back to square one”.

Print’s Not Dead

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Print’s Not Dead

People still have a desire to own tangible things and print is part of that. Even in this increasingly digital world, just look at the resurgence in sales of vinyl records as proof of this. Sales hit a 25-year high in 2016 with LP sales up by 53% on the previous year [1]. Though it seems everyone has an electronic device glued to their hand, when it comes to reading people still want to curl up with a printed book.

A Nielsen survey this week reveals that in the UK while ebook sales are falling, sales of paper books grew 7% in 2016. The most popular reason given was “I like to hold the product.” [2]

So is print too old-fashioned for businesses? Does it have a damaging environmental impact? Can businesses just assume that they just don’t need printed brochures, leaflets or catalogues any more?

No, there is still a massive role for print to play when it comes to business-to-business communications and as a business owner you ignore print at your peril. As one of our clients said last week “print is far from dead”.More

Talking to the FSB about design

Talking to the FSB about design

8 March 2017

Lou was absolutely thrilled to be able to talk at the south Wales Federation of Small Businesses FSB Connect lunch at Bridgend College today. Hopefully her 10 minutes on the importance of good design will have inspired a few business owners.

It was another great FSB event and it was a delight for both of us to meet, share stories and enjoy lunch with so many enthusiastic business people. Many thanks to the FSB for putting on the event.

Happy St David’s Day

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Happy St David’s Day

1 March 2017

Feeling a little analogue in the studio as we celebrate St David’s Day. Anyone else remember ruby lith tape?

Everyone’s a critic

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Everyone’s a critic

Confirming the old adage about taking a horse to water, a trip to Barcelona proved that you also can’t make a 12-year-old boy look up from his phone for a moment even when you’re in the beautiful galleries of  the Fundació Joan Miró in front of one of the great artist’s masterpieces!

Luckily, more attention was paid to those other great artists – Messi and Neymar – later on in the weekend.

Photography shoot for Headway Cardiff

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Photography shoot for Headway Cardiff

14 February 2017

We’re delighted to be working with Headway Cardiff this year and recently directed a photoshoot with our favourite photographer. We’ve worked with David at Photodrome for many years and he’s shot a huge range of material for us from geotextiles to national recycling depots.

Headway is the national charity set up to help and support individuals affected by brain injury and we’re looking forward to seeing the images printed on the display materials we are producing for the organisation.

Google Digital Garage at Tramshed Tech

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Google Digital Garage at Tramshed Tech

9 January 2017

Always on the lookout for opportunities to develop our digital skills we popped along to the Digital Garage at the Tramshed in Cardiff this week, hoping to gain some useful insights into the way Google thinks. It’s always good to listen to others and we were able to pick up some useful tips at a great local venue.

We heard how many businesses aren’t utilising the Knowledge Panel which is the panel which pops up on the right hand side of the screen in response to a user search. The Knowledge Panel is a great way to reinforce a brand or give potential customers a little more information about a business and all business owners should take the time to populate and update their panel.

Another useful tool which Google provides can be found at www.testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com where website performance can be measured and scored. By simply typing in a web address, Google will determine how the site performs across all devices offering a free detailed report and tips on how to make improvements.

Graphic Design Workshop

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Graphic Design Workshop

26 November 2016

We were delighted recently to be asked to deliver a graphic design workshop at the British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists’ Annual General Meeting and Development Day.

Set in the grounds of the Mary Hare School at Newbury, the Arlington Arts Centre was the venue where we helped a number of audiologists understand and gain insight into how good branding and communications could benefit their practice.

After delivering a mixture of activities and information, we received great delegate feedback and were thanked by the CEO for our successful contribution to the day.

Cyfannol Women’s Aid delighted with new responsive website design

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Cyfannol Women’s Aid delighted with new responsive website design

1 August 2016

Cyfannol Women’s Aid recently launched their new website design, created and built by us here at Designworld. The responsive website, built using the WordPress framework and designed to work on multiple platforms, had to successfully communicate important information clearly and quickly to a varied audience, from service users to corporate sponsors.

Here’s what the client had to say about it…

‘Huge thank you to Designworld for creating cyfannol.co.uk – getting great feedback’

Find out more about Designworld’s graphic design for the third sector

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