You should view the whole thing here - http://axz.mx/looking-glass-ux
Traditionally, UX has viewed SEO as being disruptive to design and communication, and SEO believe UX overlooks searchability. But in order to make our campaigns successful, we need to be empathetic to each other. Steve Floyd, CEO and Founder at AXZM, walks through how designers think and what they value, understanding contrasting and differing language and tools in SEO and UX communities, and how to better integrate and add value to design workflows as an SEO.
Selling Guns to Gandhi: The Art of Content Buy-InSteve Floyd
Creating, managing and distributing useful, usable content on a regular basis is hard enough, but have you ever tried to sell it?
Agencies and in-house teams alike are having a hard time getting buy-in for meaningful content initiatives that provide tangible value for their target audience. All too often decision makers tie our hands, focusing too heavily on what competitors are doing instead of highlighting their unique value in a way that resonates with the people that matter most: Customers.
This presentation was presented at Big Design Conference 2013
Selling Guns to Gandhi: Getting Content Buy-In - Pubcon New Orleans 2014Steve Floyd
Creating, managing and distributing useful, usable content on a regular basis is hard enough, but have you ever tried to sell it?
Agencies and in-house teams alike are having a hard time getting buy-in for meaningful content initiatives that provide tangible value for their target audience. All too often decision makers tie our hands, focusing too heavily on what competitors are doing instead of highlighting their unique value in a way that resonates with the people that matter most: Customers.
This presentation aims to provide actionable tips, tactics and real world use cases for selling strategic content to the people who write the checks.
Bespoke Software Development London - MakeITSimple.co.ukNathan Wynne
Bespoke Software Development London,
Bespoke Software Development Barnet,
Bespoke Software Development Brent,
Bespoke Software Development Bromley,
Bespoke Software Development Croydon,
Bespoke Software Development Ealing,
Bespoke Software Development Enfield,
Bespoke Software Development Lambeth,
Bespoke Software Development Newham,
Bespoke Software Development Wandsworth
PPI Claim Companies - PPIClaimsHelpUK.co.ukNathan Wynne
Barclays PPI Check,
Barclays PPI Claim,
Egg PPI,
How Far Back Can You Claim PPI,
HSBC PPI,
PPI Claim Companies,
PPI Companies,
PPI Mortgage,
Santander PPI,
What Is PPI Claim
This is an overview of some of the latest tools and considerations to achieve better load times in Wordpress that I presented at the Pubcon Austin regional conference.
Selling Guns to Gandhi: The Art of Content Buy-InSteve Floyd
Creating, managing and distributing useful, usable content on a regular basis is hard enough, but have you ever tried to sell it?
Agencies and in-house teams alike are having a hard time getting buy-in for meaningful content initiatives that provide tangible value for their target audience. All too often decision makers tie our hands, focusing too heavily on what competitors are doing instead of highlighting their unique value in a way that resonates with the people that matter most: Customers.
This presentation was presented at Big Design Conference 2013
Selling Guns to Gandhi: Getting Content Buy-In - Pubcon New Orleans 2014Steve Floyd
Creating, managing and distributing useful, usable content on a regular basis is hard enough, but have you ever tried to sell it?
Agencies and in-house teams alike are having a hard time getting buy-in for meaningful content initiatives that provide tangible value for their target audience. All too often decision makers tie our hands, focusing too heavily on what competitors are doing instead of highlighting their unique value in a way that resonates with the people that matter most: Customers.
This presentation aims to provide actionable tips, tactics and real world use cases for selling strategic content to the people who write the checks.
Bespoke Software Development London - MakeITSimple.co.ukNathan Wynne
Bespoke Software Development London,
Bespoke Software Development Barnet,
Bespoke Software Development Brent,
Bespoke Software Development Bromley,
Bespoke Software Development Croydon,
Bespoke Software Development Ealing,
Bespoke Software Development Enfield,
Bespoke Software Development Lambeth,
Bespoke Software Development Newham,
Bespoke Software Development Wandsworth
PPI Claim Companies - PPIClaimsHelpUK.co.ukNathan Wynne
Barclays PPI Check,
Barclays PPI Claim,
Egg PPI,
How Far Back Can You Claim PPI,
HSBC PPI,
PPI Claim Companies,
PPI Companies,
PPI Mortgage,
Santander PPI,
What Is PPI Claim
This is an overview of some of the latest tools and considerations to achieve better load times in Wordpress that I presented at the Pubcon Austin regional conference.
A major convergence is happening on the web that could disrupt the traditional rules of business and it's no surprise it's being driven by data. With cloud hosting available for pennies on the dollar, over 10,000+ APIs in 2015 available to the public and an estimated 60% of internet traffic compromised of bots, getting data is easier (and cheaper) than ever before. This environment is an ideal opportunity for savvy startups, agencies and businesses looking to take advantage of the wealth of data available. The barrier to entry has been removed and those who act quickly will capitalize, compete and even disrupt in ways we can only imagine. In this presentation, find out the best APIs, processes and technology that you can leverage to get an unfair advantage over your competition in 2015 and beyond.
I was very excited and honored to present a 3-hour workshop at the Viterbi Hacker House at USC, which is where I went to college, around growth hacking and marketing for startups. Always fun connecting with students and being able to give back to my school.
We answered:
Is growth that important?
What is growth hacking?
How do I get started with marketing and growth hacking?
How do I prioritize everything?
What is product/market fit?
What is the customer lifecycle?
Why do growth hacks fall into either acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, or referral buckets?
What are growth hacking and marketing examples from work?
What are 100+ examples of growth hacks at each stage?
How can they implement some of these today? Including onstage breakdowns of USC companies, including EnvoyNow.co and Bezalel.co
I know I’ll forget some tools, people, and resources, but....
Tools I mentioned you should check out:
Google Analytics
Qualaroo
Survey.io
MailChimp
Zapier
IFTTT
LeadIn
KISSmetrics
CrazyEgg
SumoMe
Gumroad
BuiltWith
Kimono
PrimeLoop
PerfectAudience
Odesk
Connectifier
Rapportive
Buffer
People I mentioned who you should follow (in no particular order):
Patrick Vlaskovits
Neil Patel
Hiten Shah
Sean Ellis
Samuel Hulick
Morgan Brown
Taylor Miles
Paul Graham
Dave McClure
Geoff Ralston
Marc Andreesen
Bing Gordon
Gabriel Weinberg
Justin Mares
Brian Balfourr
Zack Onisko
Greg Isenberg
Maud Pasturaud
Annie Cushing
Thomas Knoll
Ivan Kirigin
Noah Kagan
Andy Johns
Elliot Shmukler
Iris Shoor
Brian Dean
Jimmy Daly
Ramit Sethi
Brendon Burchard
Jeff Walker
Robert Cialdini
Resources I mentioned:
(definitely forgetting many, but a good start....)
Startup = Growth: http://growth.so/pgGrowth
Startup Priorities: http://growth.so/StartupPriorities
Blake Masters’ Notes: http://growth.so/BlakeMasters
Andy Johns’ Answers on Quora: http://growth.so/AndyJohnsQuora
Find A Growth Hacker For Your Startup: http://growth.so/FindGrowthHacker
The Only Thing That Matters: http://growth.so/Productmarketfit
Developer Content Marketing & Growth Hacking: http://growth.so/HitenShah
Gaining Early Traction by Doing Things that Don't Scale: http://growth.so/Zack415
Cialdini's Six Principles of Influence: http://growth.so/Robert-Cialdini
Startup Metrics for Pirates: http://growth.so/Pirate-Metrics
Traction vs. Growth: http://growth.so/TractionGrowth
AirBNB Growth: http://growth.so/AirbnbGrowth
Getting Launch Press for Your Startup: http://growth.so/MturkHack
Mobile Popups: http://bit.ly/QualarooGH
TripAdvisor’s Unfair Email Marketing Advantage: http://growth.so/TripAdvisorEmails
How to Gather 100,000 Emails in One Week: http://growth.so/PrelaunchEmails
The Medium Is The Message: http://growth.so/MediumIsMessage
Daily Growth Strategies: morganbrown.co
User Onboarding: useronboard.com
Hitenism: hitenism.com
Backlinko: backlinko.com
GrowthHackers: growthhackers.com
Building Better Experiences With Content PersonalizationSteve Floyd
The days of painting your content with broad brush strokes over over. With a fractured market and even more people and brands rushing in to become publishers every day, personalizing your content will give you an edge over your competition.
Developing a 1:1 communication strategy with your customers, users, audience, etc... will not only improve their experience and build loyalty, but it will differentiate your content among the sea of mediocrity.
Framework Thinking - 7 Frameworks To Skyrocket Your CareerSean Johnson
Discover how to leverage frameworks to become more effective and gain influence in your organization.
Learn more about Framework thinking here: http://www.sean-johnson.com/framework-thinking
The Definitive Guide to Customer Success 2017Lincoln Murphy
The Customer Success movement has taken the SaaS industry by storm, even requiring an updated SaaS Business Model definition.
But what exactly is Customer Success? Is it an organizational mindset? Is it a corporate strategy? Is it a set of tactics designed to produce happy, successful customers that in turn creates success for you, the SaaS vendor?
The answer is... all of the above.
In this guide I've enumerated 17 key elements of Customer Success for SaaS companies. I hope it helps you reach your goals.
Content that is geared toward people in your own backyard is a good thing. It’s good for people, it’s good for the engines and when it’s good for both, it’s good for business. Have you ever tried creating and promoting it? It’s not as easy as it might seem, especially if you are promoting a product or service that people are not interested in.
With updates to the local SEO algorithm becoming more in line with traditional SEO ranking signals, the location, activity, quality and context of your content is important now more than ever before.
Small local businesses have limited resources, so having a strategy in place to make each piece of content as effective as possible is critical.
In this presentation learn how you can unlock the power of local content to drive engagement, rankings and sales.
Through The Looking Glass: The Value of Good DesignSteve Floyd
Our professional lens often shapes how we perceive value. The larger UX / IA and Content Strategy community have always looked at us (Search Engine Marketers / Digital Marketers) as disruptive to the communication goals of the organizations we work for, and rightfully so. We are notorious for undervaluing design, but it doesn’t have to be that way! We need to be more empathetic to those who make our campaigns a success.
In this presentation I provide actionable resources that search engine marketers / digital marketers can use to better integrate into the design process as well as how they can add value and insights to the people on the other side of the house. The key takeaways from this presentation for attendees would be:
– Understanding how designers think and what they value
– Understanding the language and tools UX / IA / CS professionals use in contrast with the language and tools search engine marketers use
– How digital marketers can add value to the workflow of the people we work with (how, when and where to integrate)
Planning for Responsive: Why Your Developers Hate YouSteve Floyd
Bad planning and rushed projects are at the heart of bad responsive websites (and most bad websites for that matter). Find out why your developers hate you and what you can do to make them love you. This is a presentation for Pubcon Vegas 2013
Es una pregunta sencilla con la que utilizando slideshare adoptamos una URL propia, con el fin de generar un código QR que el alumnado de ESO podrá escanerar mediante las TIC y responder la cuestión. Este desarrollo va atado a una carrera de orientación que tiene por objeto la síntesis de un cuestionario de 6 preguntas que luego deben responder
Learn the latest enhancements in the Robot software, including new features in the Robot CONSOLE GUI and a mobile-friendly web interface for Robot SCHEDULE and Robot NETWORK.
Presentación del Taller, "Mantas Contadoras de Historias" dictado por la Licenciada Laura Quinteros y la Profesora Carmen Díaz.
Dicho Taller es Organizado por AMSAFE PROVINCIAL y el Jardín Nuclueado 123 "Edgardo Blas Longo" de la ciudad de Las Parejas.
10 year old communication design and web development agency based in Bangalore. Our client profile includes IT giants and promising startups. We follow a medium-agnostic approach to communication.
A major convergence is happening on the web that could disrupt the traditional rules of business and it's no surprise it's being driven by data. With cloud hosting available for pennies on the dollar, over 10,000+ APIs in 2015 available to the public and an estimated 60% of internet traffic compromised of bots, getting data is easier (and cheaper) than ever before. This environment is an ideal opportunity for savvy startups, agencies and businesses looking to take advantage of the wealth of data available. The barrier to entry has been removed and those who act quickly will capitalize, compete and even disrupt in ways we can only imagine. In this presentation, find out the best APIs, processes and technology that you can leverage to get an unfair advantage over your competition in 2015 and beyond.
I was very excited and honored to present a 3-hour workshop at the Viterbi Hacker House at USC, which is where I went to college, around growth hacking and marketing for startups. Always fun connecting with students and being able to give back to my school.
We answered:
Is growth that important?
What is growth hacking?
How do I get started with marketing and growth hacking?
How do I prioritize everything?
What is product/market fit?
What is the customer lifecycle?
Why do growth hacks fall into either acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, or referral buckets?
What are growth hacking and marketing examples from work?
What are 100+ examples of growth hacks at each stage?
How can they implement some of these today? Including onstage breakdowns of USC companies, including EnvoyNow.co and Bezalel.co
I know I’ll forget some tools, people, and resources, but....
Tools I mentioned you should check out:
Google Analytics
Qualaroo
Survey.io
MailChimp
Zapier
IFTTT
LeadIn
KISSmetrics
CrazyEgg
SumoMe
Gumroad
BuiltWith
Kimono
PrimeLoop
PerfectAudience
Odesk
Connectifier
Rapportive
Buffer
People I mentioned who you should follow (in no particular order):
Patrick Vlaskovits
Neil Patel
Hiten Shah
Sean Ellis
Samuel Hulick
Morgan Brown
Taylor Miles
Paul Graham
Dave McClure
Geoff Ralston
Marc Andreesen
Bing Gordon
Gabriel Weinberg
Justin Mares
Brian Balfourr
Zack Onisko
Greg Isenberg
Maud Pasturaud
Annie Cushing
Thomas Knoll
Ivan Kirigin
Noah Kagan
Andy Johns
Elliot Shmukler
Iris Shoor
Brian Dean
Jimmy Daly
Ramit Sethi
Brendon Burchard
Jeff Walker
Robert Cialdini
Resources I mentioned:
(definitely forgetting many, but a good start....)
Startup = Growth: http://growth.so/pgGrowth
Startup Priorities: http://growth.so/StartupPriorities
Blake Masters’ Notes: http://growth.so/BlakeMasters
Andy Johns’ Answers on Quora: http://growth.so/AndyJohnsQuora
Find A Growth Hacker For Your Startup: http://growth.so/FindGrowthHacker
The Only Thing That Matters: http://growth.so/Productmarketfit
Developer Content Marketing & Growth Hacking: http://growth.so/HitenShah
Gaining Early Traction by Doing Things that Don't Scale: http://growth.so/Zack415
Cialdini's Six Principles of Influence: http://growth.so/Robert-Cialdini
Startup Metrics for Pirates: http://growth.so/Pirate-Metrics
Traction vs. Growth: http://growth.so/TractionGrowth
AirBNB Growth: http://growth.so/AirbnbGrowth
Getting Launch Press for Your Startup: http://growth.so/MturkHack
Mobile Popups: http://bit.ly/QualarooGH
TripAdvisor’s Unfair Email Marketing Advantage: http://growth.so/TripAdvisorEmails
How to Gather 100,000 Emails in One Week: http://growth.so/PrelaunchEmails
The Medium Is The Message: http://growth.so/MediumIsMessage
Daily Growth Strategies: morganbrown.co
User Onboarding: useronboard.com
Hitenism: hitenism.com
Backlinko: backlinko.com
GrowthHackers: growthhackers.com
Building Better Experiences With Content PersonalizationSteve Floyd
The days of painting your content with broad brush strokes over over. With a fractured market and even more people and brands rushing in to become publishers every day, personalizing your content will give you an edge over your competition.
Developing a 1:1 communication strategy with your customers, users, audience, etc... will not only improve their experience and build loyalty, but it will differentiate your content among the sea of mediocrity.
Framework Thinking - 7 Frameworks To Skyrocket Your CareerSean Johnson
Discover how to leverage frameworks to become more effective and gain influence in your organization.
Learn more about Framework thinking here: http://www.sean-johnson.com/framework-thinking
The Definitive Guide to Customer Success 2017Lincoln Murphy
The Customer Success movement has taken the SaaS industry by storm, even requiring an updated SaaS Business Model definition.
But what exactly is Customer Success? Is it an organizational mindset? Is it a corporate strategy? Is it a set of tactics designed to produce happy, successful customers that in turn creates success for you, the SaaS vendor?
The answer is... all of the above.
In this guide I've enumerated 17 key elements of Customer Success for SaaS companies. I hope it helps you reach your goals.
Content that is geared toward people in your own backyard is a good thing. It’s good for people, it’s good for the engines and when it’s good for both, it’s good for business. Have you ever tried creating and promoting it? It’s not as easy as it might seem, especially if you are promoting a product or service that people are not interested in.
With updates to the local SEO algorithm becoming more in line with traditional SEO ranking signals, the location, activity, quality and context of your content is important now more than ever before.
Small local businesses have limited resources, so having a strategy in place to make each piece of content as effective as possible is critical.
In this presentation learn how you can unlock the power of local content to drive engagement, rankings and sales.
Through The Looking Glass: The Value of Good DesignSteve Floyd
Our professional lens often shapes how we perceive value. The larger UX / IA and Content Strategy community have always looked at us (Search Engine Marketers / Digital Marketers) as disruptive to the communication goals of the organizations we work for, and rightfully so. We are notorious for undervaluing design, but it doesn’t have to be that way! We need to be more empathetic to those who make our campaigns a success.
In this presentation I provide actionable resources that search engine marketers / digital marketers can use to better integrate into the design process as well as how they can add value and insights to the people on the other side of the house. The key takeaways from this presentation for attendees would be:
– Understanding how designers think and what they value
– Understanding the language and tools UX / IA / CS professionals use in contrast with the language and tools search engine marketers use
– How digital marketers can add value to the workflow of the people we work with (how, when and where to integrate)
Planning for Responsive: Why Your Developers Hate YouSteve Floyd
Bad planning and rushed projects are at the heart of bad responsive websites (and most bad websites for that matter). Find out why your developers hate you and what you can do to make them love you. This is a presentation for Pubcon Vegas 2013
Es una pregunta sencilla con la que utilizando slideshare adoptamos una URL propia, con el fin de generar un código QR que el alumnado de ESO podrá escanerar mediante las TIC y responder la cuestión. Este desarrollo va atado a una carrera de orientación que tiene por objeto la síntesis de un cuestionario de 6 preguntas que luego deben responder
Learn the latest enhancements in the Robot software, including new features in the Robot CONSOLE GUI and a mobile-friendly web interface for Robot SCHEDULE and Robot NETWORK.
Presentación del Taller, "Mantas Contadoras de Historias" dictado por la Licenciada Laura Quinteros y la Profesora Carmen Díaz.
Dicho Taller es Organizado por AMSAFE PROVINCIAL y el Jardín Nuclueado 123 "Edgardo Blas Longo" de la ciudad de Las Parejas.
10 year old communication design and web development agency based in Bangalore. Our client profile includes IT giants and promising startups. We follow a medium-agnostic approach to communication.
While website designing many designers forget about inclusive web design that can enhance the functionality of a website and include a large audience. As a result, their audience gets crimped.
That’s why to get more audience you have to understand the importance of Inclusive web design for your website design.
nTwine pitch: Set up digital businesses with zero codeRupam Gogoi
nTwine is a product by Needle Innovision. It helps digital businesses like e-commerce stores, marketplaces, rental platforms etc set up with zero code, hassle free.
This talk was originally given at SXSW Interactive 2016, presented by Neil Dawson and Cristina Viganò.
As designers, we sometimes find ourselves on a knife edge between user needs and business goals. It can be tempting to fall back to “dark patterns” - processes designed to trick users - because they are a shortcut to results. However, the use of dark patterns isn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep. Most of us want to find solutions that don’t resort to deceiving users. This talk will explore alternatives to infamous and common dark patterns, with a focus on how we can use psychological principles and persuasive design techniques to meet goals through encouragement rather than deception.
Hello everyone! I am thrilled to present my latest portfolio on LinkedIn, marking the culmination of my architectural journey thus far. Over the span of five years, I've been fortunate to acquire a wealth of knowledge under the guidance of esteemed professors and industry mentors. From rigorous academic pursuits to practical engagements, each experience has contributed to my growth and refinement as an architecture student. This portfolio not only showcases my projects but also underscores my attention to detail and to innovative architecture as a profession.
7 Alternatives to Bullet Points in PowerPointAlvis Oh
So you tried all the ways to beautify your bullet points on your pitch deck but it just got way uglier. These points are supposed to be memorable and leave a lasting impression on your audience. With these tips, you'll no longer have to spend so much time thinking how you should present your pointers.
Unleash Your Inner Demon with the "Let's Summon Demons" T-Shirt. Calling all fans of dark humor and edgy fashion! The "Let's Summon Demons" t-shirt is a unique way to express yourself and turn heads.
https://dribbble.com/shots/24253051-Let-s-Summon-Demons-Shirt
Expert Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Drafting ServicesResDraft
Whether you’re looking to create a guest house, a rental unit, or a private retreat, our experienced team will design a space that complements your existing home and maximizes your investment. We provide personalized, comprehensive expert accessory dwelling unit (ADU)drafting solutions tailored to your needs, ensuring a seamless process from concept to completion.
Transforming Brand Perception and Boosting Profitabilityaaryangarg12
In today's digital era, the dynamics of brand perception, consumer behavior, and profitability have been profoundly reshaped by the synergy of branding, social media, and website design. This research paper investigates the transformative power of these elements in influencing how individuals perceive brands and products and how this transformation can be harnessed to drive sales and profitability for businesses.
Through an exploration of brand psychology and consumer behavior, this study sheds light on the intricate ways in which effective branding strategies, strategic social media engagement, and user-centric website design contribute to altering consumers' perceptions. We delve into the principles that underlie successful brand transformations, examining how visual identity, messaging, and storytelling can captivate and resonate with target audiences.
Methodologically, this research employs a comprehensive approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. Real-world case studies illustrate the impact of branding, social media campaigns, and website redesigns on consumer perception, sales figures, and profitability. We assess the various metrics, including brand awareness, customer engagement, conversion rates, and revenue growth, to measure the effectiveness of these strategies.
The results underscore the pivotal role of cohesive branding, social media influence, and website usability in shaping positive brand perceptions, influencing consumer decisions, and ultimately bolstering sales and profitability. This paper provides actionable insights and strategic recommendations for businesses seeking to leverage branding, social media, and website design as potent tools to enhance their market position and financial success.
You could be a professional graphic designer and still make mistakes. There is always the possibility of human error. On the other hand if you’re not a designer, the chances of making some common graphic design mistakes are even higher. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s where this blog comes in. To make your job easier and help you create better designs, we have put together a list of common graphic design mistakes that you need to avoid.
68. Steve Floyd
Founder / Principle at AXZM
twitter: @nawlready
phone: (214) 272-9109
www.axzm.com
For the last decade I have been
creating digital marketing solutions
for businesses large and small. In
that time I’ve learned a few things
about the governance and creation
of web content and how that
content ties into other marketing
channels. Content is often swept
aside as the last part of a project,
when I believe it should be one of
the very first things addressed.
Editor's Notes
Through The Looking Glass – Overcoming Organizational Perspectives – A Mozinar by Steve Floyd – Founder & Principle of AXZM – stevefloyd.me/about
You guys asked me to make sure I had the Moz cover slide. I realized in contrasting the bright and welcoming brand colors Moz has with my original slide and decided that it’s probably better to go with the uplifting Moz version – mine was a bit dark coming out of late October.
I just wanted to say right up front this presentation was inspired by two presentations:
1. You Can’t Ship from Your Ivory Tower: Including Developers in the Design Process by Matt Edwards
2. SEO Leadership: Get from 'Why' to 'Why Not’ by Ian Lurie
Both of these are great presentations and touch on some of the things that impede our work.
Hello, my name is Steve Floyd. I am the principle consultant and founder of AXZM Group. We work primarily in the Healthcare, Non-Profit and Educational sectors helping organizations build growth initiatives. Sometimes that’s consulting, sometimes we help train and build teams. It really depends on what the goals are.
Running an agency over the years, I’ve had to wear quite a few hats. As stressful as it’s been at times - I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You’re really able to see things from a lot of different perspectives in the process when you are in stakeholder position. I think anyone out there who runs a small to mid sized agency can probably relate to seeing those perspectives differently once you’ve not just done the job, but also managed other people doing the job.
Running an agency over the years, I’ve had to wear quite a few hats. As stressful as it’s been at times - I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You’re really able to see things from a lot of different perspectives in the process when you are in stakeholder position. I think anyone out there who runs a small to mid sized agency can probably relate to seeing those perspectives differently once you’ve not just done the job, but also managed other people doing the job.
I’ve watched UX disregard and lower the value of SEO and I’ve seen SEO destroy the User Experience just as much. Both sides of the house have valid arguments and more often than not, it’s not a black and white issue. The answers aren’t easy on some projects, you have to compromise. SEOs catch a lot of blame for being disruptive in the process.
The bigger fight internally is usually between designers and devs vs sales and marketing. But they all fight among themselves too.
Ultimately, I’ve learned regardless of the professional bias, the conflicts usually centered around what people value.
Whether you are on the agency side or in-house, we are all fighting to get our projects approved, funded and shipped by leadership. We don’t do much without their approval, so we are fighting for the same things.
It reminds me of the analogy of the Blind men and an elephant. As a practitioner for many years, I couldn’t see things from other people’s perspective involved (outside of design or development) because I was immersed in my own struggles within the process. I saw things differently because my view of the project was limited to what I could see.
It’s really all about perspectives. If we want to be heard and valued in the process we need to understand everyone else’s perspectives, their goals and what they value. We ask that others do this for us, but in practice – I think we seldom do the same for others. Now that’s not very nice, is it?
I also like to compare this disconnect that happens across teams to a valley being looked on from a group of surrounding mountains. We are all looking at the same thing, we just see it from a different vantage point, and we can see it no other way.
We like to think we all have one common goal with the projects we work on, but that is seldom the case. More often than not, there are multiple goals, each distributed to different teams all working on different aspects of the project.
You have User Experience Architects
Information Architects
Search Engine Optimization Consultants (SEO)
User Centered Designers
Interaction Designers
Content Strategists
Somewhere in the background IT / DevOps is looming in their lonely mountain to the north.
The common goal that aligns the design and development teams is pretty simple and universally understood: To Make The End User Happy
But SEOs are often held to tangible KPIs by stakeholders, and those KPIs become the goals. I don’t think it’s intentional, it’s just that some SEOs lose sight of making the user happy.
That’s exactly where they get into trouble and become disruptive in the process.
If we want a seat at the table and the support of everyone else in the process, we need to get on the same page.
Aside from being courteous to our peers, Engineers and Technical Marketers are learning to do SEO fast. It might be a good time to revisit all the finer details of what they do too.
Terminology & Values
When I think about two polar opposites in the process Content Strategists and SEOs come to mind. It doesn’t have to be that way, and really shouldn’t be, but it often is. This quote by Anais Nin illustrates my feelings on this dynamic.
A simple comparison of the language and value systems of a Content Strategist vs an SEO illustrates my point perfectly. If I asked an SEO and a Content Strategist “Why do you collect keyword data?” You would get two completely different answers.
A content strategist would traditionally collect keyword data to inform demand of a particular topic their audience is interested in or needs.
An SEO on the other hand might use the keyword list to identify advertising opportunities to generate qualified traffic.
A content strategist might use keyword and traffic data as a metric to correlate quality against all the other content in a website.
An SEO on the other hand might use keywords to identify other competitors.
A Content Strategy person might attach popular search terms used by one of their target user personas in a journey map.
An SEO could take the keywords and use them to uncover link building and outreach opportunities for their campaigns.
The C-Suite is almost always going to value profits over anything else. Money keeps the lights on and their jobs come into question when they don’t keep the numbers up. If you want to get a design or idea through, making a business case that aligns with the things they value is a good place to start.
IT values protecting the infrastructure and operational efficiency. Getting a title tag changed, or duplicate content no-indexed isn’t important to them because they have other more pressing issues that take priority. Try calculating the financial impact and technical debt of IA and SEO changes when you send a suggestion. They know the C-Suite values money more than anything too and will want to be seen as helping the effort if it involves improved revenue.
Sales values… you guessed it… MONEY. With two dominate forces like leadership and sales driving the business often putting profits over their customer experience, it’s not hard to see why so many companies large and small still suck at the web. It’s 2015. If you are a business still trying to figure out how to use Twitter or what a blog is, you lose at the internet.
Marketing is goal driven. It’s not just about the money, but the mission (which could be money, or visibility, it all depends). The problem is, one of the biggest components of effective marketing – DESIGN is seen as a utility by leadership. In the same way digital marketing often gets grouped under IT operations, design has become commoditized as a tool of marketing, not the foundation of brand and corporate communications it once was. It pervades everything we see on the web.
Just as SEOs have various methods and key deliverables associated with the work they do, User Experience does as well. A good way to know when and where to integrate with and add value to the UX process is to understand their methods.
There are a ton of smaller deliverables that get really granular, just as diverse and detailed as anything in marketing, but the pillars of User Experience methods could be broken in to 5 key areas:
Strategy Methods
Concepting Methods
Product Planning Methods
User Research & Validation Methods
UI Design Methods
Within the design strategy methods you have:
Blueprints – A map that displays all the touch points of the consumer with your brand.
Journey Maps – A diagram of the steps taken by a customer as they engage with a service.
User Stories – This is a breakdown of each user task that can be accomplished within your product or website.
Ecosystem Map – A visualization of the company's digital properties, the connections between them, and their purpose.
Personas – A relatable snapshot of the target audience that highlights demographics, behaviors, needs and motivations through the creation of a fictional character.
Stakeholder Interviews – Scripts for interviewing key stakeholders in a project, both internal and external, to gather insights about their goals
Within the design the concepting methods of UX, you have:
Brainstorming – The collective process of generating constraint-free ideas that respond to a given creative brief.
Task Analysis – A breakdown of the required information and actions needed to achieve a task.
Taxonomies – An exploration around multiple ways to categorize content and data: topics in a news site, product categories in an ecommerce etc.
User Flow – A visual representation of the user's flow to complete tasks within the product.
Storyboards – This is like comic strip that illustrates the series of actions that consumers need to take while using the product.
Moodboards – A collection of images and references that will eventually evolve into a product's visual style guide.
Within the product planning methods of UX, you have:
Roadmaps – A product's evolution plan with prioritized features. It could be a spreadsheet, a diagram or even a bunch of sticky notes.
Heuristic Analysis – A thorough analysis of a product that highlights good and bad practices, using known interaction design principles as guidelines.
Sitemaps – One of the most iconic IA deliverables, consists of a diagram of the website's pages organized hierarchically.
Content Audits – The activity of listing all content available on a website.
Metrics Analysis – Numbers provided by an analytics tool or your own database about how the user interacts with your product: clicks, navigation time, search queries etc.
Use Cases & Scenarios – A comprehensive list of scenarios that happen when users are interacting with the product: logged in, not logged in, first visit etc.
Within the user research and validation methods used by UX professionals, there is:
A/B Testing – Offering alternative versions of your product to different users and comparing the results to find out which one performs better.
Quantitative Survey – A technique that consists in asking users to group content and functionalities into open or closed categories.
Focus Group – A panel of people discussing a specific topic or question.
Usability Testing – An one-to-one interview research in which the user is asked to perform a series of tasks in a prototype or a product.
Card Sorting – A technique that consists in asking users to group content and functionalities into open or closed categories.
Eyetracking – A technology that analyzes the user's eye movements across the interface.
How SEOs can integrate into the UX process without making everyone mad at them: Submit your recommendations during the following phases…
Wire-framing, sketching or prototyping
Sitemap Creation
Taxonomy Structuring / Taxonomy Audit
Content Audit (Qualitative or Quantitative)
So as you can see, there are a lot of UX deliverables that modern SEOs are well aware of. If you’ve been following some of the top minds in SEO in recent years, it’s no secret they have made waves introducing these concepts.
It doesn’t need to be fixed because I don’t think it’s really broken, just evolving really fast and it’s hard for everyone involved to keep up. There are some great user experience models out there that can offer a path to keeping everyone on the same page. One of my favorite is CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success by Corey Stern published last year on UX Magazine. CUBI stands for…
Content
User Goals
Business Goals
Interaction
It’s one of the few models that I feel really affords for all the concerns of modern web professionals. Everyone gets to put their deliverable in and it is evaluated in a logical fashion that informs the other pieces. I highly recommend you check it out.
It doesn’t need to be fixed because I don’t think it’s really broken, just evolving really fast and it’s hard for everyone involved to keep up. There are some great user experience models out there that can offer a path to keeping everyone on the same page. One of my favorite is CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success by Corey Stern published last year on UX Magazine. CUBI stands for…
Content
User Goals
Business Goals
Interaction
It’s one of the few models that I feel really affords for all the concerns of modern web professionals. Everyone gets to put their deliverable in and it is evaluated in a logical fashion that informs the other pieces. I highly recommend you check it out.
North is a set of standards and best practices for developing modern web based properties. Included are standards and best practices for all aspects of a project, from kick off through development. North encourages an agile, content-first, approach to product development and a mobile-first, in-browser, system based approach to design and development.
The CX Journey Mapping toolkit provides materials, and guides for everything you need to introduce your teams to this powerful approach for customer-centered action and customer experience innovation.
Frontify is one of my favorite new tools for centralizing and consolidating a brand. As a lot of you know, if you really want to get everyone on the same page and let them in on the thinking behind your design, and avoid politics, get a branding guide. Frontify is a great way for you to develop a branding guide in a collaborative way with the rest of your team.
Frontify is one of my favorite new tools for centralizing and consolidating a brand. As a lot of you know, if you really want to get everyone on the same page and let them in on the thinking behind your design, and avoid politics, get a branding guide. Frontify is a great way for you to develop a branding guide in a collaborative way with the rest of your team.
PersonaDrive is another one of my favorite new tools for developing personas that look killer. They have just about every feature you could want for creating user personas and they offer additional inputs so you can associate data with the personas you create in their system.
Gather content is one of the most complete content planning and production tools out there. Whether you have a small 15 page website or a 10000 SKU e-commerce store with tons of attributes, their app will allow your team to collaborate on content of all shapes and sizes.
Invision is pretty much the gold standard for collaborative UI / UX for mobile apps. You can develop a working prototype of your app and demo it for your clients and they can even comment and provide feedback, all within the app.
Niice provides a great way to compile, collaborate and share moodboards. It’s really easy to use and is an easy way to provide a deliverable that helps you communicate the design motifs, color theory, typography you might be going for on a particular design.
Touchpoint Dashboard is another web based journey mapping tool that affords for most of the common inputs you would expect to create a journey map. I really like it because it can integrate with your existing customer data.
You can use Canvanizer to create a lot of things, not just a Journey Map. A lot of the other deliverables of UX that don’t have a web based tool, you could improvise in Canvanizer. Everything from SWOT analysis, brainstorming notes and storyboards can be done in Canvanizer. It’s easy to use and inexpensive.
Storyboard that is a great tool you can use to storyboard user scenarios to help your teams develop context.
You should also check out my free Content Strategy Worksheet 2.0. I have been updating it since I first released it here at Big Design way back in 2012 and it’s always evolving. It is by no means a silver bullet, I suggest you customize it for your needs as every project is different, but hopefully it helps you centralize all the key documents your team needs and gives you a starting point.
Another great resource you might send to a team member who is trying to adapt to the lingo is UI Patterns. There is a ton of documentation on everything they would possibly want to know about modern web and mobile design principles and processes.
If you have been paying attention, Google’s recently released it’s Material Design language and it has been influencing the way User experience designers create interfaces, especially for mobile devices. You should definitely check it out.
If you should feel adventurous, I highly recommend SourceMaking’s Software Design Pattern resources. It will help you understand the Klingon that your developers speak a little better.
If you should feel adventurous, I highly recommend SourceMaking’s Software Design Pattern resources. It will help you understand the Klingon that your developers speak a little better.
When we put the user at the center of everything we do, we avoid (as much) professional bias and conflict.
A few pro tips:
- Develop personas for your stakeholders and create a pitch that is in line with the things they value.
About MeFor the last decade I have been creating digital marketing solutions for businesses large and small. In that time I’ve learned a few things about the governance and creation of web content and how that content ties into other marketing channels. Content is often swept aside as the last part of a project, when I believe it should be one of the very first things addressed (even before design).
Through The Looking Glass – Overcoming Organizational Perspectives – A Mozinar by Steve Floyd – Founder & Principle of AXZM – stevefloyd.me/about