<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Media Identity</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk</link>
	<description>Affordable Bespoke Website Design and Marketing</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:07:47 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
			<item>
		<title>Google Analytics, essential for website design and marketing – part 2</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-analytics-essential-website</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-analytics-essential-website#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:43:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimisation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2686</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Goals in Google Analytics In my last post I wrote about why you must have Google Analytics installed on your website; in this post I will be looking at an awesome feature within Google Analytics called Goals. What are Goals? A goal can also be referred to as a “conversion” and is essentially defined as an action you want visitors to take when they visit your website e.g. buy a product, sign up for a newsletter or even download an eBook. What are the Benefits of Goals? Goals allow you to: Compare your online campaigns to see which source is generating the most sales or signups. You can use this information to allocate your marketing budget more efficiently See whether video campaigns are generating more conversions than text based ones in a particular medium. With this knowledge you can tailor your content to match your audience’s preferences Calculate the return on investment (ROI) of campaigns and even individual keywords. You can identify poorly performing keywords and either reduce your spend on them or just not target them at all How do I choose my Goal? In order to get the most out of Goals you should ask yourself what is the most important and valuable action a visitor can take on my site? Is it buying an item? Signing up for a newsletter? Or may be downloading an eBook? Once you have answered this question then you can choose your goal. How do I set up Goals? To set up a Goal sign into your Google Analytics account and click on your website profile; you will arrive on the reporting home page (see below) Next click on the Admin panel in the top right hand corner of the page and on the following page (below) click the website profile you want to apply Goals to. Now select Goals from the tabs at the top &#62; click +Goal and you will arrive at the screen below where you can create your goal. Putting Goals into Practice – an example ABC toys are an e-commerce site that sell toys all costing £5.00 &#8211; they would set up a Goal in the following way: Goal Name: Toy Purchase Goal Type: URL Destination Goal URL: /thankyou.html Goal Value: £5.00 The beauty of goals in this example is that it allows the company to answer questions such as: With answers to these questions the online toy store can make better budgeting decisions by allocating more of their marketing spend into media and keywords that are working. With Goals on your site you can now: &#160; In my upcoming posts I will be writing about each one of these bullet points in more detail; next time I will be looking at Sales Funnels and I’ll explain how to set them up and how you can use them to increase your revenue. Thanks for taking the time to read the post and if you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to leave them below. &#160;]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-analytics-essential-website/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bespoke web design &#8211; part 3</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-3</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-3#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:36:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Paul Brooks</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bespoke web design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Website Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website Design]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2640</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Choosing colours and shapes that reflect your brand In this final part of the bespoke web design series I’m going to round things off and talk about the psychological meaning of colours and how to start thinking about choosing colours and shapes to compliment your brands message. To illustrate exactly what I mean; here’s a logo that you may know, do you recognise it? It’s the logo for the Red Cross; it’s a powerful image and shape using a powerful colour to reinforce its message of protection. This is a great example of a brand communicating its message through shape and colour. So let’s take a look at what effect the main colours have on our subconscious and some of the meanings that those colours represent. RED &#8211; A very powerful, strong colour. It’s a colour that stands out over most other colours and can be used to affect us positively and negatively. It is a hot colour that stirs our emotions. On the one hand it subconsciously suggests love, lust, passion, energy and protection and on the other it suggests a warning or stop, war or blood, which makes us feel cautious. It’s a youthful, daring colour often used on sports company logos and on fast cars like Ferrari and Porsche. Orange &#8211; Is a warm colour, it represents fun, warm climates, the sun and youth. Similar to red in as much that it is a colour commonly used by young people. Orange is a very mentally stimulating colour and promotes feelings of excitement as well as hunger, so it is often associated with health foods. In darker shades orange is also used to represent autumn colours. Orange as a colour is particularly difficult to print, so just be careful when choosing your shade if print work is needed. Yellow - Another colour that is used to suggest fun and youth. It also represents happiness, energy and sunshine. You’ll need to be fairly careful how much and how you use yellow, as its one of the brightest colours, which can be hard on the eyes. It’s a colour that attracts children so you’ll see it used a lot at funfairs, in play grounds and on children’s clothes. Yellow will jump off the page if used with a dark background, so use it sparingly for maximum effect. However, yellow text on a white background can soon get lost and often goes un-noticed if you do use it in this manner. Green - Is natures colour, it represents health, fertility, growth and healing. Most shades of Green are very easy on the eye and usually relaxing to look at. As a colour for the web green is becoming increasingly popular because of what it represents, so you’ll often see it used on websites that promote health or natural products. In its darker shades it’s popular with financial institutions to help suggest financial growth. Blue - Represents the colour of the sea and the sky, psychologically it suggests intelligence and creativity. It is often used when you want to communicate a message of trust, loyalty and strength. Blue is a calming colour and looks good in virtually any shade, in its lighter shades it is a cooling colour so it’s extremely versatile and widely used. Purple - The colour of royalty. Purple represents leadership, prestige, luxury and power. As it’s formed by mixing red and blue together it has the energy and strength of red and the creative intelligence of blue. It is also a colour that represents the clergy and the supernatural, so you could say it has a split personality! In lighter shades it is feminine and popular with young women. For the final two, you could argue that black and white aren’t colours at all, but represent the absence of colour. The jury is out on that one, although I would be interested in your thoughts. But for now let’s keep the discussion focussed on their use in bespoke web design. White - The colour of peace and serenity, it represents purity, freshness and cleanliness. White often denotes perfection, simplicity, faith and sterility and is often associated with charities, doctors and hospitals as well high tech organisations. It suggests positivity and goodness, after all &#8211; the good guys always wear white – don’t they? Black - is the opposite of white (possibly?) often used to represent evil, death and most things negative. On the other hand it can be classy, think about the little black dress, a formal black tie event or a power suit for business &#8211; it can be used positively or negatively. In bespoke web design black provides contrast and strength, it is also used to make other colours stand out more and of course is often the main colour for text. So what does all this mean to you? The easiest way to start is to choose a colour that represents the feeling you’re trying to create. Then choose a basic shape that reinforces that feeling. At that point you can start to move the contours of the shape around until it evolves into an image that represents more of your message. For example stars, hearts and crosses have all evolved from the basic geometric shapes. Your message is communicated by the imagery you use all at once and you’ll only get one chance to get it right, so your choice needs to reflect your business’s ideals perfectly to succeed. When you’re thinking about your logo and your websites design ask yourself what you want it to say and what emotions you want it to stir in the people landing on your pages. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the colours and shapes that promote those feelings, combine them together and you’ll have the basis of a good bespoke web design that a professional web designer can turn into something very special.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-3/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Google Analytics, essential for website design and marketing &#8211; part 1</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/introduction-google-analytics</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/introduction-google-analytics#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:48:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>James Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimisation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2611</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An introduction to Google Analytics In today&#8217;s modern world of marketing, the adage of &#8220;You can&#8217;t improve what you can&#8217;t measure&#8221; has never been more relevant &#8211; and for website owners Google Analytics is here to help you. Me: Do you have a website? You: Yes! Me: Cool, how effective is it for your business? You: Um, yeah well, I think it’s pretty effective… If you can’t give a definitive answer to that second question, either, Google Analytics is not installed on your site, or it is and you are just not fully utilising the power of it. Why Google Analytics? Google analytics is an incredible FREE tool that gives you a whole bunch of information about your site such as: With all this information at your disposal you can not only improve your website, but you can improve your business as a whole. 4 Benefits of Google Analytics for your Business In short, if you own a website then Google Analytics is a must have tool. In my next post I will be looking at Goals within Google Analytics and I’ll explain: &#160; Thanks for reading my article I hope you found it useful. There is no doubt that Google Analytics is an essential tool for making your website profitable. Please feel free to share and leave any comments or questions below.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/introduction-google-analytics/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bespoke web design – part 2</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-2#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:04:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Paul Brooks</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bespoke web design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Website Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website Design]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2563</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Choosing colours and shapes that reflect your brand In the last article we looked at colour selection and the use of colour wheels to help choose colours that complement each other. If you haven’t read it yet then you can do so by clicking here. In this article we’re going to talk a bit about shapes and how they can be used with colour to strengthen your brands message. Let’s start with a cliché, a picture speaks a thousand words, now what that means in this context is that using the right shapes can reinforce the message you’re trying to suggest. The right shape combined with the right colours will have real visual impact on visitors to your website, get it right and they will understand what you’re trying to say and they’re more likely to buy. How do you decide which is the right shape for you? Well that really depends on what you’re offering and what you’re trying to say, so to help below are some shapes and their meanings. There is an endless number and variety of shapes, so for the purpose of this article I’m going to stick to the basic two dimensional shapes to keep things simple. Essentially there are three types of basic shapes: Geometric Shapes – These are the most familiar shapes to us. Shapes like squares, circles, rectangles, triangles etc. Geometric shapes suggest order, efficiency, stability, security and honesty. On their own they can seem quite mundane, but add colour and an angled position and these shapes have energy, power and strength. These shapes are perhaps more suited to a modern progressive tech type company than an older institution. Natural Shapes – These shapes tend to be found in nature, for example clouds, leaves and pebble shapes, perhaps best described as freeform shapes. They are comforting and pleasing to look at, generally have more curves and are irregular in nature. For web pages and logos, designers tend to manipulate images and photographs for an organic feel. This technique is ideal for businesses that promote growth and transformation. Abstract Shapes – These shapes are generally recognisable but clearly not “real” shapes. Quite often they are stylised organic shapes, like a stick man which is an abstract version of a real person. More commonly used to represent an idea, many have become universally recognised like some of the social media icons. The use of abstract shapes is common in logo design or when space is an issue an abstract icon is the perfect solution. In the last article in this series I’m going to tell you what meaning there is behind the most common colours and demonstrate how they, combined with the right choice of shape, truly do speak a thousand words. Please click the plus button below to share this article on your social media networks or tell us what your thoughts are on this subject and leave a comment below.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-2/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bespoke web design &#8211; part 1</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-1</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-1#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:22:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Paul Brooks</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bespoke web design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bespoke Website Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website Design]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Choosing colours and shapes that reflect your brand One of the more difficult things to get right when creating a bespoke web design is choosing the right colour scheme and shapes. The colours and shapes you choose need to reflect your brands image as well taking into consideration the effect that they will have on your customers. Get this right and you will have created a bespoke website design that is effective and memorable. Colours provoke an emotional response. They often impact on the decisions we make when deciding what we do next, more often than not if the colours aren’t right, the next thing we do is click “close,” and that’s not good for business. But get them right and they are more likely to click “Buy.” There is a whole science on the theory of colour that could take a life time to master, but in this series of articles we’re going to offer some ideas and some theory that will help when choosing colours and shapes for a bespoke web design. Let’s start with colour selection and use a colour wheel to illustrate how to start selecting the right colours. The colour wheel The colour wheel is arranged so that it is easy to see which colours go well together. The most common form is the twelve colours, colour wheel based around the red, yellow and blue (RYB) artist’s model, which is the one we’re using here. Let me just say at this point that there are other colour wheels and colour relationship models that bespoke web designer’s use. We don’t all use solid colours, so there are colour wheels to deal with things like saturation, intensity, shade, tint and tone etc. But for now let’s keep things simple&#8230; The classic RYB (artists) colour wheel. Using the colour wheel will help you to see which colours complement each other. The simplest way to find colours that work together is to use the techniques described below. How to select complimentary colours that work in harmony with each other Complimentary colours – Use colours that are directly opposite one another, using the wheel in this way identifies colours that create a vibrant contrasting look. Use them sparingly though as they can be hard on the eyes and they’re not especially good for text. Analogous colours – These colours sit next to each other on the wheel. They are usually pleasing to look at and give a feeling of serenity and calm. These harmonious colours are often the colours of nature. Triadics – Four colours apart on the wheel, they are spaced evenly and create a vibrant colour scheme. Use triadic colours in balance with one colour more dominate than the others. Tetradic (rectangular) – Using two pairs of complimentary colours this colour scheme gives you lots of variation. A balance of a pair of warm colours and a pair of cool colours works best. The square – Use rules similar to tetradic colour selection. This colour scheme is at its most effective if you allow one colour to be dominant. Again take care with the balance of warm and cool colours. Split – Complimentary – This is probably the best place to start as it’s hard to mess the choices up. It provides strong contrast and is a good variation on the standard complimentary colour scheme above. &#160; In the next articles in this series we’ll take a look at the use of shapes and their meaning and how they are used to reinforce colours. For a bespoke web design it’s just as important to use the right shapes to reflect your brands image as the colour scheme itself. Then in the final article we&#8217;ll pull it all together and look at how colours and shapes compliment each other. As an example and to finish, think about Google and their brands colours and shape, what does it suggest to you? Click the plus button below to share on your social media networks or tell us what your thoughts are on this subject and leave a comment below.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/bespoke-web-design-part-1/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>This backlink will self-destruct in 5 seconds&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-disavow-tool</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-disavow-tool#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:47:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google Disavow Tool]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimisation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2446</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Introducing Google’s new disavow link tool Over the last few months Google’s mission has been to go after websites that have got a ton of links; from low quality link farms, paid for links and link networks. These “spam” type links attempt to “coax” Google into giving them a higher page rank by artificially ramping up a website’s authority with the sheer number of these links; and Google have gone after them with a vengeance! The new Google is all about quality &#8211; content quality and link quality as they set about cleaning up the relevance of search results. So for us SEO’s who follow Google’s guidelines to get our clients websites ranking the right way, we couldn’t be happier. But there is a problem&#8230; There are a few honest website owners out there who have had a warning from Google to say that they’ve detected spammy or malicious links pointing to their website. Perhaps they’ve used an aggressive SEO strategy to boost page rank themselves, or hired an SEO Company to do it for them. In the past this kind of practice has been acceptable, but it’s not any more. There have been a lot more of these warnings issued by Google recently following the changes in their ranking algorithm. Now if you have noticed a fall in page rank for the keywords you’re targeting, been the victim of a negative SEO campaign (yes, this still happens) or had a warning from Google then it’s worth checking where your backlinks are coming from. You should check them if in the past you’ve had links from: There are others but it would be well worth the effort to check the quality of those links to see if there are any issues. If you find that the links are causing you problems then Google is still advising you to contact the website’s owners and ask to have the link removed manually. But what if you can’t get hold of them? Cleaning up your website’s back link profile can feel like a mission impossible. Well this is where the new Disavow tool could come in handy. This new tool allows you to tell Google which links you’d like them to ignore, similar to a nofollow link. The tool itself is fairly straight forward to use, you create a list of the links you want ignored and paste them into the tool. However, at the moment Google is recommending that you disavow links from domains rather than actually listing individual links and this does makes sense; as there’s less chance of you making the mistake of disavowing the wrong links doing it this way. A word of warning here though, this tool must be handled with care because if you do make a mistake it’ll do you more harm than good &#8211; only use it if you know what you’re doing. The best advice is to make sure that all the links you get are from relevant, reputable and authoritative sources in the first place, then you don’t have to worry about getting a warning or having to use the disavow tool. I can see where Google is going with it so they must be congratulated for offering a method of recovery without having to go to them with cap in hand begging for forgiveness. It is a new tool and one that will be improved I’m sure. Try to manually remove bad links before you use it, but it’s a tool to make webmasters and white hat SEO’s very happy indeed. Oh,  and if you would like a free backlink report to help you identify any issues let us know; we would love to help!]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/google-disavow-tool/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Well, it looks like Google is off again&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/googleslatestupdatefiresawmdattheemds</link>
		<comments>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/googleslatestupdatefiresawmdattheemds#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:51:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EMDs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimisation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/?p=2142</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Google’s Latest Update fires a WMD at the EMD’s. Well it looks like Google is doing it again, with their latest update. At the end of last month (September) an announcement came from Google HQ or Bleak House as I prefer to call it, that their latest ranking algorithm change is set to send shock waves through the SEO world, and EMD website owners into a blind panic. So what happened? Let me start with a brief explanation of what an EMD is and why they are popular for people who want to make money online. An Exact Match Domain is a website address that matches exactly a phrase, or part of a phrase, that someone might type into a search query bar. For example you might be searching for ‘gardening tips books’, so an EMD would be ‘gardeningtipsbooks.com’. Before the EMD update Google seemed to give these domains a bit of a ranking boost, largely because they answered exactly what a person was looking for, thus ending their search. This EMD boost made it easy to get a high page rank. Internet marketers and SEO’s alike caught on to this fact and the use of EMD’s became very popular, because the boost helped sites to rank more quickly for their target key phrases. There is nothing underhand going on here though; it’s always been a really good marketing technique, BUT (and there always seems to be one!)… The more unscrupulous marketers out there latched on too, realising that a lot of money could be made quickly if they bought a load of EMD’s and put up websites full of advertisements and spam content. And because of them, over time the quality of search results has gone down drastically, and Google has had enough. Enter the EMD update&#8230; Google’s response has been harsh, and rightly so, however on the down side it looks like bona fide EMD owners have been tarred with the same brush, with the possibility that their website might lose page rank as well. Here is briefly what the update was filtering for. There are others but these seem to be the main reasons that Google might remove the boost that sites with these characteristics once enjoyed. Essentially the EMD update is on a “seek and destroy” spammer’s mission, and once they remove their Google love it’s gone for good. So what can you do if you’re a genuine business owner with an EMD? The best thing to do is to reverse engineer the above list. Now if you find yourself in the position of having an EMD, don’t panic, if you were going to be hit by this first update, you would have noticed a drop in page rank already. If not then you’ve got time to work through the reverse engineering described above before the next run. We’ll keep you posted about this and any future updates. If you’d like more advice then please contact us, but please do it sooner rather than later&#8230;]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.mediaidentity.co.uk/googleslatestupdatefiresawmdattheemds/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
