2020 was not a typical year, at least for many of us. There was a lot going on, including COVID, worldwide social issue movements, civil unrest, and a stressful election year in the US. Most agency and business owners were facing tough challenges, due to the pandemic, supply-chain lag, market uncertainty, social upheaval, and isolation. […]
2020 Year in Review
2019 Year in Review
Around this time each year, I publish a year in review post. This is to help me reflect on what has happened and what I’ve learned. It’s also to help me look back and see what progress I’ve made. If you want to track the progress over time, check out the years in review for […]
“How Much SEO Boost Does a Mobile-Friendly Site Give You?”
Published January 18th, 2019 No Comments on “How Much SEO Boost Does a Mobile-Friendly Site Give You?”I want to talk about a thread I saw in one of the Reddit SEO channels, a question about the ROI of a mobile-friendly website. This is a paraphrase of what the original poster asked, but it went something like this. “Our website is not mobile-friendly right now. If we make our website mobile-friendly, how […]
Three Things That Make Client SEO Easy
For the past couple of years, we’ve been working closely with manufacturing, industrial, and blue-collar SEO clients. There are three factors which don’t get talked about, which help determine the success of any SEO campaign. Now, these aren’t factors like quality content, incoming back links, or user experience design — what we call the three […]
2018 Year in Review
Each year, I do a year in review post, so I can document the progress of my business, and look back and reflect on what’s happened. As a marketer, I feel it is important to chronicle what is working, and what isn’t. But this also lines up with one of our Core Values — transparency. […]
2017 Year in Review
The only thing that is constant is change. Especially in web development. But the biggest change that Lockedown Design & SEO went through in 2017 was to pivot our core offering. In previous years, (see 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016), the business model was primarily WordPress development in exchange for money. During the first five […]
2016 Year in Review
Welcome to the fourth annual year in review post for Lockedown Design & SEO! I like year in review posts, because it forces you to take a step back and evaluate what you’ve actually accomplished. Publishing your progress each year allows you to see things in a larger perspective. We have a tendency to get […]
What Makes A Website Design Good?
Let’s face it. Most web design is judged rather subjectively. Oh sure, the new design of your website may win design awards. Or perhaps look exquisite — which is important. But does that make the design great? I’d argue that one thing above all else makes a website design successful. And that’s whether it delivers […]
Trust Is The Key To Great Web Design Projects
Web design and development is a curious industry. A lot of people would say that we deal in design. Or code. Or graphics. Or marketing. These are merely by-products of what we deal in. They are not the products themselves. Web agencies only have a few things that they sell: their relationship with the client, […]
Why I Don’t Bill Hourly On Large Projects
For large projects, I don’t have an hourly rate. In fact, I don’t even worry about measuring increments of time until we get down to smaller things like maintenance agreements, or smaller projects less than a few hours in scope. A rate implies that you’re measuring effort in increments of time, not return on investment. […]