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 […]
Three Things That Make Client SEO Easy
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 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 years, I […]
2016 Year in Review
Welcome to the fourth annual year in review post for Lockedown Design! 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 caught up […]
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.
Favor The Long Road: Ongoing Client Relationships
If you’re in business in any way, at some point, you’ve had to shop for web design. You’ve had to figure out what criteria you’ll be judging a web development firm on, and then go through your list of candidates. Hopefully, that list is small rather than large. But here’s a question. What happened to […]
Think Big
Life is interesting. Unconsciously, most of us choose what is the safest path instead of an uncertain path. I’ve been guilty of this myself, and I understand why taking a safe and secure path is a good decision for a lot of people. But the thing about the safe path is that almost everyone is […]
My 2015 In Review
Year-end reviews are cathartic. For the transparent business, a recap of the previous year is a public record of whether it met some of its goals for the year. For me, year-end reviews are a way to keep me accountable for setting goals and keeping track of what I’ve accomplished (or which of my targets […]