Clutch Announces Leading San Diego Web Designers

WASHINGTON, DC, July 6, 2017 – Today, Clutch released its Leaders Matrix of top San Diego web designers. The featured firms are highlighted based on verified client reviews and a track record of delivering well-crafted web designs.

The leading web designers in San Diego are: Jacob Tyler, Bop Design, Tiny Frog Technologies, MaxAudience, Visceral, AshWebStudio, Oui Will, PINT, Inc., BASIC, BLVR, BusinessOnline, Incitrio, and Webbege, Inc.

“In addition to the stellar praise and acclaim they received from their clients,” said DJ Fajana, business analyst at Clutch, “these web designers have consistently crafted creatively designed websites, which truly speaks to their exceptional technical talent.”

To systematically rank and review each web design company, Clutch used a proprietary research methodology which considers a company’s ‘ability to deliver’, experience, reviews and market presence.

Clutch’s research on leading web design companies is ongoing. The firm encourages all web design companies to apply for inclusion. Upcoming publications will feature top Portland and Seattle web design companies.

The full research can be found below:

https://clutch.co/web-designers/san-diego

https://clutch.co/web-designers/san-diego/leaders-matrix

About Clutch

A B2B research firm in the heart of Washington, DC, Clutch connects you with the agencies and software solutions that can help you enhance your business and meet your goals. Our methodology maps agencies and software solutions based on consumer reviews, the type of services offered, and quality of work.

Pet-Friendly Offices Are Simply Better…It’s Science!

Bring your dog to work day has become much more than an annual excuse to boost company morale, it’s become a regular occurrence at companies across the globe, and for good reason. Having our fur babies trotting through the hallways, snoring through meetings and barking at the FedEx guy greatly impacts our work day happiness and it’s backed by scientific research.

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The three biggest benefits to a pet-friendly office are:

1. Boosting Creativity

Getting employees up and moving more often stimulates the brain and can help to increase creative ideation. Utilizing small breaks can also have the opposite effect, in a positive way, as it allows the brain a chance to rest and charge up for what’s next on the list. In a creative environment, anything that can help to boost creativity is not only good for the employees, but also for the clients who reap the benefits of a sharp, creative team. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found going for a walk can boost creative thinking by as much as 60% compared to staring at a screen.

2. Increased Bonding In the Humans

Whether it’s the snorts of a bulldog during a status meeting or the endless attempts of a developer to get the snarky chihuahua to like him, we all benefit from a few more laughs in our day. The work we do is important, yes, but also important is the time that we spend with our co-workers. Our furry friends can be a conduit to learning more about the person sitting next to you. A study from Central Michigan University found that dogs in the office can lead to better collaboration between co-workers.

3. Lower Stress

We can all benefit for a little less stress. Whether it’s the impending doom of a huge deadline or the fifteenth shade of blue the client has rejected for the new logo, we all suffer from work related stress. If giving a 30 second head rub to one of our canine buddies can decrease that stress, why not take advantage of it. The simple act of petting a dog has been verified as a way to increase oxytocin and increase employee smiles.

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At Jacob Tyler, we know that great work comes from a great environment. By challenging the norms of a typical office environment, we are able to push our work and ourselves further. Having some of our greatest fans sitting on our laps just makes the journey a little better.

Jacob Tyler in San Diego

Turning Strategic Energy into Powerful Design Execution

We’ve recently partnered with a leading provider in the residential solar industry to create a compelling and highly engaging digital experience to inspire homeowners to go solar.

As with all projects, we focus heavily on our discovery process to learn as much as we can about our clients – who we view more-so as partners. In order to create a successful solution to the challenge we’ve been presented, it’s imperative that our team fully understands their business as well as the industry and market they serve. While we’re all familiar with the many benefits of going solar, the process of flipping the switch from traditional power to solar energy can seem complicated, when in reality it’s rather simple. We’ve been in education mode recently and have learned a great deal about the solar industry – and believe it or not, the process is not all that different than how we operate as an agency. In our case, instead of the sun delivering the energy, we build strong relationships with our clients allowing us to collect energy directly from them.

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Just as solar panels collect energy from the sun and convert direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC) electricity, we at JT collect energy from our clients, harness it and convert their DC into creative strategy (CS). The energy of CS flows from our creative leadership through our talented team of designers where it is distributed through powerful design execution creating both an efficient process and a successful end result.

Design in San Diego | Jacob Tyler

17 Quotes on Design Philosophy From Apple’s Sir Jony Ive

Recently, Apple announced it was “promoting” its lead designer, Jony Ive. The promotion is little more than a title change, as Ive has led Apple’s world-changing product design since joining the company in 1996. “Sir” Jony Ive (he’s been knighted by the Queen of England) is well known across the globe for his innovative designs that made Apple the world’s biggest company and changed the way we interact with technology.

As designers, we draw inspiration from a variety of sources – the word around us, the innovative products and services of our clients and the work of great designers past and present. Ive is certainly one of those greats. The following collection of quotes from Apple’s creative maestro offer an interesting look into the philosophy that drives Apple’s world-changing designs.

“Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple.”

“There’s no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.”

“Different’ and ‘new’ is relatively easy. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard.”

“We shouldn’t be afraid to fail- if we are not failing we are not pushing. 80% of the stuff in the studio is not going to work. If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“There is beauty when something works and it works intuitively.”

“If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“If you are truly innovating, you don’t have a prototype you can refer to.”

“What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness. This relates to respect for each other and carelessness is personally offensive.”

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.”

“True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, ‘Yeah, well, of course.’ Where there’s no rational alternative.”

“What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.”

“A small change at the beginning of the design process defines an entirely different product at the end.”

“When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.”

“Designing and developing anything of consequence is incredibly challenging.”

“Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural – it’s so hard!”

“It’s a very strange thing for a designer to say, but one of the things that really irritates me in products is when I’m aware of designers wagging their tails in my face.”

“The best ideas start as conversations.”

San Diego Digital Marketing Agency | Jacob Tyler

5 Themes from Interactive Day San Diego, 2015

Ah, Interactive Day. The one day a year when Southern California’s best, brightest and most innovative digital marketers convene to remind each other just how behind the curve they are. It is a day of inspiration and excitement and anxiety and terror: how do I institute this philosophy at my agency…how do I make these trends tangible enough to sell to my clients…when does happy hour start?

The Jacob Tyler team attended several insightful sessions throughout the day and identified a short list of the most prevalent themes discussed by leaders in the industry. Below are key takeaways, implications and points of inspiration from each theme.

1. Millennials (2015 is the peak year for marketing to millennials)

THE SCOOP:

  • This coming-of-age generation, now 18-34 years old, is the largest generation in the workforce.
  • Well educated and socially mindful, expect a growing annual spending power and influence among peers
  • A stronger connection to brands provides trust and relevance

PRO TIP:

  • Don’t be afraid to evolve with this audience and use a dynamic marketing approach. Be where they are, use their preferred media platforms, you won’t reach them otherwise. (Next Up: Gen Z)

INSPIRATION:

  • Lowe’s Fix In Six (#lowesfixinsix) campaign uses Vine to provide low-budget, clever improvements to make life at home a little easier. https://vine.co/Lowes

2. Personalized Content (Your content – whether text, images, or video – should be personalized and relevant for the audience)

THE SCOOP:

  • Ensure your campaign matches the data behind what your audience cares about.
  • Engaging experiences are made through personalization and relevance to the platform being used.
  • Content should be the start of a two-way conversation (talk to them, not at them).

PRO TIP:

  • Include descriptive and informative messaging that is helpful for the audience. It’s not only about the visuals.

INSPIRATION:

  • Top performing pins on Pinterest provide instructions and tips as well as a beautiful image — brands recognize that pins are about planning and information, not just aesthetics. https://www.pinterest.com/categories/popular/

3. Augmented Reality (Creating a near-real experience with a brand in a connected world)

 THE SCOOP:

  • Consumers today have made their purchase decisions well ahead of an in-store visit.
  • Augmented reality transports the consumer to a branded environment for a fully immersive experience. It can live anywhere your consumer lives, and become interactive through a variety of devices (smartphone, wearables or anywhere in between).

PRO TIP:

  • Start simple: how can my prospects see themselves using my product? Build a simple experience reflecting that, then test, and grow, and test, and grow.

INSPIRATION:

  • Always ahead of its own curve, the IKEA catalogue took augmented reality to an innovative (and still approachable) space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDNzTasuYEw

4. The Internet of Things (So much more than using Nest to create a connected home)

 THE SCOOP:

  • Speaking of wearables…the next generation of personalization and automation provides efficiency to living and working lifestyles.
  • Let technology learn more about you to improve day-to-day tasks and challenges through data.

PRO TIP:

  • Focus on how your brand and the information it gathers can simplify your consumers’ lives, and invest in the technology to build that connection.

INSPIRATION:

5. Live Interactions (Streaming video can be used to create a real-time, shared experience)

THE SCOOP:

  • Consumers crave real-time access to events as they unfold.
  • Live, user-influenced content creates an immediacy and shareability to brand experiences.

PRO TIP:

  • Listen to and know your audience, then build events and stories that invite them in as a live participant.

INSPIRATION:

  • Watch Gisele fight back to negative comments as the new face of Under Armour. http://gisele.underarmour.com/

How do these trends come to life, and how to they apply to your brand (or your clients’ brands)? What success stories have you seen, and what pitfalls should brands avoid?

Jacob Tyler | Branding Agency in San Diego

5 Easy Tactics to Reach Brand Enthusiasts

Do you own a gadget that you can’t wait to tell all of your friends about? Are you quick to recommend your favorite restaurant or a film you enjoyed to anyone who will listen? If so – to paraphrase the late Jeff Foxworthy – you might be a brand enthusiast. Brand enthusiasts are more than a fan of a certain product or brand – they champion brands, spreading word far and wide, without expectation of compensation. And they’re more common than you might think. According to a recent study, more than 25 percent of consumers are considered brand enthusiasts. That number doubles among Millenials, whose social media prowess makes them the most powerful and effective purveyors of enthusiasm – not to mention a powerhouse purchasing demographic.

Marketing to brand enthusiasts is a no-brainer, and the reasons are largely self-evident. Brand enthusiasts are trust worthier than advertising or marketing campaigns – and they don’t charge. They personify your brand from a deeply personal place, relaying their experience to a willing audience. Quite simply, brand enthusiasts are the most powerful arrows in your marketing quiver.

But reaching these magical marketing creatures – and convincing them to evangelize for your brand – is no easy task. There’s no magic formula, and if there were, there’s no way to guarantee enthusiasm for your particular brand. Aside from offering a great product or service, there are strategies you can employ to help you win brand enthusiasts to your cause. Start with these five:

Show Up: Don’t wait for brand enthusiasts to knock on your door asking to sample the goods. Go to where they are. With a little research, you should be able to find out where the conversations around your particular market are taking place – social media channels, chat rooms, etc. Be where the conversation is, and add to it.

Start a Conversation: Want to know what people think about your brand? Ask them. You will learn more about the perception of your brand from a conversation than you ever will from your assumptions. You’ll you gain a solid understanding of the way people feel about your brand, and learn how you can improve your brand in the eyes of your customers.

Gather Information: Brand enthusiasts are generally more willing to offer personal and contact information than more skeptical consumers. By collecting contact information and staying in touch with them, you can move from conversation to relationship.

Make Sure Your Technology is up to Snuff: Brand enthusiasts are known as some of the most tech-savvy consumers on the planet. As such, they research and engage with brands overwhelmingly through mobile devices. Make sure your website is easily accessible though mobile devices and operating systems.

Feed the Hungry: Brand enthusiasts devour content. After all, one can’t truly be considered an enthusiast if he or she isn’t an expert on the subject. Provide timely, targeted and useful information to your audience. If your brand enthusiasts like what you have to say, they’ll share it with the world.

Want to learn more about how you can generate enthusiasm for your brand? Fill out the form to the right and lets chat!

San Diego’s Best Branding Agency | Jacob Tyler

Is Anyone Watching This? – Video Ads and Viewability

In the beginning of this millennium, around when the DVR became ubiquitous and the Internet realized its potential as the platform for content delivery, the television ad was pronounced dead. The perpetual march of technology, combined with a growing distrust for traditional advertisements, was implicated in the TV ad’s demise. The death certificate, however, was written far too early. After all, the advertising spend on the 2015 Super Bowl was the largest ever, and shows no signs of slowing down. Sure, less people view ads on televisions these days, but the visual advertisement continues to dominate the media landscape – by way of the Internet. Both advertisers and publishers have increasingly focused on video ads over the last few years, resulting in both more video ads – and more questions about their effectiveness. Advertisers, in short, want to know – “Is anyone watching this?”

Web pages draw a much less captive audience than do TV screens. Visitors move about freely, clicking links and refreshing pages to locate the content they desire, rather than having it fed directly to them. Merely placing a video ad on a page offers no guarantee that the ad will be seen. Rather than base ad costs and effectiveness on delivery metrics, advertisers and publishers are now relying on a metric called “viewability, ” created by the Media Rating Council, which measures the percentage of the time a particular ad is seen. An ad is considered “viewed” when at least 50 percent of its pixels are on screen for more than two seconds. Viewability is an evolving metric, but it represents a shift in the way advertisers are doing business.

Google’s recently released State of Ad Viewability report offers some important insight on ad visibility, including where ads are being seen, how often they’re being seen, and how format and placement affects viewability. The following are a few major takeaways from the report:

Averages

The average video ad viewability across the web (not including YouTube) is 54 percent. With YouTube, it’s 93 percent. The difference between YouTube and non-YouTube ads isn’t quite as striking as it appears, since only the YouTube numbers accounted for viewability on mobile devices.

Heard, Not Seen

Video ads that played in the background (in a separate tab, etc.) but were not technically “viewable” still resulted in a 33 percent increase in ad recall, when compared to those who had no exposure to ad at all. It’s better to bee seen than heard, but better to be heard than nothing!

Going Mobile

The massive shift to mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, is reflected in viewability data. YouTube video viewability is 94 percent on mobile devices – due largely to the fact that videos often utilize the entire screen on these devices.

Why Videos Fail the Viewability Test

The majority (76 percent) of videos not seen were due to the video playing while in a background tab. The remainder (24 percent) was due to visitors scrolling away from or clicking off the ads in less than two seconds.

Size Matters

Unsurprisingly, viewability increased step by step with screen size. The largest format (848 x 477) had an 87 percent viewability rate, while the smallest (300 x 250) had less than 20 percent viewability.

It’s All About Location

Google’s report showed that not only player size, but also location on the page is an important factor in viewability. Ads placed at the top of the page vertically, and in the center of a page horizontally, had far better viewability rates.

What Does it All Mean?

While viewability is an important step in determining where advertisers should focus spending, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Ad content, audience identification and a solid marketing strategy will ultimately determine an ad’s true effectiveness, and move potential customers from viewing to conversion.

 

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Branding Agency

Are You Ready for Mobilegeddon?

In April, Google officially rolled out its “mobile-friendly” search ranking update. In short, this means that Google will now boost the rankings of what it considers to be “mobile-friendly” pages – and penalize pages that it does not – on its mobile search. The update is intended to reflect the rise of Internet access through mobile devices, which now constitute more than half of all Google searches. The update is expected to negatively affect many websites – popular industry blog TechCrunch found that 44 percent of Fortune 500 companies failed Google’s mobile-friendly test – and could impact revenues for those websites who do not meet the new mobile-friendly standards.

Let’s take a look at the basics of the new search update and what it means for your website.

What will change?

  • The mobile-friendly update will impact web page search rankings based on accessibility and usability on mobile devices.
  • The change affects only search ranking on mobile devices.
  • The update applies to individual pages, not entire websites.

What makes a website mobile-friendly?

According to Google’s blog, the following basic criteria will be used to determine “mobile friendliness” in search results:

  • Websites that avoid software that is not common on mobile devices – like Flash.
  • Websites that use text that is readable without zooming.
  • Websites that size content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
  • Websites that place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

Is my website mobile-friendly?

If your website features responsive design or adaptive design, or has been configured specifically for use on mobile devices, it may not be affected by the new search algorithm. Older, more “static” websites, however, will likely suffer a loss of ranking under the new search rules.

To determine if your website is mobile-friendly, simply paste your URL into Google’s quick and easy mobile-friendly test.

How can I optimize my website for mobile?

Google recommends responsive web design as the best way to ensure sites remain relevant across all platforms. According to Google’s blog, responsive design:

  • Makes it easier for users to share and link to your content with a single URL.
  • Helps Google’s algorithms accurately assign indexing properties to the page rather than needing to signal the existence of corresponding desktop/mobile pages.
  • Requires less engineering time to maintain multiple pages for the same content.
  • Reduces the possibility of the common mistakes that affect mobile sites.
  • Requires no redirection for users to have a device-optimized view, which reduces load time.
  • Saves resources when Googlebot crawls your site.

In a nutshell –

The new mobile search ranking is an undeniable shakeup of the status quo, but should eventually optimize the search experience for both consumers and businesses. If your website lost rank status on April 21, it can regain that status once it is optimized and becomes mobile-friendly, as Google will reclassify the newly updated site.

If you would like to learn more about how to optimize your website for mobile, fill out the form to the right and let’s chat!

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Web Design Agency

Get the Grease

The old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is most often used to describe the value of complaining. It conjures images of a cranky old man demanding a new bowl of soup because the temperature is a tad off. But I’ve never thought of it that way. I think it’s the perfect idiom for standing out in a crowd – in a positive way. For brands looking to stand out in a crowded market, – and just about every market is crowded these days – the squeaky wheel is your marketing, and the grease is your profit. How do you make your marketing squeak?

Start with these six tips:

Be Bold: Know what you want to say and say it. The best campaigns aren’t afraid to take chances. Exude confidence in your brand, and you’ll win the confidence of your audience. Boldness is leadership. Be the leader in your market.

Be Relevant: If you want your marketing to resonate with its intended audience, provide that audience with content relevant to them, and to your brand. Know your audience demographically, geographically and emotionally. Know their needs and desires – and provide them with a solution. Without relevant content, your efforts will disappear faster than free donuts in the office.

Be in the Right Place at the Right Time: Go to your audience; don’t wait for them to come to you. Determine your audience’s pain points and provide them with a solution at the right time. If your product is a snow shovel, don’t advertise in July. Develop a timeline for your campaign and try to anticipate events that would trigger a need for your product or service.

Be Creative: Creativity is the soul of individualism. There will never be another Steve Jobs, another James Brown or another Andy Warhol. Great creative separates you from the masses. Be different. Stand out from the crowd. Create something beautiful and compelling.

Be Available: Marketing is a conversation. In the digital age, brands can interact in real time with their audiences. Utilize technology and be present and timely. Start a conversation; you might just win some new evangelists for your brand!

Go forth, and get the grease!

For more marketing tips, contact us. (Look right!)

Marketing by Jacob Tyler in San Diego

Attention Retailers: Facebook Product Ads Have Arrived

Remember the days of catalogue shopping? A slew of catalogues would arrive on your doorstep – JC Penny, Eddie Bauer, Sears, etc. – and you’d flip through hundreds of pages to find the items that you wanted or needed. While a 300-page catalogue full of products could be exciting at first – with seemingly endless possibilities to quench your retail thirst – it was often cumbersome. There’s not a person on earth that could possibly want or need every product in the JC Penny catalogue. Product catalogues worked much like Encyclopedias (remember those?) – you had to physically search for products that matched your desires.

The days of receiving 5-pound catalogues in the mail are largely gone (though the Yellow Pages continues to mysteriously appear on my doorstep). But catalogues aren’t. Have you ever been to Ikea’s website? It features thousands and thousands of products in hundreds of countries. A virtual catalogue. Ikea is a phenomenal business with an international reputation. But what about smaller retailers? Are consumers willing to wade through hundreds of web pages of products to find what they’re looking for? In today’s climate of endless choices, probably not.

I’ve written before about the importance of brands reaching out directly to engage consumers in the virtual spaces they inhabit. With more than 700 million daily users, Facebook is the world’s most populous virtual space. Facebook is an important channel for retailers to engage audiences. And with Facebook’s latest evolution to its advertising service – “Product Ads” – retailers can now promote individual products from their catalogues to consumers. The service, introduced in mid-February, could be a game changer for brands with extensive product lines.

Facebook’s announcement described the new service: “Product ads offer businesses a number of ways to highlight different products on Facebook. Marketers can upload their product catalog and create campaigns targeting certain products to specific audiences, or let Facebook automatically deliver the most relevant products to people. Products can be shown in single- or multi-product ad units.”

The new service should take a lot of the guesswork and tedium out of how to reach the right audience at the right time for brands. However, brands must continue to raise the bar on creative presentation and engaging content. Does your brand’s creative stand out from the crowd? Contact us using the form to the right – we’d love to help!

Internet Marketing in San Diego | Jacob Tyler