1. Do Not Hide Text On Your Site

In the past, you could get away with making certain text the same color as the background of your site and load it with content rich information for search engines. Bet you can’t read the next line without highlighting it!

This will get you into trouble with Google…remember Google is your friend!

Now, if the evolving Google bot finds this on your site, you will be penalized in the Google search rankings. It’s not worth it!

2. Do Not Use Images to Represent Important Information

There are just some elements on your site that have to be represented with text. For instance, a footer that contains your street address and contact information. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. use this text to display your address and location when you are indexed in searches. As smart as those bots are, they can’t interpolate an image…yet.

3. Don’t Put Music on a Site Without Controls

Nothing is more aggravating then going to a website and having some music continuously play while you peruse the site. If you have good reason to placing music on your site…I mean good reason, then you should at least include a simple button to turn off the sound.

4. Do NOT Use Tables to Layout Your Site

This is a thing of the past, and still wasn’t the best practice in formatting websites. Style sheets with CSS3 are all you need to ever layout a website now. Especially with everything moving to tablets and mobile searching, a fluid layout for your site is a must these days.

5. Do Not Use Too Large of Images

While the internet is only getting faster for everyone, the use of large images can really slow down a website. People are impatient as ever these days, and they want their information immediately. The longer that your site takes to load, the less time a visitor will stay on your site.  Also, the longer the site takes to load, the worse your site will perform in SEO.

These are just some of the very basics to consider when you start designing your website. You can see our company’s website, Three Point Oh!, which has come a long way since my first design. Let me know what you think on one of our social handles facebook, twitter, google+.

If you have a video interview, presentation, or other event coming up, here are some industry tips on what NOT to do while on camera.

1. Do NOT chew gum (people tend to look as though they are in a pasture grazing)
2. Don’t look away immediately after you finish your lines
3. Don’t stop just because you fumbled one word (we have the power of editing!)
4. Don’t talk like Ben Stein giving an economic lesson (no offense Mr. Stein)

    

   
   Film is a cold medium…be over the top with your emotion!

5. Don’t wear a pin striped shirt or one that has intricate designs…NIGHTMARE for creating moray patterns. For example look through two pieces of patio screen, then move one piece in front of the other. You will see several patterns or “morays” being generated. You don’t want to look like you are buzzing on camera.
6. Just like in public speaking, try not to sway too much. You aren’t at sea!
7. Don’t talk faster just because we turned the red light on. Leave your nerves at the door!
8. Don’t run away after your are done…more than likely you are still connected to something.
9. Don’t have your phone on…vibrate doesn’t count! (it can distract you and we will hear the hum)
10. Lastly don’t wind up in the “fig leaf” stance. Feel free to use your hands to gesture. You don’t want to look like these two body guards…

If you found these tips helpful take a minute and give us a shout out!  You can check out our company at Three Point Oh! and follow us at one of the many social sites: facebook, twitter, google+

Three Point Oh! Inc. was chosen by Markee Magazine as one of the top video production companies in the southeast. Other companies highlighted in the article range from all over the south, including Asheville, N.C., Richmond V.A., Atlanta, and many more. Markee Magazine has recently re-launched their publication under Lionheart Publishing with a focus on “in-depth profiles of newsmakers, coverage of the thriving production and post markets across America, perspectives of independent filmmakers and a new generation of content providers, and reports from creatives and technical wizards in every aspect of the business.” -markeemagazine.com

You can read the whole write-up by visiting the online magazine, Spotlighting the Southeast. The magazine goes on to describe how the company was formed, and some of our major accomplishments. If you want to learn more about us please visit our website at https://www.3pointoh.com.

Why is SEO So Overwhelming?

Several months ago, I took over our companies website and decided to re-design everything (a massive undertaking I realize now). While the design went through many renditions, I finally arrived at a design that functions nicely and is aesthetically pleasing. You can see for yourself at the Three Point Oh! Website. What that merely means is that I’m 10% done with the task ahead. A simple visit to Google has shown that our company isn’t nearly as high in the ranks as we’d like to be to achieve the desired traffic to our site. This all comes down to SEO (search engine optimization). I can’t tell you how many articles, videos and forums I have studied concerning SEO. Each one adds another to-do for the constantly changing internet. Some good ones I’ve found are Google Shows How to Master SEO in 10 mins or SEOmoz Ranking Factors.

Now that search engines have gotten smarter, technology has improved, and the internet has grown infinitely bigger, it is no longer a cut and dry procedure. A simple meta data description and keyword placement used to have huge effects. Now, they say not to waste your time. Here is the essential step I’ve taken away from my research:

Search Engines Are Smart

Search engines use bots to crawl and index your site through the HTML (webmaster tools has become my new best friend). These bots search through everything on your site. Google wants to make sure that the information it’s showing is quality and matches what was searched (their reputation is at stake). This is why keywords, readable content, and back links play an important role in your search engine rankings. Google likes to see the phrase that’s being searched in the page-title, page-URL, meta-descriptions, in an H1 tag, within page content, and sprinkled throughout your site. This tells the bot, “Hey, I really do have the content that matches the search.”

Backlinking

The other important part is back linking. The robot also searches for all the internal and external links on your site. The more links you have externally from quality sites will tell search engines there is worthwhile content on your site. This will directly affect your ranking in those engines.

Catch Me if you Can

The algorithm that runs these searches and queries your site changes from time to time. This is Google’s way of keeping things interesting. Truthfully they just don’t want everyone learning how to crack their code and use black tactics. Link farms, keyword stuffing and hidden content are sure fire ways of getting you black listed on google.

How Does Hollywood Do It?