Ideally, when a graphic designer begins working on a project (in any medium) all of the content will be ready. In reality, this is rarely the case.

Typical scenario [on a Monday afternoon]:
I need this PDF info sheet finished by Friday morning. The text? No, it’s not ready yet. The Marketing Department is writing it now. They’ll have it for you on Wednesday afternoon.

If the designer is lucky, he/she will at least get some of the images or a quick synopsis about what the content will be. In order to start designing a piece that is largely comprised of copy, the designer will need to use some filler text in order to get the design completed and approved by the deadline.

Lorem ipsum to the rescue.

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem ipsum is standard dummy text that has been used as filler in the printing and typesetting industry ever since the 1960s, as possibly as early as the sixteenth century.

The first sentence of Lorem Ipsum commonly reads as follows:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

The text is a slightly scrambled derivation from sections 1.10.32-33 of Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum ([About] The Purposes of Good and Evil). The original passage began: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit (Translation: “Neither is there anyone who loves grief itself since it is grief and thus wants to obtain it“) You can read more of the translation here.

Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar, discovered the origin of the passage after searching for for citings of the rarely used Latin word “consecteur” in classical literature.

How it is used today

Lorem ipsum text is preferred over something like “Content here. Content here.” because it has a relatively “normal” distribution of letters, which makes it look like readable English. There are many random generators of Lorem Ipsum, including a Dashboard widget for Mac and lipsum.com.

Why Lorem Ipsum contributes to bad design

In the earlier example, working with lorem ipsum text was used as a time-saving device – if the designer waited until the content was ready, they may have missed the deadline.

There is an argument that using real content when presenting design comps is distracting to the client. This group believes that the client will be nit-picky about the text, and not look at the overall picture of design. In my experience, this can happen – but I’ve also had plenty of clients utterly confused at why their brochure is in “gibberish.”

“Lorem ipsum dolor has long been known as the designer’s best friend. We think it should be your enemy. Using lorem ipsum dolor reduces text-based content to a visual design element (a “shape” of text) instead of valuable information someone is going to have to enter and/or read.”

— Jason Fried, 37 Signals
“Getting Real” design tip: Just say no to Lorem Ipsum on Signals vs. Noise

“By adding Lorem Ipsum to the design you are essentially dressing your king before you know his size.”

— Design Informer, Lorem Ipsum is Killing Your Designs

When the design is completed before the content, the writers are forced to write to the space alloted by lorem ipsum. An idea that should have been two sentences is stretched on for paragraphs. Or, a complex subject requiring detailed explanation must be reduced to a sentence. As a writer, I can tell you that this is a terrible way to write. As a designer, I can also say that designing something in lorem ipsum almost ALWAYS requires a vast re-design once the real content is available.

In my experience, working with only lorem ipsum text to produce comps is a huge waste of time. It is an exercise in aesthetics, not in the communication of content.

I am constantly marveling at how much power our brain and mental state has over our physical body, even if we aren’t conscious of it.

I’ve learned (the hard way) about what kind of a toll stress can have on our bodies. Before I went out completely on my own, I was engaged in a long-term, very stressful contract with a client. The stress buildup caused a myriad of physical health problems, which I didn’t realize were all related to the stress until much later.

I had severe panic attacks, which manifested themselves in my throat and chest. I felt like a fish flopping around the beach, desperately gulping for air. I couldn’t breathe. I would even wake up from a sound sleep, multiple times each night with these attacks. I had horrible heartburn, to the point that I underwent an endoscopy to check for damage. Acne exploded across my face. You get the idea.

It wasn’t pretty.

I went to many doctors and received an assortment of drugs to help with these ailments. And they did help, a bit. But, not completely. Finally, I realized that I couldn’t keep putting my mind and body through this much constant stress. So, I chose to walk away from this guaranteed body of work and find new work and new clients, all on my own.

Now, don’t get me wrong — running your own business is stressful. Not having a ton of work lined up when you walk away is stressful. But — would you believe, that within just two weeks — 95% of all those ailments went away? The panic attacks, the heartburn, all of it. I even stopped the medications. Didn’t matter. I was better.

You know what else happened? My creative work got better. A lot better. I felt full and energized. And happy.

The mental laborers

I think that as a whole, the United States culture is corralling more and more young people into white collar professions over blue collar. The “mental laborers,” if you will. The expectation is that everyone should go to university and receive a college degree – becoming a mechanic or a construction worker seems like more of the “backup plan.” I definitely went the “mental laborer” route.

The vast majority of my work is done while being almost completely still. I sit. I think. I move my fingers across a keyboard and shuffle the mouse around a bit, but I really don’t move much. My brain does all the work for me, and my body is essentially just hanging out.

We have to take care of our brains.

I think there is a lot of emphasis on staying physically fit — which is also very important — but we have to take care of our mental health too. As my not-so-lovely story showed, a mind that isn’t well taken care of can make your body sick too.

I think that taking on a little less, and resisting the 24/7 culture is so important. I have been reading more about productivity and minimalism and slowly trying to adopt some of those practices into my life. It’s been helping me be less stressed and feel more peaceful.

From time to time, I’ll be sharing some tips and resources about wellness and staying balanced… I hope this post gives you some context about why this is so important to me. I also hope it challenges you to take a look at your own schedule and think about what you could change to help you feel more purposeful and balanced — instead of doing things just for others.

Here are a few wellness/minimalist/inspiring resources that I really enjoy:

• Zen Habits blog by Leo Babauta
• Unclutterer blog
• The Art of Nonconformity blog by Chris Guillebeau
• Rework, a book by 37 Signals
• Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin R. Doland
  (I just started this one, and I really like it so far. My newly cleaned/organized closet is such a nice way to start my morning!)

Photo credit:

My birthday was last week. I decided to pay a gift forward, and I donated it to Kiva. Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.

I donated to the Femmes Commerèantes N°6 Group (pictured above) in Thies, Senegal. Their goal is to fight family poverty. My donation allowed them to reach their goal of purchasing supplies for their retail business.

The group will repay their loan over the next 10 months. Once the loan is repaid, I will receive a credit for the amount I donated. Then, I can lend it to someone else. Of course, there is no 100% guarantee that my investment will be repaid, but Kiva has processed over $28 million in loans, and has a 98.4% repayment rate.

Loans start at $25. I know that our economy is in the tank, and everyone is finding ways to cut back. But, I also know that this $25 gift made a difference, and that’s worth a small sacrifice on my part.

Visit kiva.org and consider lending money to alleviate poverty.

How many magnets are on your refrigerator right now? Did you buy them yourself, or are they from businesses? I’d bet at least half are from businesses.

Did you know:

95 million homes have at least one fridge which they open an average of 20 times per day. (That’s 7,300 hits a year.)

My parents have magnets on their fridge that have been there for at least 10 years.

I think that as long as your magnet:

(1) is aesthetically pleasing,

(2) has useful information (like your services + contact info), and

(3) is strong enough to hold a paper or two -

the likelihood of it remaining up there for awhile is pretty high. (I have no science to back this up, it’s just based on my experience.)

I’d recommend considering a refrigerator magnet for your next promotional item giveaway. I personally love the ones with the little clip to hold papers. They’re so sturdy.

Thanks to Lee Silber and his book, Self-Promotion for the Creative Person: Get the Word Out About Who You Are and What You Do for this fun fact.

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about intent and follow through. It’s a theme that seems to popping up all over the place for the last few months.

For me, it began with Chris Guillebeau’s article, “What you don’t do doesn’t matter.” The article is fantastic, and I highly recommend that you click over and read it, but, even if you don’t, the title says it all. For example, if I just think about sending someone a thank you note, but don’t actually send it, the thought doesn’t count. Nothing has changed. Maybe you feel a little better because, hey, you did think about it – but I usually feel worse, because I didn’t follow through.

While Chris’ article focused primarily on relationships, I think that “What you don’t do doesn’t matter” can be expanded to include personal and professional work – which is why I’ve adapted it as my new mantra.

I could’ve done that.

Have you ever said, “Psh. I could’ve done that.” or “I could do better than that.” I know I have. The critical difference is that this other person invested time and energy to create something, whereas I just thought about it. It’s the difference between having a bunch of recipes and opening a restaurant. I have a long list of things I’ve been meaning to do. Some have been started, but not finished. Some are nothing more than a bullet point on the list.

I don’t have a very good reason for not doing these things. I used to say, “I’ve just been so busy lately.” But thanks to this other article by Chris Guillebeau, I’ve tried to drop that excuse. It’s a terrible excuse. We’re all busy. It’s up to me to decide what I want to be busy doing.

What are you passionate about?

Seth Godin wrote about modern procrastination. We can keep scuttling along, staying very “busy” and yet not do anything important. Not creating anything of value. You might consider doing this interview with yourself as an exercise to compare what you are doing vs. what you’re truly passionate about.

In the past week or so, I’ve swapped TV, email and Facebook for reading real books, writing, and exercise. And, you know what? I feel better. Writing the SEO series last week was challenging, but also so much more rewarding than watching a Law & Order: SVU marathon.

What are you keeping busy with right now? What could you be doing instead?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

This week, I tried something new. Each day, I wrote a post about a topic that I’ve been studying: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short).  In case you missed them, here’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday‘s posts.

When in doubt, “Google It”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to write about today. So, I did a quick Google search for “top SEO tips” as a starting point. It felt like cheating, but at the same time, shouldn’t the best advice on Search Engine Optimization be at the top of the search?

The first result was for www.top10seotips.com. I jumped right to downloading the free eBook, which I found to be really useful. (Note: there are a few hoops to jump through in order to get the book, but I think it was worth it)

From the title, SEO in a Day, I was really skeptical. In my experience, articles/books with “___ in a Day” are usually really watered down, empty content. I was pleasantly surprised. I learned about how to optimize this blog (which is powered by WordPress) by installing a few more plugins and tweaking the settings. I also found his explanation of keywords and keyword tracking to be really helpful. I’d say it’s worth it to download and review the 36 pages.

Make it easy

One other gem I found on the site was this idea of making it incredibly easy to link to your work, and with the link text YOU want. Check out Top 10 SEO Tips. At the top of the page, he wrote the HTML code he’d like people to use when linking to his site. Honestly, it made it easier for me to create the link, and he will benefit more from the link because the link text includes keywords that he is targeting. He didn’t leave it up to me, he did the work for me. Consider adding something like this on your own site.

I don’t necessarily agree with his comments that you should fire your Webmaster, developer and SEO expert and strictly DIY. I think it’s important to have basic knowledge of whatever you’re hiring a professional to do (so you can speak intelligently about what you’re looking for and make sure you’re not being taken advantage of) but a professional can almost always do it better and faster than you can.

Still looking for more tips?

Then you should check out, 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love.

Here’s a roundup of a few things I learned:

• Use keywords in the image ALT attributes.
• If you don’t update your content often, you should have blog and update it at least 3 times per week.
• When optimizing blog posts, you should optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title. Use keyword-rich captions with your images.

Let’s get to work.

When I relaunched my site in December 2009, I thought I had a good handle on the basics of SEO, but after this week of researching and writing on the topic, I have plenty of SEO-related updates and maintenance to do. I hope you found this series helpful.

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback!

Did you like the increased amount of posts this week? Do you like the idea of a weekly topic, or were you bored by the end? Comment on this article or send me an email at danielle [at] daniellebaird [dot] net with your thoughts or with ideas on another series. Thanks for reading!

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

Many of the factors relating to page rank rely on the talent of your web developer, web designer and/or copy writer. Hiring these professionals requires a budget — but there are things you can do on your own, for free, to help your site’s page rank.

On Tuesday, I shared some tips and resources about how to improve your rank, which included the importance of inbound links. You can ask other sites to link to you, ideally with keyword specific text as the hyperlink, but you really don’t have any control over whether or not that site will actually link to you or how they’ll do it. So, how do you get inbound links?

You can create (some of) them yourself.

1. Create business profiles on sites like LinkedIn, Biznik, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc. and fill out the profile information. Include a link to your business.
2. Publish articles anywhere and everywhere you can. A site like Biznik is a great place to get published. Demonstrate your expertise by writing a helpful article, with an extended byline linking back to your website.
3. Create an HTML signature to use in Web-based discussion forums that uses your name (or business name) as a link to your web site. Every message you post becomes a link to your site that search engines can index.

These tips alone aren’t guaranteed to move you to the top of a search — but they are especially great for increasing the page rank for your name or business name.

Other tips to drive traffic

These won’t necessarily help your page rank, but it will help drive visitors to your site, which will hopefully result in conversions (see Monday’s post).

1. Include links in your email signature. Don’t forget your signature from your Blackberry /iPhone/Smartphone. You send out 300 emails a day? That’s 300 opportunities to share a link.
2. Comment on other people’s blogs. People feel like they need to have a blog or “a Twitter” because “everyone has one.” I have a journalism background and I like to write — but I’ll be the first to say that maintaining a blog is challenging and time consuming. Reap some of the same benefits, with less effort. Read blogs that your prospects read and leave comments. Most comment forms ask you to fill in your web address, which becomes a link back to your site when you comment.

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some additional SEO resources. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

SEO Tools from seomoz.org

A collection of over 20 SEO tools designed to help with a variety of search engine optimization. It groups the tools into different categories, such as Page & Site Analysis Tools, Competitive Analysis Tools, Keyword Research & Discovery Tools, etc.

Free Search Engine Rankings Check from Mike’s Marketing Tools

The site isn’t very pretty, but the tool is pretty awesome. Type in your website, the keywords you are targeting, pick your search engines, and go. A pop-up window appears showing where your site ranks on up to 8 different search engines (if you’re within the top 100 listings, otherwise, it just says “no.”)

I learned that when searching for “danielle baird” my site ranked #1 on all, except for Bing, where it was #3. I was curious, so I did a Bing search, and sure enough, my old, old, OLD portfolio site (which I thought DePaul had taken down and I no longer have admin access to) and someone else’s MySpace account appeared above www.daniellebaird.net. All of the SEO research I’ve done doesn’t mesh with the way Bing is operating…I don’t consider it a credible search engine anyway.

And finally…

The Google Toolbar by Google

Among other things, the Google Toolbar includes the PageRank of the site you are currently browsing. The PageRank isn’t an obvious part of the toolbar – it’s located between the Bookmarks and Translate buttons. If you hover your mouse over the bar, a tool tip appears “PageRank is Google’s view of the importance of this page (X/10)” with X as the numeric value assigned to that page.

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some ideas on how to build up your page rank, without the help of a web designer or developer. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

Page ranking is complicated. It can vary from search engine to search engine. It can vary from day to day.

Learn the lingo

There is a lot of terminology surrounding SEO and page ranking. You may want to keep these glossaries handy as you explore the page rank resources:

http://www.seoglossary.com/

http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/sem_glossary/

The relationship between page rank and keywords

Page rank is directly related to keywords. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, saying that you want to “show up on Google” means nothing. You want your site to appear in the search results when someone types a query into the search box. The words they type in the search box are keywords or keyword phrases.

When someone types in a keyword phrase, the search engine looks through its database of indexed pages and returns the best matches for those keywords. How do search engines determine the best match? This is where things get a little more complicated.

One thing to keep in mind is that search engines are dumb. For example, I am a freelance graphic designer, but if I don’t ever use the words “freelance graphic designer” on my site, I can’t expect Google to “know” I’m a freelancer based on the contextual information on my site. I have to use those keywords in my text, in the page titles, etc. to say “Hey Google! The search for ‘freelance graphic designer’ and the content on this page are a good match!”

Handy-dandy resources

Here are two resources that help you make sense of how different factors, including keywords, impact page rank:

Google’s PageRank Explained and How to Make the Most of It
This article explains, in detail, the algorithm behind Google’s patented PageRank and the various factors that impact it. Some takeaways: More internal linking (links within your site) and increasing the number of pages of your site helps your rank. However, don’t create duplicate “cookie cutter” pages just for the sake of a higher rank – it’ll actually count against you. Inbound links (links from other websites to yours) increase your ranking, because another site is essentially “voting” for your site. Outbound links add credit to your site’s existence, but too many outbound links actually drains your PageRank.

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009

seomoz.org has compiled a phenomenal amount of information from world renown SEO experts. Their top-five ranking factors: Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links, External Link Popularity, Diversity of Link Sources, Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag, and Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains. Some of the Ranking Factors can get really overwhelming and jargon-heavy, but scroll down to the comments section to read what some of the experts have to say (in plain English).

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some tools on how to discover what your PageRank is and how to know where your site appears in different search engines based on your keywords. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

SEO: defined

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid search results. (Source: Wikipedia)

Four basic benefits of SEO

The following outlines the basic benefits of SEO: indexed pages, rankings, visitors and (ultimately) conversions. The goal of the entire SEO process is to get people to do something.

1) Indexed pages

Robots or crawlers from search engines move through all the content on the web and index it, which allows it to appear in a search. It is important to make sure that search engines can find your pages and decipher them – this is something that needs to be done by a web designer or developer. See the extra credit reading at the bottom for more information on constructing an optimized web page.

2) Rankings

Someone searches for “lawn and garden center Chicago” on Google. There are 529,000 results. If a business is the third one listed on this search, they are “ranked” third. This is what many clients talk about specifically, when discussing SEO – “I want to show up on Google.” (A better request would be: “I want my site to appear on a Google when someone searches for _______” This specific information helps your developer optimize your site.) However, being ranked #1 on ___ search engine technically doesn’t mean anything. A high ranking doesn’t necessarily convert into increased sales – it is simply a way in to your site. (Ranking will be covered in more depth in tomorrow’s post.)

3) Visitors

So, at this point, search engine robots have indexed your pages, and your site appeared when someone searched for something. Now, a real human clicks and views your site. We’re getting there! Unless you receive payment on a cost per impression basis (like via ads) this still doesn’t mean much.

4) Conversions

This is the ultimate goal of SEO. Those real, live people visiting your site do something. A conversion can be anything you want – a purchase, a download, a comment, a phone call, an email, a follow on Twitter, a subscription to an RSS feed, etc. It’s important to know what you want your conversions to be so you can set your optimization goals accordingly.

These are the bare-bone basics of what SEO is: Create a well-structured web page with great content and keywords so that the search engines can index it. Your site ranks well for keywords that you’ve chosen. Real people visit your site. Those people do something based on the information they find on your site.

Extra credit reading:

The construction of an optimized web page

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk more about what determines search ranking. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

photo by stefan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0