Is search engine optimizing going to increase my visitor count?

For those of us designer types who love stuffing our websites full of flash and graphics content, and wondering why are we not getting as much traffic to our site as one of those pages crammed with text with nothing of visual interest, here is an article about search engine optimizing. 

Because your our wonderfully designed sites might come across as being a little empty to the webcrawlers. A bit like showing a painting thats painted with different colors but the same tone to a color blind person. (I was looking for an image like that in google. Thought it might be interesting to do one that would, perhaps appear blank? Although nobody is truly colorblind to all colors)

When was the last time your viewed your website with lynx? Try that sometime because thats how the indexing bots will see your pages. 

Search engine optimizing

Print your own CEO

Can't afford to hire a CEO? Print your own. Check out a series of forms from David Seah that helps you prioritize your tasks and assign weighted values to different tasks. 

Print your own CEO

GMP Group - Making videos within the constraints

Some of the more interesting and fun videos that I get to work on may not necessarily be the larger setups with all the latest equipment and this is one of them. This 30 second clip is supposed to take the style of a flip book where we show tools that kids are exposed to and what career direction they grow up taking. 

Film look without the complexities 

There is so much talk about getting the film look and this video was a chance to shoot as if it was film. With a Nikon DSLR and a bunch of studio strobes, we got shallow depth of field, higher dynamic range, ability to use 35mm lenses and ability to light the location like a film set without the need for the usual 20 person circus.

Other considerations

As the children were not used to acting this allows them to just pose of picture and that got around the whole needing to act issue. Things moved along faster as each shot can be done quite quickly compared to a take in a video or film shoot. 

The End Result

Although in the end the pictures did not flip through as quickly as I wanted, I am sure you can imagine how it would look if it did. Each shot has camera moves such as dolly and pans planned when we were taking the series of photos.

Watch the video here

Links

Here is a good implementation of the flip book idea that is similar to what I had intended it to look like.

Peace corp- What is your calling

Corporate film- Contact Singapore "Conversation"

Here is our take on a corporate film. Unlike a corporate video where viewers are told what to think. The whole behind this video is to let viewers draw their own conclusions. 

We take a peek into the thoughts of 4 characters as they ponder their decision to relocate to Singapore and the life that they lead now.

So join us in this voyeuristic multi industry journey through Singapore and the minds of our recently relocated friends.

This is a piece for EDB/Contact Singapore. The whole idea is not about hard sell captions and soundbites but about conversation with the characters.

Other related Links

Watch the completed video here

View behind the scenes production pictures

The characters in a stock library shoot, being used here

Other short corporate films that we like 

Ritz Carlton's "Last night"

BMW's "Star"

Ritz Carlton's "Heads or Tails"

Motivating Captive Audience to Action In a Retail Environment

Make videos make money with M1
Originally uploaded by motion media works

With plasma display screens increasingly making their appearance in retail outlets. Customers waiting in for their turn form a captive audience that retailers can cross sell to without the high costs of media buys or restrictive time limits placed on spots. 

Splicing useful information, trailers of upcoming movies(and who doesn't want to watch the latest trailers while waiting in line) to hold viewers attention with impulse purchase subscriptions, shoppers are shown what subscription services are offered.

Retail outlet customer call to action watch here