This is our company website and you’re seeing it at its most massive state it has ever been since it’s inception in 2004. Like any neighborhood graphic design company’s website, ours once featured a brief ‘about us’ page, a portfolio, and a contact form. The bare essentials; nothing more.
Seasons of Change
The idea for change began on a typical work day in July, 2009. The phone rang, and another seemingly satisfied customer on the line went on to praise our recent handiwork. We had, at that time, just launched a brand new website for this particular client just a few months prior. I couldn’t keep from blushing as she poured sugar onto my ego. And just before the cavity started to form, she had one complaint. Ouch!
What is SEO, mon?
Web traffic creates potential leads. Leads turn into potential sales. Sales turn into dolla dolla bills, y’all. And she needed more of it. She wanted something she kept hearing about called ‘SEO’. I have always had a nasty taste in my mouth when thinking about SEO companies since 90% of these guys rely on unethical practices and black-hat SEO techniques to run their business. So after telling her straight up, Eat.Sleep.Work. was NOT an SEO company—that we had NO business in it—I hung up the phone with a tinge of regret. I regretted the way I handled this call from my happy client. Not only had I just said no to more business, I had backed down to a challenge. The reality: I didn’t have the first clue about Search Engine Optimization.
The experimentation ensued when, in an effort to understand the inner workings of SEO, we relaunched our own company website as an online magazine on April 20, 2010. Re-posting art and design-related articles we’d find browsing online, this first iteration of our online magazine was purely to help us understand, from a client point-of-view, how we could use SEO strategies to drive more traffic in our direction. We dabbled in keyword optimization; we moved and shifted content around; we redesigned the header—you name it. Once we had turned over every stone, we clearly saw the answer to the great SEO enigma: Content is King!
The original content
The highest ranked sites on the internet have one thing in common: original content. I would bet that a significant amount of websites obtain their content from only a few sources. Information on the web gets shared, then re-posted. Statistically, if you want more site traffic, you need to write strong content that people want to read. Day by day, there is less and less great content online. Let’s try do our best to share your knowlege to the world, instead of regurgitating other people’s content. We can do it if we try!
Many moons have passed (and a few babies born) and now your favorite graphic designers at Eat.Sleep.Work. have given birth to one of the most exciting creative outlets a design agency has ever brought to life: our new website! And SEO? …phffffff! Still worried about that? Remember? Content is King! (Well, that and a beautifully designed website. Wanna hire us?).
Break it down brotha!
We’ve broken down the website into 4 spectacular parts.
- Our invigoratingly new online blogazine – Solid
- Dailies – a titillating continuation of found stuff online
- Work – An afternoon delight with our graphic design company
- Yearbook – An in-depth peek into the company culture and personality. A place to mix a little business with pleasure.