In case you couldn’t make it to Dallas Digital Summit, located in Irving TX this year, or couldn’t attend these particular sessions, we thought we’d highlight a couple we particularly enjoyed. Let us know your favorite sessions in the comment section below!
Accessible UXD – Challenge Your Myths About Accessibility
Amanjot Kaur Sandhu | Sr. UX Architect, AT&T and Founder, AccessibleUXD
Amanjot, an accessibility professional who has researched this very topic at the University of Texas, provided an in-depth journey into how usability and accessibility must be a consideration from the onsite of any web development project. Also, she discussed how this important topic should be a focal point from concept to completion.
A few key points that Amanjot provided were:
-Only 17% of design students know about web accessibility. Many consider UX at a development level, but not at a persona level. Simply put, not enough learning students are considering accessibility.
-Awareness is key and you must teach others that web accessibility does not kill creativity.
-Accessibility should be incorporated from the beginning of the project.
-Accessibility is a three step process:
- Define: needs, goals, user types, platforms.
- Research/analyze: interviews, personas, user journeys, sitemap
- Prototype: wireframes, visual design
-Persona Development should be conducted and should have four steps:
- Demographic Info
- Daily Routine Info
- Impairment Info
- Assistive technologies (browser magnifier, screen reader, etc.)
How to be an SEO Change Agent: Transformative Strategies for Stellar Results
Matthew Capala | Founder & Managing Director, Alphametic, Author
Matthew Capala of Alphametic, provided several tips as well as examples of why SEO professionals fail to affect change. He also went into great detail about how you can be persuasive, conveying SEO needs to client leadership, as well as how to review your site and tools to provide insightful recommendations.
Check out all of the nuggets of info that Matthew provided:
-Most of your SEO plans will fail because they are not actionable. They lack persuasive ability.
-Look at the terms that you want to rank for, then review those who rank for those terms and how you think they got there.
-Look at their domain authority and their keyword usage.
-Own your keyword categories and your message.
-Site speed is one of the most decisive SEO factors.
-Do a domain vs. domain review in SEMrush. You may beat your competitor for key terms but they may rank for many more terms.
-Brands that blog regularly receive 55% more traffic and over 80% more leads. (Hubspot)
-A blog is a pre-requisite to effective SEO.
-Brands need to communicate content on Google in real time via Twitter.
-Branded SERP domination is critical for large brands.
-The #1 job of the SEO change agent is to restore the prominence of the website in the marketing mix.
-Design a scalable and repeatable process where every step compounds. Everyone should want to employ this.
-SEO boils down to convincing stakeholders to commit resources to your SEO efforts.
-Big SEO audits can seem great, but recs do not get done. Capala provides a scorecard to show what recommendations are important for deployment.
-Look for SEO quick wins. These are where 20% of the actions will provide 80% of the results.
-Large, complex sites can paralyze recommendation progress. You must remove complexity.
Communicate SEO metrics strategically. Actionable metrics can be conveyed at every level to the client.
-Provide data on their current situation. Do they have low share of voice in Google Organic?
Did you attend a session that you particularly enjoyed? Let us know about it in the comment section below! Also, check back to see our exclusive video interviews with some of the exciting Dallas Digital Summit speakers.
If you’re looking for a Dallas SEO company look no further than Vizion Interactive. They were one of the founding partners for the Dallas-Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association (DFWIMA) and have been servicing the Dallas and Forth Worth areas since 2005.