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KEY MEDIUM

Key Medium is a multi-award-winning website design agency, specialising in accessible SEO, digital strategy, and branding for the non-profit, government agency, and startup sector.

 

Ali, the CEO, drives an amazing team to create flawlessly designed websites with schema markup, on-page and off-page SEO, all in-keeping with all of the latest Google updates, including AI-first, mobile-first, Google search journeys, Google response ads, accessibility considerations, UX, user-intent and much more. Elaine and Jae would highly recommend Ali's work if you ever need a website redesign or redevelopment. He also specialises in branding, ongoing SEO fixes, and digital strategy. 

 

Plus, he is a visionary and leader whom I can wholeheartedly support. (And we love working for ethical clients who promote wonderful causes.) Through Coding for Causes and other programmes, Ali regularly gives back to his local Philadelphia community. He donates his time and discounts (or gives away) websites for those companies who need it, who may not have the budget yet.

 

We enjoy working for Ali as the pieces he selects for me to write stretch my research skills, our writing, and our imagination. He has the ability to keep his finger firmly on the pulse of all of the latest in web design and SEO trends. He writes about ideas before the rest of the internet catches on which is why his websites get results.

 

For Key Medium, Elaine serves as their Senior Creative Copywriter. 

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2024

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Upcoming...

  • The value of up-to-date websites

  • WordPress vs WebFlow

  • Is bounce rate dead

  • How purpose-driven marketing campaigns can amplify your brand message

  • Key design principles for modern websites: a deep dive into aesthetics and functionality

  • The importance of branding for nonprofits: making your cause stand out

  • Harnessing the power of data-driven UX for higher conversions

  • Ethical tests in marketing: Ensuring your campaigns align with your mission

  • Tech innovations driving social change

  • The power of WordPress for nonprofits: a comprehensive guide

  • Brand advocacy in the social good era: Key Medium's strategy for purpose-driven campaigns

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2023

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2022

​Work for Ali's client Employee Cycle, a company that delivers integrated dashboard software for HR professionals, creating unified data that is invaluable for the HR industry.
 

2020-2021

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  • 26 May 2020, Digital design system best practices

    • An explanation of what a design system is, why companies have them, and a way to determine if your company can benefit from putting one in place.​

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  • 2 June 2020, Common website design mistakes

    • A look a mistakes businesses often make in web design​ and when writing website copy such as when customers don't understand what a business does, not looking at the metrics of bounce rates, not using headings, and so forth. 

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  • 3 June 2020, Developing a customer persona

    • An explanation of what a customer persona is, the importance of understanding your target audience, and how to create customer personas for your business. â€‹

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  • 9 June 2020, Is a four-day workweek the answer to post-COVID-19?

    • A small discussion of how we have adapted to the work-from-home change and how New Zealand's Prime Minister proposes a four-day workweek to help their local economy. Could it work for other countries? Would businesses benefit too?

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2018-2019​

  • 20 December 2018, How to hire an SEO company

    • This piece provides advice for companies searching for an SEO agency, including how to find one, how to go past the first pages of Google's SERP, how to ask the right questions, and how to know if you're getting the best value for your spend. â€‹
       

  • 7 January 2019, 5 marketing trends that will impact analytics in 2019

    • ​A post discussing the predicted marketing trends in 2019 (all of which came true), including a discussion of social media metrics, video, content marketing, voice search, and analytics dashboards.
       

  • 8 January 2019, Gaining traction organically: why you should validate your channels with the bullseye framework before optimizing for specific keywords

    • A discussion of the bullseye framework, the three rings of that framework, what's included in each ring, and how to improve marketing efforts by prioritising and ranking metrics that will provide the most return.​
       

  • 8 January 2019, What is web design’s role in SEO?

    • An explanation of how SEO and web design work together and how the best websites are built with these technical SEO considerations built into the foundations, not as an afterthought. 
       

  • 13 January 2019, How much should an SEO agency charge?

    • A breakdown ​of how many agencies charge for their services and an explanation of when it's better to do it in-house or yourself and when it's better to hire an agency for their expertise.
       

  • 15 January 2019, The importance of branding in web design and SEO

    • A look at how branding, web design, and careful SEO go hand-in-hand to create a memorable company image with tips on how to hone your brand image.
       

  • 19 January 2019, The mini-guide to local SEO

    • A small guide to everything you need to know about local SEO for businesses most affected by local rankings. The piece offers an explanation of how local rankings are factored and how to improve your chances.​
       

  • 21 January 2019, Off-page SEO vs on-page SEO

    • Highlighting how both on-page and off-page SEO are key to a flawless strategy. Most businesses only know about and focus on on-page SEO, but the more technical bones behind that SEO are key as well such as developing backlinks, creating a social media presence, and ensuring you have all of your technical bugs fixed. 
       

  • 29 January 2019, Why you should take responsive search ads and its implications on search results into consideration

    • A look at Google's responsive search ads and what that means for companies who use and create these ads. Overall, Google now helps companies generate the best, most revenue-generating ads through AI. 
       

  • 31 January 2019, User experience affects your bottom line: here are the top 10 UX videos from 2018 to help you grow

    • Exploring advice from Nielson Norman’s look at user experience, this piece breaks down why user experience can affect rankings and how important it is to consider your end-user when designing and building a website. â€‹
       

  • 4 February 2019, Micro vs macro conversions

    • Defining micro and macro conversions and how to improve your company's efforts in each category. Micro conversions are ​where a customer or potential customer takes a small action such as clicking a link or pressing a CTA button and macro conversions are bigger actions like enquiring about the price of a product because they are almost ready to buy.
       

  • 14 February 2019, Why mobile optimization matters & best practice

    • For websites that aren't​ yet ready for mobile, this piece explains why it's vital that all sites are optimized and how you will lose Google ranking if you aren't. It explains concepts such as above the fold and responsive design. 
       

  • 14 February 2019, Why CRM integration matters & best practice

    • A quick explanation of what a CRM is and why customer relationship management is important to companies. The piece explains what different CRMs can do such as tracking metrics and how you can understand different components of your website by ​using different CRMs.
       

  • 4 March 2019, Why compelling imagery matters & best practices

    • People are drawn to images and images matter more to some websites than others (a website promoting visual art or Michelin-star food, for example). The piece explores how to best use visuals and why they are vital to a website's success. 
       

  • 18 March 2019, Designing for people-first matters: why mobile-first is a necessity

    • Another piece explaining the need for mobile-first with an added layer of the importance of user experience and accessibility. â€‹
       

  • 23 March 2019, Improving website accessibility

    • This post begins with a mini case study of how Ali noticed that a website designed to help those in need of food banks was not user-friendly and helping those it was designed to help. He got in touch and was able to improve this government website so that it not only increased rankings but helped those in the community. It's an illustration of the importance of accessible web design and considering the end user's needs. 
       

  • 24 March 2019, A guide to identifying keyword intent

    • This piece was interesting to write since it was the first I'd heard of Google's new use of keyword intent and how that will impact SERP results in future. Understanding the intent of your customer's query will be key to ensuring you get found when you want to be found.​
       

  • 25 March 2019, Why blogging matters & best practices

    • I ​enjoy writing about content marketing and why it's important in this digital marketing era. Every company (or many of them) are getting on board with content marketing and it makes a huge difference in many company's sales and rankings. Here's a piece with important statistics on why content marketing is important and the best practices when it comes to writing and creating content. 
       

  • 31 March 2019, Google’s search journeys

    • I was really proud of this â€‹post since it outranked competitors at the time of publication. Ali has a knack for suggesting cutting-edge topics and this topic was no different; many people in the marketing world probably still aren't aware of this change and the shift towards intent-based searches as well as how Google tracks when you've searched for content in the past and determines which content to show you in the future based on where it perceives you are in the buyer's journey or what it thinks you're hoping to gain from your search. 
       

  • 7 April 2019, The future of work

    • The post also looks at what will happen in the future when jobs become outmoded, technology advances, and the population ages. It looks at ways for companies to future-proof and explore ideas to combat this obsolescence.
       

  • 19 April 2019, How to hire a subject matter expert

    • This post was a reworking of an old post that Ali had written. ​It explored why you'd need to hire a subject matter expert, what an SME is, how to get the most out of an SME you've hired, how to establish a good working relationship, how to set expectations, how to establish a relationship between your employees and the SME for the duration of their work, and more. 
       

  • 24 April 2019, Best practices for donation pages for 2020 and beyond

    • This piece took quite a bit of work and research as I didn't realise just how much went into donation pages for charities and other not-for-profit businesses. The post explains how to make a donation page and landing page, what keywords to target, the type of messaging you need, the kind of visuals required, how to send automated thank yous, driving traffic to your page, and (lots) more.  â€‹
       

  • 27 May 2019, AI-first and the anticipation to win now and in the future

    • Another look at AI and mobile-first and their importance in web design as well as an exploration of Google's discovery ads. 
       

  • 2 June 2019, Can we re-imagine the future of work? More time off, fewer hours, more pay, fewer workdays, more flexibility!

    • Not​ many (or not just any) company would let me publish a piece like this one on their company site. The piece explores the relationship of the company to the worker and posits that the relationship should be more mutually beneficial than the one most companies typically adopt. This piece was generated out of my thinking after writing 'the future of work' post earlier in the year. 
       

  • 9 June 2019, Top four website structures and sitemap design for purpose-driven organizations (Guidelines)

    • An exploration ​of common website structures and sitemap design for organizations as well as looking at structures that perform well.
       

  • June 2019, The nonprofit handbook (guide/content download of approx. 9,500 words)

    • A longer guide for nonprofits on the importance of web design and SEO for nonprofits as well as accessibility issues and how the right web design can drive and maintain traffic for important causes. 
       

  • 21 July 2019, Website performance metrics

    • A look​ at how to generate, understand, and improve performance metrics and how they can inform your marketing efforts. 
       

  • 29 July 2019, Website redesign vs rebuild

    • Helping you answer the question if you can get away with a rebuild or if you need a complete website overhaul and redesign. â€‹
       

  • 5 August 2019, How Google uses contextual signals to personalize messages to mobile users

    • Building on​ the previous content written about AI-first and Google's search journeys, contextual signals explores how Google uses data such as day, date of search, and you and your mobile phone's location to determine the search results it shows you. 
       

  • 8 August 2019, Content strategy vs. content tactics

    • A canned history of content marketing and the difference between content strategy and content tactics and why you need both in marketing.  â€‹
       

  • 17 August 2019, 2020 marketing priorities

    • Providing tips on what companies should focus on for their marketing in 2020 such as analysing their top-performing content, getting on board with voice search, understanding zero-click results, improving customer service, and more. ​
       

  • 19 September 2019, Google is changing: is SEO here to stay?

    • Several recent articles explored if SEO would be discontinued as Google evolved and the answer is it's here to stay, unsurprisingly. The piece explores tips on how to improve your SEO strategy in light of recent updates. â€‹
       

  • 25 September 2019, Award-winning digital experience for an industry partnership in Southeastern Pennsylvania

    • A case study exploring Key Medium's work with The Southeast PA Manufacturing Alliance (SEPMA) and how page views increased by 20%, amongst other short- and long-term wins.
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  • 25 September 2019, How to write for SEO in 2020

    • Advice for understanding and keeping up with Google's updates as you plan your 2020 content strategy. 
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  • 26 September 2019, Customer experience vs user experience

    • Although sometimes lumped together, user and customer experience are different concepts and this piece explores the distinctions. ​
       

  • 27 September 2019, New digital experience helps adults with disabilities gain employment in Philadelphia and Delaware

    • A case study highlighting Key Medium's work with Community Integrated Services (CIS).
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  • 19 October 2019, The link between brand identity and value: how strong branding will help your business grow

    • A look at brand identity, what it is, and how companies should ​work on creating a strong brand identity. 
       

  • 13 November 2019, Which is a better investment: paid ads or content marketing?

    • A look at a common topic of whether paid ad or content marketing generate more ROI than the other medium. Long story short, whether you use paid ads or not, you'll always need content marketing to have something to share! â€‹
       

  • 13 November 2019, Common branding mistakes that hurt your company image

    • An overlook of branding mistakes, exploring how big companies have ignored market signs and created PR nightmares, as well as giving tips on how to avoid such pitfalls. â€‹
       

  • 17 November 2019, Content marketing in 2020: is content still king?

    • A deeper look into content marketing in 2020, which content will still be relevant, how to update your content, how to write better content and more.​
       

  • 22 November 2019, How to test prototypes for usability issues *byline attributed to another writer

    • Even though I didn't get a byline for this piece, I've included it in my portfolio because I was really proud of this piece. It's a look at how companies do user testing and can iron out website kinks with fewer tests than many companies realise. ​​
       

  • 22 November 2019, The importance of behavioral research with usability studies *byline attributed to another writer

    • This post was another one that I was really excited to write as I think it required a lot of work and research into these topics. Overall behavioural research helps companies understand their users and what elements will be important to them. ​
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  • 22 November 2019, The future of digital marketing

    • I enjoy writing these future-thinking pieces, especially when discussing new concepts that are likely to get bigger in the future such as machine learning and data-informed user feedback. 
       

  • 22 November 2019, How to enable conversion-centered design

    • Exploring design that focuses on website conversions ​via landing pages with contrast, removing navigation, direction cues, white space, and other tips.
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  • 22 November 2019, What is the link between AI and SEO?

    • Perhaps surprisingly to many, AI is used every day on the internet and, of course, SEO is no different. 
       

  • 22 November 2019, Why you should hire an ethical company

    • I love working with companies I believe in and I asked to write this piece because Key Medium is a company with ethics that gives back to the community and I wanted to showcase those facts to their clients. â€‹
       

  • 22 November 2019, UX design trends in 2020

  • 22 November 2019, 7 tips to help with comparing professional SEO service providers

    • A piece exploring how to ​find the right fit for professional SEO providers, providing the right questions to ask to decide what you need.  
       

  • 22 November 2019, Can I redesign my website without affecting SEO?

    • Any redesign will affect SEO, sometimes negatively and sometimes positively; this post explores how to correct any SEO issues in a redesign or update. â€‹
       

  • November to December 2019, Website copy

    • Worked with Ali and others at Key Medium to write website copy for an upcoming site overhaul and relaunch.​

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