The Trademark Process

Trademarking is a long process but if you want to legally protect your name/logo this is the way to do it. There are a lot of rules on what can become a Trademark and I highly recommend reading up on this before paying the £200 fee as this is non-refundable, more information can be found on the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) website.

Other companies or a solicitor can help with the application process but this can be extremely expensive and unnecessary. I went through the whole process myself directly with the IPO and if you receive anything from anyone claiming that you need to pay extra (I did), this is a con and should be reported to the IPO.

To use an ® after anything that hasn't been registered is illegal and you can be fined, however you can use ™ without a penalty.

Anyway, after a 6 month wait I finally received a letter to say that Urban Mind is now a registered Trademark!! Brilliant : )

SEO and what you should know

Search engine optimisation is the method of achieving a higher rating or ranking on the Internet. We are all aiming for that 1st page position but with the millions of sites that are now on the web SEO is becoming more and more involved. However, here are the elements which I found to be most important for that better rating on the Internet:

• Content is key!!
  Search engines will crawl around your pages regularly to establish what your website is about. Make sure that your content contains specific keywords but reads well with correct spelling and grammar.
  
  
• Page titles
  Make sure that your page title is short but reflects what the content is about, all pages should have relevant and different titles from one another.
  
  
• Meta tags
  The 'description meta-tag' is very important for SEO and again should be short but describe the page. This section of content will appear on search engine results under the page title, so this shouldn't be a long list of keywords.
  'Meta Keywords' are also important but don't use too many as this can have a negative effect on your websites rating. These again should reflect on what your website is about and for maximum effect use different keywords on each page.
  
  
• URL
  When choosing a URL, try and create one that is descriptive and contain your important keywords. For example, if your a photographer in Hereford www.herefordphotography.co.uk would be great for SEO.
  
  
• Links
  Make sure that your pages link together with no breaks. Linking also means other sites linking to your site however, these links need to be of good quality.
  
  
• Older is wiser
  Search engines like older websites, with time your site will become trusted and gain a higher rating as long as it is a good one to start with! However this doesn't mean that content shouldn't be updated regularly though.
  
  If you are thinking about setting up a website in the future it may be beneficial to set up a simple page to gain some exposure on the web.
  

These points are just a start to the complicated field of SEO, there are many other factors that can come into play that I haven't mentioned. Overall, Good positions within search engines take time and effort so keep going and keep tweaking!