The dogs...

Clip&Ping has been a fantastic project and we first got involved purely on a branding aspect, not expecting the project to snowball in quite the way it did. We had previously worked with the MD of Clip&Ping, Rob Steele, when he was consulting for Alpheus (see earlier blog on this).  Rob was looking for a London based consultancy and approached us, having seen our work and thought that we had our fingers on the pulse of the latest design trends and sound digital experience. We like to think so too!

Rob liked our work, ethos and professional approach so much that after the Alpheus project he asked us to help develop the brand awareness for his new clipping service, including our thoughts on the name. We were not convinced the original name was fit for purpose. We wanted to find a professional, easily remembered, yet quirky moniker, where its simplicity is its strength and meaning would highlight the ease of using the service. Ultimately, we wanted a name that does what it says on the tin – and Clip&Ping was born.

As well as the name, we created the corresponding logo, featuring a modern and bold monogram from the Clip&Ping initials that represent the sharing and discussion of the information provided. We opted for a simple colour palette of black and pink – black for the words ‘Clip’ and ‘Ping’ and pink for the ampersand and monogrammed logo – along with an open, friendly typeface to represent the approachable, fun brand identity.

Our talented design team also came up with a brand mascot, or rather mascots, creating two canine characters, one black and one white, to add personality, as well as instant recognisability, to the brand name. These characters can be used in a variety of ways to communicate what Clip&Ping offers its target audience, acting as ‘sniffer’ dogs, seeking out information and delivering it to their ‘owner’

All in all, we were very pleased with how it turned out and so was Rob, who says: “I had a great working relationship with TTP right from the start, and I felt that they had a thorough understanding of what we wanted. The collaborative and creative process delivered a fantastic brand identity that I feel really represents the aspirations, personality and offering of Clip&Ping.”

The concept of Clip&Ping came about from a need to have a service that enabled websites to stay current and feature refreshable content for SEO rankings, as well as an ethos of helping people share information and knowledge. And the premise of how it works is pretty simple.

It aims to keep its clients’ websites relevant, current and fresh by providing them with relevant articles, comment and social media - acquired under license from over 50,000 publishers, blogs and websites - to populate and refresh their websites daily. The added ability to automatically tweet the Clip&Ping content to twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn means that companies can also promote their business and services across social media platforms. All of this helps to increase readership, site ‘stickiness’ and improve search engine rankings.

“Many SMEs simply don’t have the capacity to employ someone in-house to regularly update and refresh web content and social media activity, which are essential to keep websites near the top of search engines,” explains Rob. “So, we developed this service for our clients, providing focused, relevant, timely and filtered content. Our increasing network of publishers means we have access to millions of individual articles daily, on every conceivable topic.”

So, having heard all about the wonderful things that Clip&Ping can do, we decided to test it for ourselves. We’ve provided Rob with our relevant keywords and are currently bedding the system into our web feed. We’ll have an update as to how we’re getting on testing out the service, including any SEO stats, for next month’s e-newsletter, so keep an eye out for this.

And if you want to speak to the man himself about this service and how it could improve your SEO then why not ping him an email