5 Signs You Need to Redo Your Website

You may have invested a lot of time and effort into getting your website up and running; looking exactly the way you want it to and carrying out the functions you need, but just like anything, websites need proper maintenance. You may not have a lot of knowledge about website design or you may in fact be an expert, but there are various ways you can tell that your website needs a bit of an overhaul.

1.   The Content is Out of Date

It is important that the content of your website is always kept up-to-date and accurate; otherwise it won’t really entice potential customers to stay on your website, let alone buy your products or invest in your services. No one really wants to read old news, so keep your content fresh and relevant at all times. Visitors will quickly become annoyed if, for instance, you are advertising products you no longer have in stock, so just keep on top of the content and update it with any changes.

2.   It Is Not Responsive

In the world of advanced technology, you need to move with the times and this means ensuring your website design is responsive. A responsive web design means people will be able to access it on their smartphones without any hassle. They should be able to view the website without losing any of the quality or ability to carry out functions. This is highly important as after all, millions of people use their mobile phones to make purchases every day from websites. You can find out more about responsive websites and how to make the most of them by reading this article.

3.   Takes Ages to Load

It can be very off-putting for visitors if your website takes ages to load up or is constantly crashing, so if this is the case with your website design, you may want to look at giving it an overhaul. It’s all about being fast and responsive these days when it comes to website design and if you can’t keep up with it, you will find that you will end up losing customers as a result.

4.   Low Ranking on Google

If your website is ranking low on Google, it is time to make some changes. The lower you rank on Google, the less likely it is that people will be able to find you, which means you won’t be maximising the benefits of your website design. Your SEO has to be right on your website, so make sure you incorporate this into it or call on an expert agency to do it for you. You can find out more about improving the ranking of your website on Google by taking a look at this short video.

5.   Difficult to Update

If you are having trouble updating the content of your website, you may need to look at installing a content management system, if you don’t already have this in place. It is imperative that you always keep your website up-to-date as failing to do this will have consequences for the ranking and number of potential visitors landing on your site. 

5 Ways to Improve the Design and Functionality of Your Website

There is no underestimating the importance of a good website, after all, it is the main representation of your business and the method visitors will use to buy your products or take up your services. With this in mind, why is it that so many businesses still get it wrong? It is highly off-putting to take the trouble to find a specific website, only for it to be poor quality design and awkward to navigate around. It leaves you with a negative impression of the business and no reason to ever go back to the website. This video tells you a bit more information about creating your website and aims towards specific businesses. There are various ways you can improve the design and functionality of your website, in order to grow a successful business.

1.   Attractive Design and Colours

When designing website for your business, you should make sure you use colours and designs which are easy on the eye and don’t cause any confusion for the visitor. A website is much more than just how it looks, but this helps a lot and will encourage visitors to read further. If the design is all over the place and the colours make the text unreadable, you will not encourage consumers to stay for long, let alone to buy into your services.

2.   Readable with Good Content

The content on your website should be high quality and without spelling or grammatical errors, otherwise you will give an unprofessional impression of your company. The content should be informative and engage the reader for long enough that they will want to learn more about what you have to offer.

3.   Smooth Navigation and Easy Usage

None of us really have the patience to spend more than a few minutes of our time trying to work out how to navigate around a website, so make sure yours is smooth and easy for the visitor to use. You should regularly check that any links are working properly and that text is readable and not overlapping on the page or anything. If you are selling on your website, it is imperative that this part works; otherwise you will lose out on customers.

4.   Relevant Images

Any images you place on your website should be relevant to what you are offering and the content of your website and you should use these sparsely throughout. An overloading of images will not only make your website less readable, it will also make it run slower when you are trying to navigate around it.

5.   Clear and Concise

The information you are providing to readers should be clear and concise, without causing any confusion. You are trying to make that all important sale and you can only do this by sending out the right message. It is always a good idea to ask for a second opinion when designing websites, as there can always be ways to make improvements. If you want to learn more about turning the design into a sale, you can read this article for further information.

Website Mistakes Which Can Cost You Customers

Your website is often the first impression customers will get about your business, which is why most companies will put an extensive amount of time and effort into creating one which is both attractive and engaging. There are some common mistakes which can be made with the design of a website and these can often cause businesses to lose customers; the type of error you really don’t want to make.

§  Poor Design

We are all attracted to things which look good and this is the same when it comes to websites. If you visit website which lacks any appeal or character, you are unlikely to stick around for long. If your website looks good and is full of life and colour, you will instantly want to find out more. You may not have the expertise or resources to spend time on your website and in these cases it is better to enlist the help of an external agency. This short video will show you an example of a very poorly designed website.

Lack of Activity

No one wants to read old news and if you haven’t bothered to update the blog on your website, it won’t entice visitors to stay there for long. You need to put time and dedication into maintaining your website and this means updating it regularly with accurate news and information. Lack of activity not only looks unprofessional, but you will quickly notice your website slipping down the rankings in Google.

Broken Links

There is nothing worse than landing on a site, finding a link to something interesting, only to find that the link doesn’t actually work. It can be a simple error with your HTML coding, but make sure you test your links regularly to ensure they are working. This can be particularly costly if the link to the page to buy your product or service doesn’t work.

Poor Navigation

Visitors to your website will want to be able to move around it quickly and they won’t to waste any time trying if it isn’t obvious. Try the site out for yourself and ask others to test it as well and provide feedback as to how they found the navigation. You will then be able to determine if there are any flaws you need to deal with. If there are, you should deal with these as quickly as possible, so they do not become an issue.

Adverts

It is perfectly acceptable to have a couple of adverts on your website, as this can offer an additional income stream, just be careful not to overload it. It can be really irritating if every time you move the cursor an advert appears and it is one of the ways you will put potential customers off. Your adverts should be relevant to the content of your website and should be situated somewhere on the page, rather than sporadic pop up’s. Adverts can also slow the website down and consumers will very quickly lose interest if it takes half an hour to load up. Read this article for further information on the risks involved with having too many adverts.

Why Your Website Design is So Important

You could have the best product for your sector on the market however if your website design is ineffective your business will never reach its full potential.

The majority of businesses have a website nowadays which they use to advertise their services, sell their products and build brand awareness. Many of these websites however are not working as well as they could be and a lot of that comes down to a lack of effective website design.

Your website is your online calling card, your twenty four hours a day presence when you are busy doing other things and can’t communicate with potential customers yourself. As such it is essential that your website design is well thought out and does your product or service justice.

·         Ease of Use

Your advertising may send thousands of potential leads to your website however if the site is slow, badly designed, is difficult to navigate and is otherwise simply doing a poor job very few if any visitors will stay and shop and none will share or recommend the site. The point of a website is to make getting in touch or buying products easy for the consumer and much of that relies on decent website design geared towards ease of use.

·         Brand Recognition and Awareness

Could you describe the logo, colours and font of your favourite food item or branded gadget? Most people could and marketers use brand awareness when putting together advertising campaigns as familiarity breeds trust and often loyalty. Using branding, a familiar tone and other key design features across any website design is a well-known and much used strategy for making a website work more effectively.

·         Social Media Integration

The social media world opens doors that no other form of advertising does, and certainly not as quickly or as reasonably priced. A website and a social media platform however work much more effectively when integrated than when not. Social media share buttons, tools and widgets which encourage a website visitor to visit the social media site, share your content and cleverly placed links on social media platforms all work together to maximise positive exposure.

·         Search Engine Optimisation

You might have the best looking website in the world however if no-one can find it, no-one will see it or buy from it. Search engine optimisation is all about making your website stand out from the crowd in the Google listings, grab the attention of searchers and drive traffic your way. A properly optimised website will be significantly more successful in terms of generating leads than one that is not.

·         Effective Content Management

Another essential facet of web design is the content. Of course pretty colours, fonts and logos will “wow” a visitor for a few seconds however they don’t keep people reading, searching or ultimately buying. The key to successful content management is to have brand identified blogs, videos, sound bites, photographs, news items and more which appeal to the visitor, offer them something, encourage engagement and sharing. Content should be regularly revised to keep it fresh and relevant.

Website design is more complex that many would believe however a properly put together site which is carefully maintained will produce undeniable results in terms of business success.

The Benefits of Ensuring Fresh Content on Your Website

There is no under estimating the importance of having a good website design for your business; one which attracts visitors and keeps them engaged. It is not just about having a fancy website with all the trimmings, it is also about ensuring the website has good content, otherwise it will not be of interest to visitors. This short video will provide you with a few tips relating to your website design. As well as ensuring there is good content, you also have to keep the content fresh. Some information on your website will not change, for instance your contact details and about us, but most of it will need to be regularly updated. There are many benefits to ensuring you always have fresh content on your website.

Relevant information

If you don’t regularly update the content on your website, it will not be relevant and this means it is not at all useful for readers. Have you ever clicked onto a website only to discover that the “latest news” they have is dated back to several years ago? It is frustrating to say the least, but can also be highly off-putting as a reader. It suggests a blasé approach to your business, where you don’t really put much thought into your marketing strategies or your overall image and this is not a good first impression to give to potential customers.

SEO

The most popular keywords on Google are constantly changing and in order to ensure you incorporate these into your website, you need to keep updating the content. If you don’t make use of search engine optimisation properly, you will not be getting the full potential benefits you could be from your website and this means you are wasting a lot of time and possible marketing potential. It is important to stay ahead of the game when it comes to SEO, as you can be assured that your competitors will be.

Higher Rankings

Google does not like old news and if you leave the content of your website static, you will find that it will slide down the rankings and inevitably reach a position where you will struggle to get it back up. Web content should always be fresh and interesting with search engine optimisation combined, as this is what Google wants to see and is the reason it will stay up high in the rankings. The higher you rank on Google, the better it will be for your business potential, which is why you should pay close attention to this.

It can take time to keep updating the content of your website, but it is worthwhile in order to ensure you are getting the most out of it. You can choose to hire a specialised agency to take control of this, as it means they have the expertise to deal with it and you can get on with the day to day tasks associated with running your business. You can find out more about web content and why it is important to keep it fresh and relevant, by reading this article for further details.

Simple Ways to Turn Web Visitors into Sales

You can spend a huge amount of time getting your website set up, making use of search engine optimisation and driving traffic to it, but how do you turn these visitors into sales? It can be very frustrating to have a good flow of traffic to your website, without ever seeing any results, so you need to focus on your digital marketing to ensure you get it right. Of course, the style and design of the website matters but there are several other ways you can turn your visitors into sales.

• Regular Content

If your website is not updated regularly, you can’t really expect that visitors will want to hang around for long, which means you will potentially lose out on sales. You should take time and pay attention to what you are posting on your website, so that you engage readers and encourage them to want to find out more about your products or services. It can be quite time consuming to do this, which is why many businesses use outside agencies to facilitate it, but it is worthwhile when you start to gauge interest and more importantly, conversion into sales. You can find some further reading here.

• Subscription

You should provide options to your readers for subscribing to your services, such as an option to enter their email address as this will enable you to contact them with any updates. You can also allow them to sign up to a monthly newsletter or other regularly form of communication, so that they don’t forget all about you and fail to use your services.

• Buttons

A graphical button which stands out on your page and navigates the reader to a place to buy your products will grab their attention and make it unable to resist. You don’t want to over sell as this can be off-putting, but incorporating obvious ways for them to buy is essential. If you land on a website and can’t find an easy way to sign up or buy, you will be unlikely to hang around for long. Sales can be very easy to lose in this way, so make sure you don’t leave the visitor feeling confused.

• Special Offers

Everyone loves a discount or special offer, so put these on your website as a way of encouraging sales. If you have grabbed the attention of the reader enough to be on your website, it means they are interested in your services already, so you just have to sway them enough to want to buy. If you offer good deals to loyal customers, it will encourage them to stay with you.

There is nothing more frustrating than getting one part of your website right, only to discover that the traffic you are driving is not converting, which is why it is essential to spend some time to get it right. You can find out more about your website design and the ways to make it more lucrative for your business by taking a look at this short video.

5 Reasons Why your Business Needs a Blog

Anyone in social media marketing will confirm that having a business blog is indeed an invaluable tool for a business and this piece shows you why.

Blogging has taken the world my storm with millions of people regularly reading or writing a blog. Blogs were once simple digital diary however they are now a way to also share relevant information with a customer base, build loyalty, increase brand awareness and even boost profits.

The humble blog has turned into a business tool which is extremely valuable and may turn out to be very lucrative for some and here is why:

1.   SEO

Well written copy on a business blog should be SEO optimised. Search engine optimising is an important part of the social media marketing effort as social media and SEO are starting to work together more than they ever have to reap great results. Content on blogs should be engaging and useful however it should also include relevant keywords and phrases which will make the site more visible in the Google listings.

2.   Brand Identity

A large part of blogging for business is about building a persona, voice or face for the public to see, hear and relate to. A company with a strong brand identity will have a strong content management team in place and will be easily recognised anywhere with a consistent message and tone of voice. A blog is an ideal way to spread an identity further or continue to develop it.

3.   Traffic Driving

A blog with fabulously engaging content is not only going to keep readers coming back, it is going to encourage them to click on links which take them on to other recommended content or your website which is where they will hopefully be converted to customers or service users. A well written blog that has been designed carefully may be responsible for a significant amount of website traffic.

4.   Be a Leader

Building a successful blog, regardless of what sector you are in gives you an opportunity to market yourself as an expert or leader in your field. Sharing high quality information on your niche and linking with other in the same sector yet not a competitor is good for authority as well as SEO. As people turn first to those in the know in any given field becoming recognised as a leader has its advantages.

5.   Build Trust

Businesses come and businesses go; especially in this currently economic climate therefore consumers tend to be more reluctant to throw everything in with one brand. Building loyalty is important and loyalty comes from trust and respect. A business blog could be a website full of special offers and marketing copy or it could be a mixture of these and some really clever content which encourages a feeling of familiarity, reliability and ultimately trust. Consumers that trust you will tell others about you will share your content with their own contacts and will be more likely to become customers themselves.

There are many reasons a blog is a great business tool however it is important to remember that not all blogs are good for business. Only those which merge great content, social media marketing, web design and digital marketing make the grade and are as effective as they can be in terms of increasing business.

Web Design Strategies to Create Interest in Your Services

The design of websites are important as they say a lot about your business, how professional it is and they will often determine whether a visitor wants to stick around or leave straight away (which is not good for your business.) It is not just about how attractive the website is, although this plays a significant part of it, it is also about the functionality. If your website is difficult to navigate around, keeps freezing or any of the other problems which drive visitors crazy, it won’t do anything to help you achieve success for your business. There are various strategies you may implement with your web design and it is worth using a specialised web design agency to do this.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design consists of creating web designs which are suitable for the format of any piece of technology, without losing any of their format or style, for instance mobile phones and iPads. In this day and age it is imperative that your web design stays up to speed with technological advances and in a society where everyone is constantly glued to their mobiles and iPads, it is important to take this into consideration. Responsive web design allows users to navigate around your website smoothly and it gives users the chance to access your website on the go and without any fuss.

Complex Web Development

If you have a small business, you may just be happy with a standard website with text, but as a large operation, you may require something a bit more in-depth. For example, you may just be happy for your website to inform visitors about your services, with perhaps a section for them to leave comments or to contact you. In other cases, you may require complex web development, such as a booking function and your web design will have to be developed with this in mind.

Attractive Web Design

Whether you want your website to have all the trimmings or just be a standard website, you still need to make it attractive to visitors; otherwise they will instantly be put off, especially if they don’t know much about your services. Your web design should be crisp and formatted correctly (words cut off at either side of the page are not good) and should also be professional. It doesn’t matter what size of business you have, if you want it to grow, put some effort into your style and design. It is a good idea to put yourself in the position of the visitor; what do you like to see, what attracts you to a website and keeps your attention?

Search Engine Optimization

The content on your website is also crucial, if you want people to have any chance of finding you. Make sure the content is always kept fresh and updated, and make use of search engine optimization throughout; as this will help you rank more highly in Google. It is worth paying attention to this if you want to stay competitive.

New major updates to Adobe Dreamweaver

The first new feature updates for Dreamweaver CC have arrived and this popular web design tool is promising.

Back in May, Adobe announced the release of new updates for the CC version of Adobe Dreamweaver. It also announced that all new versions of its CS software products would now be launched exclusively on the Creative Cloud subscription services.

Adobe promised web designers that they would be getting new features for their software all through the year rather than waiting for the release of a boxed version every 12 months. So users of Adobe’s best known software tool for creating, publishing and managing websites, Dreamweaver CC, have been waiting eagerly for this update.

The updates are now here and Adobe is promising a number of new features and improvements and they include:

Live Highlight

Live Highlight is an impressive feature that allows web designers to visualise the relationships between HTML elements in Live View and applied CSS Selectors. Designers can now inspect and highlight the HTML elements in real-time. So this allows you to spend more time in CC and less switching in and out of your browser to test your content. This saves you time and means you can complete your work faster and improves all-round efficiency. To see Live Highlight in action, simply hover and click Selectors in the CSS Designers.

Modernised Live View

Modernised Live View is another new feature that has been introduced in CC and it provides an integrated rendering engine with a similar performance and HTML5 & CSS3 support as the Chrome Browser. This means you can test your designs without leaving the application and this saves you a lot of time.

Sync Settings

Sync Settings is a feature already available for Adobe Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC and has recently been added to In Design. This feature has now been introduced in Dreamweaver CC and enables designers to sync work spaces, keyboard shortcuts and more between multiple PCs via the Cloud.

Adobe recognised the bloating in the software that affected earlier versions and they have removed redundant parts of the application and this includes 10 panels, 14 dialog boxes and more than 62 menu items have been removed thus far. The hope is that this new simplified User Interface will improve the workflow.

Additional updates include:

·         Code View has received line number highlighting and the highlighting of matching tags as well as CSS Selector code hints including support for colour customisation.

·         Adobe has added support for PHP 5.4 and the jQuery Mobile Library has now been updated to version 1.8.3.

·         Adobe includes a colour picker feature which promises to speed up visual CSS editing workflows.

Adobe are promising that the update of Dreamweaver will be an ongoing process and the Creative Cloud release schedule may have saved the software from the trashcan. 

Celebrate a Decade of Web Design Success

Over the past ten years the World Wide Web has changed a lot and as a result your web design agency has had to constantly adapt the way they work. Some things haven’t changed much at all however and overall it is safe to say it has been a fabulous decade for those in the web design field.

The internet was first used in the 1980’s commercially however from the moment it emerged, shiny and new for the public to enjoy it has grown with a speed that no-one could have predicted. From the first “schweeaorrr…bip….bip” to the superfast broadband or even fiber optic internet connections we enjoy today we have seen many changes, not only in the way that we use the internet, also in the way that websites are being designed.

Back in 1994 most websites remained text-based, Yahoo was in its infancy and Google and Ebay were nowhere to be seen. While clearly a lot has changed since then a lot has stayed the same, namely what is needed to make a website truly effective.

The levels of development in technology has given us laptop computers, notebooks, tablets and now even mobile phones that are cable of browsing and using the internet from pretty much anywhere that a Wi-Fi signal can be used. What this has meant for the humble web design agency is that web designers have had to optimise web sites in order to ensure that all information may be clearly seen and all functions work regardless of how the internet is accessed. Apps are probably the latest web design trick to help us savvy internet users doing what we want in the minimum of time.

Back when the internet first became widely available web designers had a list of points to consider when it came to designing a website and many of those points will still remain true today.

Usability is a key issue when it comes to web design and your web design agency will no doubt have spent much time looking at ways to make navigation easier and do so in a way that pleased Google’s search crawler bots. This focus on usability hasn’t changed since the World Wide Web became open for business for the public and this is good to see.

The fundamentals of good web design have remained as important today as they were back at the beginning and this in itself is something to celebrate. It would be very easy for web designers to get caught up in SEO, the newest developments, the fastest working apps and more and forget about what consumers really need when it comes to a user-friendly website.

There is no doubt that the internet will continue to expand and develop, as will the technology that it may accessed on over the next ten years or so. It is safe to assume however that whoever writes this article in another ten years will still be celebrating the fact that a web design agency still values the important core factors of web design over anything else. We can but hope this is still the case.

Attribute to: Duncan Cumming

Having established his career in digital sales and marketing, Duncan formed his own digital marketing agency. Along with the running of his business, Duncan spends time writing informative and helpful articles about the different areas of online marketing.