Pay-Per-Click Tips from a Leading PPC Expert

I’ve worked in digital marketing for over 12 years, managing some of the biggest pay-per-click campaigns in the UK. During my time as the Head of Paid Acquisition at WeBuyAnyCar, Director of Performance Marketing at OnThe Beach, and now running my own specialist PPC agency in Manchester, I’ve picked up some valuable insights into running a successful PPC campaign.

Below I’ll share some of my top insider tips that I guarantee will help you get the most out of your digital ad spend and manage a PPC campaign that consistently delivers results.

Common PPC Mistakes

Before we delve into some of my top recommendations,  I want to quickly address some of the most common PPC mistakes that I see when working with new and experienced clients alike.

Google Display Network & Search Partners

Firstly, it is important to remember that Google Display Network (GDN) and Search Partners are two separate entities and should be treated as such. Many businesses mistakenly spend all their budget on one of these networks when a more optimal approach would be to split the marketing budget between the two based on the campaign.

Firstly, don’t overspend on Display Network or Search Partners; these are great tools, but they should only be used in addition to your primary Google Ads campaigns. If you’re working with a limited budget, I’d recommend excluding these from your Pay Per Click campaign altogether.

Optimising to Wrong Conversions

It’s also important to remember that different digital channels serve different purposes. Whilst it’s tempting to simply measure everything with the same conversion metric, in reality, you’re likely to get better results from focusing on one or two main actions that lead directly to leads or sales.

Broad & Phrase Match Keyword Targeting

Finally, be sure to avoid using overly broad keyword targeting. Whilst it might seem like a good idea at first, in practice, this can lead to irrelevant traffic that doesn’t convert and higher CPC costs for the same keywords.

Instead, focus on targeting highly relevant phrases with phrase match or even exact match keywords where appropriate. This will ensure search engine users who find and access your ads are genuinely interested in your product or service.

Campaign Recommendations

Now that we have covered some common mistakes let’s look at some steps you can take to ensure your PPC campaign delivers consistent results.

Create PPC Specific Landing Pages

Your first step should be to create customised landing pages for each Pay Per Click ad group that are designed explicitly with conversions in mind. It’s important to remember that when someone clicks on your ad, they are often further along the purchase journey and looking for something specific.

Creating a landing page that speaks directly to this user and encourages them to take action is essential if you want to increase conversion rates. This can be done through design and copy; for example, by featuring clear call-to-action buttons and writing copy that speaks directly to the user’s needs or objections.

Remember that PPC landing pages can be excluded from indexing by the organic search results using a ‘noindex’ tag, meaning that adding long-form content (as you may consider doing as part of an SEO-focused page) is not a concern. The page itself should instead be focused purely on a solid value proposition, a clear call to action and any necessary trust signals such as testimonials or industry accreditations.

Review and Manage your Campaign Daily

Finally, don’t forget to put in the necessary work; in order to keep your budget on target and ensure you’re getting the best return on investment from your campaigns, it’s essential that they are reviewed and managed daily.

This doesn’t necessarily mean spending hours each day making changes to your account (although depending on how big or complex it is, this might be necessary). Instead, the aim should be to ensure you’re on top of the latest trends and actively managing your campaigns.

Adding negative keywords regularly and making sure you’re up to date with changes to search engine algorithms are just two ways in which you can help manage costs and keep your campaigns running smoothly.

In summary, if you want to succeed with your PPC campaigns, it’s important to remember some of the common mistakes and ensure that you are taking the necessary steps to avoid them. Optimise your campaigns for key conversion actions, create tailored PPC-specific landing pages and actively manage your campaigns with daily reviews – these are all vital elements of a successful PPC campaign. With the right approach, you should see better results and improved ROI in no time.

By following these steps, you can ensure that your campaign is running smoothly and delivering consistent performance without sacrificing quality or wasting budget on irrelevant keywords. With the right approach, you can start to see improved results and better returns on your investment in no time! Good luck!

What is e-commerce?

E-commerce is a term that we hear a lot, but what is it? We all know how easy it is to go into a shop and by a product. E-commerce is just that – but online. Instead of handing over your money physically in a shop and having your product right away, an e-commerce website handles all of this online and then sends your product out to you once your order is processed.

It’s likely that you’ve been on quite a few e-commerce websites. Whether it’s been to buy new clothes, household items or just something you can’t seem to find in a shop. Many businesses choose to have their own e-commerce website as it can be cheaper and easier than having their own physical store. 

If you’re thinking about starting your own e-commerce business but don’t know where to start, we’ve got some helpful information coming up. 

Why do I need an e-commerce website?

If you’re a business that sells products or services, having an e-commerce website can make things much easier for both you and your customers. An e-commerce site can have everything about your business, from a contact page to FAQs as well as having an area to sell your products too. This means that your customers will only have to go to one place to find everything they need to know about your business. 

As well as having everything in one place, having an e-commerce website can even help you increase the amount of sales you get. If a potential customer is going onto your site to find out more about you, they may browse around your online shop and find something that they want/need. 

Lastly, if you don’t have a physical shop – you’re going to need somewhere to sell your products. Whilst some individuals resort to places like Amazon or Ebay to sell their products, having your own secure and branded e-commerce website can make customers feel much more at ease and confident about shopping with you.

How do I set up an e-commerce website?

Knowing that you want an e-commerce website is a step in the right direction – but setting one up can feel a little complicated. There are two ways you can build an e-commerce website – doing it yourself or using a web designer. 

If you choose to design your own e-commerce website, there are plenty of easy-to-use platforms to help you do this. However, it can still throw up some challenges. One of the most common e-commerce platforms is Shopify. This platform is perfect for smaller businesses or those who are just starting up their own e-commerce site. 

Even if you’ve never built a website before, Shopify makes it incredibly easy to build your website with clear and simple labels to tell you where things need to go.

The DIY way isn’t for everyone. If you’re not confident in building it yourself or you don’t have the time, using a website designer to do this all for you can be much easier and quicker. You will still be obliged to communicate with your website developer to discuss the design, content and your products, but they will do the hard work for you.

Using a website designer can be more expensive than doing it yourself. The way you build your e-commerce website comes down to three things – your budget, the time you have and your skills. Take a look into your options to find what will work best for you and your business.

What’s important on an e-commerce site?

The main goal from an e-commerce site is getting customers to buy your products. Just setting up a platform doesn’t guarantee that you’ll start getting sales straight away. You need to make your site easy to navigate as well as making your customers feel like they’re safe. Buying products online is something that can make some individuals feel quite nervous, especially those who aren’t as familiar with the internet. 

We’ve made a list of things that we think are important when you have your own e-commerce site. If you already have your own c-commerce website, it’s a great idea to look through what you have to see if you could improve anything.

Types of e-commerce models

An e-commerce model is who your main customer is. Whilst some businesses focus predominantly on selling to consumers, others are only businesses who sell to other businesses. There are 2 main models which are the most popular.

Examples of e-commerce

If you’re still stuck as to what e-commerce is, we have some examples of things that are commonly sold through e-commerce websites. These aren’t just things that you can’t buy in shops, but some are made to only be purchased on the internet.

  1. Subscriptions. This is one that is commonly only sold via e-commerce websites as the subscriptions are online services. Subscriptions are purchased to gain benefit on buying the same products and services on a regular basis. 

 

Benefits of e-commerce

Whether you’re a customer shopping on an e-commerce website or a business thinking about starting your own one up – there are benefits to everyone. If you are still feeling unsure as to if an e-commerce website is for you, we hope these benefits will push you in the right direction.

We hope that we’ve given you a much better understanding on the world of e-commerce. Even if you already have your own physical shop, there’s nothing stopping you from setting up an online one too.

If you require help with building an e-commerce website, please contact us for our advice and assistance.

What Makes A Good Website?

Having your own website is one of the best ways to reach out to new customers and have all company information in one place for people to find. But, what makes a good website? If it’s not clear for your customers or doesn’t provide a good purpose, it makes it less appealing for potential clients and means they are less likely to use it. 

Before we go into more depth, there are 4 very important things that you should consider when you’re building your website or re-designing it. If you follow these 4 points, we think you’re halfway towards having a great website…

If you’re confident that you have completed the points we have discussed, you have made perfect start to making a great website. To make sure your website is the best that it can be, we’re going to discuss the aspects that you may need to touch up on to improve the appearance and functionality of your website.

1.    Improving the appearance of your website

The appearance of your website is one of the most important aspects as this is what your customers will see and experience first. If you were clicking onto a website, you would much rather see one that’s all laid out neatly with clear labelling and pricing rather than jumbled up and difficult to look at.

When your site looks smart, your customers are more likely to trust it, especially if it requires you to add personal information into it like an address or bank details. Even if it’s just a website to showcase what services you offer, it’s important to try and do that in the best way.

Your website should revolve around one big thing – your brand. If it doesn’t look like it belongs to you, your customers may question whether they’re in the right place. This can result in lost customers.


Designing your website around your brand

Part of your brand is the appearance of your business. It’s what people see when they search you up online or come into your store. It’s essential that it all fits together. Consistency is key – not only will it help customers recognise you, it will look smarter.

Your website is no exception. Everything from the typefaces to the colours you use can affect what potential customers think about you. Businesses normally build their website from a logo. If you don’t have one of these, it’s a great starting point to gage which colours you will use and what fonts you like. You should have a colour palette of around 3 colours. Once you have these, you should continue to use them across everything you create – including your website.

By choosing three bright and bold colours, it can look excessive. When using your brand colours on your website, try and only use them lightly in sections like headers, footers, icons and image overlays.

Colours aren’t the only aspect that you should be consistent with. The font that you use in your logo should also be used throughout the website. You may choose to use a more simple typeface for your body text to ensure it’s easy to read.


Use high-quality and relevant images

If you have worked hard on getting your design, colours and typefaces just right – you should avoid blurry or pixelated images too. Images are a great visual way of showing your customers what you do. By providing imagery that fits with your content, your customers should have a much easier time understanding your business.

Great, high-quality images add a lot of value to your website and brand. This is especially important if your site is an ecommerce website. An ecommerce website is an online shop used to sell a businesses’ products. If you’re selling an item, a clear image will make this much easier. More than one may also be required – giving a full look of a product will make your customer feel like they have it in their hands. 

If you’re not an ecommerce company, clean images across your website is still crucial. Take a look through your website to identify whether your imagery promotes your services. It’s great opportunity to take some new photos of your team in action and update your site.

A website isn’t just about how it looks, it’s also about how it functions once you are on it. Let’s discuss the technical side.


2.    The technical points.

There’s a lot to do on the front end of a website to make it look attractive to your customers. But, there’s even more to do behind the scenes to ensure it functions properly. These tasks include:


Quick loading time

Around 79% of shoppers have said that if they have trouble with the loading time on a website, they won’t return. If you’re unsure whether your site is slow or not, you can use Google’s page speed test. You simply need to enter your website URL to see your speed score. If you’re in the red, you need to make urgent changes so that customers can access your site easier.

The tool will also tell you what you can do to make your site faster. This could be scaling large images down or adding a plugin that caches your website faster to prevent data build up. 


Making your site secure

When you go onto a website, you may notice a small green lock appear in the search bar. This means that the site you are on is secure – it is called SSL Encryption. SSL is especially important if you require customers to enter their details into your website. This can include anything from an email addresses to their bank details for e-commerce websites. A secure website will tell your customers that their information is safe and protected.


Mobile Friendliness 

It’s very unlikely that all of your customers will use your website on a desktop. Therefore, whilst it looks great on a computer, it should also look like this if you’re on a tablet or phone too. The term is referred to as ‘mobile’ friendly but doesn’t just apply to mobiles. We now have a range of devices like tablets, small and large phones, and a range of laptop/desktop sizes. Whoever is viewing your website, it’s important that they experience the same as all of your other customers.

When your website is developed by a web-designer, they will ensure that your website is easy to use across all devices. However, if you have chosen to design your website on your own, you will need to do these checks yourself. 

Another helpful tool that Google offers is the mobile-friendly test tool. This will tell you whether they consider it as a responsive design. We recommend that you also still do your own checks.

An unresponsive design can cause loss of content. If you cannot see everything on your mobile that you would usually see on a desktop, it’s best to make changes your template so that it will work across all devices.


Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Having a website won’t mean you’ll immediately be found by all of your potential customers. To increase your website visibility to new customers, you’ll need to do something called Search Engine Optimisation. 

SEO is when you optimise your website by using target keywords that potential customers would search to find you. It’s best that you choose keywords that match the services you offer. You will then need to use these keyword across your website in your body text, headings, image descriptions, meta information and more. But this is not all you need to do to get your website to rank. There are at least 5 other headline things that need to be in line for your website to rank well. You can find out how your website can be optimised to its full potential by speaking to an SEO specialist.


In conclusion

By completing these things, you can create a website that is visually attractive, easy to use and safe to enter personal details into (if needed). Think of your website as your business card. When previous or potential customers think of using your business, that’s the first thing they will go to. 

You shouldn’t just stop after you make these changes. It’s important that your website is kept up to date. A good idea is to set yourself a reminder for every 3-6 months to go onto your website and review your content and images. In this time, you may have had team members leave or your content might need a refresh. 

If you require a new website or need help with your existing one, we can help. Some of the above recommendations can sound a little bit daunting, but we will do our best to resolve issues that you have with your website or create a new and fresh one. 

How Much Does A Website Cost?

Summary

If you’re wondering how much a website costs, there are several factors that govern the final cost of a website. The significant factors include – your own expectations, the design and the content.

When building a website the cost is highly dependent on your company goals and expectations. Click To Tweet

Couple that with the agency size and hourly rate, will make significant differences to the cost of a web design. However, there are also different benefits and pitfalls to each level of web design agency.

How much does web design cost? As the person in your business, responsible for getting your company in front of as many people as possible, no doubt, you will look to hire a web design agency or website designer and you’ll need to know how much a website will cost you. 

In all likelihood, you’ll contact some different agencies around and you’ll receive back a whole host of different prices. You may wonder why there costs differ so much. Throughout this post, we’ll give examples of the processes and costs that are involved in creating a website and show why there can be different pricing from different web freelancers and web design agencies.

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Time Is Money

The first thing that varies greatly between web design companies and freelancers is the hourly rate. Depending on where your chosen web design business is both in experience and geography, there can be a significant difference in web development costs. It’s fair to say that you could stand 5 web developers next to one another, fundamentally each of whom do the same job, but whose pricing could vary massively.

You could stand 5 web developers next to each other and each would quote a hugely different price – but each would have a vastly different outcome. Click To Tweet

It’s fair to say that websites can take some time to create – and that is highly dependent on the work that it takes to research goals and objectives.

As a ball-park indicator, here is a breakdown of some of the differentiating factors that may impact hourly rates:

Type of Designer ConsPriceProsCons
New Web Designer£5 to £20 p.h• Cheaper
• Value for Money
• Untested
• Reliability
Freelancer£25 to £60 p.h• Cheap
• Low Overheads  
• No Team
• Availability
Small Web Studio£60 to £80 p.h• Have Specialists
• Office  
• Salaries
• Costs
Large Web Agency£75 to £200 p.h• Nice Office
• Big Skilled Team
• Large wages & costs

There is a solution for most needs and requirements. If your business “just needs a website” then you may decide to look at the lower cost options. If you need multi-disciplined, full service offering, then a larger agency is likely to be more your cup of tea. But, you’ll end up paying more for the service you get. 

Identify Goals

Depending on your business goals, you can spend a little or a lot on certain areas of a web design. For example, you may want to concentrate on the aesthetics of a website or maybe you’d prefer something that was going to convert like a machine. Either way, taking the time to devise a strategy that is going to work for your business is critical.

Website goals and objectives are critical for a successful project. It's important to be realistic as to what you can expect for the time, budget and resources you have. Click To Tweet

Website Strategy

Getting the strategy right means that the new website should meet your company goals and directives. Creating a strategy is achieved by looking at what you currently have and identifying where it falls short. For example, you may not be getting any enquiries, in which case, that will need further attention in a new website.

Researching Your Website

At this stage you are looking at the competition, checking out their strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and looking to see how your business can measure up using your new online presence. Most importantly, as an exercise, creating client avatars is something that we’d highly recommend. This allows you to personify an ideal client. Go into as much detail as possibly as to who your ideal client is, what they do, their marital status, whether they have a family, where they shop and everything that makes for a rounded character. This helps, when you’re writing content and when your web developer designs your web pages, they can have your ideal customer in their minds eye.

Design and Website Development

This is the stage where the web designer comes into their won. Having considered all of the strategy and research, they will produce paper designs of your website. Your web agency will also provide you with a site map – of what pages they would recommend your website starts off with. This may mean that content needs to be written. Establishing how a page reads is important and clarifies the need for establishing your ideal client. It’s also a golden opportunity to give feedback on these aspects too.

the design of a website can be a pivotal factor in cost. A website can be an off-the-shelf theme or a bespoke theme created to just the way you like it. Each comes at a different price point Click To Tweet

Web Site Build

Now all of the content and design aspects have been created, thanks to rock-solid research and strategy, now the website can begin to take shape. This means that the theme is designed and tweaked to suit the paper designs and the pages are made to house the new content. It becomes the housing for any existing content and the new content that is being created for the new website.

Content

Your content is they key to a successful website implementation. Don’t scrimp on the content, the graphics, photos or video. This is how you are going to communicate with your visitors for the next few years. Using everything you’ve learnt from the earlier stages, new photos will be taken, videos about the business will be edited together, icons to make it easier to navigate and copy will be written to promote your website and most importantly – your business.

As the content is added to your website, you will see it spring into life. As a business, you will probably have the opportunity to look at the website on a staging or test server. This will help you to visualise what the end result will look like.

You hear it everywhere that content is king. It really is. It makes the difference between a popular site and one that gets any engagement. If you're not a writer – consider outsourcing it. Click To Tweet

Handover

This is where your web design company will prepare you with training on the admin area and teach you how to add content. There may also be some content or videos that show you how to achieve certain thing on your website. They will also set up monitoring services and analytics to allow you to visualise how successful your website is.

Preflight Checks – Website Launch

This is where the final adjustments and changes are made. Small changes may include re-ordering the menu or adding some extra text or images onto pages. As soon as the website has been signed off, the site can be launched. Of course, it doesn’t end there. The website needs to be submitted to the search engines – to inform it that there are changes afoot. This is done by adding a sitemap with the revised map of the website and also through submitting individual pages to the search engines if needed.

Ongoing Maintenance

This part is all to often overlooked. The website needs regular maintenance and updates to stay operational and optimal Regular updates on the website content management system and the content will help to keep the website working at its best.

What Is The Cost Of A Website – How Far You Want To Go

It all depends on what you’re looking for. Not only that, it’s what your expectations are versus the budget and resources you have. Not only that, but it also depends on how much help you need to get your website live. 

For example, you may need content creating, photos taken and videos made. Each of these activities take some time and in some cases specialist equipment. If you’re looking for the best you can get you may decide to have some photos, content and videos created for you. Not to mention the icons and designs that are created for each page.

It’s fair to say that most site visitors can tell if a site has been quickly assembled against a website that has been clearly crafted with an intent to provide a particular product or service.

Example Custom Website Breakdown

If you were seeking to commission a business like Flok, we charge £75 per hour plus VAT. We would budget the following for each part of our development:

hello world!
Strategy: 3 – 5 hrs, £225 – £375
hello world!
Research: 4 – 8 hrs, £300 – £600
hello world!
Design: 6 – 12 hrs, £450 – £600
hello world!
Build: 12 – 36 hrs, £900 – £2,700
hello world!
Content Support: 8 – 16 hrs, £600 – £1,200
hello world!
Handover: 2 – 4 hrs, £150 – £300
hello world!
Testing and Launch: 4 – 8 hrs, £300 – £600

Total example: £2,925 – £6375.
You will also need to make provision for VAT too.

A larger agency whose hourly rate could be £100 ph may cost: £4,000 – £10000. However, you’ll be benefiting from a bigger team, with specialist staff for each service.

What’s In A Domain Name?

What Is A Domain Name?

For any website builder, domain names probably don’t get a great deal of thought from one day to the next, but the fact of the matter is that a good domain can play a really important role in your business. They get your company recognised. They also play a role in getting your website found – via SEO too.

As an online business owners, having a memorable address means that you stand a far better chance of remaining sticky in the mind of your client – or website visitor. It’s something that you can hook onto if your website is being promoted, or you’re getting a new business card produced, sharing your professional email address, so much better than a free email address and contact information. A domain name is definitely an important asset, as important as your phone number.

Having said that, some people spend so much time thinking about their new website address that sometimes it actually puts them into paralysis. 

There are loads of different top level domain TLD out there, and by TLDs, I mean like, flok.marketing, for example. The extension is what makes it different. 

For us, it’s .marketing, but there is of course, more than one domain name extension here are some of the more generic top level domains: .com, .co.uk – known as country code top level domains in the United Kingdom, not to mention .edu. 

The list is almost endless. And there are likely more of these being released periodically.

It’s key to not get too frustrated if you can’t find a TLD that suits your business. I’m sure that one will become available that will suit your business.


How To Get A Domain Name 

When you’re registering domains, try to keep it as short and concise as you can. It may not always be possible, but try to avoid putting the word “the” at the beginning and any other unhelpful words – as they are likely to be the reason you get less visitors – for no other reason than a mistake. Try to avoid hyphens. Those are the types of things that introduce ambiguity, and therefore potentially transpiring that people will go to the wrong website or no website at all. Do try to find a domain that reflects your products and services.

It’s crucial to consider these points when choosing a domain – to avoid problems in the future.

So, why do we even have these names? Well, it’s a great question. Most people are aware that websites are hosted on servers, servers that are in touch with the world wide web. Those servers each have a string of number called an IP address. 

That IP address is unique to that particular server. Now, it would be no good putting an IP address on a business card because it would be terribly hard to remember. So, domain names are the intermediary.

When somebody types in a website address into their web browser, what happens next is that information is sent to your nominated DNS server on the web. The server then takes that information and translates it into the IP address. 

After typing flok.marketing into my web browser, it’s taken to the name server and changed into server number 173.122.273.24. That is essentially how it works. 

Then finally your web page gets served. This all happens in a split second. You probably wouldn’t even notice it.


Who Owns The Domain Name? 

Many people ask if they actually own the domain name? And if not, who does own the custom domain? Well, the process works a lot like a registration number plate. It’s yours for as long as you keep paying for it. 

Generally, people will buy a domain for two, three, five years. At that point, if they don’t renew, that name goes back into the pool for somebody else to purchase. You can never actually entirely own a domain, but you can buy it for a long period of time.

Another question related to that is who owns a particular domain? Now, that used to be really, really easy because you could do research using a WHOIS lookup function on the internet. There are websites specifically designed to show you who owns a particular domain from the WHOIS database.

However, nowadays, and particularly with the advent of GDPR, that domain information is often obscured because when you purchase or renew a domain, you can often buy, for a few pounds, domain privacy. Therefore, a lot of the time, that information is hidden.

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Sit back and watch as I answer some of the most popular questions relating to domain names, perfect for those who’d like to know a little bit more about the building blocks of a website.

How To Buy A Domain Name

I also get asked how to buy a domain name. There are lots and lots and lots of places that sell names. We sell them, but we normally sell them through an intermediary. But you can purchase them through somewhere like 123 Reg, or somewhere like that. 

You make the choice. There are lots and lots of different pricing levels dependent on the extension of the top-level domain.


How To Register A Name

As an example, .coms are more expensive to purchase in the UK than a .co.uk, although there are lots and lots and lots of offers, so it pays to shop around. You use a domain registrar. Sometimes they have offers I have seen the odd free domain on occasion. 

But definitely check to find out what they normally charge. Most of those service providers provide the same service, so fundamentally, you are shopping on price. 

We charge a premium because, quite often, we are setting up not just the domain and buying it on behalf of the customer, but we’re tying it into a website, maybe email services and those types of things, which takes a little bit of time. But actually, the purchasing of a domain can be done really really cheaply.


Can I Buy Domain Name Without Hosting?

One of the other questions that I get asked is, “Can I buy a domain without hosting?” And of course, the answer is yes you can. You can instigate domain registration and not do anything with it at all. 

As long as you keep paying for the domain renewal, that domain will remain yours. You don’t need to have hosting at all. You can just have the domain.


Can I Change The Domain Of My Website?

Well, fundamentally, you can, but there are lots and lots and lots of implications on that, not least that you may have to change the configuration of your website to make it work again. A lot of this work would be achieved using the hosting companies control panel and ftp.

The other thing that it will have an implication of is your search engine rankings. If you’re ranking highly for a particular domain and the webpage, that will change, and it will have an impact. So, really keep that in mind before you make a massive decision like changing a domain name of your website.

I was also asked whether or not the register, for example, Go Daddy, LCN, 123 Reg, actually own the domain names. And the answer is no. ICANN, for example, in America, look after the databases that hold the names and the owners of all of the domain names. 

Nominet in the UK look after the .co.uk names. The fact of the matter is, as I said before, you don’t actually own the domain. The domain is only yours for as long as you pay for it.


https ssl certificate

What About SSL Certificates?

And finally, I wanted to talk about SSL certificates and domain names. The two are not mutually exclusive. The two can be purchased entirely separately, and you don’t necessarily need to have one to have the other. An SSL certificate can be purchased entirely separately, or you can get a free one dependent on the level of protection that you’re actually looking to have for your website.

So, for example, if it’s more of a brochure site, something where it’s more information-based but people aren’t necessarily transacting anything and handing over too much information about themselves, then a low-level certificate will be fine. 

If you’re running an e-commerce store, and perhaps you’re getting a lot of orders, or the value of the goods is really, really high, then you really need an excellent SSL certificate. And that may cost you hundreds or thousands of pounds because the protection that it offers you is so much greater.

It’s really down to personal preference as to how much protection you get, but you don’t have to have one for a domain, although it is recommended, and the search engines love an SSL certificate, and in fact, do also rank website pages higher if they are shown to be secure because it gives some validity to your online presence. 

So, consider an SSL certificate. You can often get an SSL certificate free with your website hosting. I know that we certainly offer a low-level certificate which means that you can get that padlock, which all important to show that your website is trusted by the web browsers.

So, look at SSL certificates. However, choose wisely because you could be wasting a lot of money, or you could be over-compensating for something you don’t necessarily need to do at that particular point in time. But an SSL certificate is a great idea, but you don’t necessarily need to buy them from the same place, and you don’t even necessarily need to pay money for them.

7 Reasons Why Business Cards Matter

Are Business Cards Outdated?

If you spend most of your working day in the virtual world – and let’s face it, who doesn’t – you may have overlooked one of the most relevant, portable and cost-effective forms of advertising, marketing and promoting available to your business. In another post I wrote I talk about the importance of networking as a marketing factor. A beautifully designed business card is a sight to behold. Yes, we often question how much business cards matter and their relevance. If you’re struggling to understand why this small piece of colourful card remains an important marketing tool – please check out my 7 reasons.

A beautifully designed business card is a sight to behold. Yes, we often question how much business cards matter and their relevance. Click To Tweet

What Are The Best Business Cards?

Normally these are the cards that stand up on their own. I don’t mean actually stand up like a Christmas card – but stand up to scrutiny. That they are attractive enough to make a statement without distracting from the message. That they use colour and typeface to enhance the messaging. That the messaging is more than an address and phone number. Most importantly that it gives a mini snapshot into your world. Think about what from your business is going to give a potential client a look under your company’s bonnet?

What is the usual information on a business card?

The basics are essential. Your Name, the company name, ideally a way of communicating with you – i.e email address and a phone number. There is a lot of debate about putting mobile numbers on a business card. I have done both. Given the fact that I sleep next to my phone, I don’t really feel I need to be that accessible. Which is why I decided to remove my mobile number from my business card.

Do put social handles of either yourself (if you have a business persona) or company handles for social media.

It Makes A New Business Stand Out

If you’re fresh out of the gates, then high quality business cards are a great way to give your new company some credibility and visibility. A beautiful design with your contact details gives a tangible product to a potential customer that can scream quality! It also starts to give an idea as to your business values – so be careful what messaging you use. Something positive could have people reaching for the phone. Something negative could have them reaching for the dustbin.

Something positive on your business card could have people reaching for the phone. Something negative could have them reaching for the dustbin. Click To Tweet

Please note, if you’re seeking to make a splash with your new business, invest in some well-thought-out well designed business cards. What could add value to this transaction? Could there be a link to your social media? Some freebies? Something that is going to make the experience of the person you’ve just met – last a bit longer than the short time you’ll chat. Maybe a scan me code for a BOT – anything that will keep you more memorable than the next person.

A Virtual Card Is Lost Almost Immediately

If you’ve ever been to a networking event, you’ll have probably looked at the delegate list beforehand, identified who you’d like to meet and committed your hit-list to memory. So let’s say you meet your dream potential client.

You’ve exchanged pleasantries, you’ve established a rapport, it’s all going really quite well. So it comes to the end of your all but brief meeting. What do you do?

Modern-day etiquette has us reaching for our mobile phone to connect on social media or a quick transmission of your contact information is agreed. But it’s not visible after your meet. All too quickly you’ve become a statistic along with the other two thousand contacts inside their phone. Nothing special now about your rapport and suddenly, you’re relying on their memory, which could be good, bad or indifferent.

It may be really convenient to be able to produce your business card via a mobile phone app at any time, however it just makes you the same as everyone else. you can’t write your name stylishly and in this day and age where there is in some markets saturation beyond belief – why would you just want to be the same?

If you feel you do need to send your details via phone – do it AS WELL – don’t do it instead of. There are far better ways to illustrate who you are – what makes you amazing and why people should choose you over the competition.

OR

You produce your newest marketing device. A double-sided, business card that has been through the matt lamination process with a bit of spot UV added into the mix – to make parts of the card shiny. It has your name clearly stated, to avoid embarrassing snafus, your position and what your business does.

Not only that, there’s every possible medium listed to contact you. It looks smart, and your client makes that James Bond – eyebrow-raising look to say “you’ve thought about this – haven’t you?”

That’s when you know – as they play with your calling card in their hand, that you are being remembered for more than a two-minute conversation and a bunch of forgettable contact details.

That’s when you know - as they play with your calling card in their hand, that you are being remembered for more than a two-minute conversation and a bunch of forgettable contact details. Click To Tweet

The Most Direct Form Of Marketing

Whilst we all know that digital marketing is great for getting your name out there and taking prospective clients on those first steps into your funnel – there is really nothing quite like a meeting, a handshake and an exchange of personalised business cards.

You never know where you’re going to meet your next big client. Whether you’re travelling by car, plane or boat – you need to be prepared to network at a moments notice. So you need to be ready. Half of the challenge is that you don’t want to be carrying around a slide deck with you.

So, business cards show a perfect introduction to a new client. Let’s face it, you can have a link to a slide deck on your business card. Plus, they are highly portable. You can carry them in a wallet, purse, pocket, handbag or briefcase.

First Impressions Last – A Long Time

So you’ve just met your next big prospective client. How do you want them to remember you? Having a bad (normally cheap or free) business card is a bit like drinking a wine that’s corked. You’re full of anticipation, and then you take a sip and – UGH! Awful. It’s not as simple as to upload a design template and then that’s it. No, think about the quality of the product. Think about what it says about you and your company.

The Smallest Ambassador Of Your Business

Think of a business card as an ambassador: It needs to say the right things at the right time and always have the company at the forefront of it’s reason for exisiting. It’s ideal to parachute into a situation and be there as a prompt to get people thinking about you in a favourable light again.

How do you want them to remember you? Having a bad (normally cheap or free) business card is a bit like drinking a wine that’s corked. Click To Tweet

A memorable calling card does a lot more than just pass on an email address or phone number.

When I give my business card over to a contact, I want them to look at it with interest – not with horror or disgust. It needs to scream quality – not “bin me”. You’ve heard the phrase buy cheap – buy twice? That’s exactly what you’ll be doing with a cheaply made, mass-produced – paper-like card. Pity the poor people who have to get that wafer out of their pocket after a heavy days networking.

It is my desire to make people stop and admire the design it’s more than just colour printing. There is all manner of paper types and weights – but never deviate from the standard size – otherwise, they won’t fit into your card case or wallet. Spend time on a creative business card design and printing choices. They are numerous and ensure that you talk to your designer and the printer as to what is new and improved in the world of business card printing. Make sure thought that the business card size stays around the standard – to allow for easy storage.

If you’ve left it a bit late – most offer a quick printing service and next day delivery. But be warned a laser printed card might get you out of a hole, but it isn’t going to make your business sticky in the mind of a prospective customer when you think of all of the different paper stocks and things like gloss lamination that are available as finishes.

Quality comes at a higher price. But what if that cost could be offset against the number of new clients attracted to you by a quality product?

Some people feel awkward about when it’s a good time to hand a card to a contact. The answer is that you may need to craft a time within the conversation. Don’t leave it to the last minute – otherwise it can get a bit strained. If you’re getting the buying signals or at least nodding and interest – that is the time to exchange. Maybe, draw some attention to a particular section of your card regarding an offer or a contact name and number.

If It’s Really Cool It Might Take On A Life Of It’s Own

Imagine if your calling card became it’s own talking point. You give it to a contact and they, in turn, are so impressed with the design, the look, the font sets (the humour) that they show it to some colleagues. Now that’s brand awareness. What’s more, is that it’s free and easy to replicate.

Imagine if your calling card became it’s own talking point. You give it to a contact and they, in turn, are so impressed with the design, the look, the font sets (the humour) that they show it to some colleagues. Now that’s brand… Click To Tweet
a well designed business card

Always Be Prepared

How embarrassing is it when you’re out and you reach into your pocket. Only to present someone with another person’s business card! Worse still – you realise that the clump of cards you have in your jacket are everybody else’s.

Keep a stash of cards in all jackets and blazers you wear. I always keep a pile of my own cards in my office at home and replenish as needed. I’ve missed opportunities in the past when I didn’t have cards with me. It simply looks bad and ill-prepared.

Keep a stash of business cards in all jackets and blazers you wear. Click To Tweet

Being the swiss army knife to business is what it takes to win a seat at the table. Stay sharp and look at each opportunity a way of increasing your network – one card at a time.

Less Is More – Keep Assaying It Down

A cleverly placed sentence on a calling card can make the difference to who calls you. It’s great to get calls from all sorts – but when you’ve been in business a while, you’d probably appreciate a way of filtering enquiries to those who are more likely to want your services at your price points. Think about what you could put – just a few words, that could encourage the right people to call and dissuade the wrong ones.

Use Both Sides – One For Your Creativity and One For Contact Details.

In Summary – Silent Marketing Legends

If you thought that throwing your old cards in the bin was a sensible plan – think again. A business card can make an impression – long after your meeting has ended. What would you rather do? Be instantly forgettablee? Or would you rather be thought of as that quirky clever person who bought a knowing smile to the face of a potential business contact?

A business card can make an impression - long after your meeting has ended. Click To Tweet

Keep refining them to make them the most efficient, effective, sought after items you possess. Make your business cards the first part of your marketing mix. They’re still as important – if not more so than they ever were. My recommendation? Get a good one designed today. Think about your company messaging and how you want to be remembered. Put the most important contact details on the card. Make it clear.

Choose an appropriate and easy to read typeface and just go for it. Make sure you talk to a decent printer, who consistently produces good quality products. Don’t be tempted to find a cheap alternative. Remember, people make judgements on the things you give away. Do you want to say – I’m cheap or I think you’re important and worth lavishing time and effort on? Personally, I’d rather be remembered for the latter. Ask your printer for recommendations.

Ask them what they would recommend. I normally print around 500 cards off at a time. When I have printed more cards, something always changes. From a phone number to an address – then you have to throw them away. Keep the volume to a level that you can get through in six to twelve months.

How Long Does It Take To Build A Website?

After my weighty tome from a couple of weeks ago on planning a website, I thought it would be quite useful to consider how long a custom designed website development might take to create. As a developer, it’s more coding than drag and drop. A good, user-friendly website design shouldn’t ever be hurried. If you’re looking to build a website that gets you business – it’s important to consider these questions.

In the words of Phil Collins - you can't hurry a website Click To Tweet

It’s also one of the main factors in the success of your web design project. Standard business website can start as a 5 to 10 page project.

The concise answer is: much longer than you’d expect, but it will be worth the wait. You can find five main factors in a project’s timeline:

How Soon Can Your Developer Begin The Work To Build A Website?

High-quality website developers are usually booked pretty solidly, and so can’t start your site at the drop of a hat. There may be some delay from when you initially hire the developer to when they actually start your website project.

How Quickly Can You Provide The Images and Video They Need?

Are you prepared to take ownership of the content of your new website? Taking ownership makes the development a whole lot quicker... Click To Tweet

This is often one of the areas that hadn’t crossed a clients mind. As previously discussed, images are the life-blood of a new website. Getting them right will propel your website into the stratosphere and have your competitors green with envy. Get it wrong and your site will disappear into the back-waters of the world wide web. Spend a good long time getting professional images and/or video to lift your development. Everyone knows that video is a powerful medium and yet normally so few people take the plunge due to their own prejudice.

build a website

How Quickly Can You Provide The Content?

It’s a mistake to believe the content of your old website is going to cut it in the next generation of website. Unless you spent a great deal of time and money on getting it right the last time – and if you did – why are you getting a new site? No, start afresh, think about what worked and what you now need. If you can assess the old website as to pages that were frequently visited and those that weren’t. 

I would suggest getting someone who is good at writing to compile your website. Be honest, if you hate writing, don’t do it – it’ll hurt – every step of the way. As you develop a web site the content becomes even more important.

How long before a site is Ready for Review?

Most designers and developers have a definite process for developing a website, and can describe roughly just how long it will require to get an online site in the hands. A design team would normally start with creating a sitemap, a wire-frame and then a design if we’re using a CMS like WordPress then we need to ascertain what extra development might be needed like WordPress plugins. 

Once approved they get to work developing. Most agencies are happy to answer queries and questions and are generally at the end of an email address.

How Long Before You Can Start The Site Unveiling?

If you're ready to throw yourself into it - an indepth all-encompassing snagging session is in order for your new website. Attack it once and make a comprehensive list - don't go piecemeal - if you want ot stay on the right side of… Click To Tweet

This final factor is the biggest variable and depends largely on you, the client. It includes reviewing the website, making change requests, and finalising content. It also depends on how accessible your domain is. Whether you need the site hosted, and how long that will take to set up. 

Most developers will host your development site on a test server somewhere and they’ll install WordPress in an area that is away from prying eyes. Much like a wedding cake, it needs to be moved to its final destination. Also always good to check when the final payment needs to be made to ensure that your site isn’t delayed due to an invoice needing to be settled.

Unlike a wedding cake there is also a mobile friendly version, that also needs to be reviewed and tested. As you create your website, make sure you check the site out on more than one mobile device.

How Soon Is Soon?

If a client calls us – saying something like: “can you get it ready in a couple of weeks?” You’ll probably get fairly short shrift from most decent agencies and designers because they’re booked up and wouldn’t be able to make that commitment.

A better way to tackle it is to talk about your goals and deadlines and let them describe how they might solve it and in what timescale. You can then make your selection predicated on their responses, including their suggested solution, quality of past work, timeline and cost.

There’s no “standard” timeframe that coders are booked up. It absolutely is determined by the individual (or company) and their current workload. My team is normally booked 1-3 calendar months beforehand, but it varies. Right now, we’re scheduling assignments starting in November for some clients. But I’m pretty sure that if someone came to us with a very clear goal and intention we’d could find space for another! 

Also, the level of complexity makes a difference to delivery time. Is it going to have a members area, or an online store?

Recently, an old client of mine decided to use another agency as we couldn’t start work immediately creating the business website. There was around a months difference. However, that time was soon used up and soon enough the client was behind the schedule we had mapped out for them. 

This could have been for many reasons and it wasn’t anyone’s fault specifically, but, it shows that a quick start doesn’t guarantee quality, speed or a relationship. They admitted they had made a mistake and pledged that the next site would be ours!

How Quickly Can You Get a Site Online and Ready for Review?

Your developer is likely to work on a multi stage project framework. They normally kick everything off with a client meeting where you talk through what you have at the moment, what you like, what you hate and what you’ve seen on other sites that excites you. 

The agency  would then take some time to work out how that could be applied to your site and goals. They then confirm what functions your site needs and what you’re looking for and also ensure that your expectations are managed. Afterwards, they create a sitemap and make time to build rough wireframe to get an idea for placement. It’s an important step as you’re building your website.

They then proceed to design, where they mock up just how all the pages might look across all devices. The completed designs are the images of your future site. Finally, the design team move along to development, where they build an online site that suits the approved look, feel and function detailed in the proposal document. The developed working website is then delivered to the client in test form for review. So begins the adjustment period.

The three stages typically take eight to twelve weeks – based upon a wordpress site framework.

How Long Before We Can Present Our New Baby to The World

The final link in the chain is the “Adjustment Period”. We don’t limit it to a certain number of weeks – normally it takes as long as you need to review and alter your new website. 

This typically includes change requests for minor bugs on a web page or design inconsistencies. I would recommend budgeting at least two weeks for modifications.

The best way to get a website launched rapidly is usually to be prepared. 

This means:

Block out the right amount of time in your program to examine and review. Knowing when a site is going to drop is critical. Put the date in your diary. The quicker your developer can iterate through changes, the earlier the website gets put live. 

You can probably predict what content will be needed and also have it ready. Planning to have some case studies on your website? Great! 

Write this content while we’re developing and creating the site. Then you’ll be ready with a set of case studies and be ready to go.

One of the biggest final hurdles as a website builder is obtaining the custom domains details and web hosting information. Using a quality hosting plan is going to cost you money. But then this isn’t a free website any longer. Whilst it is an investment for a small business, ensuring that the domain details are to hand and that you have a quality plan for your website or online shop is vital. The key thing is that the domain can be dealt with during or before you start building.

It’s also important to remember to allow time for finding your way around the new CMS – like the WordPress Dashboard.

The number one cause for delayed launches is lack of content. No one wants to launch a half-finished website, and content marketing is tough. Consider including content strategy and copywriting right into our project’s scope.

Once the site goes live, the important factors of adding and activating Google Analytics and other search engines, social media links and of course creating content, as well as utilising all of the other marketing tools available. If you’re not sure which tools to use. Take the free trial or low cost period, to work it out. They may not all be right for you – at this moment.

In Summary: Just Tell Me – How Long Is It to Create a Website?

A typical timescale to create a custom website will take around 8 to 12 weeks at the very least from beginning to launch. This includes 2 weeks research and development, 4-6 weeks design, 1-2 weeks first development, and 1 week of modifications. It could take a lot longer if you hold out right up to the end to begin writing content.

They would provide a set of timescales we can have deliverables ready for your own review, and the date when we’ll need your feedback to stick to the schedule. Add these to your calendar so you’re ready to respond. If there are any extensions – like holidays and illness, let them know at the earliest opportunity so they can adapt the schedule accordingly.

An estimated timescale of starting with a developer to develop a website and a delay to the start time shouldn’t be the reason to hire or not an agency. You ought to be actively researching and hiring your agency and creative team team 4-6 weeks before your desired kick off date.

Bring More Visitors To Your Website

Had you considered that your website, the very thing that you have created to promote your business could be losing you sales right now? Had you thought that visitors may not even be able to find your site – let alone decide if you’re the right business for them. Have you been disappointed in the lack of enquiries from your website? Are you like many other businesses and believe that you just don’t get enquiries through the internet?

Are you serious? Enquiries that come from online sources are stronger than ever. If you’re not getting enquiries from cyberspace – have you considered that your website might not be up to the job? Be honest, when was the last time you invested time in your website?

If you’re not getting enquiries from your website you need to ask why. If you’re confident that your products or services sell in the real world, then there is no way you shouldn’t be getting enquiries from the virtual world.

Here are 13 of the biggest mistakes we’ve uncovered on people’s websites – number 3 is a real punch in the bread basket.

You’re not getting found

If you’re not getting found, then you’re unlikely to have many or any site visitors. There are quite a few different reasons. It can be as simple as your site hasn’t been picked up yet – because it is really new, or, it could be that you’ve not set your robots.txt up to allow the BOTs to crawl your website or they weren’t set up properly when the site was uploaded. 

Essentially the search engines don’t have any timescales that they work to – therefore, if your site is new and you haven’t informed the search engines about the face that the site has been updated or replaced, it may take several weeks or months before they find it.If this is the issue, it can be rectified by using the search engines designated“webmasters” interface. This is what Google used to call their dashboard interface. This will allow you to upload the site map and also notify search engines about specific (or all) pages on your website.

A quick way to find out if site has been added to search engine but is just not simply showing up for any search term is to type in the url of the website for example https://flok.marketing and see if your latest website pops up. If it does – it is probably more to do with the page optimisation or that the site is so new – the search engines haven’t optimised it yet.

Unsecure website – no ssl certificate

It has been drummed into web users that all websites need a certificate to prove their authenticity. Having an SSL certificate(ask your webmaster or hosting company for more information) means that data is encrypted for the purpose of the journey through cyberspace. This means that if you send your personal details, until it reaches its final destination, it will be almost impossible to read – until it is introduced to the de-crypto on key at the end of its journey. Please remember not all SSL certificates are the same! 

The higher the level of encryption (not always, but often) and also the higher the levels of assurances you will receive from the certificate issuer. This is more important for businesses who sell ticket items and e-commerce. If you are sending rudimentary data, then a lesser certificate should suffice. But always check with an expert first. You may be unnecessarily spending a lot of money on something that is simply not required.

Not having an SSL certificate may throw loads of warnings on your web browser – particularly Chrome – who prevents you from accessing a website until you click various messages to acknowledge that you’re entering a possibly un secure website. This doesn’t look very appealing and is likely to put off most website visitors. Check your user experience to make sure this isn’t happening.

Bad design

There is no accounting for taste – that is what we’re told. But honestly there are some websites against humanity that really need removing – forever! Badly designed sites that is the equivalent of spraying lemon juice into your eyes. Designs that have you reaching for the bucket rather than reaching for the phone. 

Make sure that the most important points for visitors is above the fold (i.e you don’t have to scroll to read it).Statistically, only 40% of people scroll – so putting your killer offer at the bottom – means almost no one will see it.

Some people simply shouldn’t be allowed to design websites. Sometimes – the sites are so strangely designed that you simply can’t find your way around them. Others are badly designed or designed in such a style that they’ve disregarded the last five years of website advancements. Whatever the reason, it is always best to use what I call – can granny work it test. Sit down with someone who is not linked to your business and ask them to navigate to the most important pages. As them – if they understand what they’re doing and why. If you’re getting sketchy answers, you may need to look at the design.

Sometimes, we sit too closely to the issue to be able to see it – sort of hidden in plain site. It is important that your site is designed intuitively. You want people to find exactly what they’re looking for – with as little ambiguity as possible. Trust me, they will move onto another website if your websites design isn’t clear and concise. The design can be a bit out there – as long as it doesn’t feel alien. If it does –people may leave your website with a bemused look on their faces. More importantly, they’re unlikely to return in a hurry.

Not mobile friendly

Somewhat surprisingly, there are so many websites that simply don’t work on mobile devices. Worse than that – there are many business owners who believe that just because a web page shrinks to be shown on a website – that means that their website is mobile compliant. Please allow me to confirm that a tiny web page on a mobile device is a friend to no-one. Trust me when I write that nobody will consider your site to be mobile friendly in that instance.

The ideal is that the website is designed to seamlessly change from a desktop format to a mobile format without missing a beat. It probably means that if your website was designed more than five years ago, there is every chance that your site may not comply. This also has implications on website rankings too. If you don’t have a mobile friendly site– search engines will downgrade you in the search engine rankings –particularly now that Google searches from a mobile first perspective.

A truly mobile optimised site will resize text and images to fit optimally on your mobile devices screen. It normally means that images are reduced and sometimes removed to keep the vital information visible on the screen in a limited space.

Your website is loading too slowly

How frustrating is it to wait for a website to load. How often have we just left the site and moved on? If you’re impatient, your visitors will be too. Slow sites have a whole list of reasons as to why they’re slow. From oversized images (i.e images that are far larger than they need to be) slowing down the load time. It could also be your hosting. Cheap hosting often compromises at the server speed and allocation to each website.

It could also be something more fundamental to your website. For example, it could be that the coding is inefficient or badly written. Or as is often the case, it’s old code that needs to be updated.Oftentimes this can be resolved with some simple updates, other times, it means a rewrite – especially if the base system is no longer being developed or plugins are no longer working.

Badly spelt, poorly written content

Sounds ridiculous, but it is staggering as to how many people are put off by poor spelling and grammar. The things is that these things matter to visitors, its about your credibility. I remember checking a website that had a massive typo on the header of the website –meaning that everyone made a judgement almost instantly. “Click to find out mo” was the phrase. Now I’m not too sure who “mo” is but find!

It comes down to the final proof reads –that’s what makes a difference. If you aren’t keen on writing, hire a professional to do it for you. There are many highly expert copywriters who will make your business appeal to anyone who visits your website. Once added to your website, make sure that someone reads the pages – to ensure that nothing appears that shouldn’t and that it all reads properly. Poor punctuation can make all the difference to meaning in a sentence. For example:

Let’s eat Grandma!

But more likely:

Let’s eat, Grandma!

What a difference a comma makes – in this instance it’s saved Grandma’s life. Having a poorly proof-read website – snaps people out of their zombie trance, it makes them check their judgement.Moreover, it gives them an opportunity to question their judgement.

There are two good ways to check your own work. Leave it for a few hours, or ask someone else to proof read your work.Both ways give a fresh look to your work and allows for some objective judgement on the quality of what you have written.

Who are you and what do you do?

Sounds obvious, but you’d be staggered as to how many websites  don’t  actually explain who they are and what they do on the home page. They start gabbling on about their values and how much they do for you. But at no point do they explain what their offer is. Imagine walking down a high street and not being able to tell what each shop sells.You’d probably not bother to go in. 

As humans we don’t need much of an excuse to not do something different, given the excuse we will revert to type and just keep on walking past. Not explaining broadly what you do as quickly as you can is as ridiculous as my shop example.

It is vital to set your stall out on your website. Be clear in your offer, we want visitors to be clear on whether they are in the right place or not. If they are – great! Read on. If not, be gone!But give visitors the opportunity to decide for all of the right reasons.

No pain – no gain!

It sounds strange,  but prospective buyers need to understand why they’re even looking for the product or service you’re supplying. Having a homepage that makes your solution relatable is key to getting visitors to recognise themselves. What I mean by that is if you were promoting a weight loss program, you’d put some of the pain points on your home page. For example:

Has Christmas stacked on the pounds?

Are you looking to get beach body ready for your next holiday?

Just underneath – you need to put the answer to their problems – a click here for all of your problems to go away kind of button. It may appear obvious what you do and why you’re doing it, but remember that visitors need to know why they’re on your website and what you can do to help them.

Have three pain points for your product or service to help people understand that you have an understanding or their situation.

Not enough detail

Have you ever read a self help book or business book where the content is thin to say the least? Where it’s clear that the author is unwilling to share the “how”? Or you buy a book from a charity shop or thrift store only to find out the last few pages are missing.

That’s exactly how visitors feel about websites that don’t go into enough detail.

 Now it’s fair to say that not everyone needs the detail to make a decision – and that’s OK. They don’t have to read the detail. But a web page should be set out with the highlights at the top and the detail below. It draws in the visitor. It makes them understand more thoroughly your offer and the personality of your business. Most importantly, it shows that you know what you’re talking about. Having sparse, thin pages that don’t engage do nothing for your business and more importantly, nothing for how potential clients perceive your business. 

Make sure that you go into sufficient detail. Missing the detail is a crime and your sales will be the victim if you don’t make sure that your site tells a prospective client all about how you operate.

No clear call to action

Missing a call to action, can be as fatal as missing the phone number of your website entirely. Visitors need to know what you expect them to do. It may seem strange, but most people need sign posts – a call to action is exactly that. It’s there to coax people along the sales process and funnel. People like to take small steps when they enter the unknown.  

Calls to action light the way, they take you from place to place until you’re ready. Finally they show you the way to either make contact or buy the product.

Make sure that your website has a clear call to action on each page to help your visitors way find.

Are you an expert?

We touched on this previously.Content, blogs and in-depth pages help to set you up as an authority. If your website is a string of poorly worded sales pages, trust me, you won’t get many enquiries. Historically, websites that kill you with kindness get the best response and also get the most people taking action.

We’ve had clients who have provided us with the bare minimum and it never fails to amaze me that they are surprised when no one visits a page with 3 sentences on it. Of course they don’t. Why would they? If this document was 2 paragraphs long – would you believe that I know what I was talking about? Of course not – I have to prove to you that I really do have over 25 years experience in digital marketing and web development.

Your website needs to showcase you and your team as the people who know – categorically. No ifs no buts. So why wouldn’t you show people what you know – maybe by video or by blog or an infographic. Whatever you choose – people will appreciate the time you’ve taken.

Contact forms don’t work

It may seem an obvious one, but there have been many times that prospective clients complain of no enquiries –only to discover that their contact form stopped working 6 months ago and they didn’t notice or do anything about it.

As a standard practice, you or one of your team should take the time to fill in a form every week or two – to ensure that there is nothing stopping those enquiries coming through. It’s a 5minutes job and it means that you’ll be ready for when you get the enquiries you’re looking to attract.

The site is hard to navigate

Have you checked that you can move around your site. Have you checked it makes sense? Having a fancy way to navigate or worse than that – a hidden or hard to find way to navigate will put people off your website. Please keep it simple. There are always expectations when it comes to websites. The navigation should either be visible or highlighted within the “burger” button. Failing that, if you are using alternative methods – like images or text links, ensure that they are clear to see.

Visitors scare easily. We had an example of a client who made visitors press a button half way down the page before the menu popped up. Pointless! You can guess what happened. No-one visited any other other pages from the home page.

This about how long your pages are. Scrolling is now commonplace – and yet people still don’t do it as much as you think. So keep the important stuff – especially the navigation stuff near the top – ideally at the top.

Website Design Plan 11 Easy Steps To Take (Brand New Guide) 2020

Table of Contents

There are so many reasons why it is vital to have a website in 2020. Here’s some things to consider before you start building your web site. planning your Website Design, development or maintenance and don’t know where to start? Maybe you’re a small business and it’s been left to you to get a site up and running? I’ve created a set of 11 easily actionable steps that will help anyone – from a start-up to an established business get on the right track during the website planning process. I am a massive believer in strategy holding the key to success and the importance of website planning. Remember that your website can take a while to develop (see my post on how long it takes to develop a website)

Following these steps will ensure your website stands the best chance of success. Most of these steps can be carried out by anyone. I’m going to share these 11 steps that are going to put you on the road to website dominance. Changing from a good website to a great website.

NUMBER 1 – BE CLEAR ON YOUR OFFER – WILL IT SELL – WILL PEOPLE TAKE ACTION?

It’s the single thing businesses are normally not very good at. Often this is completely overlooked. Being targetted and making sure that you are clear on what you are going to offer on your website. Before embarking on your website creation, I would suggest starting, by creating something like a mindmap to get the idea of what your site structure might look like.

For those who have never created a Mind Map before, it is simply a way of organising your idea into sections that allow you to digest it more clearly and allows for more ideas to be simply added.

website design

Make sure that you literally dump all of your thoughts into the mind map. From the products and services, you offer to the bundles and the incentives. Work out how you’re going to arrange them to make it intuitive and informative on your site and correlate together with your website structure.

NUMBER 2 – WHAT IS YOUR WEBSITE IS GOING TO ACHIEVE?

It is vital to remember that your website is being developed for your audience – not for yourself. Unless it is an intranet.

Brainstorm what function you’d like your website to perform. Is it a brochure site (yawn!). Could it be a repository for documentation and special prices for your supplier base? Could it have downloadable content and video?

Consider creating your own mission statement that encapsulates why you’re creating a website in the first place.

For example:

[MY COMPANY]provides [GOODS and SERVICES]to [TYPE OF CLIENT]in a [HOW]manner. Giving them [USP]and providing [BENEFIT].

Maybe, as with other business websites, you need your site to provide 50 leads a day? Or make the phone ring. Any of these are valid reasons for wanting a site created and moreover to be working through a digital marketing strategy. It is vital, however, that you keep in mind your intention all the way through. Make sure that you don’t deviate from your core objectives – if you do, it is highly likely your visitors will deviate from your intention too. Just like my article on why having the right type of Business Card– being clear on what you want to achieve is really important.

NUMBER 3 – WHO ARE YOU SELLING TO? – CREATE PERSONAS

Think about who your audience is. What’s their name? What is their pain and how are you going to address it? Sounds a bit mother earth doesn’t it? But creating personas that allow you to establish who your target audience is could be the difference between a successful implementation and a complete failure. Creating two to three persona’s is a great way to understand the traits of your target clients.

web design

You can also make a clearer vision for a design team who is going to create a design and content that will bowl over any new visitors to your planned website.

THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA

The way we would normally work this is to take a sheet of paper and divide it into four sections. The top left would be the background of the persona, you may decide to give them a name, age where they live, their background. Making them as rounded as possible.

THEIR BACKGROUND STORY

Take some time to write down in the top right-hand quadrant, the things that happen during their day to day that make them an ideal candidate for what you are promoting. Things like: The boss is sure that we should be getting leads from our website but wants to know how we can do that.

THEIR NEEDS

What are they looking for in a relationship with your business? What do you need to demonstrate or show that is going to make this a worthwhile two-way?

Think about how you might connect with them. What is going to make them come to your website in the first place? Think about the benefits you can demonstrate to personas needs. They normally fall under one of three benefit categories:

MADE, LAID OR PAID

MADE: Will it make me look good to my colleagues, boss or people in general. Will it make me feel good. Will it demonstrate my success? LAID: How will this interaction make me look to the opposite sex. Is it going to make me feel desired or desirable (less likely in a business environment).PAID: Is it going to make me more revenue, make me more profitable, get me a pay-rise or save me money.

NUMBER 4 – WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITORS? – MAKE THE SWOT

Have a good look around at your competitors. Look at what they do well online and also what you’d do differently. If you can know your competitors and understand what they are doing  – you can build a fantastic, award winningsite that is going to outshine them in every way. Research is simple these days. Ideally, in your industry, you’re going to know who your adversaries are. There are loads of tools out there that can help you find out about your competitor from an analytical point of view.

WORD OF WARNING

The figures are not always entirely accurate, but what will help is that you can analyse trends and get a feeling for what pages they have, whether they are running paid for ads etc.

You can see here that these guys are doing a great job. They’re getting fairly consistent organic search traffic (organic search). They’ve got a boatload of backlinks and just underneath that – their all-time trend is upwards.

This SEMRush report also shows you what search terms they’re being found under, which is invaluable. Interestingly, they have a LOT of pages. Many people feel that quantity is superior to quality. However, whilst it is good to have several posts of a good size on a website, it is about how deeply you understand and how useful your blog is to others.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR GOOGLE TO INDEX A BLOG POST?

Properly and thoroughly? Around 35 weeks. So this is not a quick fix. but it is a long term, stable and to getting found for the right reasons.

website development

NUMBER 5 – CHECK FOR DOMAIN AVAILABILITY – BUY YOUR DOMAIN

Be careful with your domain name – it’s for life not just for Christmas – choose wisely. It may sound strange, but so many people get carried away with naming their company before they’ve checked what’s available as a website domain.

A WORD ABOUT DOMAINS

Try and keep the domain as short as possible. Keep non-alpha-numeric characters to a minimum or, ideally don’t use them at all. The harder it is for someone to type in your domain, the less likely it is that you will receive the traffic.

I use LCN as my domain provider of choice, but there really are thousands to choose from. I’ve chosen my company name as Jones Engineering. I’m now checking the availability of the domains. Ohdear:

search engine optimisation

As you can see jonesengineering.com is not available, but simply adding a hyphen means that you could buy the domain below. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, not really. Because that hyphen could cost your business hundreds of visits per month – as it makes the domain less easy to find. Anything that could be missed or someone could use the wrong character spells disaster. Of course, you may have no choice. but be assured that the hyphen – or any other character that could be mistaken for something else could cost traffic.

web development

Important To Remember Your Credentials!

One of the single most frustrating things we have to deal with is clients who can’t find their log in details. It is so important to make sure you can locate them. Or, to make sure you have them ready before your website goes live. Otherwise, there will be long delays whilst you are trying to find them or get the passwords to reset.

NUMBER 6 – CREATE A PAPER SITEMAP OR MENU

Know your website plan before you start. Try some different configurations and don’t bamboozle your visitors. Before you touch that website design software or commission your development team, consider this. It is the website navigation comes from the core of your business. Some proper planning. Only you and your advisers can know your business inside out. It’s important to group your company into intuitive groups and consider each page of your site. Start with the home page. I normally use post-it notes to make it easy to move categories and pages around to get the right site map structure. You’ll see part of a planning session with one of our clients.

creative strategy

There are certain things that you NEED to have on a website. Sometimes it is tough to convince a client that they are needed. For example, who knew that an about web page is actually beneficial? Did you know that it is very likely Google Rankbrain algorithm uses this information to check off information inside your website and to understand what it is your business is about.

NUMBER 7 – IMAGES SPEAK 1000 WORDS VIDEO IS MORE – WHERE ARE YOUR IMAGES AND VIDEO?

If I see that lady with a headset on one more website homepage – I will do nasty things with a hammer to it’s designer. If you’ve ever looked at a website, as I have and played – find the call centre lady with the headset on – you probably, as I do, need to get out more! One of the single biggest giant killers in website development is the quality of the photos, the graphics and the omission of video content.

bad stock photos

PICTURES GRABBED FROM SEARCH ENGINES

I cannot understand why any company would prefer to have photos that they’ve nabbed off Google – yes people still feel it is acceptable to nab images from Google and use them on their own sites – despite the copyright warnings. For clarity: unless you have obtained explicit agreement from the person or company to use their images, you stand a chance of being pursued for a breach of copyright. I personally know of companies who ignored the warnings and ended up with a bill for thousands! As a photographer myself, I have also been a victim of this, and whilst I chose not to sue, it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Not only this, but they are often lower quality than you need. A bit-mappy, blocky, pixel ridden image is a friend to no one. Least of all your website visitors.

low resolution images

A QUICK WORD ON IMAGE LICENSES

Even photographs you have commissioned are not actually yours to do with as you choose – unless you have written agreement. You also cannot give them to other people to use without the consent of the photographer – or if you do – beware. Most creative companies will grant you a license for your business to use the imagery for the agreed purposes it was taken for. Even using it on another form of advertising may not be granted – so beware. Make sure you know who owns the images and ensure that you have been granted a license by paying for it.

WHY SHOULD YOU COMMISSION YOUR OWN IMAGES

Firstly, it makes your website unique. No one else can have your images, because well – you own them. Having your own photos really gives a personal touch to your creative output. It is distinctively you and your brand. Having images of your work, your team, your business is a great way to start the on-boarding process and getting buy-in from clients at an early stage. Often before they’ve even spoken to you.

WHAT ABOUT VIDEO

Over 80% of bandwidth on the internet is used by video. Ignoring this as a medium is quite frankly commercial suicide. It would be like having a book with blank pages. You’re missing an opporunityto reach people in a way more personal than ever before.

Videos are an amazing, affordable way to communicate your personality to your clients. By being seen, people can make a better judgement on how the fit will be between your businesses. It’s a great way to convey complicated ideas quickly and concisely. Not to mention showcasing your business in the best possible light. Videos are ideal for case studies, testimonials, step-by-steps and general business promotions.

ADD-IN CAPTIONS

Don’t forget that a lot of videos are now viewed with no volume. If you’re talking – make sure that your video is captioned to ensure that you are getting the most from your videos.

NUMBER 8 – WHO’S WRITING THE CONTENT? THE IMPORTANCE OF COPYWRITING

Copywriting is an artform. Don’t be glib. If you’re good at writing – then write. If you’re not – embrace it and get someone in who is. Much like images and video, the written word on your website is vital. It provides clear sign-posting as to what to do next. It gives people the opportunity to quietly understand what you’re all about and it draws in your visitors to stay a while longer. The idea of compelling copywriting as far as I can tell is this:

POSITIONS YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS AS THE AUTHORITY

Compelling, content will help to project the best about your business. It will have all of the answers. Great copy is consistent and always right. It doesn’t change it’s mind halfway through.

SHOWS THE PAIN AND THEN TAKES IT AWAY

As you probably know –  getting buyers to feel the pain is a way to highlight what you do and how you can make someone feel better after they’ve used your product or service. With clever text, you can get people to go through the gamut of emotions to allow them to feel compelled to take the next step.

GET’S YOUR ATTENTION

It’s a websites way of yelling “Oi!”. Getting your attention in the first place requires great copywriting. Getting people into your world is vital to the success of any website. Having a clever smart and succinct copywritten text will help visitors to understand that.

copywriting

MAKES THE PROSPECT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE TALKING TO THEM ONLY

Skilled copywriters know you don’t write for the masses. You write for one person, a singular reader, using benefit driven statements that show you’re about your clients and not about yourself. I have said this many times. So many companies concentrate on “we’ing” and not enough time “you’ing”.

NUMBER 9 – DO IT YOURSELF OR WEB DESIGNER?

If you’re time rich and money poor – have a go at designing yourself. Otherwise leave it to those who can do it for you. Business owners up and down the country – especially start-up businesses ask this question every day. Should I pay a Web Designer to create a website for me, or should I sit down and learn it all myself?

The honest answer is – it depends. If you are a new business and can afford it – it is probably better to let someone else do your web development – pay for the expertise and knowledge of what works and why. It’s also important to understand what doesn’t and why. Why? Because you need to be spending your time getting the customers you need to support your business. Most people don’t put a value on their own time in a newbusiness. Fact is it’s that time which is so precious and a resource that will run out – if you don’t attract buyers to your door. If you simply don’t have the money, don’t dream that a web designer is going to do you a favour and create the site of your dreams for peanuts. It’s just not going to happen. Or rather if it does it would likely happen for one of these reasons:

1) They’re doing it as a sideline

2) They’re new too and are learning on the job

3) They’re your friend and want to support you

4) They’re learning on the job

CAN I DEVELOP A SUCCESSFUL DIY WEBSITE IN MOONFRUIT, GODADDY, WIX, WEEBLY ETC?

Yes, you sure can. If you can dedicate the time, learning and energy into doing so – you could end up with something really quite presentable. Let’s face it WIXhost of 135 million websites – so they must be doing something right – and kudos to them. You can end up with some excellent results – IF you can source decent images, do a little design work yourself or have access to stock images and learn the platform. It is also important to note that there are some quite large menu limitations on some platforms like Wix that make it more difficult to develop once you’ve exceeded around 30 pages. So if you’re looking to keep growing your website – keep that in mind.

IF I’M NOT HAPPY CAN’T I JUST MOVE THE DIY WEBSITE I MADE ELSEWHERE

A little-known fact about these do it yourself site offers is that you have to pay every month – forever. Not just hosting, but to have the software updates that the company makes on that platform. Unlike a site that is developed in something like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc, where, if you wanted, you could back up that website and take it elsewhere – you are stuck with who you’ve chosen – paying what you’re paying – also the more functionality you want from these providers – the more they charge. Things like: e-stores, contact forms etc can be extra. Best to check with the platform you choose. This could be just fine – for some time and if you really have a drive or passion to understand how a website goes together – jump right in and have a go. If nothing else, you will be learning another skill. It is important to note however that web design is probably not why you’ve set your business up – it’s a bit like accountancy, you probably have the capability to do it – but just don’t have the time. Design, web design and marketing plans all fall into a similar category. They’re important to the business, but should you learn the skills or buy them in? That’s why many people hire an accountant to look after their interests – which is also where digital marketing companies come in – they make sure that a website works.

WIX IS FREE – SO THAT’S GOOD RIGHT?

Free things are great, aren’t they? There is, however, no such thing as a free lunch. Free lunches come with conditions. For example, the free offer that Wix gives is that you can build a website – with a reasonable amount of options and facilities and choose the template you’d like to use. The only issue is that you can’t use a domain of your choice – you have to use a sub-domain of Wix; which, let’s face it, doesn’t look very professional. Think about what level of service you will need from your provider and how much it may cost you moving forwards.

HOW FLEXIBLE ARE DO IT YOURSELF WEB SITES?

Those sites are quite flexible – and they offer quite a few options. Quite a few are paid for extra, but they are offered nonetheless. You normally have to choose a template quite early on in the design process and so making changes to that decision afterwards can be challenging (although not impossible). Because you are the judge and jury – you may change your mind several times as to what looks good and what doesn’t. Keep in mind that the further through you go – normally the more time consuming it is to change a design.

DO I NEED ANYTHING ELSE?

You’ll need a domain name like flok.marketing or mycompany.com. Make sure that you can use the domain with your chosen DIY website partner and if so, how much it will cost to do so. Some DIY providers offer an SSL certificate to prove that the site is who it claims to be – which is important for end-users – make sure your site is SSL compliant. It can also have a (small) positive impact on search engine rankings.

WHAT ABOUT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION FOR A DIY SITE LIKE WIX OR SQUARESPACE?

Sites like Weebly and WIX have made good progress in getting their sites well optimised on Google. In fact, WIX has gone as far as to seek endorsements from Google directly to prove how well their sites get optimised. SEO is not often, however, about how well or badly a site is built (although of course, it can be a factor). It is more about how the site is laid out and how well a client can navigate it.

WHAT IF I WANT A WEBSITE THAT IS A BIT DIFFERENT?

The issue with a DIY framework is that it can be quite constraining. Not just on your time, but also on future development. Because the code is not open source – i.e you can’t have access to it, there are some parts of that site you will never be able to see or change. Therefore, if you need something to show in a particular place and it doesn’t appear to offer that facility – you are probably stuck for a while. Before committing to a particular platform, check out some sites already developed in the system to ensure that you stand a chance of being able to get what you are seeking. Always check more than one option to see if one can do what you want better than the other. It sounds like common sense, but you’d be surprised as to how many people jump right in without considering the alternatives.

WHAT WOULD I GET IF I ENGAGE WITH A WEB DESIGNER?

You’re going to get Web Design experience – probably in bucket loads. Depending on the company you contact you may get contact from someone who has a marketing background who can advise you on the type of content you need to concentrate on. Also, what not to worry about. Depending on your industry there are some things that simply need to be included. The other thing is the layout. you’d be surprised how many own-developed websites miss out simple things like the phone number or email address. That’s like making a cake and then putting it straight outside for the birds to eat. Although – if you’ve tried my cooking – you may say that is the place for it. The other thing you get when you pay for a website is straight down the line advice on what is and isn’t possible and also what is possible and how much it would cost. The reality is that most things can be done – but they come at a price. It is for you to decide how important they are and whether it is worth spending that money so early on to achieve it. That is something only you can decide after listening to what the benefits would be.

WHO DESIGNS MY WEBSITE TO LOOK HOW I WANT IT TO

One of the most important things you get with a web designer developeris – the design. Sounds crazy to state it – but many people don’t understand. Unlike off the shelf solutions and templates, many designers like to present something that is created especially for you – from their understanding of your business. It should make your business stand out a mile from the competition. people should be able to take one look at your website and know whose it is. A designer can advise on colour palettes and typefaces to ensure that your message is clear, engaging and makes sense in the way people visit sites. They should also make sure that your site looks different. After talking with you, they should have an understanding as to how “hands-on” you would want to be with the website, therefore adding in or adjusting the levels of design on a page. Normally the more “design-y” a page is the harder it is to change from a layman’s perspective.

WHAT IS A CMS OR CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?

You’ve probably heard of people talking about WordPress, Joomla or Drupal? These are all CMS’s or content management systems. Which one is best? It depends on you, what you’re seeking to achieve and also to some degree your budget, as some take longer to develop than others. The CMS is what allows you and your team to access the text and images inside your website to add and change the content. A Website Developer Will Design, Create And Place the template (the look and feel) into a CMS and then add the content. Systems like WordPress are quite user-friendly and have many different plug-ins (or widgets) that help you to get more functionality. Some are free some you pay for.

NUMBER 10 – WHAT FUNCTIONS SHOULD MY WEBSITE PERFORM?

Your website is your best employee. Treat it well and it will give you years of service. Treat it badly and face the consequences. #loveyourwebsite.

This is quite a broad topic, but I’m going to write about this with a bit more of a helicopter view. What are you looking for it to do for you and your business? More importantly, what do you want it to do for your visitors?

Keep These In Mind:

LEAD MAGNET

When configured properly a website is a great lead magnet. You can get people to “reasonably do” what you’d like them to do – providing you make it clear enough. DON’T expect anyone to spend loads of money with you at the first touch point. Give them things to try and do that have no risk. Then build from there. Next level – make it something that might take a bit of time – or cost a small amount of money. Once they have confidence you can make the larger offers – but just don’t expect too much too soon – or you’ll be disappointed. The most important thing is to keep in contact.

BRAND ADVOCATE

A website is your best brand advocate. It never sleeps, never asks for a pay rise and never (rarely) goes sick. It is always on brand and always keeps to the script word-for-word. How can you best promote your brand on your website – to show the bestyou? Think about case studies, testimonials, video testimonials and whitepapers. All of those things and more show what a great business you are.

SLIDE DECK

As far as projects go – a website is the best place to showcase them! They’re instantly accessible. Easy to edit and quick to create. Make sure you have a great place to put your work and send people to it. I’m a HUGE believer in making sure it is YOU who control the experience.

EXPERIENCE CONTROL

It is far better thatpeople get to the place that you control the experience – quickly. Why? To avoid distraction and inaction. The issue with other channels is that you can’t tell what else they are seeing. On your website, you can. It’s like being in a private meeting with them at your office. you can show them all the good stuff – worry free that a video of a fluffy animal will pop up and grab their attention.

MAILING LIST

Everyone groans when they read about getting a mailing list together. but hold fire. I love the idea of having a great big mailing list. Why? Because it is MINE! It isn’t owned by a social media channel – it isn’t owned by another company it is actually mine and it always will be. For those of us who live in a GDPR world. Do not be put off by this – it is still possible to send emails to business owners. Build your list and a drip-feed and keep in touch!

NUMBER 11 – LIFE AFTER GO-LIVE – CONTINUING THE PROCESS

Dontleave your website alone after you’ve gone live. Keep improving it. Add blogs, pages and useful things for your visitors. It isn’t a paper catalogue – keep optimising it.

A lot of businesses feel that they can “tick the box” once the website content has been “finished”. Truth is that web development is NEVER FINISHED. Why? Because it should ALWAYS be updated, reviewed, added to and analysed.

1. Redirects

Check your website regularly for broken links. Links generally become broken over time when off-site content moves or is removed, or if you edit or delete urlson your own site. It’s totally normal. it must be said though, broken links breeds mistrust and make visitors question your site and credibility. How can this firm help my company if it can’t keep links working?

Broken links can also make it impossible for a visitor to complete a task. You may run a fabulous PPC campaign, drive traffic to your landing page and then lose the leads forever if the conversion links don’t work. Worse than that, you could be spending on a campaign that will yield nothing!

If you are using a content management system (CMS), plugins are available that will crawl your site and help to check for broken links. You can also conduct a manual review. When a broken link is found, either remove the link,or, if applicable, redirect it to newer content. It’s more advisable to replace with a new link.

2. Meta descriptions

The meta description is a snippet of text, usually around 160 characters, that appears beneath the website address in your search engine listing. The meta description is free advertising. It is your chance to present a summary that encourages users to click on your listing rather than anyone else.

It’s an important part of good housekeeping to keep your meta descriptions updated. Make sure they are relevant and address a visitor need. If you can, add an emotional hook. Avoid throwing in too many keywords and instead talk directly to your potential clients. As far as SEO goes meta descriptions don’t hold massive power at the moment.

3. Working navigation

Navigation can suffer the same fate as text links. Pages move or become obsolete, and navigation must follow. In addition to making sure your navigation works, check regularly to ensure that your top links still take visitors to your most relevant pages. You may need to add, redefine or remove links in order to take visitors to your best-performing pages. Simplicity in navigation is key. Don’t throw everything at a visitor at once. Instead, direct visitors strategically to your most valuable pages and work it out from there.

4. Image optimization 

Images need to be optimised in two ways. Always analyse for:

4a) Compression: All images should be exported for the web and compressed to the smallest usable size. Large images can negatively affect page load times, which is unsatisfactory to both Google and your visitors. They shouldn’t be any larger than they need to be. For this blog, I normally max out at 1000 pixels wide and then the relative height. JPEG is a good format and PNG for transparent backgrounds, although like for like they are larger. Make sure the dpi is set to around 100dpi. Much more and you’re starting to waste space.

4b) Alt text: Alt text provides the browser with descriptive (alternative) information about an image. Alt text should explain the image and its function on the page. For example, if you use an image as a link, your alt text should tell visitors the image is a link, and to where. People with visual impairment who use screen readers will have alt text read to them, which enhances your website’s accessibility.

5. Don’t Forget The Calls to action

Website calls to action are critical to lead generation. Each page should contain a clear call to action to keep the visitor moving.

Each page should have a limited number of calls to action – maybe 1 to 3. If you give a visitor too many options, they may become overwhelmed and not make a choice at all. Be sure that each of your calls to action is clear and specific and directs visitors to make the choice that is most valuable to your business.

6. Up-to-date contact details

As a user, one of the most frustrating oversights is a lack of easily accessible contact information on a website. Some visitors will welcome filling out a form, but others will want to talk to you directly. Your phone number should be visible on every page, in text and not in an image. This is especially critical for smartphone visitors. Ideally – it should be a call link whcihallows you to press the number to call up. If you’re advertising a number – put it at the top of the page.

Other visitors may use your website as a resource for an address, directions and parking options. Are you taking them to your current office or an old one? Contact details should also include information about hours and whether office visits are by appointment only.

Use schema markup on your contact information. Schema markup describes your content to search engines. Google looks for this markup when creating local listings – it can also help in your placement in Google maps.

7. Working forms

Can visitors actually submit the forms on your website? Sometimes errors — particularly captcha errors — can prevent a form from being submitted. Are submissions going to the correct email addresses?

Always test forms regularly. Also, make sure any required input fields are clearly marked and that error messages for incorrectly filled fields are obvious. Make sure that the forms don’t end up in your junk mail. It’s an occupational hazard these days. Getting a good SMTP service will help.

8. Analytics

Every professional website should monitor visitors. Google Analytics is the leader in this field; it is free, relatively easy to use and highly customizable. Google Analytics provides a wealth of data about your visitors. You can see who is on your website in real time, and the data help you understand what advertising campaigns and individual pages are performing. I also use Lucky Orange – which can heatmap and also record sessions – which helps identify good and bad spots on your website.

9. Readable content

Quality content is important. It must answer questions, offer benefits and be clearly directed at potential clients.

Technically, however, visitors need to be able to read your content. Is the font big enough? Is the space between lines large enough to make the lines easy to read but not so large that paragraphs have massive gaps? Keep colours plain – black or white is good. Light colours otherwise.

To accommodate online readers, your content should also be broken into short paragraphs and separated with subheads and bulleted lists. Website readers scan, so your most important information should be at the top — in your headlines and the first sentence of each paragraph.

10. Information about you

Believe it or not, about pages are quite important for the Google Rankbrain algorithm. It matches what you blog about with what is in your about page. Also, make sure that you keep it up to date with staff hires and fires too.

I hope that you’ve found this useful. Leave a comment below to tell me which of these steps you are going to implement to bring you closer to the website that is going to change your business.

The BOTS Are Coming

GENERATION BOT

We’re currently experimenting with Facebook Bots. It’s a great way of both promoting your business and helping your visitors without actually needing to be on the end of a mobile device or PC. The beauty of a bot is that you can create a visitor experience flow – that gives the visitor a rounded view of both your business and personality as well as consistency.

MEET KOLF.

We’ve started the journey and plan to add even more to our BOT we’ve called – Kolf. Kolf is there all day every day to answer questions from how to find us to help you find what you might need out of a digital marketing agency.

You can interact with Kolf Here.