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What makes a good website design?

11/01/2023 by scmarketing

As a small business owner, you’re well aware the importance of having an effective online presence which can make a huge difference to your business in attracting and retaining business. One of the key aspects of creating a good online presence is with great website design. A website that’s user-friendly, visually appealing, and easy to navigate can go a long way in engaging with potential customers. But it can be challenging to know where to begin.

In this blog, we’ll break down some of the key elements of effective website design for small businesses.

1. Establish your goals

Before you start designing your website, it’s important to establish your goals. What do you want to achieve with your website? Do you want to increase sales, generate leads, or provide information about your product or service? Once you know what you want to accomplish with your website, you can begin to create a plan for how to achieve those goals.

2. Choose the right platform

There are many different options available, from content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress through to custom-built websites using HTML and CSS. It’s important to consider the features of each platform, as well as which one best fits your budget and technical abilities.

3. Design a user-friendly layout with clear navigation

Once you’ve chosen a platform for building your website, it’s time to start designing the layout of the site. When creating a user-friendly layout, there are several factors that should be taken into account such as navigation menus, page structure, and visual hierarchy.

The goal is to create an intuitive design that allows visitors, as well as search engines such as Google, to navigate your website simply, intuitively, and easily. It should guide your web visitors through your site and help them to find what they need quickly and efficiently. Visitors to your website should be able to find the information they’re looking for without being confused or lost. Therefore, a clean, concise, and well-organised navigation menu can improve your user experience.

A well-designed website encourages users to stay on your site longer and explore what you have to offer much more. A user-friendly design incorporates the use of easy-to-read fonts, contrasting colours, and effective images.

4. Effective branding

Your website is the face of your business, and it’s essential that your website embodies your branding. Your site’s colour schemes, logo, and message should complement your business’s branding. Consistency is critical, and it ensures that your customers can quickly recognise your brand when they come across your site. This will go a long way in building brand trust for your business.

5. Visual elements that are on brand

Visual elements such as images and videos can help make your website more engaging and memorable for visitors. When selecting visuals for your website, it’s important to keep in mind the overall look and feel of the website as well as any brand guidelines that need to be followed.

Use high-quality visuals that will look great on all devices and screen sizes.

6. Responsive design

With the rise of mobile and tablet browsing, responsive design is essential. It should automatically adjust to the size of the screen on which it is being viewed.

Most people now use mobile devices to access the internet rather than a desktop computer. So, it’s important to optimise your website for all devices. This helps to make your site more accessible to a wider audience.

7. Incorporate SEO strategies

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is also important to consider as part of creating your online presence and incorporated into a website design from the beginning stages of web development.

By optimising titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, URLs. And, don’t forget clear call to actions. This all goes to making it easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index your webpages so they appear in search results when people are looking for products or services related to yours.

8. Quality and relevant content

Your content will form part of your ongoing SEO strategy. A website’s content is the driving force behind web traffic generation, and it’s important that your content should be of high quality. Content should be relevant, informative, and engaging so that it attracts and keeps your visitors’ attention.

By creating quality, regular and relevant content, you can attract and retain more web visitors. You can also reduce website bounce rates and help to boost your website ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

9. Optimise your website for speed

Page loading speed is an important factor when it comes to user experience on websites. If web pages take too long load users may become frustrated or leave before completing their desired action on the site such as making a purchase or booking an appointment.

10. Test your website

Before making your website live, it’s important that you test it thoroughly first. Check everything is working properly including buttons and links ensuring there are no errors or bugs present on the site.

This includes testing all functionality such as form submission or ecommerce checkout processes as well as ensuring all links are working correctly so visitors don’t get stuck navigating around the website unnecessarily.

11. Monitor performance & make adjustments as needed

It’s important that you monitor performance metrics on an ongoing basis. Understanding metrics such as page views, bounce rate or conversion rate will allow you to identify areas where improvements can be made in order increase engagement with visitors.

Web design Croydon

To create an effective website that helps your business grow, you must first understand what makes a good website design. From clear navigation to quality content, responsive design, and effective branding, your website must cater to your target audience’s needs, keeping their experience smooth and simple as possible. A well-designed website can increase your visibility, boost your brand’s awareness, and generate revenue.

Get in touch about our website design SEO services in Croydon. As a digital marketing agency business in Croydon, we can also provide local businesses with marketing support including social media marketing; pay per click advertising and ongoing SEO services.

How to estimate the cost of creating a website

10/04/202307/26/2023 by scmarketing

Creating a website can be a time-consuming and expensive process. As a small business owner, you may be wondering how you can determine the cost of building a website without breaking the bank.

Fortunately, Smart Cow Marketing has developed a simple, easy-to-use pricing calculator that gives you an estimate of the cost of creating a website quickly. Here, we explain how our website pricing calculator works and how it can help you make informed decisions about your online presence.

Website pricing calculator

Our pricing calculator is designed to ensure that our clients can make informed decisions about their investment in their online presence. Our experienced team of digital marketing experts has taken the time to develop this accurate pricing calculator that takes into account various factors.

Using our website pricing calculator is a practical and straightforward way to get a quick estimate for your website. Once you enter the type of website you need, whether brochure, e-commerce, select your design preferences, and other add-ons you may require, our calculator will give you a fast estimate of the cost of building your website.

Who we design websites for

Our pricing calculator is specifically designed to cater to small to medium-sized businesses, online stores, and other local firms that need to build an online presence. We understand the importance of creating a website that reflects your unique business needs. That’s why our pricing calculator takes into account essential factors such as your business goals, target audience, and design preferences.

Our pricing calculator provides you with a quick estimate that is transparent and customisable to meet your budget and unique business needs.

Working with a Croydon web designer

A website is a valuable asset to any business, and investing in building one is crucial to your online success. Our website pricing calculator is designed to ensure that you can make an informed decision about your online investment. We understand that as a small business owner, you have unique business requirements and budget constraints. Trust us to create a professional website that is customised to meet your needs without breaking the bank.

How Much For a Website

06/07/202305/06/2023 by scmarketing

When it comes to developing a website, one of the most frequently asked questions is “How much will it cost?” Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a bit like asking “How long is a piece of string?” There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, as there are many factors that can impact the cost of website development.

Firstly, what type of website do you need? A plain brochure site with basic information will cost much less than a membership site or an e-commerce platform. For example, a simple brochure website can cost from £1500, while an e-commerce website with multiple products will cost from around £3000.

Next, consider how many pages you want on the website. Have you already got the content, text and images for those pages ready or do you need those elements created?

If you’re selling products, the number of products will also impact the cost of the website. A large inventory will require more development work and therefore increase your costs.

Additional features, such as a blog, accessibility settings, email boxes, domain name, and logo can add to the cost of development work. However, these features can also increase your website’s functionality, making it more valuable for your business and its customers.

When it comes down to it, there’s no definitive answer as to how much a website should cost. It really does depend on a variety of factors. That said, smart website development firms can provide website cost estimation tools to ensure that you get an accurate assessment of costs before engaging. At Smart Cow Marketing, we offer a website price estimator on our website to help you get an idea of what your project will cost.

Website Calculator

Essentially, the cost to develop a website will always depend on individual requirements, features, and complexity. But with a little homework, a consultation with a website development professional, and by using our website price estimator, you should be able to get a better understanding of the costs involved and start on the road to achieving your online goals.

9 web design tips

05/03/202405/04/2023 by scmarketing

Your website is your shop window for your prospects and existing clients. It should attract and engage visitors to keep them on your website for as long as possible.

Clear and bold call to actions with simple messaging and an easy to navigate menu is a solid foundation to build your website on.

If you’re looking for a new website to be designed and developed to help grow your business as part of your wider marketing strategy, here’s our top web design tips for businesses to consider.

1. Build your website with a good CMS

You need a good framework to build your website on. These days that means using Content Management Systems (CMS). Once the website is designed and developed, it enables easy upload of information so that content updates can be managed by you or a digital marketing agency.

2. Simple and engaging content

Review all your company information including your ‘about us’, case studies, product information, contact details and pricing. No is the perfect time to update everything. Read your content and ask yourself is it clear, accurate and informative. If you think of who your target client is, then write content that speaks to them.

Make sure that your URL for these pages says exactly what’s being talked about on the page as this help with SEO. So, if you’re an accountancy firm talking about Corporation Tax or Self-employment tax, name the specific URL just that.

3. Easy website navigation

When you design the menu and site map, think about the layout and whether it’s relevant and easy to navigate. You want visitors to find things quickly to help reduce the bounce rate and to keep them looking through your website for longer.

4. Calls to action

It’s not just about a clear menu, but it’s also about adding clear call to action buttons. These are often used for inbound marketing campaigns to drive visitors to: ‘download ebooks’; ‘sign up to a newsletter’; ‘book a consultation’.

5. Images

This forms part of your content too. It makes the website more engaging and easier on the eye. But don’t forget to upload the right size as too large and this could impact on the speed of your website loading and affect your SEO. Resize images so they are under 1200pixels wide. You can also install a plugin that means that whoever uploads an image to your CMS website it will automatically be resized.

6. Should websites have a blog?

Absolutely! A blog is vital for a business website to be seen in organic google search because it provides a dedicated space for uploading fresh content regularly. This keeps the website up to date and engaging for prospects, current clients and also the search engines.

The one job of a search engine is to get the best result for the person searching for a particular term. Therefore, providing content with helpful tips, advice and links, will help your website rise in the search rankings.

7. Be targeted

Your website needs to appeal to your target audience. We refer to this as an online persona which is a made up stereotypical customer. So, this is where a blog page can allow you to create specific content which answers the challenges of your audience.

8. Optimise your website

Any digital marketing agency you work with will tell you about Meta Descriptions, Alt Tags and H1/H2 headings. A web designer can provide you with simple training on this once your website has been developed. Or you can engage a digital marketing agency to manage this for you moving forward.

9. Back up your website

Most CMS websites provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Do what you can to make it safe. A digital marketing agency that designs websites will usually incorporate regular backs ups into their ongoing management fee, so make sure you ask about this when you look to engage a web developer.

Web Design Consultant Croydon

If you’re a Croydon business and need help with your website design and development book a free consultation with the Smart Cow marketing team. As an inbound marketing agency in Croydon, we create and design websites for accountants and the local businesses.