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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.

Digital marketing resources

New Year, New Website!

08/18/202201/04/2022 by scmarketing

It’s the new year and a time for resolutions. For small business owners now is the time to set your goals for your business growth plans. As part of your new year’s resolutions perhaps it’s time to refresh your website?

At the centre of your digital world is your website, but so often we hear that website’s are difficult to navigate and visitors leave all too quickly before a lead capture form is completed. So, is it time for a website refresh? Here’s our top tips for a review of your current site to understand what you need to consider for creating a quality website that will be found in search engine results pages.

1. Build your website with a good CMS

2. Simple and engaging content

Review all your marketing collateral and decide what you’ll use on the website and what needs to be cut out. For an accountancy firm, think about the services you offer and provide clear, precise information about each. If you think of who your target client is, then write content that speaks to them.

3. Easy website navigation

4. Call 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 take action such as download a form or ebook or sign up to a newsletter while collecting an contact email address to build your database.

5. Imagery

This forms part of your content too. It makes the website more engaging and easier on the eye. But don’t forget to use the right size as too large and this could impact on the speed of your website loading. Does your current website have good imagery that reflects your brand well?

6. Blog

Does your website have a blog? A blog is vital for a business website to be seen in organic google search. Why? 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.

7. Website optimisation

When it comes to digital marketing, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is probably something you often hear about, but why is it so important for your website? Optimising your site can help your website be found in search engine results pages (SERPs) such as Google or Bing. Any 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. You can read more about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) here.

8. Back up your website!

If you’ve not already been regularly backing up your website, add this to your new year’s resolutions. If you’ve worked thorugh this list of considerations for your website and feel that you need to create a new site then make sure that your web designer incorporates regular back ups as part of their process and ongoing management fee.

Is it time you had a new website?

If you can get all this working yourself, then you will be off to a great start. However, if you need help with your website design and development book a consultation with us.

8 ways to refresh your website

03/11/202103/05/2021 by scmarketing

Online presence is vital today more than ever and your website should be at the heart of all that you do online. Whether you create social media posts, distribute email marketing or run a PPC campaign, all these digital marketing tactics should lead to one place, your website.

The more links back will help you in search engine results pages. However, you need to take stock and check whether your website is as up to date as you think it should be?

Here’s our tips and quick fixes for an effective website refresh to help engage with visitors and keep them on your website for longer.

1. Is your website easy to navigate?

Check your menu and whether it is easy to navigate. Since you created your website you may have introduced new services and products so does your menu reflect this?

Take a step back and look at your website through the eyes of your target audience, If you find that you reach a few dead ends when you move from page to page now is the time to think about adding in more internal links, calls to action and updating your menu.

2. Review your content, contact details and links

It may sound obvious but is your website content up to date? Does it truly reflect your service offering to your target audience? If you’ve streamlined or added services or products then you need to update your website.

Make sure that all your contact details including social media handles are up to date.

Check that any links you have on your website are working.

3. Add content to a blog

If you already have a blog then great. But when was the last time you added content? A blog or news web page is a great way to add fresh content to your website – which search engines love!

Creating fresh, unique and relevant content for your target audience is a key tactic in any long-term search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. So, get creating!

It may seem a little daunting at first so stick with what you know and talk about how your products and services can solve a challenge for your target audience. Read more on how to write a blog to help you with your content.

If you don’t already have a blog page you should easily be able to create a new page especially if you have a content managed system (CMS) website.

4. Add new images

Are your images a little dated and impacting on your brand? A simple change of banner images is a quick way to inject colour for a visual refresh. And, adding video content can really help with engagement.

You can purchase stock imagery which is a cost-effective solution and ensures that you adhere to copyright rules (do not use Google images as your source, any images online will all carry copyright and you could incur penalties).

5. Backend updates

A website redesign or refresh is all about attracting potential customers to your website and keeping them on your site for longer. So, your SEO strategy is important to help your business be seen online. With that in mind, make sure that you have completed your meta descriptions, H/H2 headers and alt tags to help with website optimisation.

6. Mobile optimised

If you created your website sometime ago, check that it is mobile optimised. View your website on your smart phone and see how it looks. Is the menu visible and contact forms easy to fill out? A website must be mobile friendly as that’s where a lot of web traffic originates so if your site isn’t mobile friendly it could impact your results in organic search.

7. Update and add calls to action

A bold call to action stands out on your page. It guides a prospect in what to do, whether that’s ‘call’, ‘complete our form’, ‘book a meeting’, ‘sign up to our newsletter’, ‘download our eBook’. All these actions not only aid navigation but encourage website users to engage further by taking action.

8. Free website review

Take advantage of Smart Cow Marketing’s free website review to help you on your road to refreshing your website. If you need a hand fixing any issues talk to us and we can provide a quote for a web refresh or discuss options for a new website design.

Web design Croydon

We provide website design services for local businesses in Croydon and across Greater London helping to create high quality responsive websites as well as online marketing services for lead generation.

We create responsive, optimised, Content Managed System (CMS) websites. This gives a lot of flexibility for future blog uploads through to landing page creations for new products or services.

Does a website need a sitemap?

08/19/202202/24/2021 by scmarketing

A sitemap is created for a website to provide an overview of the website and what can be found on it. Think of it as a road map with sign posts to help search engines find it and therefore help to attract web visitors.

An sitemap is an important factor for ranking your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs) such as Google. This list of all your webpages helps to give access to web crawlers. Ultimately, a sitemap helps navigation around your website for both visitors and search engines.

Sitemaps allow web developers to list links from the website so that both search engines and people can find a website. A sitemap means that pages such as forms or login pages can also be listed therefore helping search engine crawlers find the pages.

Why easy web navigation helps with SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a key success factor in creating a website. In order to optimise your website, you need to start with the foundations of your website including your sitemap.

The two different sitemaps are XML files (for search engine crawlers) and HTML (for people to improve navigation for visitors).

A search engine optimised sitemap provides easy navigation capability. It means visitors (both search engine and human) should be able to find what they need without having to access multiple web pages.

If a website user can access website information easily, then there is more chance that they will revisit, share the website details and recommend your products or services. This sitemap helps to create this user-friendly experience to attract more web traffic.

When should you develop a sitemap

Ideally, a sitemap should be developed at design stage in collaboration with your web developer. A proposal for a website should reference website optimisation and a sitemap should form part of this.

Our blog on web design guidelines can help you create an attractive website, it covers:

What functionality the website should have
Website design considerations
SEO
Website security

Website design Croydon

We’re a web developer and designer based in Croydon. We work with local businesses to develop websites that are optimised. We provide a professional web design service to your specification or we can update your current website. We create CMS platform (content management system) websites as this provides an easy option to upload future content and make changes going forward. Book a consultation.

Why not take advantage of our FREE website review so you can look at ways to optimise your website.

Website design and development is part of our overall digital marketing agency services to help businesses improve online presence. Our services include:- SEO audits, SEO strategy, local SEO, social media, email marketing and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.