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Tips to improve website design

12/22/202405/19/2020 by scmarketing

Your website is the centre of your digital world. All digital marketing activity should be focussed on pushing traffic back to your website. Your web design therefore should be attractive to your target audience. The aim is to keep your visitors on your website for longer, providing them with the information you know they want to read about.

Improving your web design can help the user experience of your website and therefore in turn generate more quality leads as visitors sign up for newsletters, download ebooks and request a consultation. All this activity helps you to engage down the line with prospects that are interested to hear from you thus making this a successful inbound marketing strategy.

With this in mind, here’s some top tips to help you with your web design to encourage engagement from quality leads.

White space

Don’t just pack your website with reams information. Be selective, make every word count. Think of how you feel when bombarded with lots of content. It takes the appeal away of staying on the website and browsing further as you try desperately to take on board what it’s saying.

Think of how much calmer you feel when you see space around paragraphs and images. It keeps you focussed. The headings start to stand out along with the calls to action which are enticing you to do something.

Headlines that include keywords

As a website designer and content manager, you’ll often hear us talk about keywords to optimise your website. Your headings on your website are perhaps the most important places for your keywords.

By now you will have created your online buyer persona. In doing so you will know what your target audience is looking for. Therefore, this is the information you need to weave into your headlines. It’s not just about making the design of your headings stand out on the page, it’s also about the content.

If you need help with creating an online buyer persona, read our blog for more information.

Bold calls to action

A good Call to Action (CTA) helps a user navigate a website. Bold and clear actions will entice your visitors to stay on your site longer and ‘take action’.

Read our blog for further top tips for calls to actions.

Add bullet points

Your content should be tailored for your target audience. Provide them with answers to the challenges they’re facing. Make their experience of your website as personal as possible. Ensure your products and services answer their needs.

So why are we including content within web design? What’s key, once again, is making content easy to read. While you need to ensure you have all the vital information showing on the web page, the layout needs to be easy to read. Add bullet points and breakdown lengthy paragraphs. Separate with images to make it attractive. But don’t forget the all-important calls to actions. This is something that a web design agency can help you with at design stage.

Be consistent

Continue your website theme throughout the design of your website. All pages need to be consistent. Similar imagery, same font (size and style), colours and an easy to navigate menu. Visitors will warm to the consistency and it can help keep people on the site for longer as they easily search for what they need.

Web design Croydon

This had been a very quick overview of some of the key things to consider when embarking on a website design or redesign.

If you need help with updates for your website or require a new content managed (CMS) web design such as WordPress websites, then get in touch with us. We’re a WordPress design company in Croydon providing web design for accountants and businesses in the Croydon area and London as well as digital marketing services including Search Engine Optimisation for ongoing website optimisation to improve online presence and visibility in local search.

Once a web design proposal is agreed, we will work on the theme and provide you with a wireframe. This means you can see the look and feel of your new site in advance so that you can make tweaks before it is built.

Website design and development resources

Man working on laptop using marketing automation

Digital marketing tips to help your business during coronavirus

12/22/202404/28/2020 by scmarketing

Regardless of whether your business was already embracing the virtual world, or you were just starting out in the digital world, one this is for certain, these times have highlighted the need for online presence and maintaining it.

So, we’ve gathered a few tips for you to action now to optimise your website to help improve your search engine rankings and online visibility.

If you need a hand with any digital marketing activity just drop us a line as we offer free consultations and free website reviews. These can really highlight areas specific for you to implement.

Website review

Once a website is built, you’ve got to maintain it with up to date content. The hospitality industry has already had to change the way they do business quickly to offer takeaway and delivery services. Whatever your business, you and your customers are being impacted. So, take a few moments to see that you are offering the right advice on your website. Makes sure you’re being informative and a thought leader. Add a simple message to the homepage of your website about your opening hours, how to contact your team and ‘business as usual’ even though working remotely.

Check your content details are up to date. The last thing you want is clients unable to get through to you when it may just mean a simple update of an out of office contact number. For most businesses, the use of VOIP phones mean no disruption when remote working. But it could be a simple overlook of not checking your website that could prevent business coming your way.

Also make sure you have ease of navigation across your side. Internal link building can help the flow for a visitor. So, see where you can add links to other web pages on your site so that it’s easier to move from one page to another by just clicking a link.

Specific content marketing plan

Review your content marketing plan, from blogs through to social media posts and offers. Make sure you’re answering your target audience’s specific challenges during this time.

Think of the challenges and draw up a specific marketing plan for the next couple of months, if you haven’t already. Schedule planned content on specific themes to help your clients and prospects. With constant change in our everyday, revisit your plan regularly and adjust creating content accordingly. During these times you may find a ‘news jack’ offers timely advice as well as links to great resources.

Search Engine Optimisation

This is at the core of your content marketing plan and website updates. A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is about getting your website seen. Now more than ever, you should make sure that you implement a few processes to continue moving forward.

Get your technical backend SEO sorted and up to date. This includes Meta Descriptions, Alt Tags, Meta title tag (H1 and H2 headers). Do this now and continue to do so. This helps your website in search engine rankings and is particularly good for local search.

Create at least a couple of blogs a month, if not more, to help with adding fresh content to your website. All the time think about what you want to be found for – those are your keywords you want to weave into your content. This keyword research will help with where you appear in the search engine result pages.

Social media marketing

Keep on sharing posts on your social channels throughout this time. Keep communicating with your followers letting know any business changes, how you can help them.

Take a moment to review of your channels. LinkedIn is great for networking but so often we’ve found that business profiles aren’t updated as best as they could. Add as much detail as you can about your business. Start following relevant hashtags and join groups. Start engaging. We’ve certainly noticed that engagement has increased as more and more people are reaching out as they find that the business world they were used to has changed.

Be thoughtful of your content. Share articles you found interesting. And, use imagery to help your posts stand out.

Video and webinars

Talk directly to your audience. You can make videos efficiently, simply and at no extra cost on your mobile phone.

Repurpose content from your blogs and make short and snappy videos to accompany them to bring your social posts to life and your web pages.

Read our blog on using video for business for tips on setting up videos for your business for some useful dos and don’ts.

Seek out local networking groups and see if you can create beneficial webinars for fellow members which can be hosted via channels such as Zoom.

We’re a member of London Chamber and will soon, be hosting a webinar on How to grow your business through online lead generation on 20^th May at 12:45. We’ll post details of how to register to join in due course.

Free resources

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon and we have the following resources you can draw on during this time. Get in touch with us today to talk through your requirements.

Free website review: Find out how to improve your website’s performance.

Free digital marketing consultation: Our Free consultation should be between 15 and 30 minutes. The goal is to provide you with thoughts on how to start an effective marketing campaign and for us both to see if it would benefit your firm. No obligation at all, we just want the best for you.

Tips for using images for digital marketing

12/27/202403/18/2020 by scmarketing

With 70% of YouTube viewers watching videos for “help with a problem” whether for their hobby, studies, or job, there’s not getting away from the fact that visual content is key for a digital marketing campaign.

And, with 62% of B2B marketers rating video as an effective content marketing tactic, here’s some top tips for using visual content on your website and part of your digital marketing strategy.

Website imagery

Imagery is engaging for a website visitor, it breaks up a page, helps maintain interest and importantly keeps people on a website for longer. So make sure you’ve incorporating imagery into your website design. For a good website design having a consistent look and feel for images or video you produce provides the perfect solution for a digital marketing campaign. You can repurpose imagery across channels from website through to social media channels and eshot campaigns. It helps to build your brand identity and therefore awareness and importantly trust.

Social media

IMaintain consistency with your website for all of your online marketing activity. For successful social media marketing create a header image to be used across all social media platforms, this is certainly relevant for Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. However, resize them for the respective channel. Here’s a summary of image sizes for the popular social channels:

Facebook
- Profile picture – 180 x 180 pixels
- Cover photo image – 820 x 312 pixels
- Social post image – 1,200 x 630 pixels
Twitter
- Profile picture – 400 x 400 pixels
- Header image – 1,500 x 500 pixels
- Social post image – 440 x 220 pixels
LinkedIn
- Company logo – 300 x 300 pixels
- Cover image – 1536 x 768 pixels
- Shared image – 1104 x 736 pixels
Instagram
- Profile picture – 110×110 pixels
- Photos – 1,080 x 1,080 pixels

Best to use either jpeg or PNG file format.

Video

Smart phones today are amazing. The technology allows you to create short and snappy videos that are ideal for sharing on social.

We find that doing face to camera at events is a nice informal way to chat to your audience. You don’t have to be clever about it with special effects, it’s what you’re saying that’s important. If you attend a regular networking event and feel your audience would benefit from joining themselves, then tell them why they should attend. Give stats on the number of people who attend, how many businesses are signed up to the group and give an overview of what to expect from the event. All this done in a short face to camera video that can be easily uploaded to social media.

Use images as your content marketing

If you have blogs, case studies create unique images or use email marketing. You could utilise quotes from a case study to help create stand out on social media but also to entice people to click the link and read the full story. Ultimately the goal is to attract people to your website and images help create standout.

Be aware of copyright

A word of warning though, do not use images from Google for any campaign. Images come with copyright and you will not have permission to use them if you take them from anywhere online. Either take pictures or video yourself, phone cameras are so good these days. Or, use a reputable stock library to source these from such as Adobe, Shutterstock or Envato.

Digital marketing strategy for Croydon businesess

If you need a hand with images and how these can work within your overall marketing strategy then get in touch. We can help you create a holistic digital marketing campaign including eye-catching images and video. This along with other digital marketing services we offer will improve your search engine optimisation and more traffic heading towards your website.

If you’re looking for a market leading digital marketing agency in London, we’re specialists in online marketing providing services for digital marketing in Croydon businesses and beyond.

8 website tips specific for Accountants in London

12/22/202403/17/2020 by scmarketing

With the top 15 accounting firms in the UK based in London having a strong online presence is key, this means having a website that focuses on the USPs of your practice. This is not only important to attract new clients but also to retain your current client base.

So, we’ve gathered a few top tips on what accountants should consider for their website. Whether you’re looking to refresh what you have or wanting a brand-new website, here’s some thoughts for accountants to factor into their digital marketing strategy.

SEO

Search engine marketing is critical; you want to be found online when clients search for your business. Therefore, a well optimised website is the first trick of the trade. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) takes time but some essentials to cover off with your web developer will be:

Make sure images are the right size and you have completed the alt tag on the backend
Complete your H1, H2 headers etc., this helps search engines work out the theme of the page to return the right answers to the searcher.
Complete your meta descriptions – this neat little paragraph is what is read when you search online.

Easy navigation

Review your current site map and if you’re starting from scratch make sure that it’s clear and call to actions are bold. Be obvious about what you’re asking a visitor to your site to do. Is it easy for them to find your list of accounting services? Help them move around your website with ease. On top of being clear and concise it shows good customer service for anyone visiting your site.

Blog

As an accountancy firm, you probably think that a blog isn’t relevant to you. Think again! If you don’t have a blog or news page, now’s the time to introduce one.

If you already have a Content Management System (CMS) this should be relatively easy to add to your menu. The importance of this page is that it’s a great place to keep content fresh on a website and search engines like new content.

Content marketing

You need to be thinking about content that will be useful to your potential customers that they start to use you as a go to site for information. Go into detail about the services so people understand whether this is something they should have and this also has a great effect on search results too. Talk about key accounting deadlines in the year, remind people of them too. Also keep them up to date with latest changes to legislation and tax rules. Content can be published in the form of blogs, email campaigns, website pages, or social media marketing (for accountancy marketing LinkedIn would be a appropriate platform to you.).

Be image led

Business owners may think this isnot relevant for an accountancy firm. But images are a key part in any digital marketing campaign. Why? They not only create stand out, but they provide consistency to create a holistic marketing campaign. A good mix of images and video placed on your landing pages alongside your content and relevant keywords really brings a webpage to life. Plus, you can repurpose your images to share on social media to really help your posts stand out.

And, if you follow our tips about optimising your images then it helps with search engines finding your site.

Understand what your website visitor wants

Downloadable information such as ebooks or forms to complete to be added to an email database are great ways to know what your visitor is interested in for when you next engage with them. This helps to build rapport and to move them through your pipeline from lead to client.

We’re a hubspot partner firm and would be able to guide you through the benefits of a lead generation Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for your marketing services so your firm can prevent data silos allowing different teams the ability to see what’s in the pipeline to work effectively on leads and to grow existing clients.

Be safe

Most CMS provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Unfortunately, with web robots (automated programs) checking thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner it’s important to do as much as you can to make it safe. Talk through the options with your web developer such as the SSL certificate and captcha forms for your website

Free website review

Smart Cow is a digital agency for accountants. This is just a small overview of digital marketing for accountants in London. If you have questions about online marketing or would like a free website review which will highlight any areas that may need work on, get in touch.

8 Tips to improve marketing for accountants in London

Where can I find the best web designer in Croydon