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Website design and development

Where can I find the best web designer in Croydon?

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Your website is your sales pitch to potential clients. The look and feel of your website are therefore vital to attract the target audience for your business. So, once you’ve ascertained that your website may need a little update, how should you go about finding a web design company in Croydon to help your business stand out in the online world?

Here’s our advice of what web design services you should cover off with your developer so that you can build a great website.  

CMS

Build a bespoke website with a good Content Managed System (CMS). This means that once the website is built and with a little training, you can manage the upload of content yourself.

Easy navigation

Make sure the navigation and menu of your website are easy to read and navigate. Any page of importance should be no more than two clicks – preferably one click – from the homepage.

Using pillar pages will help you structure your site map. The titles of these pillar pages will also be the names of the URL. Really think about these as this is what you want to be found for. So, think carefully about your core offering so you can get this menu right at design stage.

Call to action buttons, strategically placed on pages will really help with engagement and your visitor’s movement around the website. As will white space. Don’t be too cluttered.

Content marketing

Web Design CroydonWhen you embark on creating your website it’s a great time to review your current collateral and what should be on the website and what shouldn’t. It can also highlight gaps that you need to fill. If you look at your competitors – how are they talking about their services? What’s missing from your website?

Optimise your website

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 to improve your search results. This means they can keep an eye on your keywords for you. But this is for another blog. You can read more about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Be visual

Images must not only be relevant, in focus and look good, they must also be optimised for your wordpress website. A developer should be doing this for you when they upload the images. This means they are the right size for the website and will help with the site speed by not being too large. These will also help with viability when sharing on social media such as Facebook and twitter

Research indicates that marketers using video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users (Source: Wordstream). Video is therefore great for engagement. Placing video toward the top of a page, so that it is seen straight away, has been known to keep visitors on pages longer.

Back up your website

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.

Get your website seen

This is just a short overview. If you’d like to chat about your current website if you’re looking to design and build a new one or generally about design services in Croydon, get in touch today and our website designer and developer can look at the best options for your business and how we would work closely to get the best results for your online presence.

Web Design Croydon

Smart Cow is a top online marketing and web design agency in Croydon that fully understands your requirements and provides user friendly websites and professional web design for accountants and local businesses at affordable prices.

Website design and development

10 useful tips on websites for accountants

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This post provides 10 crucial tips to look at for websites for accountants.

Your website is in effect your brochure for your prospects and existing clients. It should be appealing to not only attract but engage visitors to keep them viewing pages on your website for as long as possible.

For an accounting firm, clear and bold call to actions with simple messaging and an easy to navigate menu is a solid foundation to build your website on.

Top tips for your website

If you’re looking for a new website to be designed and developed to help grow your business as part of a holistic inbound marketing campaign, here’s our top website tips for an accountancy firm 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 inhouse.
  2. Simple and engaging content: Review all your 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 and what they are looking for in an accountancy practice, 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 to help your site become fully optimised for the search engines. So, if you’re talking about Corporation Tax or Self-employment tax, name the website page just that.
  3. Easy website navigation: During the design build stage pay a lot of attention to 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. 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: ‘download useful HMRC forms’; ‘sign up to a newsletter’; ‘book a consultation’.  
  5. Imagery: This forms part of your content too. It makes the web sites 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. You will also need to make sure that the imagery is mobile responsive so provide a great user experience whatever the platform.
  6. Is a blog relevant for an accountancy firm? Absolutely! Don’t be fooled by the influencer lifestyle type blogs and social media feeds you so often see. A blog is vital for a business website to be seen in organic google search and ultimatley being a lead generator for your firm. 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. 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 you rise in the search rankings and help make it a lead generating website.
  7. Be targeted: For an accountancy firm, while you want a professional feel, as that’s what people will expect, you also need to make sure that the website design and content reflects your accountancy firms brand and appeals to your target audience. We call this the persona – a made up stereotypical client. 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 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. This means they can keep an eye on your keywords for you. But this is for another blog…you can read more about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) here.
  9. Be a disruptor: When it comes to AI this is the buzz word of the day in the accounting world. Recent reports from EY has revealed that 77% of respondents say that AI is expected to turn into an essential business driver across the financial services industry (Transforming Paradigms: A Global AI in Financial Services Survey). Therefore, if your firm is creating a new website, then should you be incorporating AI functionality? A simple chatbot is a great way to start, before embarking on an integrated CRM system for your practice.
  10. Back up your website: Most CMS websites provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Unfortunately, it’s an everyday occurrence around the world where thousands of web robots (automated programs) check thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner. 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.  

Stand out with your website

If you can get all this working yourself, then you will be off to a great start. Smart Cow is a digital agency for accountants so, if you’re in need of a web designer for accountants and web development book a consultation with us.

Digital marketing resources:

Typewriter Typeface Font

7 stats for great inbound marketing

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With quality content forming a key part of any inbound strategy, we take a look at some of the top tips from a all-round digital marketing agency to think about when you next create a blog or think about social media for your business.

Tips for your website

  • The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words (Backlinko, 2016)
  • Strategic landing pages are used by 68% of B2B businesses to acquire leads (Marketo, 2018)

Think about your web design, it’s worth remembering that you want to reduce bounce rate from your website and that you need to engage with a reader within 3 seconds. So, if you’re running a PPC campaign, make sure you have a dedicated landing page from the search engine for any lead generation– if 68% of businesses are considering this to acquire leads, it must be a good idea.

Tips for blogs   

  • Titles with 6-13 words attract the highest and most consistent amount of traffic (HubSpot, 2016)
  • Using statistics in blog posts improves consumer trust (Forbes, 2018)
  • 36% prefer list-based headlines (IMPACT, 2019)

The next time you embark on drafting a blog for your website, really take a moment to think of the content marketing and whether it is of interest to your audience. This can help you hone a much more meaningful article when thinking of the reader. Now, while stats may indicate that a healthy length of a first page result on Google search as 1,890, we wouldn’t see this as a necessary guideline for a length of a blog. What is key is that your content is relevant, interesting, informative and fresh. Don’t regurgitate content just because you think the length of the article should be longer. Everything you write has to have a point and if it’s said in 600 words, so be it!

Tips for social media marketing

  • LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for delivering content and securing audience engagement (LinkedIn, 2017)
  • 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep (Demand Gen Report, 2016)

The importance of inbound marketing

The old marketing adage of it taking 6-8 touch points for a brand awareness to be built, is still true today as it ever was. And, now with the raft of communication avenues available the possibilities for your business are endless, but also the competition is rife. This is why it’s so important to keep content fresh on your website so that you can continually educate new and returning customers as well as consulting with an inbound marketing agency.

With marketing automation capabilities today, you can also tailor and personalise your comms so much more. With a simple download of a document you can tailor a follow up email. Or you can personalise a chatbot for a returning customer. Personalisation is so important, as it also helps build trust with your audience as you need to reach them at least 6 times before a possibility of a lead through to conversion.

So, with these top stats, use these tactics in your content. And, also ask yourself whether a LinkedIn company page should be part of your inbound marketing strategy moving forward.

As a market leading digital marketing agency in London, we’ve got the knowledge of digital marketing services, marketing campaigns, attracting qualified leads to get your content noticed to drive traffic to your website and help you rise in organic rankings.

Source of all statistics in this blog: www.hubspot.com

SEO Agency

Why website optimisation is key to business growth

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Why website optimisation is key to business growth

Your website in the online world is the equivalent to a business premises in the real world. What it looks like, where it is found, how up to date it is and how easy it is to navigate are all crucial factors to its success. A tailored Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign will help your business be seen.

What is SEO?

SEO is a collection of processes that make it better for a website to be found through the search engines. Most online searches do not start with the company name being typed into the search engine, it’s usually a few words relevant to what you’re looking for. So, if you’re an ‘accountancy’ practice in ‘Guildford’ then you would likely be interested in your company showing up on page one of a search relevant to these keywords.

Website optimisation involves looking at how your website is built, the keywords within content on your website as well as understanding your target audience and their search behaviour. Armed with this background you can build a strategy to improve your rankings in the organic (non-ads based, natural) search results.

Target audience

You’ll already have worked out your online target audience persona to create the content for your website. But if not, it’s not too late. Look at our blog to help you create a persona. Then think about what tweaks you may need to make to your website content or call to actions to make it engaging to this audience and worth their time visiting your website. Think quality over quantity when it comes to content on your website. This will stand you in good stead for optimising your website.

Outbound, internal inbound links

As part of the ranking process, search engines consider the quality of links, awarding scores based on the usefulness and relevance of those links. Internal links can ease navigation within the website itself, this includes making sure it is mobile friendly. While, incoming links to your website provides an indication of how useful your content is to others as people share posts on social media. Less links will have an impact upon where you return in a search result for a given term.

Meta descriptions

Think about when you’ve recently searched online for something. You see a return of results where companies have great headlines and a paragraph of well written copy that entices you to click the link instead of others. Behind the scenes you can create these paragraphs or meta descriptions on pages on your website – these are really good when it comes to blogs you may upload. Meta descriptions are a website’s way of telling Google and other search engines exactly what each of your pages are about, what to display and how to display it in the results.

Tip: Google My Business

Check out our blog on completing a Google My Business page. One of the first things to do when your website is live, and to help it be seen in search, is to fill out as much as you can on this page – it’s Free to do!

In a nutshell the benefits of SEO are:

  • Enhanced brand perception and online presence through better ranking
  • Better rate of enquiries due to improved visibility
  • Prime and prominent visibility across Google Maps
  • Attraction of closely related audiences through better use of popular search terms

Book a Practice Growth Session

Smart Cow assists in website design in London and Surrey. If you feel you need some support in getting your website Search Engine Optimised, then get in touch with our web design team today to create you a bespoke website.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

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