Never fear, help is at hand.  When it comes to understanding and knowing what information a basic website requires I have the answer.  It’s like a book, you need a Start, a Middle and an End.   Leave the design to the professionals, just concentrate on the content – which is your business.

So let’s start with Your Story…

Always start with a Home page, which can be, if you like, treated as landing page.  This is where your potential customer normally arrives, so make the most of it.   Think then what you want them to do once they arrive there? Do you want them to Call You?  Email You? Search the rest of your site?  Make it easy for them to get to the information they want.

So, after you’ve thought about the Home page, move on to basic products and services.  What products do you offer and what services do you give?  If initially you’re not looking to sell online, then a good image of your products with brief descriptions should suffice (don’t fall into the trap of writing chapter and verse, this is a real turn off on the web).  Short, punchy information is key. I also recommend professional photographs, on the basis that the potential client would like to see what he is getting – make the quality count!  Forget quantity.

So, now lets have a showcase of your good work with maybe a few testimonials from clients, and if you have a number of good images then maybe have some links to a gallery. You can use this to its  real advantage with great images.

And finally, the client needs to know where you are and how to get hold of you.  A good contact us page with postcodes.

Perfect.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.  No so daunting now!  Just a good story.

PS:  Now then, Your Story Part II is having a good map of how to find you (ie in Google), to get to read your story in the first place…

I heard a great keynote speech recently that went something along the lines of:

“Do you pay a professional Accountant to manage your end of year accounts? Do you pay a professional Financial Advisor to manage your financial affairs?  The answer of course is YES.  So why then do some business people believe that they can cut costs by doing their own marketing?”

The truth is that good times or bad times, marketing is paramount.  Your brand reflects your business, which in turn reflects your reputation.  Refer back to your business strategy and remind yourself why you are doing business?  Where are you headed?  Remind yourself of your long term and short term goals.  It is all only achievable by getting your marketing right.  Here are some tips that don’t cost a fortune that will may help:

1. Know your goal, know what you want to accomplish
2. What impression do you want to leave?
3. When you come across a business with a “home-made” flyer, what’s your first impression?
4. If you need to increase visitors to your site, make sure you have a way of processing this information, moreover make sure your site makes it easy to do this.
5. Focus on what you’re good at.  Even more, specialise in what you’re good at, and partner with professional people to cover the areas where your business needs expertise.

The moral of this story is, focus on what you do and do it well.  If you need professional help with your marketing, it doesn’t always cost the earth.  Feel free to drop me a line or call me, I’d be happy to help!

Don't be blond about your marketing

This country just grinds to a halt at the very hint of anything that resembles snow. In this day and age with such a vast array of technology at our fingertips; how is it that our economy suffered an estimated £600m per day according to the Federation of Small Businesses. I am not one to get on the ‘blame culture’ band wagon, however I do wonder if as a nation we shouldn’t take a deep look inside ourselves before we make wild broad sweeping accusations.

People doing business

So websites became an area for you to showcase your brochures, your products and your services, and as such were treated like a brochure – sat on a shelf, occasionally picked up and looked at, then put down again.

Nowadays, the internet has driven websites to change dramatically. The truth is that websites should have a healthy change on a regular basis, and moreover, websites should change as your business grows and changes. People too often forget about their website, but when worked in the right way, it potentially can be your silent salesman, at a far less cost too!

Signs to look out for that it may be time to change your website:

1. Your business has grown, your business strategy has changed and your products have changed – is this reflected in your website? Business change all the time, and the last bit of marketing to be informed is the website! Oh, we’ll get round to it eventually. Top tip here – treat your website as you would a member of your staff. Look after them and they will look after you.
2. Does your website have a “Call-To-Action” request on the home page? When anyone lands on your website, what do they see? And what do you want them to do? If they are not doing this – then it’s not working.
3. Does your website have new content regularly. Maybe you wrote the content a few years ago. If so, why would anyone want to re-visit your website? What is it telling them, that this is a company that hasn’t moved on.
4. Check out the design. If your design is looking a little 90’s, or the images are dated, or even if it looks a little hand-made. Visitors like to see new images, and easy navigation is paramount. You have 30 seconds to capture a potential customer, if your design is boring then your visitor will move on.
5. Fundamentally – how many customers comment on your website. Does Google drive a lot of traffic to your site? How many enquiries does your site return? If no-one visits and no-one comments, then it’s time for change.

Just remember that a website re-design is all about engaging with your customers. As web technology moves on, businesses move on and it’s not as expensive as you think. We promote Wordpress to many of our clients as we believe it is the perfect platform for expressing the character of your business. It’s versatile and robust with the ability to use as many plug-ins as you like to make it do what you want.

Get on board with the next generation of Web 2.0 and have your say!

So many websites today are there just for the sake of being there, because the business owner feels that they “ought” to have a website. Some website owners believe that it once their website is launched, that they will have thousands of people flocking to their website. This simply isn’t true.

It is very important to invest in a website that you can develop and work at; it is a moving target that should change just as businesses change. How many businesses do you know, especially in this economic climate that we are in, that remain still? Your website should be treated like an employee – they need moulding, correct information and to look good in front of prospective clients. Think of them as a member of staff, pay them the same amount of attention, and then sit back and watch the return.

Your website nowadays is your shop window. Users on the internet are becoming more sophisticated and know exactly what they are looking for. With the average time spent on any web page being between 30seconds to 1 minute, that is the ONLY time you have to hook customers into your product or service. Websites need to be clean, simple and easy to navigate. They need to interest the customer. The customer is also looking for more than just basic information, they are looking for a personality to persuade them that your product or service is the best their going to get, and moreover provide the most value for money.