Getting Your Site to Function How You Want It To

Site functionality is a really important aspect of web design and programming.  If you have a certain vision for your site, it is likely that you will need some custom plugins made for your site!  This is where good web developers and programmers can really help you out.

Let’s say you have an online shop and you want a special feature for customers to use.  Instead of searching your CMS for appropriate plugins, why not get your programmer to develop a custom piece of kit for you?  This is great because it means your site is totally unique, and nobody else will have the identical setup as you.

Custom software can end up being quite pricey, especially if it is a complex design.  It is important that you choose a good designer or programmer to get your idea off the ground with minimal costs.

Making Sure Your Site Is Up To Date – The Importance of Mobile Optimisation

How many of us rely on our phones throughout the day?  Probably most of us!  Just waiting for the bus or train gives us a moment to quietly idle away the time by browsing online.  Have you thought about the impact this could have on your clients?

Making sure your website is properly optimised for all devices is a must have in the modern age.  Our design team can talk you through the process, but generally by using some clever programming and plugins, we can ensure your site works and is attractive on all devices.  This is especially important if your site is a few years old, when mobile might not have been so vital to life.

Being available to view on mobiles has never been so important.  There’s something like 80% of people do their online shopping via their mobile or tablet.  Just think of the sales you could have if your site works properly!

Getting Your Website Indexed On Google

When you have a new website, you will be aware that it can take some time for Google to index it and have it showing on their search engine results pages.  This is an inevitable wait, as the google search bots take time to scan every site on the internet!  There are a few things you can do to give your site a much needed boost to help it index faster.

  1. Add your site manually using the Google URL submission form.  You can simply add your URL in the search console (formally known as web master tools).  You can submit your html and XML sitemaps too which will help your site index quicker.
  2. Get some links to your site by posting on your blog about your new site.  If you have a blog it is a great way to quickly get a backlink or two, simply by posting content about your new site!  Blogs are crawled more often by the search bots, so your site will be seen quicker.
  3. Get friends to share your site on their social media networks.  This will help to boost your indexing as social network signals are good for Google.

Using Different Types of SEO Techniques for Greater Results

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a crazy world.  It is all to do with essentially manipulating the search rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo etc in order for your company to appear further up the list.  Did you know that more than 80% of people never look at the second page of the search results?  This is why it is crucial to feature somewhere at least on the first page (top 10 results) of Google or other search engines.

There are many, many different techniques involved in SEO.  We tend to use a combination of different strategies in order to get the best results.  We begin with organic search results, which involves researching keywords and their effect on Google.  We look to see how often these terms are searched for, and use different on site optimisation techniques such as effective heading tags, title tags and meta descriptions.  These help tell the Google search bots what to rank the pages for.

Other techniques include PPC campaigns, or pay per click.  This is a form of paid advertising, which can get results very quickly.  The idea is that you select your keywords carefully (again, research is involved!) and when a customer clicks on your advert you pay a small fee.  The good thing about PPC is that you are in control of the budget, you only pay when people click on the ad and you can tailor down to specific audiences.

The Importance of Load Speed for Your Site

The load speed is a measure of how long it takes for your site to load, and this can have a great impact on the user experience offered for your customers.  It is important that the load speed is not too long.  Studies have shown that any load speed more than 3 seconds is deemed too long by most users, and it is much preferable to have a load speed of 2 seconds or less.

How can we reduce the load speed?  One of the ways to improve the loading of your site is to check you do not have too many very large images or videos to load on your site.  The larger files can add a substantial amount of time to the loading screen, and can make the site much slower.  Try to compress images down where possible, and choose smaller sizes if you can.

Making Sure Your Site Works Well

Getting a website which not only looks great, but works really well is an important job for any website owner.  You need it to be visually appealing to your customers and readers, yet it needs to have great functionality in order to keep people happy.

Web designers and programmers can help you to create software which seamlessly runs on your website in order to function a certain way.  This could be an automatic stock listing tool, or perhaps a price comparison chart.  Anything can be made with the right coding knowledge and background!

Ways to make your site more visually appealing is to have attractive images which blend in nicely.  Try to stay away from overly flashy animations and especially sounds.  Music which plays automatically is super annoying and is likely to lose you customers.  Instead, try neat slide shows and portfolio features to show off your images.

PPC as a Viable Alternative to SEO?

Lots of people believe that SEO is an outdated form of marketing and that the way forward is PPC.  Google would certainly have you believe this, if only to line their pockets a little more!

We think SEO should be used as part of a broad marketing strategy, including a wide range of techniques from organic search SEO to PPC and social media to get the best coverage.

PPC is a paid advertising service provided by Google.  It works by you selecting a number of search terms and bidding on advertising places.  Some industries are more competitive than others, so you may end up paying quite a lot per click, or not very much at all.  Google would place your ad at the top of the search results and every time a user clicks on the ad, you pay a small fee to Google.

This is good for targetting top of search results while you wait for the traditional SEO techniques to kick in as it gets you seen very quickly.

Building a Great New Site

Having a site that executes a methodology in a state of harmony with that of your business, has turned into an indispensable piece of business advancement today. Be that as it may, the concentrate is not any more exclusively on putting over the items and administrations a business offers, yet in addition on their introduction style. The business needs to keep up its compatibility on both on the web and disconnected stages.

Make It Responsive. With a group of people that is dependably in a hurry, the odds of a site being seen on a traditional desktop are less. A site that is exclusively intended for desktops turns into an agony to access on the cell phones. A responsive outline guarantees that when your site is gotten to on a cell phone, it conveys similar functionalities in as effective a way as it does while being seen on the desktop.

With more than 20% of web perusing done on cell phones, you would prefer not to pass up a great opportunity for your group of onlookers and potential clients in light of the fact that your business site didn’t offer the correct invitation to take action functionalities to its watchers.

Another factor that you should deal with while picking a topic or a layout for your site is its ‘retina availability’. It ought to have the capacity to help high determination pictures that are suited for these.

Web Design Which Works…

Getting a new website should be a good thing for your business, as it allows customers to find out more about you whilst learning about the services you have to offer.  If you get the design wrong, however, you may end up losing customers!  Here is how to avoid making common web design mistakes:

  1. Keep the text readable – make the background light and the text dark for optimum readability
  2. Limit the amount of animations and sounds – music which plays automatically is so annoying, and auto playing videos also turn people off.
  3. Contact info needs to be easy to find and clear – this is how people can trust you are a genuine company!
  4. Content needs to be updated regularly – this shows both your audience and Google that your site is active
  5. Space out the text appropriately to allow for easier reading.  It is difficult enough to read on screen, so make it easier by splitting large chunks of text up.