Think of your website like a machine, it needs regular check-ups to ensure it is functioning correctly and it’s up to date. Without regular checks or audits, errors can go undiscovered for a long time and have caused damage to your SEO without you realising. SEO audits conducted on your website are key to the success of its long-term performance.
Outdated content will not only harm your long-term rankings but could mean visitors spend less time on your website.
First impressions count, so if your website content isnt up to date, visitors may view this a reflection of your business practices and therefore be less inclined to become your client.
An SEO audit will show you if your site’s content needs updating to make it more relevant for your users.
Similarly, content that has too many keywords illogically placed within it, creates a bad user experience and can also harm rankings. As per the Google Webmaster guidelines: “”Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose).”
An audit of your website will highlight if any of your content has keywords randomly stuffed or repeated unnaturally. It will also show if you are targeting the right keywords for your organisation. If you are, then you should see a steady growth in rank, if not it may be that you need to review and carry out further research to find the best suited keywords. It could also be that, even though your keywords are suitable, your content does not back them up sufficiently.
Are you attracting the audience you think you are? An audit should give you a break-down on the demographics of your visitors and other similar informative details to help you determine whether your website is working in attracting your target clients.
Search engines are constantly evolving and making changes to their algorithms to provide better search results for their users. It is important to keep up with these changes and to adjust your SEO campaign accordingly.
By regularly carrying out an SEO audit, you should pick up when any aspect of your SEO strategy is no longer working.
To achieve the best rankings possible, it’s crucial to ensure your website is free of errors and broken links. By performing an audit, you can see if your site has an error or any broken internal links producing ‘404’ content not found errors.
Discovering errors, enables you to fix them and better your visitor experience which will in turn encourage users to return and revisit your site in the future.
Improve your site’s overall performance. Search engines and visitors love healthy websites that perform well. An audit on your website will show any technical issues that may be present, such as slow page loading speed, missing meta descriptions or security flaws like an expired SSL Certificate.
By addressing these issues, you will be continually improving the performance of your website and ensuring it is always running smoothly. External factors such as plugin updates can also sometimes affect the performance of your site, so it is vital to regularly check such things by running an SEO audit.
SEO audits enable you to gain competitor insights like you may never have done before. Most audit tools (even free ones) will show you metrics on your competition allowing you to take advantage of opportunities that your competitors may not have seen.
View your competitors backlinks and get understanding of their strategy by analysing the keywords they are ranking for. Reinforce your own SEO strategy by zoning in on those valuable keywords your competition is missing.
After an SEO audit is run on your website and you have made any necessary changes, it is essential that you don’t just leave it there. SEO audits should be carried out on a regular basis to ensure you are constantly evaluating your site and diagnosing issues and weaknesses.
For the ultimate competitive advantage and best user experience a regular SEO audit is key. Do not forget, act on anything negative the audit finds!
A website is a not something that can be created and then left. It requires regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly and functioning correctly. The best websites are never finished; meaning new content needs adding and existing content should be reviewed to ensure it is still relevant.
Website maintenance, in simple terms, is the process of keeping your site functioning and up to date. Your website is very much like your car, without regular service and maintenance, it will begin to break down. The most important part of maintenance is that it fixes any security flaws, so if it is regularly carried out, your website should always be secure from hackers. By regular we don’t mean just once or twice a year, we are talking weekly and monthly monitoring and analysing. This will help keep the online image of your business/brand vibrant and your visitor experience at its best.
Most website design & development companies will also offer various levels of maintenance packages. The lower packages will include basic tasks such as keeping the framework/software and plugins updates, so any security failings are patched. Basic maintenance will also include regular backups of the site, ensuring there are no errors and that all areas of the website are fully functioning.
There are aspects of website maintenance that you or your team can easily carry out yourselves. A weekly or bi-weekly blog is a very simple but effective way to keep your website interesting and up to date. Similarly, reviewing the written content and images on your site is another way of ensuring your site is kept refreshed. Regularly re-examining your content will help find any grammar or spelling mistakes that you might have previously missed.
Hopefully from this you can create your own checklist to make sure your website is ship shape at all times!
The above tasks are simply to give you an idea of what might be required for your website. However, the bigger your website the more maintenance it will require.
Regular health checks are so important for your website and organisation. Your website is likely to be the first point of contact that potential clients have with your brand; this applies to all business websites not just e-commerce sites. If your website has an outdated design or isnt functioning correctly this can negatively affect how potential clients view your organisation and brand. You would be surprised the number of times your quality of service will be judged by the quality of your website. Outdated content screams outdated business practises and will scare some visitors away.
Search engines like Google favour websites that are regularly updated not only with security measures but with new content to ensure the website is still relevant to users searching the internet. Website maintenance should be continual and regular. No maintenance is bad news for your website and your brand.
Let us take care of your website maintenance. We offer several plans at a low-price, as well as the option to customize those plans to suit your needs. Contact us to get started!
Did you know, some website URLs begin with http:// but others begin with https:// ? You may not have thought anything of it, but the ‘s’ is very important to web viewers and users.
That ‘s’ means your connection to and from the website you’re viewing is secure. This ensures that any data or personal information you input into that site will be safe and cant be stolen by a hacker intercepting your connection, as it’s encrypted and secure.
This security feature is called SSL, which stands for Secure Socket Layer. The details of how this works are somewhat technical so we won’t go into all that here. However, in simple terms a Certificate Authority will issue a certificate once they are happy with your SSL set up. This certificate is installed on the hosting server of your website. This shows users that the link between the web hosting server and a browser is encrypted and secure. Ensuring that any data passed through this link stays private.
An SSL Certificate issued to a business and its domain name/website confirms that a trusted third party has validated that organization’s identity. Since browsers like Chrome and Microsoft Edge trust the Certificate Authority, the browser now trusts that business’s identity too. The browser lets the user know that the website is secure, with the https:// and the padlock icon at the beginning of the website’s URL. The visitor can then feel safe browsing the site and entering any personal information.
More recently, search engines like Google have started to penalise websites that do not have an SSL Certificate present.
This means that sites with http:// at the start of their URL will not rank as well anymore and are likely to further fall down the ranks.
Having an SSL Certificate is good for SEO. Search engines are increasingly less likely to show your website in search results without an SSL certificate.
Most browsers will give you a warning when viewing a website that does not have SSL Certificate.
Depending on the vulnerability of the site, it may take you to a security page warning you not to proceed to the website due to possible security breaches or it may just show a warning triangle next to the URL in the browser and simple state “Not secure”. You can easily see in most browsers whether a website is secure as it will have a small padlock shape before the URL in the browser. To be effective the SSL Certificate must be valid.
If you want your website to generate you leads or sales, then it is crucial that you gain the trust of your visitors.
Remember, your website is an online representation of your organisation. With more and more purchases being made online, without any human contact it is highly important to ensure your website is trustworthy.
Many online users will look out for the sign that shows whether websites are secure and avoid the sites that are not.
Theft of personal information through the internet has risen considerably in the last few years. This is due to the fact that websites without an SSL certificate are vulnerable to hackers seizing data via an undetectable “listening” program. The program starts capturing and recording when a visitor begins typing on that website. Ensure your web hosting has an SSL Certificate installed and registered to your website/domain and give your clients/potential customers peace of mind to purchase from your site.
Hopefully, you can see by now just how important it is to take the security of your website seriously. Without an SSL Certificate on your web hosting server, there is no knowing what damage could be done over time. Damage not only to your website but also to your organisation and brand. If you are ever concerned about your website or another website you are visiting, it’s very simple to find out whether the SSL Certificate is valid. If you use the Chrome or Edge browser, visit the website in question, click on the padlock icon before the website’s URL. This will bring up a box confirming whether or not the certificate is valid. You can then view which Certificate Authority issued and authorised that certificate for your peace of mind.
An email signature is just as important as a company letterhead. It reflects not only on you but also on your organisation. Email signatures are basically an electronic business card, so, should definitely be a part of every organisations’ marketing plan.
The average number of emails sent per day for business communication is 40. That is an average of 200 per week, 800 per month…you get the idea! Email matters and having a professional email signature is not something you can afford to ignore.
Email signatures can be used as a valuable communication and marketing tool.
Signatures are a great way to showcase products, special offers or upcoming events. With Exclaimer, this is even easier. Create campaign banners and set them for your whole organisation or just certain departments.
The power of having a professional email signature is often underestimated. The truth is, it is key to creating a solid brand that clients and prospects know they can trust and rely on.
Having a link to your website on your email signature allows clients to easily access your site and saves them having to search for it. You can have this link go to the home page of your website or to a more specific page such as a product page if you feel that would be more relevant for your customers and potential clients.
Want to increase your social presence? Why not add social buttons to your email signature? That way people you send emails to, can easily find your social media profile, and follow you.
New followers can help you build a bigger audience and engagement which leads to a greater online presence and therefore more potential clients.
Consistency – Make sure the design links in with your company branding. Ensure you use the correct logo and colours, and that these are the same as you have used in other marketing material such as your website and brochures. An email signature is a great way create greater awareness of your brand but having a design that isnt consistent with your brand can have a damaging effect. It’s also important to ensure you have consistency throughout your company, so all employees are using the same email signature design. This is not to say you can’t create variations of the design for different departments.
Simplicity – Don’t over complicate things, keep the design simple and easy on the eye. Too many graphics, text or links can look confusing. Include key contact details such as a telephone number and website address but don’t overdo it and try and have too many methods of contact shown.
A simple, clean design that uses the correct colours and is suitable aligned and spaced will give a much better impression than one that is overcrowded.
Legal – There are international email laws that require in some instances a legal disclaimer to be shown or at least linked to your email signature. The contents of the disclaimer you need will depend on the nature of your business. A disclaimer often includes copyright or confidentiality clauses that might relate to the contents of any emails you send.
Exclaimer is a leading email signature solution for Microsoft 365, G-Suite and Exchange. It allows you to easily manage email signatures for your team and means you never need to worry about adding your signature to your emails again – just hit send and Exclaimer will do the rest!
Exclaimer provides the perfect solution for managing email signatures in Microsoft 365 & Exchange and G Suite.
Create and control multiple signatures for different organisation departments from one location. Ensure every user in your organisation has consistent, branded signatures on every email they send whether from a PC, Mac or mobile device (Android & ios).
Exclaimer will deliver a professional email signature every time.
1. Users’ details are auto populated using data from your company’s directory (in Microsoft 365/Exchange or G Suite)
2. Ensure brand consistency and exposure by including your company logo – create more brand awareness
3. Use promotional banners to showcase marketing campaigns, events, or special offers.
4. Gain new followers for free by promoting your social media channels.
5. Personalise your signatures with centrally managed user photos.
6. Ensure your signatures comply with international email law by including appropriate legal disclaimers.
7. Inform your contacts of recent company awards, certificates or achievements.
8. Get fast customer feedback with one click feedback buttons.
One thing to remember when it comes to designing your email signature, is to check what it looks like on a mobile device. More and more people use their mobiles to view, send and reply to emails these days, so it’s extremely important that your signature works on mobile view. With Exclaimer it is simple to test new email signature designs.
Want to know more about Exclaimer? Contact us today!
In today’s digital world, more and more of us expect to access information fast.
tawk.to isn’t the #1 most widely used live chat app for nothing! Its completely secure and allows you to engage in real-time conversations with visitors on your website. There’s no limit on the number of agents or to the amount chat history or data you save.
Read on below to find out why so many organisations use tawk.to and how it can benefit your business!
The tawk.to app is very self-explanatory and simple to navigate. There is mobile app for Android & ios which is great for smaller businesses and teams with multiple roles. Message your visitors on the go and never miss another chat.
Tawk.to online academy is a store of tutorial videos, so should you get stuck, there is a bank of knowledge to help you out.
There is also a function enabling you to ban visitors by geo IP address to stop them from being able to chat if required for any reason.
Through a Zapier function called ‘Zap’, tawk.to can also be connected to hundreds of other services pushing your team’s workflow to the next level of automation.
Up your customer service game with tawk.to ticket function. When set up, this enables visitors to raise a ticket with a question or problem for your team to answer or solve.
Reply to visitors’ tickets and easily keep track of unresolved issues on the tawk.to app.
Message colleagues who are also set up as agents on tawk.to. Get help and support from your colleagues with technical or difficult questions from visitors.
This is perfect for teams working remotely as instead of being able to talk across an office which isnt possible when not working in the office, agents can message each other within the tawk.to app.
Are you constantly getting asked the same questions? With tawk.to you can create a bank of frequently asked questions and their answers using the knowledgebase function.
This enables your visitors to find answers to common questions even quicker than starting a chat. Knowledgebase has a simple to use block based rich text editor which also supports images, GIFs, code snippets and videos. It also has a translation function allowing you to easily support and help visitors from all over the world.
Another great feature of knowledgebase is that its constructed to be optimized for search engines and can easily be optimized by adding or changing meta data. You can also create ‘canned’ responses for commonly asked questions or certain phrases enabling you to respond quicker to your visitors.
Create a chat page – hosted landing page that lets you turn links into conversations.
Add links on social pages or posts to combine your social campaign with your chat page. Put chat page links on your email signatures and turn them into conversations too. This feature is excellent for virtual events or online exhibitions.
Monitor your website to see what pages your visitors are on in real-time and how many times they have visited before. Track engagement and learn more about your customers.
The tawk.to app gives easy access to detailed key metrics such as number of chats, average chat duration, user satisfaction, and response time all displayed in dashboards and downloadable as reports.
Dashboards also cover the ticketing system with various boards showing, ticket volume, solved tickets, resolution time and so on. There are also dashboards showing metrics on chat pages and any articles published on your knowledge base.
Create custom alerts to inform your agents when a visitor starts chatting. Set up email notifications for chat alerts, ticket alerts, missed chats and also chat transcripts.
Set up customised triggers to pop-up when a visitor has been browsing your website for a certain amount of time or as soon as they enter the site. Enter a personalised message to let visitors know your agents are there and ready to help!
Hire an Agent or Virtual Assistant, Customise Chat Widget, Video Chat, Voice Calls, 2-Way Screen Sharing, with many more exciting features coming soon!
Pushed for resources but don’t want to go down the route of a chat bot? tawk.to have the answer: hire a chat agent! Real humans highly skilled and trained to be customer service experts. Agents will spend time researching your industry and getting to know your business in order to provide the best service to your visitors and clients.
A hired agent is the perfect choice if your company serves a global market. Agents are available 24/7, 365 days a year and are bi-lingual so an excellent option for dealing with multiple time zones and other languages.
Tawk.to is so much more than just a live chat. It Supports 27 different languages, enables you to pass visitor chats onto other agents in a different department and includes fun additions such as a bank of 1880+ emojis. It’s no wonder that Forbes reports tawk.to as “#1 with a 98% customer satisfaction score, millions of people use tawk.to to interact with billions of customers.”
Sign up to tawk.to today! Contact us if you need any help!
Researching a new website or even a re-design can be very daunting. What type of website is best?
When deciding the type of website for your business or brand you need to look at what you want the website to achieve.
What is the goal for this website?
What do you want out of it?
Who is your target audience?
Once you have established this you can look at the different types of website designs. These days with over 50% of web users being on mobile, every type of website design should be responsive, i.e. be fully functional whether viewed on mobile, desktop or tablet devices. The different types of websites all serve different purposes.
Read on below to find out which type is best suited to you or your business.
A portfolio website design is primarily used to showcase products, services and or completed projects.
A portfolio design can be very informative and incorporate parts of other types of website design such as a blog section.
This type of website design is often used by creative companies and professionals. A large number of business websites are in fact portfolio sites.
Blog sites are often used for personal brands to connect to and inspire their audiences by sharing their passion.
Blog websites can be used for so many different topics. From a financial advice site such as moneysavingexpert.com, food & recipe sites like janespatisserie.com to travel blogs like theblondeabroad.com.
Blog websites allow you create a community around topics you or your team are passionate about.
A landing page is mostly just a single page with a very specific purpose or call to action. This would be used in addition to your main website.
Landing pages are often used in marketing campaigns to attract new clients or to promote an offer.
Design wise, landing pages are simple, eye catching and have minimal amounts of text.
This is the online marketplace, a website design style where products can be viewed and purchased via the internet.
E-commerce sites allow companies to sell directly to their audience without a physical store or high street shop. This type of website design takes the user from product viewing right through to payment, shipping, and reviews.
A well-constructed e-commerce website makes it simple for users to purchase, and easy for your company to sell your products.
Not all websites are for a business purpose. Some individuals create personal websites to promote awareness about a certain cause or just simply to share their experiences and wisdom with others.
A typical example of personal website is a resume site. This is as it sounds…a personal resume, just in the form of a website – a great way to impress potential clients or employers.
Having a resume or CV website that can be crawled by search engines is likely to present you with an increase in job opportunities.
This type of website is often used by personal brands to showcase projects and skills.
A small business may also start off with a one-page site as these are typically cheaper and also easier to maintain.
Single page websites are often referred to as “static” as they are not likely to be updated regularly.
There are obviously other types of websites such as directories like Yell.com, social sites like Facebook, video streaming and content sharing sites like YouTube, crowdfunding site like Go Fund Me, news site like BBC, forum sites like Reddit….and so on….however these types of websites need a large investment so realistically are not suitable for smaller organisations.
Choosing the right type of website design is essential for the growth of your business. It’s also important to ensure that your choice is right for your target audience.
A custom website design is one that has been created from scratch for a specific organisation or individual.
A customised design is a template or theme that has been altered or adapted in some way.
The meaning of ‘custom’ tends to get distorted in the world of web design. The word custom is often confused with customised.
Be sure your ‘custom website design’ is not just a ‘customised design’.
So, what are the benefits of a custom website design over using templates, themes, or website builders?
A lot of time and investigating goes into a true custom web design. This is to ensure that the design properly represents your business and the products or services you offer. It will also consider your target audience to enable your site to stand out from your competition.
There are so many templates and themes available from various repositories and so many ways they can be slightly modified…you would think there would be something that could work for every company.
Templates and themes are very generic and created with many different scenarios in mind but the ‘one size fits all’ does not work with website design for professional businesses. No company is the same, each one is unique in some way.
With a template it is more about how to fit your business inside the template whereas a custom website will be designed around your business.
No design template will be unique to you, there will be many other companies and websites using the same template. This could mean your audience confuses your website with other websites they have seen. By having a custom website design, you eliminate this happening as your site will be unique to your business.
A custom website allows you to stand out more and be easily distinguished from your competition. Yes, templates and themes can be customised, but the core elements are still the same.
A custom web design is created solely for your organisation and your requirements. There isnt really a limit on the functions you can create with a custom website.
This means you can create a better experience for users of your site. For example, if you sell wallpaper and you would like a calculation function on your site to inform users how many rolls they need – this is totally achievable with a custom website. You will struggle to do this when using a template or website builder.
Custom websites are built using only the necessary code and plugins, so are well optimised from the start.
Web templates however, generally have lots of excess code or components which will slow the website down. Similarly, some website builders rely heavily on many different plugins in order to function.
Too many plugins will reduce the load and response speed of the site, this is very difficult to rectify without removing some plugins or excess code.
This might not strike you as a problem, but search engines like Google will notice. Ranking high in search engines is no mean feat but is much more difficult when page loading speeds are slow.
GT metrix is a good free tool tool to check the speed of your website.
Custom websites can easily be continually optimised and made responsive across all devices. Many themes are not fully responsive so have function issues when viewed on mobile devices – another reason to go for custom website design!
Even if you are a small business, it is much better to have a custom website to accurately represent your business. You may have the conception that it’s too expensive, but view it as long-term investment and start with a basic custom website then as your company grows you can simply scale and add to it. This also gives the potential for a much higher return on investment. The beauty of a custom website is that it’s very flexible and tailored to you.
Still not convinced? Check out this post on why professional design is so important!
At Guzzbury Studio, all our websites are custom designed. We do not use any pre-built themes or templates.
Always make certain you are getting the best graphic design service. Utilising professional graphic design can help improve every area of your business resulting in an increased profitability and competitive advantage.
Graphic design is the visual representation of your company online and offline. Here we point out some common mistakes, so you can make sure they are not happening in your organisation.
Too many words, no breaks, and not enough images. It’s a proven fact that we humans retain more imagery in our memories than words.
Content that is too ‘wordy’ and has poor readability tends to lose the interest of the reader very quickly.
Images are key to effectively communicating with your clients and prospects, so use them to enhance your words.
Spacing or ‘kerning’ as the proper term is, can have a dramatic impact on how any piece of graphic design looks. Kerning is how the letters are spaced, unequally spaced characters often look out of place.
Its not just what your content says, its how it appears and what impression it gives to your audience.
Combining fonts and typefaces can be very powerful.
It can also be damaging to a brand if too many typefaces and fonts are used.
Too many styles or fonts or inappropriate combinations give an unprofessional, messy feel and are hard to read.
Too little negative space will make your content difficult to read. Don’t be afraid to use white space to your advantage. It should not be viewed as empty space but rather a very essential part of graphic design.
A lack of white space makes it more difficult for the natural eye to process as there is nothing to focus on.
The wrong combination of colours is another mistake that is often made. Contrast between colours is essential to getting the attention of your audience. Light tones on mid-tone backgrounds can be hard to read and even missed.
The use of too many colours together can lead to confusion and give the impression of a child’s colouring book. When choosing colours for your organisation, pick 2 or 3 max.
Poor quality images look unprofessional and can distract from the message they are supposed to portray. Relevance is another point to watch.
If your images are not relevant to your business or topic, they are likely to confuse your audience. Overtime, this can affect the credibility you have from your clients.
Most of us remember an image or font rather than words. It’s so important to ensure that you use the same fonts and colours throughout all of your graphic design.
Lack of consistency can lead to people not trusting your brand.
It’s not that every page of your website should look identical, but that styles and colours should be consistent.
In all this, you must remember that any graphic design for your business is effectively a visual representation of your organisation. Be careful what you publish print wise or online as it can have a positive or negative impact on your potential clients.
Make sure you are using the best graphic design services and creating material that truly represents your company.
SEO is the acronym for search engine optimisation. In simple terms, it’s the process of improving a website to make it easier to be found in search engines like Google and MS Edge. SEO strategies help to drive traffic, build engagement, and convert these into quality leads. The competitive atmosphere of today requires businesses to stand out from the crowd, especially since COVID-19 has increased the need to have a strong online presence. Check out our blog on the importance of SEO to find out more.
It is a known and proven fact that organic traffic is highly relevant and is often more likely to convert than traffic gained by PPC (Pay-Per-Click) methods. SEO will help increase your websites ranking in search engines which boosts the chances for your site to be found when users are search for specific keywords or phrases. Studies have shown that professional SEO improves a website ranking by an average of 25 positions over a period of between 9-12 months.
It is a known and proven fact that organic traffic is highly relevant and is often more likely to convert than traffic gained by PPC (Pay-Per-Click) methods. SEO will help increase your websites ranking in search engines which boosts the chances for your site to be found when users are search for specific keywords or phrases. Studies have shown that professional SEO improves a website ranking by an average of 25 positions over a period of between 9-12 months.
SEO is a measurable long-term strategy; results are not instant, however when consistently carried out, SEO produces an exponential rolling increase in results. Whereas, with running an email or PPC (pay-per-click) campaign for a month, the majority of results will come in that month or very shortly after.
An effective SEO campaign will result in a higher return than traditional means of marketing. This is partly due to the fact that SEO results are long-term. Traffic gained from organic SEO (not paid) is highly relevant as those users visited your site as a result of finding it in a search, meaning they were intentionally looking around your site for information they required or products they wanted to purchase. Organic SEO also generally costs a lot less money than paid strategies, meaning it can be very affordable for businesses of all sizes. An effect SEO strategy can greatly increase your incoming leads and inevitably revenue.
When carried out effectively, SEO helps to promote your brand and showcase it to a much larger audience than is possible with other means of marketing. It improves the visibility of your brand as your site starts to rank higher.
With the current global pandemic, it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. SEO helps to build trust and credibility with your brand.
SEO doesn’t only allow you reach more of your target audience, it helps you gain a greater understanding of their behaviour and buying patterns. With this information you can make the necessary adjust to your website to give users the best experiences when visiting your site.
SEO also helps to keep your website and web presence fresh and updated, meaning your corporate image stays relevant to clients and potential clients. This will inevitably lead to increased leads and revenue. It also ensures that you have a high client satisfaction rate.
Whilst SEO certainly is something every business should invest in; it is always best to enlist the help of professionals to do this. Likewise, you need to make sure you know exactly what you are getting for your money. You would be surprised at how many people we have heard say ‘I paid them £xxx a month for 12 months, I don’t know what they did and we didn’t see an increase in traffic to our website’. Be sure to get reports and check progress, don’t let a company pull the wool over your eyes with technical jargon. Reputable companies offering SEO services in UK should not have any difficultly in telling you and simply explaining the work they are carrying out. Of course, results are the biggest tell-tale factor in whether a SEO campaign is effect or not.
With the COVID-19 pandemic spread across almost every country in the world, usage of the internet has drastically increased. Having professional website design and development has never been as crucial as it is today.
The virus hasn’t only changed the way many businesses work it has also altered consumer behaviour and habits. It is now more important than ever to use professional design to effectively portray your products or services, company culture and brand.
So, what is design? Design is much more than just how something looks; it’s how it functions. UX designer, Irene Au once said: “Good design is like a refrigerator – when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks.”
We all know that competition is good for business, but that doesn’t lessen the need to keep ahead of your competitors. What better way to do that, than online? Using professional web design can greatly increase your online presence and give your site more authority and credibility over other sites. With COVID-19 forcing more and more consumers to rely on the web to make purchases and obtain information, the reachable target market of your business is likely to have expanded. Ultimately meaning, with professional web design you have a greater opportunity to stand out from the crowd and have the upper hand over your competitors.
Professionally designed websites are created strategically to attract more quality leads and ultimately convert those leads. Professional design will incorporate all the tips and tricks necessary to ensure a good percentage of visitors to your site will spend time there, make a purchase and, or contact your company. This will inevitably lead to an increase in revenue.
Search engines are constantly analysing sites to see if they are worthy of being shown to more individuals. Google favours sites that are well designed, user friendly and have relevant content.
A professional web design and development should mean your site is modern, properly indexed and has good quality content. The site should also be fully optimised for speed and different devices (Desktop, mobile & tablet). With all this, visitors to your site are more apt to spend time there and explore, so your bounce rate will reduce. Hence, a pro designed site has a far greater prospect of ranking well and being found by potential clients.
Potential customers are looking online for your business or the products/services you offer, all the time. This mostly takes place without your organisation being alerted. Statistics show that we begin to develop impressions of what we see in under one-10th of a second. In no more than 7 seconds, we have determined whether we like or trust what we see.
Initial impressions are lasting and likely to always govern how consumers view organisations and brands.
Professional design will positively influence the impressions visitors to your site form. It also enables you to build trust with prospects before you, or any member of your organisation have had any contact with them. No business, however small, should consider not having a professional web design.
Just having a website is no longer enough. Businesses who want to stay ahead of their competition and build long lasting client relationships must invest in professional web design and development.
By having a professional website design, you greatly increase the opportunities for your business. Especially during this pandemic, where social distancing practices and local lockdowns often make it difficult to visit physical stores and business premises. Consumers are turning to the web to find what they require.
SEO changes as search engines continue to evolve, add new features, and adjust their algorithms; this makes optimising of even greater importance than before. The base principles of search engine optimisation are always going to be present, strategies of how, what, and where will change but the importance of SEO is only likely to increase.
There will always be certain elements of SEO strategies that need to change to adapt slightly different approach. For example, at the end of 2019 Google announced BERT (Source: https://blog.google/products/search/search-language-understanding-bert/) BERT helps Google to understand topics and concepts behind content rather than just focusing on keywords within the content. Although, keywords are important they don’t carry the same weight anymore. Its better to optimise your content for readability and answering users’ questions.
SEO still remains one of the best ways to acquire clients for locally orientated businesses. If optimised correctly your website can lead in local search results for your expertise as Google tailors search results to your location. This is especially important with the current pandemic, as our reliance on search engines has greatly increased.
With SEO comes monitoring and reporting, some view this as overrated but it often will give businesses a different view on their clients and prospects. This can give very valuable insights into the behavior of users on your site and enables you to further tailor your site to suit the requirements of your clients. Reports can show the most visited pages, and where users spent the most time, giving you an increased understanding of what your clients are looking for from your company.
You may have the most remarkable, unique products or services; however, that is of little use if individuals don’t find you on the web. As we mostly only buy from brands and businesses that we trust or recognise as trustworthy, increasing your brand awareness is key. Being on the first page of search results helps you to build brand awareness with your audience as if Google has allowed a site to rank well, it must be trustworthy.
Here are a couple of trends to ensure your SEO strategy is still relevant. SEO is never going to die, its as long as search engines are here SEO will be too. Its more that your strategy might lose its edge and become obsolete, so its highly important to keep up with the changes as they evolve.
Voice search – This has come a long way in the last couple of years and it looks like it is here to stay.
Content is King – due to Google BERT update mentioned above, high quality content is more important than ever. Regardless of whether you place in the top search items for a concise period, if you fail to capture the interests of the clients who advance onto your site, your rankings will undoubtedly decrease with time.
Contact Us To Find Out More!SEO needs long term focus, its not “press go and forget” by any means although with the right strategy it can drive traffic and leads on autopilot as such. It will take a lot of time and effort to get a website into the vision of Google to make the top ranks, especially if your domain is relatively new. SEO is undoubtedly still highly important for businesses, older methods and practices have died so it’s a must to constantly review and realign strategies. The concept of optimising search engines is always going to be key, if people start to think its not important that is likely to be due to the fact their strategy is no longer working and they haven’t kept up with algorithm changes or re-assessed their tactics.
Get in touch with us to request your quotation
