A GUIDE TO WEB DESIGN AND ONLINE MARKETING. Planning your new website and choosing an agency that you can work with to grow your business.

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1 A GUIDE TO WEB DESIGN AND ONLINE MARKETING Planning your new website and choosing an agency that you can work with to grow your business.

2 WEBSITE DESIGN Stand out from the crowd Planning your new website or site revamp Graphic design for web and print Mobile and Tablet web design Problems with WordPress websites 2

3 Stand out from the crowd The internet has revolutionised the way we communicate and attract new customers. With this in mind, it is more important than ever to find a web design company capable of meeting your current needs as well as your future web development and business growth requirements. Web designers use a variety of platforms to build websites, from a fully bespoke offer to an off the shelf template. Off the shelf templates may be cost effective, but can limit future development and growth. Bespoke platforms are more flexible and have the ability to provide for future growth and development. You may pay a little more to get exactly what you want but you won t have to completely scrap the site and start again in a few years time when you want to update the site. Different screen sizes The growth in the number of devices being used to access the internet is expanding. Most businesses will need to consider optimising their websites for multiple devices in future if this is where your audience is active. You can use Google Analytics to find out the percentage of users who visit your website on mobile, tablet or desktop to help make a decision on this. Promoting your website, online and offline A lot of website design companies are purely web designers and do not employ anyone with the necessary marketing skills needed to help promote your business. They probably won t have the skills to write the content for your website or research the keywords you will need. This can prove to be a stumbling block when you come to marketing your website online. You will either have to employ a marketing person within your business or outsource to an experienced marketing person or agency. Choosing a web design company with in house marketing services means they will be able to advise you on the best marketing strategy to help grow your business. They will be in a better position to carry out any necessary changes on the site because they will have intimate knowledge of the platform, especially when it comes to SEO work (Search Engine Optimisation). A good web design company will be able to offer copywriting for content, develop profitable Google Adwords advertising, provide effective SEO for Google rankings and create marketing campaigns and more. Other support you may need includes logo development, branding and graphic design. Website design company A few things to find out when looking for a good web design company include: How long have they been in business? How many people do they employ and what skills do they have? Is their client portfolio available to view and contact? What other services can they provide? You don t want to find out in a few years time that your web developer has decided to go back to paid employment leaving your website without support or any means of updating it. 3

4 Planning your new website or site revamp Whether you are a business needing a new website or an established company in need of a website revamp, taking time at the beginning of your project to plan and determine what you want to achieve will be time well spent. Writing a brief covering your goals and objectives along with an overview of your technical and functional requirements will provide a starting point for further discussions with your web developer. Your website is your shop window and can have a direct effect on sales. Visitors will make up their mind in seconds whether to stay on your site or jump off to one of your competitors. You need to capture their attention, establish your credentials and prove your credibility at a glance. Measure of success The success of your website is determined by its ability to convert visitors into new customers or sales. Any revamp should include functional, design and content improvements that will increase your conversion rates. By following the advice above and working with our team of experts who understand internet marketing, we will be able to improve the performance of your website. Site map Home About Services Products Reviews Contact Design, colours and the wording you use will communicate the reasons why visitors should delve further into your website pages to find out more information. By using the AIDA formula you can provide information to drive them to your preferred call to action. Writing clear, concise information that will grab their attention is vital and you may want to consider using a professional copywriter to achieve this. Other sales drivers include testimonials from existing customers, blog articles and an enquiry form, all of which can be strategically positioned on the home page. The next step is to consider how the user will navigate around your website and list the most important aspects of your service or products. Producing a simple site map will help you to scope out your offering and provide a menu for your website. Always consider that, ideally, you want to get your visitor to the relevant information with minimal clicks; three should be the maximum number of clicks to get them to a call to action. Site revamp Compared to a new website, an existing site has a history and we would recommend looking at your website statistics software to find out how your site is currently performing. If you have Google Analytics installed on your website all sorts of statistics are available, such as; device used, bounce rates and visitor flows. All of the websites we build for our clients have Google Analytics installed as standard which provides us with the information needed to make a complete diagnostic check of the site. 4

5 Graphic design for web and print A graphic design agency can help you to develop brand loyalty, generate enquiries and increase sales. Though a lot of communications are moving online, print is still a valid means of promoting your business and driving traffic to your website. Both formats work together and complement each other, the success of both depends on the ability of the designer to create a design that will appeal to your target audience. This is where great design is most effective and a good designer can produce a successful online and offline campaign that will stand out in your marketplace. Taken from Design Council s The Value of Design Factfinder report If you are thinking about promoting your business or communicating information to your customers, we are able to provide a complete service, including copywriting and Photography. Logo design Stationery For every 100 a design alert business spends on design, turnover increases by 225. Brochures and leaflet design Exhibition and event displays Point of sale materials 5

6 Mobile and Tablet web design With more and more people accessing the internet via their mobile devices you will want to consider whether this will benefit your website and if so, what method is best for you. There are two options, Adaptive web design and Responsive web design. We can advise you on which option is most suitable for your website. Adaptive web design uses the server to detect the device being used (eg. mobile, Tablet, Desktop) and serves the content in a layout specifically designed for that device; for example, you may get a different design for each device. A large image that is not needed on a mobile phone may be removed completely when the website is viewed on a mobile phone. Responsive web design uses the browser to automatically rearrange content on the website. If you were to reduce your browser window making the width smaller, the content will move to fit the new window size. The design remains the same for all devices. We can carry out research to find out what devices your website visitors are using. 6

7 Problems with WordPress websites A lot of web agencies are now using off the shelf templates to develop websites. One of the most popular is Wordpress which uses design themes to simplify the design and placement of content. However, simplicity can come at a price. There are advantages of using a WordPress theme. You get an off the shelf design that is mobile ready which can save time and money. You may have to compromise on quality and your content will have to fit into the design theme that has been selected, but if you are on a tight budget, then this solution may suit you. Design themes can be sourced from a variety of providers; some are free but most have to be purchased. Design theme costs Most themes are governed by a licence fee and, depending on the provider there will be a one off payment or monthly cost for the use of the theme. These themes take a considerable amount of time to develop and design, so agencies using these themes will have to pay to use them and will pass those costs on to their fee paying clients. You may want to check with your developers how this cost is being passed on and that the theme they are using to build your website has been licensed for you. Custom design and build or WordPress theme? There are some initial questions you need to ask to help you decide which route to take: Do you want a design and custom built functionality that is unique to your business? Do you want your developers to understand your business and its requirements and design a website that is built around your content? Then you will want a custom design and build Are you happy to select a design theme that you can insert your content into? Do you mind if your website looks similar to a lot of other websites? Then a design theme may save some time and cost, depending on how much the licence fee is. At Crystal Thought, our preference is to build custom websites after meeting you to find out about your business, target audience and competitors. This way, you get a unique site that will meet the challenges of your business that also has the ability to grow as your business develops. However, we understand there are times when a design theme will work well for a business and with this in mind we have developed a selection of design themes customers can choose from. The advantage of developing our own themes are as follows: Better security Intuitive content management system More stable and better build quality Better control of the hosting and server maintenance Mobile optimised Improved SEO No license fees 7

8 ONLINE MARKETING SEO software support tool Google Adwords advertising The value of content marketing 8

9 SEO software support tool Improving the ranking (position on search engines) of our clients websites is one of the most rewarding aspects of our work. We would not be able to effectively improve our clients websites without software to provide the information and tools needed to manage this process, for example: Website audit Keyword research Web page optimisation Social media influence Result checking and reports Competitor information Website analytics It takes a combination of skills to effectively carry out the work: Developers - technical changes Marketers - research, copy writing and analysis Designers - design and user interface The first stage is to generate an audit report using the software. We can then generate another report that will show the page ranking on Google for the current keywords and how many searches have been made on those keywords in the past month. From these reports, we can determine what work is needed to make site improvements. We use industry standard software to carry out all of these tasks and keep us up to date with the latest search engine changes. 9

10 Google Adwords advertising The great thing about Adwords is that it can work just as well for small businesses with limited budgets as it can for large corporations with millions of pounds to spend on marketing. The key factor is the ability to target your customers with precision. By carefully researching the most suitable keywords your customers use, your advert will appear on the first page of a Google search directly in front of customers actively searching for your products or services. Another advantage is the ability to select the geographic area you want to cover. A local business may only want to target customers within a 50 mile radius of their business. You are in control; you choose your daily budget, the words used in the advert and the website landing page for a particular advert and you only pay when someone clicks on one of your ads. To be effective, your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and adverts need to be set up to maximise click throughs. There is a lot to learn if you have not used the Google Adwords interface before. Some of the most important factors in setting up a successful campaign are: Quality score There are many factors Google uses to assess a keyword s quality score. Scores range from 1 (poor) to 10 (good). Put simply, Google will assess the relevance of the ad to the content on the landing page. If you have a higher quality score on your keywords compared to your competition, your bid price will be lower than theirs. Adverts Write and test more than one advert in each ad group and continually trial new ads against the old ones to keep improving the click through rate. This will help maintain a high position for your ad on the page without having to bid higher. The subject is huge and complex, we have only touched on some of the many tools and analysis methods available to make a campaign successful. You can waste a lot of money finding out what works and what does not if you don t know what you are doing. 10

11 The value of content marketing Successful content marketing relies on developing a strategy that is tailored to your own individual business requirements. The strategy you adopt will depend on the most effective media that reaches your customer base. Content marketing covers a wide range of media, from writing articles for your blog, newsletters and posting to social media. Other methods include: Case studies and white papers Webinars and videos Press articles Printed materials Your content marketing strategy needs to be planned to achieve specific measurable goals. For example, one of our clients provides commercial insurance to businesses and we use content marketing to build brand awareness, establish themselves as experts in their field, improve customer retention, and generate leads. The strategy includes producing regular articles covering detailed information about insurance services that businesses may need to protect themselves from financial risk. Well written, informative articles with unique content posted on their website and shared on social media, together with a regular newsletter to clients, provides a number of benefits for them: Informs existing clients of other insurance products available Communicates their industry knowledge and expertise Earns customer trust Creates content for social media sites and newsletter Provides effective Search Engine Optimisation to improve their website rankings Effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) One of the key benefits of adding content to your website via a blog is to improve Search Engine Optimisation. Search engines such as Google regularly update the way they rank websites and deliver search results. Consistently, the most important factor that affects a website s ranking is the visible content on the site. Regularly adding relevant content to your website, either by adding pages or writing blog articles, enables the search engines to rank your site against your competitors. What makes content relevant? Content is more relevant if the subject you are writing about is being searched for by your customers. For example, if you write an article on videotapes you will attract fewer searches than for Blu Ray DVDs because videotapes are now obsolete. Therefore, before you start your article, you will need to do some keyword research to ensure you are writing for your target audience. You may find it useful to have a list of relevant keywords at the top of your page when writing an article to make sure the most searched for keywords are included in the article. We use SEO software to help with this research. The same applies to any content added to your website. 11

12 PLANNING YOUR ONLINE SHOP Opening an online shop 12

13 Opening an online shop Just like a retail shop on the high street, you will need to have a plan to make the launch of your online shop run a smoothly as possible; here are some useful steps to help you get there: Products Descriptions of your products need to be detailed and as full as possible. This will not only help your buyers select the right product, but also assist search engines to find and rank the products on your website. You will need to supply; Product codes for each individual product to help identify items, Good quality images and prices. Stock control You will need to accurately input your stock into the system. Product stock will be reduced when a product is ordered from the website and shown as out of stock, or removed from the website, when stock levels reach zero. Delivery and payment Where will you be delivering products to, UK only or worldwide? What delivery methods do you intend to use? Here are some options: Standard 2nd Class Standard 1st Class Special Delivery Next Day Courier. How do you wish to calculate your delivery prices? Here are some options: by each product having a postage price by total weight of the items purchased by total value of the items purchased Bear in mind that FREE delivery over a certain value is a powerful persuasion tool to get people to buy and spend more. Will your products be sold inclusive of VAT? Usually for sales direct to public they will be. Do you need a VAT number? Taking payments online requires a payment gateway. There are a number of suppliers of payment gateways, including banks. Do you have a preferred supplier in mind? Do you require a secure certificate (SSL)? A secure certificate encrypts client data during the checkout process; this gives customers peace of mind. It is not required (but recommended) with Paypal express checkout, however most other payment gateways do. How would you like customers to contact you ( , phone etc.) and where do you want to display the information on the website? Special offers Will you want to create special offers for your products? For example: Basic product discount The ability to offer a SALE price, and a WAS price Basic product percentage discount The ability to offer a percentage discounted price, and a WAS price Volume discounts per product Buy one get one free (BOGOF) or similar offers, where a second, or indeed third product is discounted by percentage Spend over a certain threshold on an order to receive a percentage discount, free delivery or money off. 13

14 Do any of your offers need to have other limiting factors? For example: From and to dates where the special offer is valid Is the special offer open to existing customers, or perhaps just first time buyers Are offers able to be used in conjunction with one another In the case of value based discounts, how do they interact with order value threshold discounts Do you want to be able to create Voucher codes? Other things to consider: Suitable packaging Delivery documentation Returns policy Refunds Statutory legal requirements Comprehensive terms and conditions We can advise you on and help you with writing any of the information needed to set up a shop. Will you require the ability to your customers with offers and information? Related products Will you want to show related products? Related products are a way of cross selling other products that are similar to the product being looked at. Visitor statistics Do you require advanced visitor statistics? Advance statistics allow you to monitor customer habits as they browse the website. They give key information allowing you to fine tune your products and offers. Do you want to be able to monitor product views versus sales and show a ratio? This allows you to assess pricing and product information to ensure you maximise sales. Testimonials Will you want to show product testimonials? Product testimonials give the customer extra confidence when looking at a product that has had good feedback from previous buyers. Do you want a buyer feedback stage at the end of the checkout? Getting feedback from the buyer straight after the checkout can help to iron out any issues that they had whilst shopping on your website. Social media Social media is playing a big part in online sales. Are you already using social networks (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and do you want to integrate them into your online shop? 14

15 CASE STUDIES

16 Le Closier Background Le Closier is situated in the picturesque village of La Barthe de Neste in the Pyrenees. The new owners, Reg and Sue, being keen cyclists in the UK, recognised there was a market for providing quality accommodation to groups of cyclists wanting specific facilities. The Challenge As a new venture, the owners needed help with the best way of attracting their audience and providing information clearly on their website. They wanted to be able to add information about their accommodation as circumstances changed. Our Content Managment System (CMS) included an accommodation plug-in which made it very easy for them to add new photographs of the house and update their text. The site will grow as their business develops and the site has been built to allow for these changes. Testimonial They listened to our needs and delivered a website that conveyed all that we asked for and more. Having someone understand how a user interacts with a website AND has taken the time to understand your business is a real bonus. Reg & Sue, Le Closier 16

17 Aquatic Subsea Background A corporate website for a global industry. The Aquatic website provides a vast range of information about the company and its products to customers and stakeholders. The Challenge Develop a new website with a unique modern design to communicate the company s skills and expertise. The site needed an information centre with news, blog and case studies which could be updated and managed by Aquatic. Testimonial Our existing website needed updating and as Head of Marketing, I had a strong sense of how it should be evolved. Crystal Thought were able to troubleshoot and organise the content-checking aspects of the new site extremely competently. They made workable technical suggestions and created a website that I can update very easily. Deborah McCombie, Head of Marketing & Communications 17

18 OJ Books Background A website designed to appeal to book collectors. Categories can be easily browsed from a full width top menu to make searching as easy as possible. An advanced search allows you to pinpoint a specific book from the large stock available. The Challenge Using the Bookseller software, popular with sellers of books, we integrated the feed into the website to enable the owner to update and manage stock. This was the owner s first foray into online selling and we were able to offer support, advice and recommendations to provide the best experience for his customers. All part of the service. Testimonial Crystal Thought designed our attractive, customerfriendly website, for our specific requirements in a very specialist area of commerce, and despite the complexities of the database which underpins it. Their client liaison was exceptional, both extremely efficient and very friendly, so that we always felt we were in safe hands. Stephen Oliver-Jones QC, OJ-Books 18

19 CLA Risk Solutions Background CLA are a commercial insurance broker providing a wide variety of tailored insurance cover to domestic and commercial clients. They operate in a very competitive online marketplace and need a website that matches up to the competition. The Challenge Develop a website that allows visitors to quickly find the insurance cover they require and gain an overview of what is included. We wanted to establish CLA as experts in their field, providing the most suitable insurance cover for businesses through knowledgeable account managers. Testimonial We have built up a good working relationship with Crystal Thought over the last 3 years. They are always proactive in their approach to our business, suggesting improvements to our website and finding ways for us to reach new customers. From copywriting new pages for our website to marketing and online advertising campaigns, their knowledge and understanding of our business means we can leave them to get on with the marketing so that we can get on with our business. Adrian Littler, Director 19